Review: Longshadow

Longshadow by Olivia Atwater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This series continues to be charming, with a strong mystery/problem-solving plot balanced against a strong romance plot. There's enough darkness to the fantasy to provide tension, but it never takes over; I was never in any doubt that the main character was going to, eventually, resolve the plot question with perseverance, intelligence and courage, though it wasn't obvious to me exactly how she would do that until she did it. The secondary characters are well drawn, including the overprivileged girl and her mother, and the artificial, class-conscious atmosphere of 19th-century Britain is well evoked, without jarring anachronisms. There are twists and turns along the way to the resolution, and overall it was thoroughly enjoyable.

I noted on the two previous books that the author had a couple of bad punctuation habits: hyphenating where she shouldn't, and inserting excess coordinate commas between non-coordinate adjectives. She's either overcome the first one or found a new copy editor who has dealt with it, but there are still a few examples of the second issue. There are a few obvious Americanisms, and one vocabulary error ("loathe" for "loath," an easy error to make, and quite common), but given the lack of other issues it makes it to the "well-edited" shelf.

It has a good heart, and a sound head on its shoulders, and I recommend it.

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