Review: Could have been so much better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 7, 2014
A great editor could have helped make this book 5 stars.  The underlying plot was good, the darkness was appropriate for this story (if you don't like dark, don't read this), and the broken characters were intriguing.It really felt like the book was being made up as the authors wrote.  First, a lot of time is spent depicting the stalking and making the reader believe that the abduction was off the cuff.  But as the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that this was anything but an impulsive action - the misdirect added nothing but confusion.  Gabriel's internal confusion over what he was doing just gets crazier as the book unfolds - at first he was restoring balance to the universe by healing Eleni's addiction and preventing future bad karma, then it became restoring balance by using Eleni to exact "eye for an eye" revenge.  That seems like 2 different ideas and the author couldn't figure how to resolve them - so it was all just explained away by saying "Gabriel's crazy". The plot got more and more jumbled as the authors wandered their way to plot resolution.The violence was graphic - which was not an issue - but as it was being described, it sounded as if Eleni was a Timex watch - took a licking and kept on ticking.  He choked her into unconsciousness, threw her into a wall, broke her nose, smashed her face into a mirror, split her lip, walloped her on the head, squeezed her wrists til they broke (but they didn't because he then suspended her by the wrists immediately after to have sex) - all within a 24ish hour period - and she just shakes it all off with no apparent effects.Both characters have voices in their head, but only Gabriel is a schizophrenic.  Eleni is just an alcoholic. Huh?  We were supposed to believe that Eleni forgives Gabriel because his craziness let her let go of her own craziness, but as she was studying to become an art therapist for the mentally ill, surely she could see how nutty all this was?  A good editor could have sorted the dichotomy and brought a more credible dynamic between the two.  This book deserves a rewrite.