Grace

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest (non-reciprocal) review.
(Spoilers within)

PROS:
– I liked the two main characters, Luke and Anya, and they had some good lines. I particularly liked Anya’s thought:
“Maybe she could throw the couch at him, all she’d need would be a forklift.”

At the end I was genuinely interested in what would happen with Luke and Anya.

– The plot was quite good and I was interested in what was going on with the reaper and the graces.

– The world was constructed well enough to paint a pretty good picture.

– I really enjoyed the parts where they were attempting to solve the crime, as well as the confrontation near the end.

CONS:
– Sometimes the hatred made no sense to me. For example, in this part:

“What am I allowed to do?” He asked finally.
“Nothing we haven’t allowed.” Immogy said quickly.
Luke frowned at him, which always seemed to irritate Immogy more for some reason. As if to illustrate that, Immogy scowled at him. “Don’t look at me like that, boy. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be allowed to look at me at all.”
Luke nodded silently and tried to change whatever expression was on his face to a more neutral one. “I just want to understand what’s expected of me.”
“Really? Is that what you want?” Immogy asked, narrowing his gaze on him. “Does it matter what you want?”

To explain, Luke is discovering that he’s going to be sent after a serial killer. He hasn’t been out in the world for probably over a decade. He asks what he’s allowed to do, and for some reason the question is treated as an offense. It just makes no sense. He’s not defying orders, he’s asking what permissions he has in order to complete the given task. It would make sense for them to want him to have a clear set of rules he must follow.

– Repetitiveness. This was a pretty big issue with the book. Here’s an example:
Chapter 15
“She could probably argue temporary insanity. Yes, that was it, Anya thought, she was insane. Or maybe it was the bump on her head, or maybe she was still passed out on the floor of her apartment, hallucinating all this. No, probably not that last one, her feet were complaining too much.
She could blame it on the pills the doctors had given her, or on the bump on her head, or even the pain.”

Or a smaller one:
“His muscles complained at the movement when he ordered himself to move…”

It wasn’t just the same words or phrases being used close to each other, but many of the same descriptions or actions would be used again and again. If you start reading this book, try to count how many times there’s darkness in Luke’s eyes.
Another was having characters roll their eyes, which I thought was even a larger problem when characters of high status did it. For the average person, such as Anya, eye rolling might be expected. But when it comes to someone who is meant to be the leader of a country, eye rolling comes off as childish and seems like something they would avoid doing.

– It took me a long time to get into this book. I was probably about 35% in before the story picked up. Maybe around 65% in it started dragging again for another long while, and picked up at the end. Part of this was because of what I pointed out above; different points were constantly being pounded on over and over in the story.
There were also parts that I think could have been eliminated altogether. Chapter 1 could have been deleted entirely. The story starts off with Luke, then in chapter 1 it switches off to a bunch of different people, only to switch back again and stay with Luke almost the entire story. It was disorienting, and when the story finally got to Anya I don’t think I’d learned anything in chapter 1 that I needed to know.

I liked the story, but how much it lagged at parts really brought it down for me. If I hadn’t been reading it to do a review I probably would have stopped reading it early on; which is too bad because there are good parts in there.

I’d give it about 6/10.

Remembered (The Vistira Trilogy: Book 1)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest (non-reciprocal) review.
(Spoilers within)

CONS:
– There were a lot of errors in the book. The biggest one I found repeatedly was missing quotation marks or quotations that didn’t need to be there.

Much less of a problem, but there were also times like this:

“The scream of a police car, blazing down Queens Boulevard, ripped Emily from sleep.”

This is the opening line and I thought the awkward pauses in the middle kept it from having the intended impact. It’s full of strong words (scream, blazing, ripped) that seem to have their oomf punched out of them. (Compare it to “The scream of a police car ripped Emily from sleep.”).

Or awkward phrasing.

“”Never leave me,” he breathed into her mouth.”

“This was not a house she’d been in as a child. She grew up in this little house with her mother and father, as well as her brother and sister.”

