Review of the Day: The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex
The publisher calls Emma Stonex’s novel The Sunshine Man “a tense, spellbinding page-turner.” It does start with a good first sentence. The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to care about the plot or the characters. Among other issues, Stonex waits until the third chapter to actually start the story. And, even then, I did not find it engaging. As far as the language, I did not find any obvious clunkers like paint the town red or shooting fish in a barrel. However, the avoidance of cliche is not the same as great prose. The prose is solid enough, but I did not notice any sentences worth memorizing. Here is an example: I had never shot a gun before. Fired a gun, whatever it is you say. I didn’t like violence, for obvious reasons. I couldn’t watch horror films or TV hospital shows and the sight of blood made me faint. I wasn’t an executioner, I was a mother. The gun would be quick. At least in my opinion, there ar...
