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Nyla Wade #3
Double Daughter
Book by McConnell, Vicki P.
180 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1989
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 25, 2020
It's a fast, easy read and I enjoyed the storyline. The plot was feasible and the characters well developed and likable. The writing style bugged me, though. The sentence structure was odd, almost juvenile at times, and there were places where the writing lacked depth. I often felt as though the author was ALMOST there, but somehow stopped short of making me really feel what she intended. Other times, there were glimpses of beautiful descriptive imagery, but this was inconsistent, so that the story didn't flow as well as it could have.
February 11, 2023
Likeable story, giving a fair glimpse of what life could be like for gay people in the US during the 80ies.
Read
June 18, 2020Nyla returns to Denver for her good friend Audrey Louise’s birthday. She has been in Burnton, Oregon for two years, but she and her girlfriend Lucy need a break from each other. At Audrey Louise’s party are a number of people that Nyla has not seen for many years—members of a special group in college that called themselves the Passionate Few. Most of the people in this group—men and women—were gay and several were very strong Amazon-like feminists. The strongest woman of all, and one that influenced Nyla greatly with her lesbian-tinged poems, becomes the target of a group of homophobes. When she is hospitalized in a hit and run, Nyla must hunt for the perpetrators before anyone else gets hurt.
One of the problems this book suffers from is the fact that it was written 25 years ago. Oh, it's true that the main themes—the raising of women's consciousness and it's concomitant homophobia—were in their early stages when McConnell wrote the book. They are important themes and deserve to be treated as such. In fact, it can be read as much today as a historical document as an entertaining mystery. So what the blip do you mean, Megan? What do we have now that wasn't available in 1988?
Answer? We have the ability to change our minds. A novelist friend once told me that his characters had a tendency to act differently that he sometimes assumed they would; plots tended to veer off in unexpected directions; conversations had more (or fewer) words than he had envisioned. It isn't that his original concept of the book was incorrect; it was simply based on incomplete information. The more he wrote, the more he realized not how the novel should be, but how it was. And with series books, this is true in spades.
In short, Nyla Wade became more fully realized as McConnell continued the series. And as Nyla changed, the continuity of the series became flawed. In 1988—when this third book was written—there was no way for McConnell to go back and fix what she had written about her in 1982. Today, with the advent of e-books and publish-on-demand platforms, McConnell could have revisited Mrs. Porter's Letter and prepared us for The Passionate Few and for Nyla's strong attraction to the idea of lesbianism. To let us all know why Nyla decided to get married, etc. etc.
I complained in my last Nyla Wade review about the lack of detail and introspection in Nyla's backstory. That is more true here than ever. Nyla’s reason for taking a break from her girlfriend is glossed over. And because Nyla’s return to Denver, it doesn’t seem that McConnell is even sure where she wants to set the series. But in 1988 it was too late to rethink these things. Although I suppose it’s possible for the reader to cobble together a semi-believable history for Nyla, it would have been ever so much more interesting if McConnell had done it consistently, coherently, and comprehensively in the first place.
One of the most interesting things about the book is Nyla’s—and McConnell’s—forthright attempts to become immersed in the blossoming women’s culture issues that were spreading at that time. Mention of Amazons, goddesses, and women warriors; a time when a woman was a womon and when women were wimmin. None of these ideas seem to have taken hold. The alternate spellings have virtually disappeared from the language—almost before they began, and goddesses have given way to either sexless deities or atheism. But from a historical standpoint, this book is important. And from this viewpoint and others, it is a work we can look back on and imagine how it might have been. Too, we can imagine what the Nyla Wade series might have been with more foresight and a passionate editor.
Note: I read a Naiad Press printing of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
.
One of the problems this book suffers from is the fact that it was written 25 years ago. Oh, it's true that the main themes—the raising of women's consciousness and it's concomitant homophobia—were in their early stages when McConnell wrote the book. They are important themes and deserve to be treated as such. In fact, it can be read as much today as a historical document as an entertaining mystery. So what the blip do you mean, Megan? What do we have now that wasn't available in 1988?
Answer? We have the ability to change our minds. A novelist friend once told me that his characters had a tendency to act differently that he sometimes assumed they would; plots tended to veer off in unexpected directions; conversations had more (or fewer) words than he had envisioned. It isn't that his original concept of the book was incorrect; it was simply based on incomplete information. The more he wrote, the more he realized not how the novel should be, but how it was. And with series books, this is true in spades.
In short, Nyla Wade became more fully realized as McConnell continued the series. And as Nyla changed, the continuity of the series became flawed. In 1988—when this third book was written—there was no way for McConnell to go back and fix what she had written about her in 1982. Today, with the advent of e-books and publish-on-demand platforms, McConnell could have revisited Mrs. Porter's Letter and prepared us for The Passionate Few and for Nyla's strong attraction to the idea of lesbianism. To let us all know why Nyla decided to get married, etc. etc.
I complained in my last Nyla Wade review about the lack of detail and introspection in Nyla's backstory. That is more true here than ever. Nyla’s reason for taking a break from her girlfriend is glossed over. And because Nyla’s return to Denver, it doesn’t seem that McConnell is even sure where she wants to set the series. But in 1988 it was too late to rethink these things. Although I suppose it’s possible for the reader to cobble together a semi-believable history for Nyla, it would have been ever so much more interesting if McConnell had done it consistently, coherently, and comprehensively in the first place.
One of the most interesting things about the book is Nyla’s—and McConnell’s—forthright attempts to become immersed in the blossoming women’s culture issues that were spreading at that time. Mention of Amazons, goddesses, and women warriors; a time when a woman was a womon and when women were wimmin. None of these ideas seem to have taken hold. The alternate spellings have virtually disappeared from the language—almost before they began, and goddesses have given way to either sexless deities or atheism. But from a historical standpoint, this book is important. And from this viewpoint and others, it is a work we can look back on and imagine how it might have been. Too, we can imagine what the Nyla Wade series might have been with more foresight and a passionate editor.
Note: I read a Naiad Press printing of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
.
August 14, 2010
Denver is this Mystery City-Lesbian Teachers are being asaulted and it is Journalist Detective Nyla Wade who has to find out why and who.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews