Review: Good, Even Without Previous Context
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 2, 2014
I'll start by saying this is a spin-off short story series based on a character from a novel series that I haven't read. Therefore, my background knowledge of the setting/characters is non existent and I'm reading about these people for the first time. That being said, though, it isn't hard to pick up the plot. There wasn't really any confusion except for how a few of the characters previously knew each other, but it didn't muddle my perception of the plot and I was able to pick up things about the relationships between the characters. I would say you don't necessarily need to read any of Angela Wallace's other works to understand this short story, but it would probably be recommended.The plot of this short story was decided by fans (by some kind of poll system on the author's blog, from what I picked up), and my original thought about that was that this story could get very weird and random and lose its cohesiveness, but I was happily surprised to see that that was not the case. The story flowed fine, and no plot points were weird except when the main character, Paige, stumbles across a box of free puppies and quickly decides to adopt one. It seemed a bit odd to me, but dogs are a big part of the story, and even the puppy she picks, Riley, becomes a main character in this short story, and for all I know, Paige could have been previously described elsewhere as the biggest dog lover on the planet who'd always wanted a pup and she was finally getting one.It was a really cute scene, and there's a lot of adorable dog descriptions and puppy moments in this. If you're an animal lover, you'll aww at least once. And there's plenty of cats in it too, though some of them tend to be on the creepy side instead of the cute.This story gets pretty action packed at the end. It was a bit much for my taste, but if you're into fight scenes and enemy evasion scenes you'll like it. It takes up a good portion of the story after the plot has been established.The writing is pretty good. Lots of descriptions and adjectives but not an over-excessive use of them like you sometimes find with authors who are trying too hard to look like they have talent. None of the metaphors or analogies were particularly poignant or thought-provoking, but they worked and you can tell Wallace is a decent writer. Paige's character is also pretty light-hearted, and I liked that. She's not super intense all the time like you sometimes find with journalist and detective characters. She's headstrong and independent (went off on her vampire boyfriend Sean in one scene when he implied he wanted to protect her because she couldn't protect herself going on a case alone - and I got a kick out of that), but she's also funny and gets grossed out at slimy sewers like a normal young girl would.So overall, this was pretty good. It reads more like a story farther along in the series instead of the first installment, but that could just be because a lot of the people reading this already know Paige and have more context of the story than I did. I'd pick it up again. It's free, you can't go wrong. If you don't like it that much, you don't have to regret your purchase. And if you do like it, you'll be pleased to know Wallace has a lot more material out there for you to read.