Last year in November through an activity called 'Nanohop' during National Novel Writing Month, I became acquainted with Catherine LaCroix, a romance author who has agreed (muahaha) to be a writing buddy. Little does she know what she's getting into (homophone hell). Her stories are available on Amazon. Fellow Australians who want to read it have to go through amazon.com.au. I found this out the hard way so that you don't have to.
I really don’t want to preface this review with ‘I don’t read romance’, but it’s true and it must be said because I’m going to talk a bit more about the plot and characters than the steamy, steamy scenes in between. As my partner put it perfectly, “it sounds like you’re more interested in whether or not he’s going to actually fix her pipes.”
That’s not to say that Catherine LaCroix doesn’t do a wonderful job at tackling a subject that could easily become tedious. There’s only so many descriptions you can use for the same few body parts without making it seem weird, right? Catherine somehow manages, despite the book being about 50/50 sex.
So now onto the story.
Resonance by Catherine LaCroix is a collection of stories about Josselyn Thorn, a Whisper who is framed for the murder of the two people she loved the most. In LaCroix’s world, Whispers are both coveted and reviled for their sexual sense and Josselyn is more often seen as ‘what’ she is rather than ‘who’ she is. When Josselyn is rescued by a man who she knows little about, yet is deeply tied to the two she loved, she finds herself with the dangerous opportunity of uncovering the truth behind their murder.
Readers of Resonance will find themselves transported into a fantasy world that vaguely resembles the Victorian era, where society was still firmly held by peerage, yet with the emergence of industry that afforded freedom and wealth to a skilled middle class. Josselyn’s story gives the reader a glimpse into the wider socio-political set up of the world, touching on relevant issues associated with slavery, religion, corruption, and marginalisation of certain peoples. With relatively few words, LaCroix manages to paint the broad strokes of a world that readers will find charming and familiar.
For readers like me who are rubbed the wrong way by passive submission or lack of agency in a character, I’d urge you to keep reading, because Josselyn is both more complex and simple than she originally seems. I was won over by the deep kindness that starts to show once the grime of her prison cell starts to wash away (both outside and in).
Overall, I would recommend Resonance to people who like their steamy stories to make sense, who like characters for who they are, not what they do, and who, like me, are genuinely concerned about whether the pipes actually get fixed.
I really don’t want to preface this review with ‘I don’t read romance’, but it’s true and it must be said because I’m going to talk a bit more about the plot and characters than the steamy, steamy scenes in between. As my partner put it perfectly, “it sounds like you’re more interested in whether or not he’s going to actually fix her pipes.”
That’s not to say that Catherine LaCroix doesn’t do a wonderful job at tackling a subject that could easily become tedious. There’s only so many descriptions you can use for the same few body parts without making it seem weird, right? Catherine somehow manages, despite the book being about 50/50 sex.
So now onto the story.
Resonance by Catherine LaCroix is a collection of stories about Josselyn Thorn, a Whisper who is framed for the murder of the two people she loved the most. In LaCroix’s world, Whispers are both coveted and reviled for their sexual sense and Josselyn is more often seen as ‘what’ she is rather than ‘who’ she is. When Josselyn is rescued by a man who she knows little about, yet is deeply tied to the two she loved, she finds herself with the dangerous opportunity of uncovering the truth behind their murder.
Readers of Resonance will find themselves transported into a fantasy world that vaguely resembles the Victorian era, where society was still firmly held by peerage, yet with the emergence of industry that afforded freedom and wealth to a skilled middle class. Josselyn’s story gives the reader a glimpse into the wider socio-political set up of the world, touching on relevant issues associated with slavery, religion, corruption, and marginalisation of certain peoples. With relatively few words, LaCroix manages to paint the broad strokes of a world that readers will find charming and familiar.
For readers like me who are rubbed the wrong way by passive submission or lack of agency in a character, I’d urge you to keep reading, because Josselyn is both more complex and simple than she originally seems. I was won over by the deep kindness that starts to show once the grime of her prison cell starts to wash away (both outside and in).
Overall, I would recommend Resonance to people who like their steamy stories to make sense, who like characters for who they are, not what they do, and who, like me, are genuinely concerned about whether the pipes actually get fixed.
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