Today @KirkusReviews...

...I wrote about Jane Nickerson's Strands of Bronze and Gold, which I'd been really, really excited to read... but which ultimately left me cold, cold, cold:

Historical fiction fans are likely to be bothered that Sophia’s language and diction—as well as the rest of the dialogue spoken by the white characters—is anachronistic, in that it sounds more 2013 than 1855: I smashed a mosquito against my neck and my own blood spurted out. Because of that modern feel, the dialect spoken by the black characters—He been beat before. He tougher’n he looks.—is somewhat jarring. Sophia also has a tendency to tell us how she feels, rather than letting us feel it through her...which is what ultimately leads me to what this book is missing.