Review: A solid second book in a promising series
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2014
***NOTE: This review may contain spoilers for the first book in the series.***I was honestly a bit surprised when the author asked me the review this book. After all, I only gave the first book in the series one star because I felt like the quality of the writing just wasn't there. I did think that Gilden had a good idea, though. So, when he asked me to review this second book, I just couldn't turn him down - after all, he's obviously tenacious!I will say that I might have enjoyed this book more if I had read the first book in the series more recently. I couldn't remember all of the details of what happened in the first book, and the reminders in this book weren't enough to quite make up for my lack of memory.Anyway, let me get to my actual review -What I enjoyed:Improved writing.As I mentioned, my biggest complaint about the first book was the writing style. I'm happy to report that Gilden has definitely improved in this second book. There are still some editing issues - the biggest one being that I noticed that the book flipped between tenses sometimes. Still, I was happy to see some real improvement in the writing!Unique concept.In this book, Tracers are able to change people's timelines (but they aren't able to save someone who has died). A group of Tracers called the Royals also have other special powers. But there are other people called the Morters who are trying to wipe out the Royals. To make things even more complicated, grim reapers are also after Jerry (the main character). It made for an interesting, action-packed story.Twists and turns.I can't talk about this extensively because I don't want to spoil anything, but there were some interesting twists to the story that kept me guessing!The negatives:Sometimes hard to follow.Again, this may have partially been because it had been so long since I read the first book, but I sometimes found the story a little bit confusing. I especially found the parts that had to do with the grim reapers hard to follow - I just wasn't 100% clear on who they really were and what their true goals were. In the end, it was explained, but I still couldn't fully explain it to someone if I needed to.So, overall, I'd say that this second book in the series was a definite improvement. I think if Gilden did a bit of editing on his first book (and maybe just a bit more on this book), he'd have a really enjoyable series! I give this second book 3/5 stars.***Disclosure: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given. All opinions are my own***