– “”That means very little,” the doctor countered. “Most young girls have their first sexual fantasy about their own father, or at least Freud thought so.””

Genetic sexual attraction is actually a known phenomenon where family members who meet as adults are drawn to each other. Most people probably won’t think much of this, it just happened to be something I’ve looked into before so I was waiting for the psychiatrist to mention it.

– I enjoyed some of the buildup between Annella and Kellus, like the part where he walked backwards to look back at her, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that there is a line where looking at someone goes from cute to creepy. The next time when he was watching her shop and staring at her, unflinching, came off as creepy and obsessive. If he had a more natural reaction, like looking away when she spotted him, it would have come off better to me than staring. There was too much staring. Having someone stare at you all the time is uncomfortable and creepy.

There was something bugging me for a portion of the story. Kellus was an apprentice, and he wasn’t supposed to be in a relationship, but once he graduated (five years from start to finish, and it didn’t say what year he was) he could have a lover. The story constantly states how useless it was to fall for him, but the fact was that they could be together if they waited awhile and it wouldn’t have been breaking any rules.
When the story finally acknowledges that point he makes a big deal about how he wouldn’t be home often enough. I know it sucks if you want to be home more and you can’t be, but a lot of people live in this situation. It’s not the end of the world. (I forgive this a bit since they’re teenagers).

PROS:
– “Danus is in charge of making sure the hospital is clean and orderly,” Nordorum explained. “It seems that Cora has been amusing him with funny stories all week.”
I wish we saw more of this. I liked Cora and I liked Danus, and when this was said I was almost hoping they’d end up together.

– The last about 15% of the story picks up a lot and I was happy to read that section.

I think I need to explain in more detail how I felt about the overall story.
I’m not big on romances, but I’m fine with them when they’re done well. The story starts off with Annie living in New York under a different name, not remembering any of her past. She keeps having a dream about a guy. It was a little slow but I went with it.
The first thing that bugged me was that she was being treated like a bizarre woman and an “Ice Queen” because she was a virgin at 22. I suppose there are some people who would believe something like that, but for me you’d have to be way older for me to think, “That’s a really long time”. I’ve known so many people who were still engrossed in other things in their twenties to think it’s weird that a 22 year old hasn’t dated yet. There’s other things to do in the world!

When she traverses to the other dimension and regains her memories we go back in time to see how she met Kellus. At first I thought it started off strong. As I mentioned before, when they first meet she goes to glance back at him, only to find he’s walking backwards and looking back at her. It was fine. He was with a group of guys who were having a good time. That he would do something silly like that wasn’t odd.
Then he starts the staring. So much staring.
Another thing that bothered me was the “she’s pretty”, “he’s pretty”. Attraction is great and all, but if I’m to be convinced these two have a special sort of love I need a lot more than that. About 95% of their love was them swooning over how the other looked.

It reminds me of a story about a blind shamisen player. The man who helped her fell for her, but another man wanted her. When she rejected him he threw acid in her face, and she didn’t want anyone to see her anymore. So the man who loved her poked out his own eyes, and they lived happily ever after.
It wasn’t about the way she looked. He didn’t care that she was burned and scarred.

I didn’t get the same feeling from these two, so when the book was trying to convince me that they had a special love than transcended others I didn’t buy it. Almost the entire first half of the book was about how much she was attracted to him. I wish it had been cut down to a few cute scenes.

At about 50% in the story it picked up and we finally got to the part where she ended up in New York. I was happy because now it could move onto the plot with how she ended up in New York.

But then we see Kellus’ side of the story. A lot of parts are shown over again from Kellus’ point of view. I didn’t mind some, but I think too much got repeated. My view of him actually lowered because of the insane amount of jealousy he seemed to have. He was jealous of any male who talked to Annie, even his own dad. It was too much. His thought process rarely strayed far from the groin area, too.

