The Stone Bullby Phyllis A. Whitney
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 1977
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Suspense
Publisher: Doubleday
Even when Whitney’s books aren’t great, her sense of setting and atmosphere never falter. This is true of The Stone Bull. The pacing is slow, but atmosphere abounds. She plays with timelines in the narrative – as if someone was writing a diary retrospectively, jumping between present and just-past events, then skipping ahead another day and looking back. It sounds like a disaster, but it worked and took me very little effort to get used to.
The characters are typical of Whitney; a bit shallow; capricious; prone to instant love and romance. What’s different here from the other books of hers I’ve read so far, is that this one starts where the rest usually end – after the wedding and in the throes of honeymoon giddiness. Of course the honeymoon isn’t going to last. Let’s just say the story feels progressive for a romantic Suspense novel written in 1977, by a woman who was 74 years old at the time of publishing and had lived the bulk of her life under a different set of social norms.
Definitely not her best, but still readable, if a little tedious.