The first thing that struck me when I began reading ‘Tea Cups and Tiger Claws’ by Timothy Patrick was that the author had a strong and engaging voice, a real boon when writing in omniscient point as view as the author has here. The second thing I noted was that the story was almost entirely told rather than shown, but I felt that this might be one of the few books that could pull this off.  However, when the story moved away from Dorothea before I had developed any connection with her—basically due to the telling in omniscient POV—I changed my mind. Had the writing been more immediate, I would have felt something for her. But by the time I got to the end of the book, however, my initial impression had returned. The couple of plot points that were introduced and left hanging (that of the basement and the suggestion of blackmail after Dorothea’s father’s death) were reincorporated at the end, solving the mystery of the hanging plot threads. When we switched generations, I thought the … [Read more...]