Review: Wasted potential
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 15, 2013
I wanted to like this book.  It had an interesting premise and I can tell that the author has some skill as a writer.  But for a story that's only about 30,000 words it had too much filler for me personally.  In a story this short, each scene has to count.  An author has to know which scenes to skip past and which to skip to.  That didn't seem to be the case here.Things are supposed to be in an uproar because of a string of serial kidnappings.  So what scenes do readers get treated to, to draw them into the story?  Tess scanning documents, Tess sitting at her desk thinking about how she hates scanning documents, then going off to scan more documents, traveling on the train, petty squabbles with a co-worker, more scanning, Tess publicly crying at work b/c a jerk co-worker called her "chubbs," etc.I don't need every UF/PNR heroine to be Xena Warrior Princess, but the insecure, wallflower persona, taken advantage of or ignored by co-workers, just doesn't ring true to me for someone who's supposed to be a detective.  And one who wants to work on a serious, high-profile case in NYC.  Tess seemed more like an office intern that should be working in some small town precinct and cutting her teeth on cases involving stolen packages.Soon I just started scanning to get to the meat of the story (apparently Tess' scanning woes are contagious).  The book was broken up into really short scene snippets. Each only 2-3 pages. But so many of the snippets seemed pointless.  Too short to really advance the plot really. Often it would be the character having internal monologue.  Reading the story felt like being forced to sit stuck in traffic on a bus, knowing a high speed chase is going on a few streets over.  Rather than being in the police chopper and having a bird's eye view of the action.And for a story titled Shifter's Conspiracy, with women being kidnapped by shfters, and the hero being a shifter, the shifter aspect played a very small role in the story.  Tess didn't even hear anything about shifters until 88% of the way through the book.But I'm giving the story 2 stars because I can still see that the author has some talent at writing (though the book could have benefited from an editor to help with the plot and pace), and I picked the book up when it was free.  If I'd had to pay for it, I'd probably drop the rating to 1 star.  Especially because the story has no conclusion.  It just ends.  So I'd have to pick up the next book in the series, if I cared to find out what happens.  And I can't say that I do.