Then there were a couple, “Oh, by the way…” moments. Two of these really stick out in my mind:
– The first time they’re discussing the plot and Kellus’ parents bring up out of nowhere, “Oh yeah, and there’s this whole prophecy about Kellus and how he’ll give birth to a super baby.” It’s brushed off as something they didn’t believe in so they never told anyone.

– The second one, and the one that really left me going, “Huh?”, was someone attempting to seduce Kellus. Remember, there’s a whole section devoted to the story from Kellus’ point of view. We see how he felt about Annie, we see what happened when she was kidnapped, and we see him start drinking and end up back at the Citadom. More angst than I like, but okay.
Then, after his section the plot gets moving again. When he’s back home and everyone is discussing what’s going on he suddenly brings up that a woman was entering his bedroom at the Citadom and attempting to seduce him.
My immediate thought was, “What? I don’t remember that part.”
I even went back and read his chapters again but I don’t see anything about someone in the Citadom trying to seduce him. It was brought up later out of nowhere. I’d think that would be something important to mention when he’s the main character for a few chapters.

Several of the characters spent time training with swords, including Annie. When it finally got around to them going after the bad guy I was looking forward to seeing her and Cora taking part in the action. Unfortunately, when he was confronted Cora wasn’t even there and Annie had her wrist broken in about a sentence. I was left wondering why I read so much about them training with swords; it made no difference at all. Then she got shoved around until the men saved her. I wanted to see her and Cora take part in the fight (although Danus, the cool guy who doesn’t let things get him down, was nearby, so that counts for something).

I think a huge problem with much of the story was the lack of real conflict. Most of the story spends time on the dilemma that Kellus and Annie had because he’s not supposed to have a lover as an apprentice. However, everyone around them seemed to be understanding, and even their leader nudged Kellus towards being with her.
There was some conflict when she first got back from New York to Kellus’ family and his brother was mad at Annie, but that was resolved with him apologizing. There were two bad guys, one who we never really see and the other we only see at the end of the book.

One other note I was disappointed on was that Annie lived an entire second life in New York, but after she got all her memories of her old life it was all but forgotten. I think she mentioned her friend of ten years about once after that, and none of her other life seemed to seep into her new life. She was never upset by anything, like how men and women were treated differently, and never had a different way of thinking through problems. Even when the women decided to learn to use swords she wasn’t the one who brought it up; Cora did. I’d have loved to see more of how living an entirely separate life in another dimension changed her view of the world.

It wasn’t all bad. I was fine with Annie for the most part. I felt like Kellus had a lot of worrisome traits (especially with the horrid jealousy). A lot of the side characters I was fine with. I liked Danus because he was an awesome guy who took care of his friends, and I liked Cora because she was assertive and confident.
The plot itself was also all right. It just got shoved to the side for so much of the book. If the flashback of Annie and Kellus’ romance was limited to some cute moments, and possibly some things they have in common rather than how much they want to have sex, and it got on with the plot sooner I think it would be a lot better.
I was confused why they didn’t do certain things (Annie was back and she knew who kidnapped her. Even if he was in a position of power, no other characters were shown as bad. Why not build up support and around town with her story then confront him?)
HOWEVER, I am interested in the story with the krogs and where that is going. I’m also curious about Dinora, who escaped, and why she’s with them. Despite all my criticisms, there is a plot going on here that has a lot of potential, and I’m actually curious where it’s going and what is happening behind the scenes. I wish this book had an editor to cut out a lot of the filler, but I’d be willing to give it another chance. Hopefully book 2 will have more Danus and Cora.

I’d give it about 5/10.

The Crumb Snatchers

I requested a copy of this book because it sounded cute. (Spoilers within).
I’ll admit, this wasn’t what I expected it to be when I got it. I thought the story was going to be about a little girl and her various attempts to get to the cookie jar. She does try to get to the cookie jar, but that part takes up a small part of the story.

PROS:
– I think the pictures worked well and were cute.

– The overall lessons were fine. I like that Penny intended to pay for the pantry she broke. I also like that she thought of working all over the place and her mother restricted her to doing some stuff at the home.

