Truth Be Told Review

by

Carol Cox

Bethany House Publishers

 

    When Amelia Wagner takes over the running of her father's newspaper in Granite Springs, Arizona, she vows to carry on the paper's commitment to reporting only the truth. But Amelia soon learns that even the truth can have consequences. Her father's revealing articles about Great Western Investment Company's business methods have caught the notice of the wrong person, and pressure mounts for Amelia to retract her father's statements.

  Determined to find the truth, Amelia goes through her father's notes and begins to interview members of the community. She can't seem to shake Benjamin Stone, a Great Western employee who's been assigned to keep tabs on her for the good of the company.

   ~*~*~*~

 

   The cover and the summaries I'd read had me really interested in this book, so I was very excited to read and review it. A newspaper editor in the west in the late 1800s? A crooked land investment company? Yes, ma'am!

 

  Honestly, this book didn't live up to me expectations. It started out really slow for me, and throughout most of it I felt like there just wasn't much going on. Since it was mostly about investigating Great Western's dealings and trying to turn up evidence of their dishonest operations, I'd expected quite a bit more action and adventure and intrigue, imagining a story like one of the times in Dr. Quinn when Sully and Dr. Mike go off on some search for proof that miners are contaminating water or the railroad is doing something shady or something like that. Instead it was mostly looking through files, records offices, and more files, which didn't really hold my interest. It was only about fifty pages from the end that things really started happening, and even then, it just seemed rather lacking.

 

   I tried to like Amelia, I really did. But for some reason I just couldn't identify with her much. She was a nice girl and I admired her for trying to keep up with the newspaper (which sounds like an incredibly tedious task, by the way-- setting all that type, and then printing hundreds of copies?), but she seemed just a little too...dry. Also I got kind of annoyed with her when she was so obsessed with finding out about Great Western and started snapping at everyone and ignoring Ben. My feelings toward Ben were about the same: I didn't dislike him, I just didn't feel anything for him. These characters just seemed too conventional and not very genuine, not the kind of characters who seem more like real people and linger with me after I've finished the book.

 

 

  Also, the whole plot basically revolves around the Great Western Investment Company and its shady dealings, and it seems like that's all Amelia (or anyone else, for that matter) ever talks about. There wasn't much of anything unrelated to that and just about the characters' lives, which I found slightly disappointing. I think if I got to know the characters a little better, that would have made the story less boring.

 

 This is kinda random and insignificant, but one thing that particularly annoyed me in this book was how often the author used the word gurgle. It seemed that whenever Amelia laughed, or made any kind of sound, it was a gurgle. In fact, at 300 pages I got to the point where I vowed to stop reading the book if the word turned up again. (It did, but it was on the last page so I finished the book anyway.) ;-P

 

  This book didn't really impress me, but it had some good points and I'm sure other fans of historical fiction might like it.

 

My rating: 6/10

 

 

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.