Review: Franckly No.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2013
Before I launch into this review, I'll admit that I didn't get beyond 2/3 the way through the first book in the trilogy so I hear you if you persevered and things got better. The truth is, you shouldn't have to persevere.There are three main reasons why I gave up and why I've only allocated 2 stars to a genre (European crime) that I traditionally enjoy reading.Firstly, it's obvious that Ms Rose's first language is not English. It's very fluent, but it's not that of a native and it shows. The standard cure for that involves the use of native-speaking readers and a good editor. Hopefully together they would have picked up on the numerous sentences which either had the same verb, adverb or adjective twice in the same or adjoining sentences, or which included words like 'awhile' (I lost count of how many times I read that one). I could say that it was easy to loose the plot because there were such alot of errors (sic).Secondly, there were just too many snags. I don't want to spoil the story for those who might enjoy it but the bounds of plausibility were frequently stretched to breaking point in the bit I read. I feared the ending would push them even further and, from the parts of the last two pages that I scanned, it certainly appeared so.Thirdly, the dialogue was wooden. There was no humour and nothing personal about it - no stumbling, mumbling or fumbling such as real people do all the time. It wasn't 'bad' but it wasn't good enough to make me care about the characters or to feel that they had any depth to them. An example is when a character conveniently gives all the information that our heroine needs. Real people don't do monologues like that nor do they speak coherently and 'completely'. They wander around the subject, 'hum' and 'hah' and then garble their replies. Look at the trouble barristers have in getting information out of witnesses!I DO believe Willow Rose has what it takes to be a good author and I'm sure that this set could be successfully polished. It's a mile above a 1-star but it's just not good enough to stand as it is.