– The formatting and placement of the text, especially around pictures, is done very well. The background also matches with the story, and the page numbers are placed on little cookies.

CONS:
– Characters say each other’s names constantly. It felt a little strange.

– I think their were too many characters for such a short story, and not much that warranted having them all there. I think this story could be chopped down to four characters and have the same effect (Penny, the mom, a cat and a sister).

– Sometimes the narrative went all over the place. Here’s an example:
“Mama was scrambling eggs when the girls walked into the kitchen. How’s everyone this morning? The wall clock chimed ten times. One at a time the girls gave their mom a kiss on the cheek and said good morning. Penny turned to go and answer the door.”

– Some parts felt unnatural. Example:
“Click, click, wow, got you,” said Terrie as she mastered the game control device.

I would say something more like:
“Got you!” Terrie yelled, having mastered the controls.

– “Penny ripped the sheet of paper from the tablet…”
I’m just picturing someone using an iPad like a sticky pad.

– The text seemed small to me since it’s a children’s story. It was also very verbose, too. I think the story could have started on page ten without losing anything. The text could be made bigger for kids, too, and many of the paragraphs and sentences can be made more concise. There’s a lot of time spent on random niceties and day to day chores that has nothing to do with the plot of the book and doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

– There were also a lot of errors considering the short length of the book.

– At the end characters brought up the fact that Penny didn’t think through her actions and the consequences quite a bit. I wish a character had also brought up that you can’t feed chocolate to a cat (luckily Penny didn’t get to do this, but she had planned to).

I think if the fluff was cut out and it got down to the basic story it would be better. There’s some good points in the story for kids, but I’m not sure what age group this would be good for. I deal with a 9 year old and a 5 year old – it’s too short and simplistic for the nine year old, and far too verbose for the five year old to be able to handle. It seems like a story that should be made for someone who is around 6, but I don’t think they would be able to handle the vocabulary. (“Deliberately”, “vomeronasal organ”, “construction”, “tetanus medicine”…) Add to that how long the paragraphs and sentences are and it would probably be too difficult for young children to read.
My suggestion would be to simplify the story so that kids could keep up with it.

I’d give this story about a 4/10.

The Adventures of Jimbo, the Homeless Cat

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This review contains some spoilers.

I deal with a 5 and 9 year old, and my guess would be that the reading level of this book would be for around age 8, maybe 7.

I think what I liked most about this book was the gravity of the struggles Jimbo had. Many children’s books seem to be afraid to tackle difficult issues. I appreciated the way Jimbo lost his home, and then his owner, and had to deal with homelessness and the loss of a friend.
I also liked how Jimbo had a mentality that followed him throughout the book. Even though he was a simple character, he remained consistent and had his own quirks. His owner told him being clean was good, and when he runs into a wild animal one of the first things he brings up is that they smell dirty. He continues to be concerned about how clean he is throughout the book. Even when he meets the little girl, she never comments on how clean or dirty Jimbo is, but he is self-conscious about it and cleans himself up. I like that this thought process can be something that he worries about more than anyone else.

This could be a good book to teach kids why we should empathize with animals. Especially in these times we’ve had many cats who have been abandoned and left roaming the neighborhood, and it’s good to show kids that there’s nothing wrong with these animals; they’ve just fallen on hard times, too. It would probably be a good idea for parents to read this with the kids and discuss some of the problems Jimbo goes through.

I’d give this about a 8.5/10.

The Sword of Hope: Destiny Awaits

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CONS:
– The use of exclamation points in the narrative was too much. For example, here’s a few (but not all) that appeared on just two of the pages near the beginning:
“Christian started screaming and shaking violently!”
“She gave him a sarcastic look, grabbed a pillow, and hit him in the head!”
“It was a beautiful day!”
“Christian got up, smiled, and tackled him!”

This happens throughout the whole book.

