Acts Of Love by Talulah Riley

I tried with this one, I honestly did but our heroine, Bernadette, is such a thoroughly nasty character that it was a real struggle to finish the book.  There is not one redeeming personality trait for this woman; even worse her supposed mortal enemy, Elizabeth, is so saccharine sweet it defies belief.  The inability to have a normal person enter the proceedings even extends to the men that make brief appearances as arm fodder for the women.  I appreciate that normality is extremely subjective but every single person within these pages has no depth, no subtlety to their character; they are painted in the broadest of black and white strokes with no co-mingling to the grey area that makes each of us interesting.

Couple this with a plot at times both pedestrian and so far fetched as to be almost fantasy and you can probably see why I struggled finishing this one.  Unfortunately, this was a promotional copy that the publishers were kind enough to disseminate so I did feel a duty to swallow down the despair picking the book up caused my reading muscles and managed to power through to the end.  Well, where the printed word stopped because there is no nice little ending to this book, everything is left hanging in what is supposed to be a tantalising manner.

The worst thing about the whole thing is that I *think* I get where the author is trying to go with this.  Showing how outside influences can damage us seemingly irreparably - in Bernadette's case first her father and then her ill-fated relationship with the MP.  However, there is hope, we can change ourselves and others can be instrumental in easing the letting go of destructive habits.  The problem with that is that it requires a subtle touch and more than a textbook understanding of psychology.  In short, the characters aren't people they are a set of closely defined traits to signify one particular personality issue. 

Having finished the book I am unable to recommend this to anyone.  Honestly, I am convinced that my copy must have fallen through a wormhole from another dimension when I compare my reading experience to that of some of the other reviewers.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PUBLISHER.