I love a good epic story, especially one that has elements of magical realism in it. “The Bullet Swallower,” by Elizabeth Gonzalez James, promised to be in the vein of Gabriel Garcia Marquez – a western saga combined with fantasy. Unfortunately, this book didn’t live up to my expectations.

The story switches back and forth between two time periods and two different main characters: Antonio Sonoro in 1895 and his descendant, Jaime Sonoro, in 1964. In Antonio’s timeline, he decides to rob a train and a violent, heart-pumping adventure ensues. Jaime is Mexico’s most famous actor, but his life is turned upside down when he is given a book that describes his family’s entire history. A mysterious man shows up in both timelines, and the men must try to figure out who he is.

I thought James did a wonderful job describing scenes of action – there were many times in the plot where Antonio must escape danger, and this was done really well. However, the sections with Jaime fell flat for me. They always dragged me out of Antonio’s story (usually at really exciting moments), so I felt like I was slogging through to get back to the important stuff. I also wish there had been a tad more magical realism – it just popped up here and there, so it wasn’t as much as a through-line as I would have liked.

My favorite part of the whole book was the author’s note at the end. I enjoyed reading where James’ inspiration came from, but it’s not a great sign that I was more intrigued by this description than by the actual book.

3 stars

*Free copy provided by Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review*