2 Book Lovers Reviews

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Contemporary Adventure

Tartufo

​By Kira Jane Buxton

I was pretty excited to get back into the mind of Kira Jane Buxton. After relishing the story of Shit Turd in the post-apocalyptic world in Hollow Kingdom, I’ve been eagerly awaiting more from this author. Tartufo was presented as a story set in small-town Tuscany, filled with eccentric characters and a story of a town slowly disappearing.

I decided to go with the Audible version of this story and that may have been a mistake. I found Caroline Hewitt’s narration distracting. Getting a story off to a great start is always important. Tartufo felt like it started off with nothing but Italian product name-drops and overexaggerated Italian pronunciations of those products. We’re going along with a good Audible narration voice and then out of the blue “CAPPUCCINO!” My start for Tartufo was that this was Buxton’s way of getting her publisher to pay for her Tuscan vacation. It is always difficult to recover from a bad start.

In the end, Buxton’s skill came through: her creation of characters. The characters were strong, each was unique and added value to the story. There were stereotypes and others who broke the mold. The characters held everything together.

The story was not up to par with Hollow Kingdom; I just didn’t get into the story like I wanted to. I found it lacking, in what, it is hard to say; it may have been the bad start.

*3.5 Stars

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