Curl Up With A Book Sunday, er, Monday

It has been a while since I blogged. Silly Ravelry and Facebook have sucked away all my time (them and that work thing).

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
For the first chapter or two, I had my doubts about this book. It wasn't that it started out slow, it was just that it started out weird. I couldn't decide if it was a romance or a science fiction or a mystery. In the end it was all of those with a bit of historical setting thrown in and I no longer worried about genre. This is the first novel by Ms. Groff, and there should be many more good reads to come from this author. She started with the solid advice of "write what you know," and set her novel in a fictionalized version of her hometown, Cooperstown, NY. She then took a decidedly twisted turn and firmly hooked me. By the end, I really cared about all the quirky inhabitants of Templeton, both present and past. I heartily recommend this book if you enjoy a bit of genealogical sleuthing and can handle myriad illegitmate ancestors.

One minor word of warning, this book skips from person to person, point of view to point of view, and time to time rapidly. If you aren't paying attention (and sometimes even if you are), you won't realize who is narrating the chapter until you are a page into it. I love books like this, but some don't, so be forewarned.

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