– The start could have been stronger. It’s starts off with an introduction that spends a page talking about a peaceful town and why it was chosen by the gods and such. The last paragraph brings up a forest outside the town where people keep disappearing and never coming back. If I lived there that would be the first thing I wanted to bring up – that the town seemed peaceful but there was something lurking out there.
Then the first chapter begins with a fight between two brothers. I found myself asking questions like, “Where are they?” “What is he trying to hit his brother with?” “What is his mother doing while they’re fighting and why isn’t she intervening even though she’s yelling at them?” “Is it night time?”
This action scene could have been put together better by removing repetitive information (“Their mother screamed as Barkley attacked his little brother.” We already know he’s being attacked, so it can just say she screamed or add more information, like what if he picked up a rock at that point?) and having the descriptions effect the characters somehow. One brother just pushed the other down – instead of saying puddles are forming on the ground why not mention how water soaked Christian’s clothing when he falls over?
Since it turns out to be a dream it could also mention things that commonly happen in dreams. Maybe his mother could be completely oblivious to what’s happening even though she’s right there and he’s trying to call for her help. Maybe she’s trying to get to them but never seems to make it to them.

– There’s a LOT of telling.
“Christian, who came from a family with a much higher status and calling in life, was destined from birth to become what his family expected him to be. Tiberius, on the other hand, was born into a family who worked for Christian’s parents, doing anything and everything required of them. They were recognized for who they were and nothing more. Never once were they recognized for what they did or could do. This stuck with Tiberius and became a large part of his personality. Recognition was what Tiberius wanted for himself and his family. One day, he always said, one day, the world would see what his family, his bloodline, were capable of.”

This is an interesting story I’d like to see, but we’re told it instead. I’d prefer not to be told this at all, and instead see Tiberius and Christian being treated differently and them reacting accordingly. (What does Christian’s family expect him to be, anyway? It didn’t say.)

I should note here that none of the interactions here show what we’ve just been told.

– Information could be combined.
“Most, if not all, of the houses in Bachwood were the same.” … “Only one residence differed from the rest.”

This has all of the information those two sentences provided but is more concise:
“All of the houses in Bachwood were the same except for one.”
Of course, there’s better ways to say one lone house stood out among the rest, too.

– The narration isn’t being told by one of the characters, so it shouldn’t tell us things like something looks perfect.
“The look of perfection and similarity was apparent in everything.”

A lot of people probably wouldn’t like living in a place where all the houses looked exactly alike. If you ever go somewhere where houses have been built the same and a good amount of time has passed, you’ll probably see that people have changed them. Added rooms, different paint jobs, re-designed gardens… So the narration is telling us this place is perfect and yet it sounded like a place I wouldn’t really want to live in because I like variety.
If one of the characters, like Christian, was giving his opinion that Bachwood was perfect that would be different. Instead of being told objectively that “this is perfection”, it would be Christian’s opinion that “this is perfection” and we would see how he feels about the place.

– Some things didn’t make sense.
In chapter 2, Christian and Tiberius are at Shino’s house. After awhile they hear a scream and run to find Shino in a clearing. Half of a house has been eradicated and a little girl has been abducted. So if they could hear him scream, why didn’t they hear a building being destroyed or a little girl screaming?

Speaking of which – a house has just been destroyed by monstrous creatures and a little girl has been kidnapped. Why is Shino laughing about stuff when he wakes up an hour later? Why is there no sense of urgency about this little girl? Hasn’t anyone done anything in the hour that Shino was unconscious?

Many times in the story I was wondering why the bad guy didn’t do things like kill them in their sleep as well.

– There’s some odd choice of speaking verbs.
“At first, Shino looked at him, chuckled sarcastically, then retorted, “Your Mom wanted to show you something as well? About time if you ask me. Legacies should never be hidden.”
That doesn’t sound like a retort to me. A retort is usually snappish, maybe angry, like this:
“You’re a butt,” Christian told Tiberius.
“I am not a butt!” Tiberius retorted.

