Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Like so many others, I've been waiting years for Diane Setterfield's second book after how much I loved The Thirteenth Tale. Through those years, I've still thought about that book and suggested it to so many others who read it and loved it just as much as I did. I rejoiced when a random search one day this year came upon the news of Setterfield's long-awaited follow-up, hoping it'd be just as good, if not better. But as you can tell from my one star rating, that wasn't so. Bellman & Black is the story of a businessman, and a very long detailed story at that. We meet Bellman as a young boy when he goes to work in a mill that he will one day own, and eventually maturing into a smart businessman who decides to open a lustrous and meticulously planned out emporium for those in mourning, sparked by the death of his wife and children. It's almost as if Setterfield became Bellman and got so wrapped up in the business and forgot about an entertaining storyline. The majority of the book is pages and pages of detailed information about how a mill works and operates, retail transactions, vendor relationships, outsourcing, customer service, human resources, ledgers and accounting, and financial banter. On and on and on we see Bellman in a Dickensian way obsess over his business and money. The "ghost story" aspect of the story is minute at that and involves the other partner in the business, Black. Setterfield also tries desperately to tease the reader along with end notes in various chapters about the mysticism of black birds known as rooks. These are actually some of the best parts of the book, reflecting her whimsical style we fell in love with in her first book. But they fall short and just leave the reader confused in the end. As for Black, he becomes an afterthought. Like Bellman, the reader will find themselves obsessing over Black and wanting him to appear, and when he finally does, nothing really happens. I did finish this book, though I most certainly wanted to sling it across the room numerous times and give up. By the end, I even understood the underlying theme Setterfield was aiming for and missed. After pondering it for an evening, I discovered it's an old tale that many have written before and done so much more successfully. I won't ruin it for you here and will let you discover it for yourself if you should still care to read this book, but I will tell you it's a theme she could have done better in a novella or even a short story rather than boring the reader with all the needless business details that clutter this novel that I anxiously waited seven years to read.