{"id":12442,"date":"2018-11-05T07:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T12:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=12442"},"modified":"2018-11-04T21:16:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T02:16:21","slug":"review-willow-by-your-side-peter-haynes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-willow-by-your-side-peter-haynes\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Willow By Your Side by Peter Haynes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"12443\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-willow-by-your-side-peter-haynes\/willow-alt-layout-3-207x317\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Willow-alt-layout-3-207x317.jpg?fit=207%2C317&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"207,317\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Willow-alt-layout-3-207&amp;#215;317\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Willow-alt-layout-3-207x317.jpg?fit=207%2C317&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-12443\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Willow-alt-layout-3-207x317.jpg?resize=207%2C317\" alt=\"\" width=\"207\" height=\"317\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unsungstories.co.uk\/willow-by-your-side\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Willow By Your Side<\/em>\u00a0by Peter Haynes<\/a><br \/>\nUnsung Stories (November 2018)<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>330 pages; $5.99 e-book<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Reviewed by\u00a0Meredith Durfy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Willow By Your Side <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a novel that plays with themes of war and humanity. It also uses conventions of fairy tales. The sister of the unnamed main character runs away from their abusive father who suffers from PTSD. The book is told in reverse order. The main character tries to return his sister home while facing multiple obstacles including a Red Cap. <\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Willow By Your Side <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is an inconsistently written social commentary on the nature and cost of war in post-World War One England as relating to classic fairy tales and knights. The narrative is unclear. The sister is an interesting if underwritten character. The narrator is unreliable to a fault and comes off as a bit dim. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I could see quite a bit of potential in this story. There were many good ideas but they were either underutilized or dropped entirely. Parts of it were very evocative and beautifully written. The scenes that were well written often had very good ambience and perfectly captured what they were going for. They just made things over complicated and couldn\u2019t sustain it for a long time. I could see what they wanted to do but they put too much on their plate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I would recommend <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Willow By Your Side <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to readers who don\u2019t want to get too invested. Despite some scenes that are genuinely horrific and bone chilling, it also comes with an in-book children\u2019s story that contains horrendous stereotypes which portray Native Americans as cannibalistic monsters who will gain your trust and kill your children. There was no reason plot-wise that they had to read this story and there was no knowledge gained from it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overall <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Willow By Your Side <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">does not work as a socio-political commentary, horror, fantasy or historical fiction. This is an unevenly written novel that isn\u2019t what it wants to be.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Willow By Your Side\u00a0by Peter Haynes Unsung Stories (November 2018) 330 pages; $5.99 e-book Reviewed by\u00a0Meredith Durfy The Willow By Your Side is a novel that plays with themes of war and humanity. It also uses conventions of fairy tales. The sister of the unnamed main character runs away from their abusive father who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-willow-by-your-side-peter-haynes\/\" class=\"more-link button bg-gold white\">Continue Reading!<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Review: The Willow By Your Side by Peter Haynes&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[805,1625,79,1626,1627],"class_list":["post-12442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-meredith-durfy","tag-peter-haynes","tag-reviews","tag-the-willow-by-your-side","tag-unsung-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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