DNF at 35%. I felt as if very little had happened except for a great many conversations in an overblown gothic romance style. And treatment of the female character--who I thought would be a main character and who certainly has one of the main POVs--is passive and adrift after a bad breakup, until she instantly falls in love and becomes, if possible, even more passive as nearly everyone condescends to her.

I really wanted to like this book. It had me at Russian paranormal, and I even found the gothic romance style dialogue fun at the beginning. I intend to put this book aside and maybe try again later, but for right now I'm done.

For once, peeps, I had absolutely no complains about Russian-ness of this book apart from couple of minor mistakes and an overuse of patronymics. It was the rest of the plot I had issues with.

First of all, the shelving of this book under romance, sci-fi and fantasy along with the synopsis above is incredibly misleading. This is a pretty straightforward murder mystery with a few slight paranormal elements and a very straight laced (I'd personally question "erotically charged" description) romance. Boohoo! If I knew that beforehand I'd probably stay away as it's not really my staple food.

Secondly, the romance itself is sugary sweet. First love, soulmates and all that... and the ending is extremely unpleasant. It took me back to a similar situation which happened to my best friend weeks before her wedding and I had a horrid, sad flashback. Sorry, it got a bit too personal.

Otherwise, it was a decent if not overly exciting read. The descriptions of the places, culture and food were lovely and very charming, the main characters both positive, nice people whom you truly wished well. There was a certain idealisation of Russia going on, but it can only be a step forward from bears drinking vodka and dancing on Red Square, right?

As to the mystery I might be jaded but I could see the villain from miles away and their revelation and motivations did nothing for me.

This was almost like a Christian romance/murder mystery, and while it wasn't for me I could appreciate the beauty of discovering a new, exciting culture for readers who do enjoy such combination of genres. ( )

TRINITY is Book 1 of the Kuldun Code Trilogy, the second book being not far away if memory serves correct. Set in modern Russia, Sophie Masson has certainly involved a wonderful sense of place and culture in this book:

"They'd left a mild gray London spring morning and emerged into a Moscow afternoon so bright blue that it seemed painted on with a lavish brush. Everything had culture-shocked her, from the sublime to the ordinary: the candy-striped domes of St Basil's cathedral flaunted against the intense sky, Red Square vast as a rolling stone plain, wide streets strung with garlands of lights, weird little railway kiosks like tiny general stores, impassive people whose faces she didn't know how to read. And most of all, the barbed wire look of Cyrillic script fencing her off from any real understanding of what was going on."

The sense of the place, and the look and feel of a stranger in that unknown, untranslated difference is really well done through-out this book. Helen has never been here before, and knows little of the place and the people, although her mother speaks fluent Russian and is used to the culture and the people. The idea that the mythical weaves its way through the people and the place is also believable and contributes overall to the sense of "other" that TRINITY is obviously looking to build.

But within that, and even allowing for a certain leeriness for anything magical, paranormal or fantastical on this reader's part, there are too many holes in other elements in this book to allow the good elements to override the less convincing. Particularly the set up of Helen and Alexey as outsiders, and the building of this supposed intrigue that they solve together, which feels contrived and lacking veritas.

On the one hand Helen, she of the lovelorn, "he done me wrong" sad and lost girl; and on the other Alexey, the young Russian heir to the dark and mysterious business founded by his father. She's sad, withdrawn, docile - he's ethereal, idealistic and somewhat naive. And stinking rich. Of course these two will set eyes on each other, declare their undying love so quickly it's a wonder they've worked out how to spell each other's names, let alone be drawn together in love, business, mystery and the whole darn thing. That's not to say that's never going to happen anywhere, but everything - every single bit of character trait, behaviour, background is screaming "this is what will happen" from the second the mysterious sunglass wearing boy appears.

Once they do pair up however, the reason for Helen's existence in the whole book becomes increasingly vague. Given her tendency to mope about you can't help but wonder what she's doing there at all, especially as her role as soppy outsider means she's not really empowered to actually get involved or do a lot. Not helped by her spending a lot of time hanging around waiting whilst Alexey's off doing secret men's business of some kind. But then both of them are strangely passive, as is the whole "sudden love of their lives thing". It's all a bit syrupy, soppy gazing and mooning and generally being all... well bleagghhh. Which was not particularly realistic or convincing given the speed of the attraction and the supposed tense times in which they exist.

Having said all of that, if you stick with it, the later part of the book does improve. The pace picks up, there's less hanging around waiting, and the central characters seem to be slightly less wishy washy. Even the magical / folkloric aspects take a higher profile, providing more context and sense to the entire thing. TRINITY is probably a book for fans of paranormal / magic and romance with a bit of intrigue, rather than crime fiction fans alone. It's definitely going to be one of those books that really works for some readers, and does not at all for others.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-trinity-sophie-masson ( )

Helen is taking a holiday in Russia with her mother, desperately trying to get some space from her disastrous break up and collapse of her career. She never expected to find a place so alien to her – and she certainly never expected to find the rich and intriguing Alexey

But Alexey has more on his mind than romance – his father and father’s 2 business partners have all been murdered within a short space of time. People are whispering about a curse – and not only is the murderer still uncaught, but other forces have their eyes on his father’s business, looking to wrest it from his inexperienced and idealistic hands.

The first thing that struck me about this book was the amount of research that has gone into it. From my unfamiliar eye, this author seems to have made the effort to ensure the Russia of the book wasn’t just a Russia of bad stereotypes and alien culture – there has been some work into making this real and authentic. I can’t say how good a job has been achieved since I am neither Russian nor especially experience in all things Russian, but I can feel the effort behind it.

I just feel it’s a shame that so little has been done with it.

I don’t understand why Helen is the protagonist. In fact, take a step back, I don’t understand why Helen is in the book at all. All the action, all the story twists, all the mystery and the investigation and everything else? It doesn’t involve her. It cannot involve her. It’s all completely beyond her experience, affecting people she’s only just met and investigating/resolving it requires knowledge she doesn’t have, skills she doesn’t have and working with/speaking to a lot of people she’s only just met, most of which she doesn’t even share a common language with.

Rather reasonably, because of that, she doesn’t actually do anything. And it is reasonable – even her few interjections about whether Alexey can trust someone or not (for example) come across as ridiculous because she is so outside of her experiences, her skills or her specialities that her intervening would be ludicrous. She doesn’t. She can’t. She spends the vast majority of this book just following Alexey around and occasionally taking little breaks to work on the romance (I’d say “develop” the romance but that would be a stunningly generous description of what happened). Honestly, she could be entirely removed from the book and very little of real value would change.

So let’s get to that romance – firstly, it also adds very little to the plot. It’s an odd tool used to pull Helen (and, therefore, the protagonist) into the story as audience without having to come up with an actual reason for her to be there. Helen and Alexey meet (he nearly runs her over), they arrange a second meeting. Boom. LOVE FOREVER, Alexey (a man receiving death threats) is now happy to have Helen follow him around everywhere, be party to all of his company’s secrets and generally be with him every second of the day when business doesn’t drag him away (and she is free to roam around his work place/home as you would any near stranger). The romance is tooth-achingly saccharine and quite dated - Helen actually uses the words “Oh, Alexey”. She says this more than once; I started picturing everyone in black and white after that. It’s also comically speeded up with Helen happily considering moving to Russia and spending the rest of her life there after… a week? Less?

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