Kissing Kin

Rating:
Summary: Really two and a half stars
Review: Camilla and Calvert (well, Calvert isn't around much) are some of Thane's weakest characters in this series. It's a shame that Camilla, who seems pallid and passive, is the focal point of the book. The secondary story is equally frustrating, with characters who are far from compelling. Still, Thane sets up her historical setting well, and seems to do another good job of creating characters who are of their time rather than hers.

Rating:
Summary: Distant relations
Review: I discovered this book largely because the staircase in the local public library deposits browsers in the T section of fiction, and it appealed to me as a dark, yet not hopelessly grim, novel of WWI. As a Williamsburg novel, _Kissing Kin_ provides a good deal of exposition needed to get from _The Light Heart_ to _This Was Tomorrow_, but it is certainly the darkest of the series, and the happy endings seem a tad contrived. Our heroine, Camilla, epitomizes the "lost generation," as her idealistic efforts to help with WWI ultimately leave her rootless and drifting until the darkening cloud of Nazi Germany revives her sense of purpose.