– No emotion. Because of some of the things above, sometimes it feels like there’s a massive lack of emotions. Christian sees his father, who has been missing for a long time, and he doesn’t even say anything. We don’t get any insight to how he feels about seeing his father suddenly appear to him. He simply nods and answers a question his father asked, then moves on.
When just a short time later he’s yelling, “FOR YOU DAD!” it feels empty because of this.

– Chapter 8 tells us it has been a week since the attack. By that point I was starting to feel like the characters weren’t very good people because no one seemed concerned about doing anything at all about the little girl who had been kidnapped. Why did they wait a week? Why is no one concerned? Where is her family?
This is also the first time we’re told that his brother left. He dreamed about his brother, and he fought his brother’s spirit or whatever in the dungeon, but we were never actually told anything about his brother. Up to this point I didn’t know if his brother had died, if he was still living at home and Christian was having prophetic dreams about him going bad later, or something else.

– His sword glowing blue when there’s danger reminded me too much of another sword.

– Chapter 11: They tell Gmonkis that they came for the girl but before this it sounded like they were out on some other holy mission.

– Cars didn’t seem like they fit with the rest of the world. It was magic, swords, axes, forests, evil spider things, evil goo monsters, then suddenly a city of rusted cars.

– Mithril is actually a registered trademark.

– Cryo tells a story about another boy accidentally shooting his teacher, “Everything around him slowed to a near halt as he stared at the neon green feathers of his arrow sticking out of our teacher’s chest.”
How would Cryo know the inner thoughts of the other boy?
In Cryo’s story he also talks about a new teacher taking over who does things like breaking both a boy’s arms and giving him a black eye, or how another boy got an arrow in his arm. Why did the people of the city let this guy teach their kids?
He also didn’t meet Christian and Tiberius until they showed up in Rusty City, so how could he comment on how much they’d grown up? Cryo does a lot of things like this where he seems to know things he shouldn’t.

– When I started the story it seemed to be built up like a typical medieval fantasy world, which is fine. Then things like monster cars and cell-phones were tossed in. That’s fine, too, but I should have had an idea that those things existed in the world and that the characters were familiar with them long before I did. Despite the amount of time spent describing Bachwood as perfect and being full of nature, nothing like this was shown or mentioned there. In reality, even though the characters don’t head out until about 30% of the way through the book, I couldn’t say much about Bachwood except the houses all look alike and all have a single window. Did the characters have phones? I have no idea. Did they have cars or trucks? No clue. If they didn’t, and they’re in this secluded area, why do they know about phones and cars?

– None of the characters seem to have defined personalities. Christian, Tiberius and Cryo were all alike, and sometimes they would start talking like adults instead of like 12 year old boys. This shouldn’t be so. Each boy has a good reason to have a different personality: Christian was practically born with a silver spoon in his mouth; Tiberius was supposedly treated as if his bloodline didn’t matter beyond serving Christian’s family, and Cryo was living alone in a city were everyone was dead.

PROS:
– “Christian walked up, opened the chest, and took out a small key. “Yes!” he yelled as he held the key in the air.”
I thought of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69AyYUJUBTg
And I’ll admit, it brought a smile to my lips.

Remember how I said this was a story I’d like to see, not be told? That’s pretty much what I’ll say here. This is more like the skeleton of a story; the ideas are all down on the paper, but they need a lot of editing and re-writing. We’re told that Tiberius has a different lot in life than Christian, but never once do we see this in action. It’s as if the author wants him to have been treated different but isn’t willing to make any of the other characters actually treat him different, because doing so would make them look bad.
As a matter of fact, Tiberius seemed to do most of the stuff in the story and he’s practically handed a magic soul-stealing axe that does almost everything.
(I forgot to mention, but “Hope Fighting” is never explained.)

I think the book still needs a lot of work.

I’d give it a 3/10.

High Treason

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest (non-reciprocal) review.

The summary of this novel includes the line “This passionate novel mixes the recent history of Venezuela with powerful fiction”, and after reading it I can say I definitely felt the passion. The authors of this book clearly knew their subject well, and if the ultimate point of this book is to spread the message of what has happened in Venezuela then I think it does a very good job of evoking compassion for the people there.

