When I love a book I usually look for other works by the same author and add them to my To-Read list and/or gobble them up as soon as I can get my hands on them. Louise Erdrich is one author I became acquainted with after reading The Round House. The other books I read by her did not disappoint.
Ever since I read Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, I could not wait for Krueger’s follow up novel, This Tender Land. I put it on my Goodreads list & even entered a contest in hopes of winning a copy. I grabbed it at Words (our local bookstore) as soon as it was in and cleared the decks for a weekend of reading.
So I’m disappointed to report that This Tender Land is not as good as Ordinary Grace (Krueger has also written a series of mystery novels.) It was too predictable and too far-fetched. Set in the 1930’s involving runaways from a home for native American children, it felt too contrived. I was disappointed. Maybe if I re-read Ordinary Grace I would think the same about that. Not sure. I think This Tender Land will appeal to a lot of readers, though, so if you like historical fiction give it a try.
I also recently read The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld. A year or two ago I LOVED The Child Finder. I thought it was suspenseful and well-written. Unfortunately though, I found The Butterfly Girl predictable and too contrived. I raced through it rather than trying to enjoy it.
The last not-as-good-as-I’d-hoped follow up is The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. Hannah also wrote the best-selling The Nightingale (and 14 other books), which was set in WW II France. The Great Alone is set in remote Alaska in the 1970s and details how a girl survives with a PTSD dad and a victimized mom. I loved the description of the setting and was eagerly buying the story for most of the book… it just got a little unbelievable about 3/4 of the way through. I sped read the last 100 pages at least!
So my take-away – I can’t always assume follow up books will be as good as I hope they will be. Still love when they are though, and makes reading a few “mehs” worth it.
