Review: Very good story but horrible cliffhanger ending
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 4, 2011
"Independence Day, Book One: The Beginnings" was very, very good with excellent character development and quite an interesting plot.  Unfortunately, the ending was a complete cliffhanger; it completely felt like I had just read half of a book and was cheated out of the other half.Story - Carol Mathison has been murdered which comes as a shock to the entire small town of Haven Park, Wyoming.  After all, everyone loved Carol, right?  Not exactly.  It seems everyone in the town has a secret, and many of these dirty little secrets involve Carol to some degree.  With tensions flaring between many of the residents of Haven Park and relationships budding between many others, it's hard to tell who's your friend, who's your foe, and who's a murderer.Writing Style - The author starts out very well in this Kindle edition by providing histories/descriptions for each of the major characters in the novel, which there are about twelve of.  The mystery is then well developed, and the author choose to focus more on the question of who is responsible for the murder rather than focusing on the suspense of the murder which still made the story very interesting.The one thing that wasn't developed well, though, was the time period.  This story is set in the 60s, yet nothing is really ever there to lead the reader to realize this other than the dates/times posted periodically throughout the story.  I would have liked to see this aspect used a bit more in the story or simply not included at all.In addition to the mystery, there were so many different types of relationships going on that it got a bit like a soap opera; I do mean that in a good way, though.  However, surprisingly, the writing was so good that nothing ever got confusing!The author gave the reader pretty much an omniscient view, meaning that the reader was told the different thoughts, emotions, and true feeling of each of the characters without revealing some of the secrets and who the murderer was.  I really enjoyed being able to see the different perspectives of the characters, as it showed how some of them were wrong (or right) in thinking certain things about other people.There were several typos dispersed throughout the story, but although there were enough to be noticeable, there weren't really enough to detract from the story much at all.The main problem I have with this book is that everything is built up to finding out who murdered Carol, and then...the book ends.  There's no hint that the book is about to end, it simply continues to drag the reader into the depth of the plot and then suddenly it says "to be continued."  It was a bit shocking, and I really don't appreciate not being warned that this was only part of the full story.Overall - The book was written very well, and the plot was amazing, but I still have to say that I don't recommend downloading this book based on the fact that it's not a full story.  The cliffhanger at the end was so disappointing, because the story was so good, and I wanted to finish it.  I'd definitely recommend getting it if/when it's released in full or the second part is released, but for now, unless you enjoy reading partial stories, I'd have to say to give this one a pass.WARNINGS - Language