A SONG AT TWILIGHT by Pamela Sherwood hits all the right notes. Even with the varying tempo and key changes, it crescendos nicely and resolves in a happy fermata. This book will thrill any music or poetry lover with its quotations, but with murder and politics, A SONG AT TWILIGHT will raise the roof for every reader. I give it four stars.
A SONG AT TWILIGHT tells the tale of how Miss Sophie Tresilian and Mr. Robin Pendarvis conquer the challenging stanzas in their path to greatness. When they first meet, Sophie is seventeen and just preparing for her come out. Robin, twenty-five, has just arrived in Cornwall in order to be with his ailing great uncle. It is very nearly love at first sight for both of them, but Robin has some secrets that explode in his face, leaving him in the heart-wrenching position of having to choose between his family or Sophie. The story plays out over the span of six years, and thus gains the categorization as an epic love story.
I really enjoyed A SONG AT TWILIGHT. The characters were well-illustrated through their interactions, and the development of the romantic relationship between Sophie and Robin was absolutely realistic. While the book has a happy ending, Sophie and Robin have to deal with serious challenges and work through difficulties to get it. I loved the fact that while the characters' feelings and thoughts are documented, there were no overbearing, repetitive narratives where Sophie or Robin ruminates over ridiculous insecurities. The editing was also well done.
The romance is appropriately timed, but still rates as a 3 on the heat scale for the descriptors utilized.
There were only a few noteworthy issues. The pacing of the book feels extremely slow in the beginning. I had difficulty getting into the book, partly because I didn't see a way out of the gloom and doom for the protagonists. I repeatedly had to check to see how many pages were in the book to motivate myself to keep reading. The pacing picks up at the middle though, and continues comfortably until the end.
There was also a part where Sir Nankivell's slander is dropped into the plotline, but the slander is only given a proper introduction after the drama is resolved. It felt like I was missing a page in the book, or the pages were out of order. Either way, it was a tad confusing and made me stop to look back and see where I missed something. I had a similar feeling with a few of the characters. Some of the references to other characters' challenges made me wonder if A SONG AT TWILIGHT was the second or third book in a series. Their situations were briefly and appropriately described, though, so I didn't feel like I was missing any information necessary to this novel.
Finally, while the murder mystery is excellently done with some crafty foreshadowing via Sophie's reading materials and a lovely twist in the end, the existence of Nathalie and the interference of Nankivell was so predictable, I felt as if the characters had eaten stupid for breakfast, their naivety and oversight seemingly out of character for them.
Issues aside, I really enjoyed the A SONG AT TWILIGHT, and I highly recommend it for any lover of poetry, music, or historical fiction.
*Review originally written for The Romance Reviews.com at http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=10692.
