by Anne Marie Bennett
Rating: ****
Savannah Rose Adams runs a successful party planning company with her best friend, Andi. However, losing both parents as a teenager has affected her in more ways that she realises and has left her terrified of commitment. The last person she expected to meet on a yoga retreat was world famous recording artist, Ben Shepherd…
This is not my normal genre but I really enjoyed Dragonflies at Night; it’s a pure slice of escapism. The beginning from Savannah’s mother’s perspective was incredibly touching and beautifully done, the prose was quite different from the rest of the novel. All the ‘interludes’ were lovely and the dragonfly motif throughout was simple but effective. I thought the spiritual angle worked very well and was not overplayed.
The characters were extremely convincing, even fairly minor ones such as Daysie and Tomas. Savannah and Ben are likeable and individual from the outset, although I did find Savannah grew a touch irritating in parts. I enjoyed how the chapters were structured, flitting between Ben and Savannah’s perspectives in third person and the cult of celebrity around Ben was nailed just right. It can be difficult writing a story between a character who is incredibly famous and one who is not, but Dragonflies at Night maintains credibility and the relationship between Ben and Savannah was completely believable. Dialogue throughout was deceptively well-written, very natural and cleverly used to move the narrative along without you really realising.
Although Savannah has had more than her fair share of grief, it would have been nice for a touch of shade to have fallen onto her and Ben’s romance. There is a brief contretemps but, at times, it is so perfectly wonderful, it did set my teeth on edge with saccharine sentimentality but the writing is so good and there is such a sense of life running through the novel, it’s all quite addictive and I did struggle to put it down – it would certainly make a brilliant holiday read.
Dragonflies at Night; a sweetly satisfying novel that is well worth a look.
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