Sweet Hollow Women by Holly Tierney-Bedord – Review by Angela Hayes

 3 Stars

Sweet Hollow Women by Holly Tierney Bedord is a multi-generational saga that follows four generations of a family tree through their search for happiness. The best way I can describe this book is it felt like a cross between The Waltons and The Gilmore Girls (without the comedic elements). There was a lot of hardship, despair, heartbreak, poverty, disappointments, dilemmas, ignorance, sadness, frustration, and struggles- and not a lot ‘wins’. The family dynamics was interesting, and there were parts where the characters did chase their dream/s, and were true to themselves- but mainly this book seemed to me to be about how choices can have far reaching consequences and/or effects.

I am a big Holly Tierney Bedord fan, having read most of her books now- but I have to say that this was my least favourite of them all. I hate to say this because I really do love her books- but this one depressed and frustrated me.

The story is told from multiple perspective, and jumps from character to character, from past to present and back again, and from generation to generation- which was both distracting and somewhat confusing. The story itself was interesting- but there was just so many jumps and so much information that it became a distraction from the actual storyline (if that makes sense).

I liked Carasine as a character, and would have preferred for the story to concentrate on her more- with less input from the others. I think if that were the case the story would have read better. I found it difficult to like or connect with most of the other characters.

The story was a little slow to get going and there were parts in the story that seemed to lag or drag. Which is so unlike any of the other books of Ms. Tierney’s that I have read. So maybe it is just me and I just don’t ‘get’ this book- so you should probable read the story for yourself and come to your own conclusion…

I will definitely be reading Ms. Bedord’s next book, because like I’ve mentioned before- I normally absolutely love her work.

I will revisit this book again in a month or two and see if I still feel the same way, or if I was just having an ‘off’ day.

I really did want to love it!

Thank you, Ms. Bedord!