Review of White Clyffe

[Ann Ogochukwu]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "White Clyffe" by Colin Fletcher.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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White Clyffe by Colin Fletcher is a historical fiction novel set in 14th-century England, a time characterized by famine, death, and insurgency. The story focuses on a young boy in the village of White Clyffe. John is a twelve-year-old whose bones are already weary from hard labor and who has lost a lot to famine and death. Notwithstanding the bleak times, life must go on, and young John soon marries Joan. John and Joan immediately start a family of their own, and Edith and Edwin are born, followed by four more children and many more years of famine. The aftermath of many unfruitful years and the resulting deaths is not unexpected. Read this book to get a first-hand account of this story.

As a historical fiction lover, the most appealing feature of this book for me was its setting, and the author did a good job recreating life as it was in the 1300s. Another thing I liked about this book was that the narrative focused on the lower class instead of the upper class. Many a book has been written about the rich life of the royals and lords, but this book revealed the hard reality of the English landholding system on the serfs.

Colin Fletcher, a history enthusiast, wrote this book to enlighten readers about the bleak reality of England in the 14th century. I would say that he achieved his purpose, although not clearly enough; this book had several shortcomings. First of all, the book’s plot flow was quite uncoordinated. Events just happened without much significance or effect. The first half of this book was about John and his children and White Clyffe, while the second half introduced a whole new plot about revolutions in several cities. Now the issue is that there was no solid nexus between these plots. Consequently, the book’s pacing and flow were not uniform. In fact, so much happened towards the end of this book that it was difficult to keep up with the ever-changing setting.

Another tedious shortcoming of this book was inconsistency, starting from the storyline to the application of commas. Towards the end of the book, the story got quite hazy, and a couple of times, I noticed that facts weren’t corresponding. Another glaring inconsistency was the characters' changing accent. Initially, the characters spoke with an “old English” accent, but at some point, towards the end of the book (again), their accent took a contemporary turn, and the accent kept changing back and forth until the end.

I can’t say that this book was professionally edited, so I recommend that it undergoes various levels of editing, especially developmental and structural editing. Considering all its shortcomings, I’m rating White Clyffe 2 out of 4 stars. I wish I could rate it higher because of its unique storyline, but then I’d be doing the author a disservice. This wasn’t a bad book, but it could use a lot of improvement. I would eagerly recommend this book to historical fiction enthusiasts after it has been edited.

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White Clyffe
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[lilith24]

Seems like it could be a great book if it was just professionally edited. I might wait for the improvements you suggested, thank you!

[Mbenma Esther 080]

This is fascinating. Thanks for the review

[Afrochild7]

The luxury we see was built on the backs of many. Their sweat watered and their toil nurtured and nourished. Much respect to people like John

[Aisha Yakub]

This book seems to have a great storyline. It's sad to see that it wasn't professionally edited.