Review: No Other Will Do

No Other Will Do by Karen Witemeyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great story telling! I was entranced until I ran into some not so great fact checking/modernisms. Just be prepared to be jerked out of the 19th century every once in a while. Plus the dialogue sometimes falls a little flat. I really expect a lot from established writers; they are experienced and supposed to know what they are doing. I also give just as much expectation of experienced editors. Fact checking is one of the must dos. Weeding out modernisms is a must do. I expected a lot more from Bethany House. One other problem that a good editing job would have taken out all the rehashing of problems that the characters do. This rehasing took up at least 8,000 words, and the story would have been much tighter and moved along a lot faster if this angst of the two main characters had been capsuled rather than dragged out.

However, this book is really great story telling summed up in one delicious word: Anticipation! Witemeyer is a genius with anticipation. The mystery part of who is doing the threatening is a sidenote in the story, not the main storyline. I think that part could have been woven in a bit better.

I'm quite sure there were plenty of women who hated men because of what they suffered at their hands. That was a really neat premise. I love strong women characters, but characters that have weaknesses as well make the best and most interesting characters. Witemeyer does a wonderful job with this. She also does a great job with giving the reader several different characters to chew on about the mysterious helper.

Weighing all the pros and cons, this comes out a satisfying read.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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