PROS:
– I didn’t find many mistakes while reading this novel, and it’s apparently a translation. Had I not read that it was a translation I wouldn’t have known that, so it’s a very good translation.

– The authors seem to have a great grasp on the subject. There were many spots in the book that had footnotes to explain the details of what they were talking about.

– The characters varied in their personalities and beliefs. As the novel goes on it’s easy to understand their motivations and mindsets.

– The overall feel of the book, and the way it presents how an oppressive government effects its people, is done very well. I could see why some of the characters felt trapped in their situations, or why they felt so angry.

CONS:
– Many times the book wandered off subject. The chapter might begin with one character doing something, then it would mention another character; and at the mention of the second character it would go on for paragraphs about something that happened in the past with that character. After that anecdote the story might snap back to the first subject and continue on, or it might wander off on a third subject.
This could get really confusing because I might start off reading about Rodrigo doing something at his friend’s house, and then suddenly be reading all about the friend’s maid. It seemed almost like it couldn’t mention a new name without including some sort of anecdote about them.
With all of the side narratives, even if they were interesting, it was easy to get lost on what the characters were originally doing.

This isn’t the type of book I would normally read but I don’t regret reading it. I think it provides a very interesting view of Venezuela, and anyone interested in the subject should definitely give it a read. I’d give it around a 9/10.

Moorehead Manor

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve been a fan of horror since I was a kid, so I was looking forward to reading this story, and I really liked it.

CONS:
– Sometimes the writing was telling too much rather than showing.
– There were a few errors in the book.
– At parts it might have spent a too much time describing the scenery, but this is something that I can easily see other people having no problem with. It wasn’t so bad that it took me out of the story.
– There were also a few places where taking out a word would have helped the flow. For example:
“Actually, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.”
I think “The more he thought about it the angrier he got.” would have sounded better. This is something challenging for a lot of writers, including myself, as we try to make things clearer with more words and end up dulling the effect of the overall sentence.
– I didn’t mind this myself, but there is a bloody scene that involves the death of an infant. It’s short, but some people might want to avoid the book if this would bother them.

PROS:
– The story itself was pretty good. I found it clever in spots, like when Emily used the baby doll to summon Alice’s ghost.
– I also liked that not everything in the house was sinister. Alice was neutral; a wandering spirit in need of closure.
– Even though I mentioned the writing before, I’ll mention it again here. There were parts where I really enjoyed the writing, such as:
“The dust came alive as soon as they walked across the flooring.”

I could practically see the dust swirling up around their feet.

– I thought the characters were likeable. The horror genre is often riddled with characters who lack depth, but that wasn’t true here. While it’s a short story so there’s a limit to what can be done, I liked four of the characters, including Alice. Characters, including the antagonist, acted in a way that made sense for them.
– The romance fit with the age of the characters and I felt very satisfied with the end. I was happy it ended with holding hands. There was a sweetness and innocence to that I found more appealing than a kiss would have.

All in all, I enjoyed this read. It all came together well. The book was up for free on Smashwords, so I’d say anyone who is interested should go ahead and give it a look.

I’d give it a 8/10.

Gone for a Soldier

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

I love men in military uniforms. This book is filled with them, so it had all the makings of a book I would enjoy.

Starting off I think the thing that made it the hardest for me to get into was how many people there were. In the first chapters new characters were constantly popping up and it was hard to keep track of them all.

I liked Johanna and Lucy. The way Johanna was sneaky about playing an active role instead of a passive role was refreshing. I enjoyed Rose, as well, but she unfortunately didn’t get much of a role in the latter half of the book (understandably so since she wouldn’t have a place near a battlefield). I also liked Captain Colvill. I don’t know why, I just did.

The story was pretty good. I did enjoy the main character, and I found Johanna refreshing at times.

