"Then Came The Evening" by Brian Hart ***

> An Early Reviewer book for LibraryThing

> Debut novel

> Setting: Rural Idaho, a town in transition from rural to resort

> "Miner mansions".....cabins moved to various property from closed down mining areas

> p.17 "These new prisons were worse than the old ones, the raw light and plastic, the lack of history. Spaceman prisons, his cellmate called them. Lunar lockups.".....interesting

> p.28 "Tracy fit into an empty place in the couple's life like kindling in stacked cordwood.".....I like that

> p.34...."He thought they were of a breed, like dogs are of a breed: men who seep a low kind of terror at the corner of their eyes as they watch for weakness."........starts at a young age, in my opinion

> p.36..."He'd been getting stronger working all the time and he wondered if strength always came with a little vanity, wondered if it were possible to have one and not the other."...interesting insight

> p.175..."He understood why he was flawed but was helpless to change it: Rivers refused dams, wilderness refused roads. In the end you give up. You realize nothing can be avoided and nothing is.".....moral of the entire tale

> LibraryThing Review: I always enjoy reading debut novels, and this was no exception. I think Brian Hart has tremendous potential. Some of his phrasing was absolutely lovely. The plot, while very engaging, was a little choppy in an effort to cover large periods of time and then slow down for a while, then speed up again. This novel is a gritty, down-to-earth story of life, with all of its unpredictability, its unlikely pairings, and I really like that the ending is not fairy tale and not too dark.....just full of possibility. If the plot were less choppy, this would definitely be a 4 star read!