Reviewer Maria Savva : Maria is a lawyer and writer from the UK. She has published four novels and three collections of short stories and she is currently editing her fifth novel. She is also a resident author/moderator for BestsellerBound.com. You can find out more about Maria by following on her WEBSITE.
Follow Here To Purchase You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner
Author: Lilian Duval
ISBN: 978-1-60494-520-1
Publisher:
Wheatmark
This is a good debut novel. In my rating scale
it comes somewhere between a 3.5 star and 4 star read. There
are some five star moments, which is why I have settled with 4 stars
as the overall rating.
The thing that stops this from being
a 5 star read is pacing, and there is far too much detail in places.
For example, where Tobias and Martin are playing tennis. I am a
tennis fan, but it’s just not the same reading about the shots that
the players are taking. Duval went a bit too far with this
detail, in my honest opinion.
The novel is split into four
‘books’. The first two books are written in the past tense,
whereas book three and book four are written in the present tense.
It seemed a bit of an awkward transition to me. Having said
that, I am glad that the last two books were written in the present
tense as otherwise I may not have got through the book -- I was
finding the slow pace of the novel in the first half to be
off-putting. The switch to present tense definitely made the
story unfold more quickly.
I think one thing that may have let the
book down, for me, was the expectation. It’s promoted as
being about an accidental lottery winner, but he doesn’t actually
win the lottery until about two thirds of the way through.
Rather than enjoying the anticipation, I was left wondering whether
he would ever win the lottery!
Despite the shortcomings, I have to
say that I did enjoy this story and I am glad I read it to the end.
I believe that people who prefer more traditional, mainstream
literature would love this book. I prefer more fast-paced books
that don’t require too much concentration. And this book is
much longer than the usual novel I would choose to read.
I
have to say that my reaction to this book is not dissimilar to the
reaction I have when I read Booker prize winning novels, or
best-sellers. So, perhaps it’s just me.
I would say
that there are moments of brilliance, and even one segment that
nearly brought me to tears
This is a fascinating story, told from
a very original perspective, and although I have said that it is too
detailed, there are some parts of the detail that are excellent; for
example where the family go away on an exotic break, and Duval
describes their trip down to the last detail, it really was amazing,
as if I was seeing and hearing the sights and sounds. Perhaps
it was because that action occurs near the end of the book where the
story is more fast-paced.
The characters are all believable and
seem like real people. The author does a great job at weaving
many different and diverse subjects into the story line. It is
obvious that a lot of research, hard work and effort went into
producing this book.
The writing is flawless. For me, if
the first part of the book had been more fast-paced it would have
been the perfect read. For those who like to take their time
over literature I would highly recommend it.