In the beginning I think some parts were too heavy-handed. It seemed like things that happened to pertain to Lucy’s predicament came up too often, even from people who had no idea who she was. I would have liked more subtle things, such as when one of the underage soldiers was called out and Lucy had been afraid it was her they were coming for.

I liked that characters that Lucy and the others weren’t fond of weren’t always portrayed in a negative light. Other times I thought the main characters had a slightly too modern mindset. In one particular scene they were seeing a play. The main character and the people with her felt offended by the play’s contents while everyone else in the theater was amused. It took me out of the scene to have a few characters that the story happened to be about and make them stick out so much. It’s not that I feel they shouldn’t be offended; it was more, “In the entire place why are they the only enlightened ones?” It would have felt less awkward to me if when Lucy looked around she had perhaps spotted a few other people who weren’t fond of the performance, either, even just one or two in the crowd.

As a main character I didn’t mind following Lucy and I appreciated that I couldn’t predict right away who her love interest would be. The majority of the time I had no problem with her, but every once in awhile she did something that irritated me. For example, towards the end they had no way to bring in more food, so they killed two of the horses for food. Lucy wouldn’t eat it knowing where it came from. When you have hundreds of people who are starving and constantly being shot and killed, I thought eating horse meat was an odd thing to get worked up over. It would be better to me if she thought of Soldier, which would give her a more personal reason to not eat it.
It was also at the end that her romance with Dr. Walsh bothered me the most. Sometimes it was perfectly fine and understandable – of course she would want to know if he was alive or not, and she’d be worried if she didn’t see him.
But there were other moments when she was bothered because she couldn’t be alone with him. My only thoughts were, “You’re being shot at. There’s dismembered limbs everywhere and dying men lying all over the place. You can hang out with him later. More pressing things should be on your mind.”
I’d have understood it better if she wanted to be with him for reasons other than romance. Like, if she was having trouble dealing with the mental strain and just wanted a moment to have some extra support.

To be perfectly honest, I rooted more for Johanna and Lucy to get together than Lucy and Jack. No matter how much the book insisted I just didn’t see the sparks between her and Jack. I think the insistence that they were so in love actually worked against convincing me. I’d have preferred it to be more subdued, or even changed a bit. Instead of wanting so badly to simply hold him, it could have been more relevant to her situation. She could have wanted to be with him somewhere safe and warm with an actual bed, rather than out in the cold, sleeping on the ground with gunfire all around.

As a whole the story was quite good. Characters were likeable. I enjoyed O’Meara’s introduction, drunkenly taunting the enemy, as well as some of the stories that went with O’Meara, even though he was more of a background character. As I mentioned before, I liked Johanna. She was stubborn and had a lot of ambition, and at the same time was trapped in a time where she was only allowed to do so much. Her eventual love interest played over fine with me.

I think this book could use an editor. I don’t say that because it’s a bad book; I actually say that because I think it’s a good book, and I think it could be a great book with some editing. It’s a very long book and I think a lot of it could be trimmed down or reworded to have a greater impact. There were also some grammar problems – most of which weren’t frequent enough to be distracting – as well as times that things got confusing.
One example I could think of was this:
“…it didn’t take long for the two young Minnesota soldiers to wind up in jail.”
My first thought was, “Wait, how did they go from wandering around town to being arrested?” It turned out, however, that they’d gone to visit their friend in jail.

Another time I can think of was when two paragraphs in a row that ended with “Especially saloons.”

An experienced editor could easily fix things like this, as well trim down some of the verbose parts, or root out bits of information that might not have been needed for the story. There were several times where it seemed the story announced someone was sick just to declare a few paragraphs later they were over their sickness now, and the illness didn’t change anything in the story. It could be that the author was going through factual information and put it in, but I don’t think every mention was necessary.

However, like I mentioned above, I do think this is a good story that has the makings of a great story. I’d love to see an editor get their hands on it.

I’d give it a 9/10. I’m impressed with the work the author put into this.

(Note: The author has updated the book since I reviewed it.)