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Tansie
A gripping story of lesbian passion.
- GenresLesbian
413 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 5, 2025
Review published in the Otago Gaily Times circa December 1995.
This book has a stylish 90s cover design with they beautiful soft matt lamination. This plus the fact that it's published by Australian feminist publisher Spinifex, and is described as a "devastating psychological thriller" prompted me to buy the book on impulse.
I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I was deeply disappointed with this one. The story is fairly simple: wealthy, world-famous composer and concert pianist (Alix) falls in love with beautiful but emotionally dangerous sculptor with a background of childhood abuse (Tansie).
They have a passionate relationship full of highs and lows, the lows being Tansie deceiving hurting and betraying Alix, who lets Tansie walk all over her time and again until she can take no more.
This 413-page book needs severe editing. By page 80 or so I was bored. The author laboriously tells everything (describing in cliched detail the clothes the characters wear, like a trashy Naiad novel) rather than leaving some of the story to the reader's imagination.
The writing style came across as forced and unnatural, making it difficult to become involved in the story. English may well be Erika Kimpton's second language (she grew up in Switzerland), but a good editor should have picked up recurring formal and old-fashioned phrases like "had I known" and replaced some of them with "if I'd known". While the author's vocabulary was not lacking, she did overuse certain words (ambled, sauntered, and truly, which occurred three times on one page).
Unfortunately, neither the plot nor the characters rose above the style of this novel. The plot was too predictable for a thriller and the characters were unbelievable. We get virtually no insight into Tansie's background of abuse or her thought processes, and at the end [SPOILER ALERT] she suffers an unfortunate but convenient (for the plot) fate.
This book would have been infinitely more interesting if it had explored the reasons for Tansie's destructive behaviour in much more depth. Instead, the author provides continual, trivial and detailed reminders of Alix's wealthy lifestyle. Nothing is added to the story by dropping expensive brand names and overdoing the overseas holidays. Alix's children are always sailing or fishing or picnicking with the fairy godfather housekeeper and barely intrude on Alix's jet setting life. [SPOILER ALERT] And of course Alix gets the right woman in the end.
I found Tansie an incredibly shallow cut and dried novel and I'm amazed it got published.
This book has a stylish 90s cover design with they beautiful soft matt lamination. This plus the fact that it's published by Australian feminist publisher Spinifex, and is described as a "devastating psychological thriller" prompted me to buy the book on impulse.
I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I was deeply disappointed with this one. The story is fairly simple: wealthy, world-famous composer and concert pianist (Alix) falls in love with beautiful but emotionally dangerous sculptor with a background of childhood abuse (Tansie).
They have a passionate relationship full of highs and lows, the lows being Tansie deceiving hurting and betraying Alix, who lets Tansie walk all over her time and again until she can take no more.
This 413-page book needs severe editing. By page 80 or so I was bored. The author laboriously tells everything (describing in cliched detail the clothes the characters wear, like a trashy Naiad novel) rather than leaving some of the story to the reader's imagination.
The writing style came across as forced and unnatural, making it difficult to become involved in the story. English may well be Erika Kimpton's second language (she grew up in Switzerland), but a good editor should have picked up recurring formal and old-fashioned phrases like "had I known" and replaced some of them with "if I'd known". While the author's vocabulary was not lacking, she did overuse certain words (ambled, sauntered, and truly, which occurred three times on one page).
Unfortunately, neither the plot nor the characters rose above the style of this novel. The plot was too predictable for a thriller and the characters were unbelievable. We get virtually no insight into Tansie's background of abuse or her thought processes, and at the end [SPOILER ALERT] she suffers an unfortunate but convenient (for the plot) fate.
This book would have been infinitely more interesting if it had explored the reasons for Tansie's destructive behaviour in much more depth. Instead, the author provides continual, trivial and detailed reminders of Alix's wealthy lifestyle. Nothing is added to the story by dropping expensive brand names and overdoing the overseas holidays. Alix's children are always sailing or fishing or picnicking with the fairy godfather housekeeper and barely intrude on Alix's jet setting life. [SPOILER ALERT] And of course Alix gets the right woman in the end.
I found Tansie an incredibly shallow cut and dried novel and I'm amazed it got published.
January 23, 2018
Romance lesbian bodice ripper for straights? Just terrible writing. Didn’t get far. Too many good books to read.
February 22, 2018
Stilted style and unattractive characters, but not terrible.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews