Review: A tangled web of romance and deceit
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 6, 2013
PAWN OF INNOCENCE by Chameleon is an exciting romantic thriller, full of twists and turns, racing from one dangerous locale to another.Young heiress Camille chafes under the restrictions of her closely-guarded life. Always in the company of bodyguards, she feels smothered by her overprotective father. Determined to escape the bars of her gilded cage, Camille flits away to Alanya, Turkey, where she meets a handsome, charismatic man on the beach and is immediately smitten. Unaware, however, of the true dangers of her situation, she runs full-tilt into a tangled web of peril and deceit. Is the man from Alanya her guardian angel? Or is he a terrorist operative determined to destroy Camille and her father?After a rather slow, though not uninteresting start, PAWN picks up the pace and races along to its conclusion with twists and turns along the way. The plot is strong and entertaining. As the story is told primarily from Camille's point of view, the reader is as apprehensive and caught by surprise as she is, which heightens the suspense. Although a few of the twists are not as unforeseen as they might have been, most are very well done. Scenes where Camille overhears portions of conversations and immediately jumps to conclusions are quite clever, as she doesn't always jump to the wrong conclusion. Sometimes she does, however, so her turmoil and uncertainty are well-founded.On the whole, I very much enjoyed this story. It would have benefitted, though, by a more professional editing. One of my pet grammar peeves is confusion with the verbs "lie" and "lay." Unfortunately, they are misused frequently and consistently throughout the story. It's one thing if a character is speaking - and yes, people misspeak these words all the time - but they should be used properly in the narrative. Every time Camille "laid" on her bed, I wondered if she'd perhaps laid an egg.  Another frequent glitch was the use of "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less." Apparently, Camille ran into some mildly caring terrorists. Again, these mistakes shouldn't be in the narrative at all, and certainly not often.Nevertheless, PAWN's characters are well-developed and enjoyably free of stereotypes. It was a little hard to watch Camille make the same mistakes over and over, but that was consistent with her desperation and immaturity. Armand is a noble and conflicted hero - my favorite kind! The secondary characters were also appealing and believeable.If you enjoy romantic suspense with some intriguing and off-the-beaten-track settings, you'll enjoy PAWN OF INNOCENCE.