Review: Mixed feelings, but not bad for 99c
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 12, 2012
This book starts off with a bang, dropping the reader right into the action. (A+ for pacing.) In fact, the pace is so quick, you might want to plan some uninterrupted time when you start. It was a tad hard to follow with distractions and starts and stops. Once you settle into the meat of the story, though, it gets smoother.The writing is good overall, although it deteriorates as the book progresses. It could have used a better editor. There were word usage errors, like 'pouring over catalogues' (poring), and 'switching' used twice when I think the author meant 'swishing.' There was also an incident of 'the sound' of a revving helicopter taking someone somewhere instead of the helicopter itself, a few typos, and the oddly-worded cliche 'it doesn't hold a candle compared to you.' Still, it wasn't bad enough to make me put the book down. The stilted dialogue, however, almost was.As the story progressed, characters called each other by name way too much. Had the author kept the character's descriptive beats and dialogue together, most of these could have been cut. (Most could have been cut anyway.) The hero's southern endearments were also too plentiful--sometimes appearing in multiple lines in a single paragraph of dialogue. The heroine's stuttering ("I...I [blah blah blah].") got irritating as well, and it harmed her tough girl image a bit. A little would have been fine to show her reaction to the hero, but it got excessive and happened when she was speaking to other characters.One other negative was being patient through the good-but-lengthy build up to the love scene, only to have the author tell it in summary. Blek. Considering other things described in this book, I don't understand why she got shy with her descriptions there. After the drawn out 'foreplay' in the den, it was a letdown.On the positive side, I liked both main characters--all of the good guys, really. The fight scenes and descriptions were good, too. All in all, this is not a bad read. It's just frustrating to see a book with so many positives published with such easily-spotted-and-fixable errors. Three stars.