Under the Harrow [E–pub/Kindle]

characters æ E-book, or Kindle E-pub ✓ Mark Dunn

characters Under the Harrow ✓ E-book, or Kindle E-pub What if Charles Dickens had written a contemporary thriller In Under the Harrow a group of Victorians live a semi idyllic and unwitting anachronistic existence aided only by minimal trade related contact with the supposedly plague ridden Outland They are products of an experiment that had become a lucrative voyeuris. I read the last 19% at work and I really really wish I hadn t because I was far too emotionally invested in what happened to these characters I haven t fought back tears over fictional tragedies like this since I watched Toy Story 3 and I have never beamed with such joy over fictional victories since well ever I maintain that Mark Dunn is a writer s writer as evidenced by his dazzling wordsmithing prowess The story he spun in this charming anachronistic gem is absolutely enchanting and the characters with which he populates a fictional Arcadian valley are some of the most realistic I ve had the pleasure of encountering Dunn deserves to be commended further for the way he juxtaposes a modern America against a frozen in time Dickensian society Additionally his mimicry of Dickens s style is nigh seamless The author has done what countless teachers and an English degree failed to do make me wonder if my dislike of Charles Dickens might be unfounded My only gripe is that the story moved a little slowly at first in that Dunn lingered a little too long on characters I hadn t warmed to yet But that might also be attributable to how my Kindle died within a week of its acuisition stalling my progress in this tale by a good number of weeks while took its sweet time sending me a replacement

characters Under the Harrow ✓ E-book, or Kindle E-pub T is this motley group of Dickensian innocents who must race the clock to save their fellow countrymen and themselves from mass annihilation Under the Harrow showcases the kind of dazzling wordplay and narrative richness that have made Mark Dunn's novels and plays both commercially successful and critically acclaime. I had a conversation earlier this week with a fellow reader about how young adult dystopias for the most part fall flat and fail to convince The governments are often bizarre social experiments that couldn t last The economics don t work The politics don t work Occasionally books like Mark Dunn s Under the Harrow come along to show other authors how it s done There is a social experiment at the heart of this book In valley somewhere along the 41st parallel there are 11000 people living in a curious Victorian flavored society Somehow they have been passed over by 121 years of history As the novel develops we learn that there was a conspiracy inside and outside of the valley working to keep the experiment going Under the Harrow opens just a few weeks before the wheels come off the whole enterprise Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type

characters æ E-book, or Kindle E-pub ✓ Mark Dunn

characters Under the Harrow ✓ E-book, or Kindle E-pub Tic peep box for millionaires and their billionaire descendants But the experiment has run its course and Dingley Dell must be totally expunged and with it all trace of the thousands of men women and children who live there A few Dinglians learn the secret of both their manipulated past and their doomed future and i. Although this novel is set in western Pennsylvania in 2004 the characters in the odd town of Dingley Dell seem suited to a Dickens novel than to a novel about twenty first century Americans Their language technology and culture seem like 1880 than 2004 And while they are aware of the existence of those who live outside the borders of their town they do not travel beyond their borders nor do they receive visits from the Outsiders The novel is narrated by one Frederick Trimmers Es who was a resident of Dingley Dell and his first person narrative is convincing except when he uses it to tell stories that he had not witnessed Those chapters slide into third person point of view with occasional awkward sentences like Where are you taking me asked my nephew A book written after 2004 published in fall of 2010 could certainly get away with keeping that third person point of view when reporting scenes Frederick Trimmers had not seen for himself But that is a small uibble The story and the concepts behind it are worth reading Once hooked into the characters and story the book just pulls a reader along at uite a pace While being familiar with Dickens work and time makes the language accessible at once the reader with no such reading experience need not fear reading this book The suspense will keep such a reader faithful to the end