Thursday, June 9, 2022

Book Review: The Navigator’s Daughter by Nancy Cole Silverman (Kat Lawsone Mysteries #1)

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Strong characters; interesting story from the past
Cons: Crime fiction element weakest part of book
The Bottom Line:
Father’s history
Makes for compelling reading
You’ll get lost in time



Good, but Not What I Expected

When I saw that Nancy Cole Silverman had a new series coming out, I immediately put it on my reading list.  I’d enjoyed her previous series, and I was looking forward to seeing what she was going to come up with next.  The Navigator’s Daughter turned out to be different from what I was expecting.  I enjoyed it, especially after I adjusted my expectations.

The book takes us to 1996.  Kat Lawson is looking for a new job as a reporter, and her marriage is on the rocks.  Then her father calls and asks for a huge favor.  During World War II, he was a navigator during bombing raids in Europe, and his plane was shot down over Hungary.  Now, the remains of his plane have been found.  Since he is too sick to go, he wants Kat to go in his place and find out what happened to the people who helped him get back from behind German lines.

Kat’s father has never really talked about what happened, so Kat goes in knowing next to nothing.  She’s met by people she doesn’t know, but whose offers to help seem too good to be true.  The more she learns, the more she sees just how difficult life has been for those who lived in the country before and after the war.  Will she find what her father wants most to know?

Obviously, I normally focus on crime fiction.  With this book, I actually would have been okay if the book had just focused on Kat learning about her father’s time in Hungary during the war and what happened to those people in the decades since.  Because the book was set in the 1990’s, the country is just coming out from behind the iron curtain, and that it touched on as well, although not as heavily as World War II.  I found this and Kat’s search for some specific things interesting enough that it would have carried me through.  It was fascinating getting a picture of life in Hungary during that time.

Which is good because the crime fiction element was a little awkward.  When it did come to the forefront, it felt forced into the story.  Maybe I just felt that way because I was caught up in the story of Kat’s father.  However, I feel like what happens here could be a great launching point for future books in a series.

And I will definitely be back for that.  Kat is going through a lot in her personal life, and I enjoyed seeing her growth as she dealt with that.  There are other interesting characters in the cast, and they combined to keep me engaged in the story.

As long as you go into The Navigator’s Daughter with the proper expectations, you’ll be pulled into the story and enjoy it as much as I did.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.

2 comments:

  1. This sure sounds interesting, I hope you enjoy the rest of the series.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This sounds really interesting despite the issues and I've really enjoyed the books I've read by this author. I'll have to give this one a try!

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