Enjoyable collection of 4 novellas (Rating 4 of 5)
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A book of four novellas whose settings are widely dispersed across the globe. Each novella seems solidly set (to this reader) in its milieu, despite the fact that the narrator/central character in each are, respectively, an anglo-italian ex-playboy turned academic, an upper-class student from the Netherlands, an Irish woman in a community of Tibetan monks and a dissolute English art historian. Interestingly for a female writer three of these are men: Stevenson doesn't give them all a completely convincing voice but the prose is pellucid and the narrative drive strong. I enjoyed this book greatly and look forward to future works by the same writer.
Nicely done despite flaws (Rating 5 of 5)
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Very well written and enjoyable. The author is a gifted writer whose prose flows transparently and swiftly along; you forget you are reading for a while which is the ultimate art which conceals art. I am halfway through her London Bridges which is equally enjoyable. Minor complaint: Some of the characters are cardboard cliches (e.g. the Sandhurst trained soldier in the last novella in Several Deceptions); an academic's concept of what soldiers are like. If Ms Stevenson can learn to dig a bit more under the surface and avoid parodies she will rise to the first rank of fiction writers.
(Rating 4 of 5)
(Rating 5 of 5)
