#463 ~ The Glassblower

The Glassblower by Petra Durst-Benning

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

#Book 1 in the Series



I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, I don't usually pick foreign authors with translations.

The cover originally drew me in, and as I do the odd bit of glass lampwork there was no harm, I thought, in giving it a go - after all I could just use the 'Return' button if this Unlimited Kindle offering and I didn't get on.

It was a little sluggish at the beginning, but after that turned into a delightful offering. It isn't all light stuff contained in this book, there were dark under-tones; it certainly wasn't as clear as the glass the girls work with. The author has also left strands behind to be woven (or better still embroidered) into future work, which I am very much looking forward to picking up.

The subject matter is a worthy one, that of the empowerment of women; the author dealt with it well, but there was still room for a little bit of growth and playing around with the darkness offered, especially with the strand about the wholesaler. I am hoping that she will play around more with this more in the coming books.

I docked-off 1 star for the use of 'gotten' throughout the book. If you can write well, and this author certainly can, then there is no excuse for using it. That word is a disgusting plague on the written word. A shame, as that took the score to 4 stars rather than 5.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Apart from "gotten" there was nothing truly ugly in this book, and there didn't appear to be an blatant errors.

The good, though were things like this passage:

"... they called them "plum-cake days".  All summer long the songbirds had trilled in the pear tree outside the kitchen window but they were gone now.  The only sound these days was that of a blackbird chirruping or the high piping of a lark, and soon the mists would fall and silence even these."  (Durst-Benning, P (2003 - translated version 2014) Page 7).

The cover image, was also beautiful, which I believe was designed by Marc Cohen (see link below to Amazon page if you require more details on this).

Bibliography

Durst-Benning, P 'The Glassblower', 2003 Ullstein, Germany (2014 Translated from German by Willcocks, S AmazonCrossng, Country Unknown

Book was purchased via Kindle Unlimited HERE.

Happy reading.

Hugs

Kay 

xoxo