Review: The Girl in the Photograph

The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kate Riordan’s The Shadow Hour was one of the books that convinced me to dig deeper into the historical fiction genre, convincing me it was a genre I needed to pay more attention to rather than reading it sporadically. I have read more of the genre since then, but mostly it’s been novella length stories with only the occasional full-length novel thrown in. When I saw Kate Riordan’s The Girl in the Photograph on offer, I decided it was time for another full-length historical fiction novel.

In truth, my rating for this one is more of a three-point-five-star rating. I considered rounding it up, but in the end I opted to round down. This is because I gave The Shadow Hour a four-star rating, and in comparison The Girl in the Photograph felt a bit flat. It was certainly an enjoyable read, but it wasn’t quite on the same level as my prior Kate Riordan read – it certainly had four-star moments, but it wasn’t a consistent four-star read, as I had been hoping for.

As with my prior Kate Riordan read, The Girl in the Photograph offers us a dual timeline tale, one that slowly unfolds as we work our way deeper into the story. Filled with family drama and mystery, there is plenty in both storylines that will leave you desperate for more, curious to see how the two become intertwined. With so much going on, you’ll be turning the pages, eager to see how all the details are brought together.

The reason I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much is because of the pacing. I felt as though some part of the story went by too slowly, that we were buried under information that was given more attention than it should have been. With so much going on, there were some things I feel were more deserving of attention and these things sometimes missed out.

Overall, though, The Girl in the Photograph was another enjoyable read from Kate Riordan.

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