Review: A Joyless Ride
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2013
On the positive side, the basic plot was decent and came to a satisfactory ending.  Though there is room for a sequel, it doesn't leave you hanging.  It also has action and would perhaps be appealing to a younger reader. The writing is clunky, which takes you out of the story. And it's hard to get into the story because the characters and setting don't feel real.  This book needs more details. There are some details, but a lot more are needed. The protagonist is a young woman named Rebecca Williams and the story is mostly told from her perspective in third person. Not enough is done to introduce her, you aren't even told what country she is in. For a while I thought she was in England, which was confusing to me when she said that they had to fly across the ocean to get to China. (I was thinking: English Channel?  Flight restrictions over Eastern Europe? Where's my globe?) There was a lot of traveling in the story and a lot more description really was needed.The dialog between Rebecca and other characters was insipid at best. At one point she tells the lamest bedtime story, which actually may be a realistic touch, but was unappreciated by me. At least it was short.*Spoiler Alert*Rebecca saves a little girl's life, which is really nice, but later the reader finds out that she had a baby years before that she basically abandoned with little regret (or rather the author fails to convey that regret). If she had wondered about her little girl: how old she was, where she was, what she looked like, etc., and deeply regretted losing her, then I could better believe that she would risk her life to save and watch over an unknown child. At the end of the story, she even forgets that she ever had a child! She declares that she will never have children, and it seems to altogether slip her mind that she has already produced one offspring. Come on, really?Rebecca was the most "fleshed-out" character and she didn't feel real most of the time. The other people in the story felt even less real. This book could be vastly improved with more details and more interesting dialog and characters. Also, it had a sad feel overall, it needed more humor and fun at appropriate times (the blackjack-go fish game could have been amusing with good dialog, but as it is it just feels sad: a woman with no stories and games to offer and a girl who is even more deprived try to hold on to the lives they don't seem to have). At least have more warmth, and I don't mean the fire, which also stretched credulity. They are expecting trouble. They have a large estate and a well-trained army. Oh yeah, and magic. How is it the bad guys burst in unannounced, causing explosions and fire and generally wreaking havoc?. Too much unexplained stuff. I received this book as a free copy in order to review it, otherwise I probably would never have finished it.