Review: Could use a good proofreader and/or editor
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2013
Dec. 20, 2012.  I'm not done with this book. I have been really enjoying the pacing, the characters and the storyline, but was having my usual problems with word usage and sentence structure.  I wondered if perhaps the author wasn't from the U.S. (although most of the main characters were).  A quick web search turned up that, indeed, he was not from the U.S., but from Australia, and that might account for some of the idiosyncrasies I was seeing -- most notably his use of the word "learnt" rather than the word "learned" ([...]  For the most part, he gets the U.S. word usage correct, and as the action is all taking place in Europe (at least up to the point where I am now reading), I can get used to 'learnt' or other word usage that is heard commonly outside of the U.S.  :-)  There are a couple of places where the sentence structure fails and any proof reader should have caught the problem.  The one that really stopped me in my tracks occurs in chapter 33, in about paragraph 17, where we find this: "Danny and even contemplated the idea of a Freemason complot."  Huh?  Maybe he meant "Danny HAD even..."  That would make sense (or would if I had any idea what the hell a complot is.  Grumble.  Another word I had to stop reading to look up to be sure it meant what I thought it did!) I've read several other non U.S. authors and haven't run into the unusual wordage for American readers problem before, but when I looked Lourens up, I did note that he is an Indie writer, and that explains a lot.  Indie authors have a much tougher financial row to hoe than do the highly successful writers who have publishing houses behind them who are happy to expend extra cash for extras like proof reading and editing for their top authors. And this seems to be his debut novel, so I'm willing to be pretty forgiving.Oh -- and I'm reading this on a Kindle. I'm not sure if that makes a difference in any other way than lacking page numbers, but I mention it just in case.So, I'll be back with a review of the story itself when I finish it.  So far, I am enjoying it.  Great storyline -- very Dan Brown-ish in subject matter, plotting, action (and violence), so if you are a fan of Brown's "DaVinci Code" or "Angels and Demons," you should like this book.  Be back in a few days with more.  :-)*****************************************More pre-review reviewing!My biggest complaint remains the language that seems so foreign, to me, an American reader.  And yes, I know that’s not fair.  The author is Australian, this is his debut novel, and he did a boatload of research and did it well.  Unfortunately, he’s using idioms and spellings that just don’t seem right to an American reader.  For instance, in the first paragraph of Chapter 58, ‘He kicked the front tyre so hard the whole car shook.’  Umm, okay.  I know he means tire.  I know the spelling with the ‘y’ is probably correct in Australia, but it would get marked incorrect on every elementary school spelling test in America.  So it made me stop.  Made me realize once again that I’m reading words, not living the adventure.  In the preceding chapter 56 one of the characters says “Good on you, Mickey.” Not wrong, but not what you’d hear in most of the U.S., where we would say ‘good for you.’ Also stopping my progress are the spellings (learnt instead of learned, tyre instead of tire, artefact rather than artifact) that, while probably common in Australia, seem out of place to the American reader, especially when the main characters in the book are American.  It seems I just get in the groove, out of myself and into the story and another of these vernacular miscues stops me.  I repeat, I know it’s unfair, but it’s the type of thing that might keep me from reading the author’s next work.Have to admit that about 80% of the way through, I’m ready for the end.  Come on, I’m getting bored – too much of everything: information, action, description, violence. I read a review on Amazon.com that indicated the reviewer thought the author kept introducing new characters just to have someone to kill off and, by golly, by this point I was agreeing with him.*****************************************************Okay – I’ve finished the book and had a day to think about it.First – this would make a slam-bang movie.  Lots of action, crazy situations and close calls – the special effects would be amazing.Second – I really enjoyed the depth of research that went into this novel.  The subject matter, the sacred feminine, has been done before, try, but this was a theory with which I wasn’t familiar, so I found it very interesting.Third – It was a bit long in the tooth by the end.  While all the action was expertly staged, by the end I was just wanting to get to last page, please.All of my pre-review review stands.  While I did enjoy the storyline, the characterizations, the twists and turns, somehow it just got too long, too full of word usages, spellings, etc. that didn’t seem in step with the fact that the main characters were American.Will I read anything else he writes?  Jury is still out on that one.  I think it would depend on his subject matter.  I am willing to be convinced.