Official Review: A Twist Of Fete At The Towers

[Ursila_Sage]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "A Twist Of Fete At The Towers" by Richard Stephenson Winter.]

I have just finished reading “ A Twist of Fete at The Towers” by Richard Stephenson Winter. It is a comedy. I believe this is book two of a series by this author. The story revolves around Lord Morpeth, a retired military major and 8th Earl of Wansbeck, who embarks on a perilous journey to a fete in town to deliver the much coveted scones by Honor to the lovely ladies of the Women’s Institute. However everything goes awry when Sir Roderick Pilkington, a newly rich business tycoon, sets in motion a plan to fully realize his new status in life by fox hunting on the Major’s land. The Major of course, has objected to this many times and in typical comedic fashion everything degenerates very quickly into madness and a very unlikely hero saves the day.

Personally I would give this book a 2 out of 4. For all the plot twists and attempted colorful characters, I did not find it as funny as much as I would have liked but that could be because this isn’t my kind of humor. Honestly, I did not laugh once during the entire course of reading the book even after casting the characters in my head as animals or cartoons.

I cannot say the book had any profound effect on me. It was rather difficult to finish the book because I had to keep back tracking to make sure the character I was reading was the character I thought it was. It felt like characters would just “poof” in and out of existence and the only characters I could readily identify were the various movie/rock stars, the Major, Sir Roderick and Dr. Vincenza. The rest just seemed so inconsequential.

The only reasonable theme I could derive from this book would be that anyone could snap for any reason as illustrated by Dr.Vincenza. Maybe another theme could be playing the hero almost never pays off. Honestly with the way this book is written it is hard to pin a theme. It character and pov hops so much it is hard enough to follow the story let alone find a solid theme, if there even is one. Clearly defined chapters would be appreciated too. As I read, it was irritating to get to a part where a chapter should end but doesn’t only to read the next paragraph and it be from the pov of a character previously unknown or a character we have not heard from for a while. This is book two of a series though and I have not read book one, so many answers may lay there.

In conclusion, I feel like the book needs a good bit of polishing but has potential. I would not recommend it to any of my friends but maybe someone who enjoys Seinfeld style comedy may enjoy this book more.

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[Richard S Winter]

Hi Ursila,

Many thanks for reading and reviewing my book. I'm sorry you found it such a negative experience! However, I consider criticism to be extremely important therefore I welcome and accept yours in relation to my work. "The Towers" is a deliberately dense and perhaps over populated series and it's conspicuous lack of exposition is a deliberate device that is not to everyone's taste. Indeed, the characters and narrative originated in a blog, therefore I am conscious that they are open to being criticised as something of an "in joke". It was my deliberate intention for this to be the case but hoped with characterisation and narrative, to draw the reader in. Evidently I still have work to do in this regard!
I shall bear your criticisms in mind when developing the series and my other works. Many thanks again for your contributions and their candour.

Yours Sincerely,

RSW