- The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan was self-published as an e-book in spring 2011
- The Mill River Recluse is only available electronically. It is 409 KB
A Self Publishing Success
The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan was one of the big surprise bestsellers of 2011. Why was it such a surprise? Darcie Chan couldn't find a publisher, so she self-published The Mill River Recluse as an e-book, and by summer she had sold more copies than many books that were released as regular books and available for e-readers. Chan remained on bestsellers list all year, and became somewhat of a word-of-mouth phenomenon.
The Mill River Recluse is available for electronic devices for only $0.99. This made me wonder whether Chan's success was really because the book was good, or whether people were buying it at the low price just to check it out. I asked readers, and many affirmed that they loved The Mill River Recluse. So I decided to see for myself what all the fuss was about
Plot Synopsis
The Mill River Recluse is a story that moves between past and present, going all the way back to World War II. The "recluse" is a widow who lives in a huge mansion on a hill in Vermont that overlooks a small town. She was disfigured in a tragic accident and then refused to leave her home for almost 60 years. The novel tells her story, the story of a priest who befriends her, and the stories of several in the town who are unknowingly affected by her presence.
An Enjoyable Read
I had heard some people refer to
The Mill River Recluse as literary fiction, but I don't think that's quite right. In some ways,
The Mill River Recluse reminded me of
Nora Roberts more than literary fiction. To some people, that may sound like a slight, but I don't mean it that way. Nora Roberts is extremely popular because she writes stories that appeal to people and are easy to read. Similarly,
The Mill River Recluse was a good escape, and something I wanted to come back to at the end of the day. It is not a romance novel, but it did have a feel good, things work out in the end sense to it.
The characters were a little predictable and one dimensional. The good characters were thoroughly good, with only lovable flaws, and the bad characters were almost villain caricatures. My biggest complaint was how little complexity existed within characters.
I would not recommend The Mill River Recluse to my friends who love literary fiction. They would scoff at the simplicity of the novel. I'm glad I read it, though, and would highly recommend it to people who like popular authors such as Nicholas Sparks, Jodi Picoult or Sophie Kinsella. This is a good beach read, and even more impressive because it did not undergo any editing by a publisher. Darcie Chan is an author to watch. It will be interesting to see if she has proven herself to publishers yet.
