Written on Your Skin Book

90% of the book felt like filler - ponderings, and descriptions. Plot developments not shown. Weak vague dialogue.

STORY BRIEF:
Mina's stepfather Collins was doing something illegal in Hong Kong. Phin was working undercover to catch Collins. Someone poisoned Phin's drink and he collapsed. Mina took him to a room to recover and helped him escape. Phin worked for Ridland at that time. Four years later Collins escaped British authorities. Ridland imprisons Mina in a locked hotel room thinking she can help him catch Collins. She escapes Ridland and wants Phin to help her find her mother. Mina believes Collins kidnapped her mother.

REVIEWER'S OPINION:
This is the kind of book that makes me think I am not a good reader. I had a terrible time concentrating. It was hard to read, hard to pay attention, hard to know what was going on. Maybe a different kind of mind can handle this writing style. I cannot. So many things were vague. I don't know what happened to Collins, Mina, or her mother during the four years. Who arrested Collins and for what. How did he escape and from where and why. Mina says she liked Phin, but we never saw how they met or why she liked him. There were not enough events and actions to develop the plot. For example, Phin and Mina are on a train. Just before they get off, they suspect a man is following them because he is well dressed. So Phin presses a nerve causing the man to fall unconscious just as he and Mina leave the train. Nothing else happens regarding that man. He was never in the story before or after the train. We are never told if he was working for someone, was following them, or anything else the man did afterwards. It felt like an unrelated and isolated event to show that Phin knew how to make a man unconscious. Another example, Mina is imprisoned in a hotel room. We are told Ridland imprisoned her, but we never saw the conversation or action that put her there. The next thing you know she is out of the room. We don't see her leaving the room. The next scene has her talking with Phin saying her servant is missing. She believes Phin may know something about it. I don't know how she found Phin, or got to him, or if he was the one who came to her. The events are choppy, no flow.

The conversations are too drawn out with too much pondering between comments. For example on page 221 Phin tells Mina they must stay the night at the inn. She then ponders for TWO PAGES thinking about the following before she says anything. She thinks about the size of the bed, Phin's appearance and qualities, a former guy she knew and had sex with, suffragettes, free love, contraception, sex outside of marriage, divorce is a sin, fallen women, and what Phin might teach her about sex. Then she says "Well, I suppose we are here for the night, then." Soon after this book I was reading a John Grisham book and a Lisa Kleypas book. Their styles are enjoyable and easy to read. Neither one of them drew out conversations this way. Their style is the following: A says something. B "thinks" (maybe 1 or 2 sentences of thought, if any) and then B "says" ... These authors do not use TWO PAGES of pondering before B responds to A. Not all conversations in "Written On Your Skin" are interrupted as badly as this. But far too many of them have paragraphs of ponderings that distract from the conversation. I lose interest.

During the entire book, nothing was interesting. I kept reading or trying to read hoping something good would come. It didn't. The dialogue between Mina and Phin was vague. She was either playing mind games or just sounding illogical. The sex scenes did nothing for me. I felt the need to skim.

DATA:
Story length: 357 pages. Swearing language: moderate, including religious swear words. Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: 3. Estimated number of sex scene pages: 23. Setting: 1880 Hong Kong and 1884 England. Copyright: 2009. Genre: historical romance.