Review: Great idea but not great execution....
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 3, 2013
The author, Carter Vance, gave me a copy of this novel in exchange for my review.The premise is a good one. While there are definite similarities to the premise of The Da Vinci Code, The Return" is unique. The novel starts with Geoff finding an introduction manual to the Knights Templar while visiting a friend's castle in Provence. Geoff is stretching out his back and finds a hidden room. The Return is a swift read with extremely fast moving action. There are readers that will love this novel for its cheeky approach to religion and ideas held sacred.The Return reads so swiftly because it reads very much like an overview. The story could have benefited greatly from development. The idea presented could have been a five star masterpiece with a bit of expansion and care to writing style ensuring that readers are immersed and involved. Vance, as we follow Geoff, has events stated as fact and while we may be there with Geoff we have a sense of being told what happened rather than the language and setting leading us to feel we'll a part of the scene. A fly on the wall. We get little looks at key characters that mostly fall flat due to lack of expansion of motivation. It seems we are to believe that certain people are who they are and things are happening as they are without reason. Simply because we're told that's the way these things are.There are people who will love this novel. Those who enjoy the ability to walk away from a novel and come back several hours later will love it because review will be brief. This is a premise worth exploring.