Review: Two stories in one book Infected and Prey
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 1, 2012
As this book is actually two novellas in one book, I feel a need to divide my review up between the two novellas and give an over all rating of the book.The first novella is called Infected. I give that book three stars.This story is the weaker of the two and had it been the only story in the book might have caused me to stop the series right here.In Infected we meet Roan, an angry, often hypercritical private detective who is our main character. We also meet his significant other Paris, and an entire cast of characters who turn out to be regulars in the series.This novella is overly compact in character make ups, back stories, and internal dialogue all with the attempt to set up the series for the reader. I found keeping all the characters names and roles straight to be a major hurtle, having to write notes.While both books are laced with Swearing, this first book seems to be bathed in it. Personally I do not mind a little cursing here or there to spike up the dialogue but too much cursing ends up taking away from the dialogue (in my view).The next major hurtle and almost a deal breaker with me here, was the shear amount of faith bashing that goes on in this novella. The second novella has some but it's not nearly as out right hostile towards individuals of faith as this one.The mystery in this novella was ok but not nail biting or edge of the seat kind of thing. This author uses a fair amount of red herrings in her stories, which I like.Yet I feel that in this novella the mystery element seemed to get buried under the character exposition.The second novella in this book was called Prey. I give Prey 5 stars.To me Prey made this book worth putting up with the flaws in the first novella.The romance of the main characters unfolded and flowed so much better then the first. I could really feel both sides of the relationship here.The characters were more endearing. I found myself able to relate to Roan where in the first novella his hostility prevented me from bonding to him. Paris comes alive much more as well.The mystery was exciting, I found myself reading until late in the night trying to figure out who did it.Of course I did not manage to guess the correct person, and ended up thinking it was one of the red herrings but that added to the fun of the book.I am now onto the authors tricks so I know to find the person least spoken about, that is hardly even mentioned but for one line, and that will be the murderer .. ;) Let's see if I am right in the next book?!My overall rating of this book, both novellas together is 4 out of 5 stars.So do I recommend this book? Yes but with warnings to future readers to not judge this book by the first novella alone. And to say that the story's Main character is openly hostile towards religion/faith.Putting that aside, you will find a good murder mystery, action book with a splash of romance.