Book Review #5: Flesh and Blood by Simon Cheshire

Title: Flesh and Blood

Author: Simon Cheshire

Published: March 2nd, 2015

Page Count: 336

Price (eBook): ~ $8.89

Format Read: NetGalley PDF

Genre: Horror

Date Read: November 6th - November 8th, 2015

Rating: 2/5 Stars
Recommendation: Not Recommended

Summary:  Sam Hunter's family has always struggled until his father, a musician, sells a song and suddenly they have millions of pounds to allow them to move to an affluent neighborhood. The family moves into a large house near an estate (in England, an "Estate" is like the American "Projects") and they meet their new neighbors, the Greenhills. But why does everyone they meet have a thin line of yellow mucous on their upper lips? And why do his parents seem so cheerful all of a sudden? Everyone around him seems strange, and Sam believes that the Greenhills must be up to something. He begins to investigate, using all of his skills as a journalist, but he never expects what he actually finds.

My Thoughts: Ugh. I hated it. Not so much as to give it a one-star rating, but this book was quite awful.

To begin with, the book starts out with several pages (I didn't count) of a massive info-dump that details the life that Sam and his family had before they moved, through to the journey to their new home, and details of how his father got the money. All of this information is redundant, and the reader doesn't need to read it in order to get into the book. This is the sort of thing that I hate in a novel and I hope that when I finally begin writing mine, I won't do this myself. 

I won't ever read another book by Simon Cheshire because of this one annoyance. It's death for an author in my books.

The second thing that bothered me is that the author made a show of being English. I've lived in England, and I know the slang pretty well as a result, but I felt like the entire book was anglicized to the point that it was difficult to read as an American. And I mean that it wasn't just an annoyance, but that I almost couldn't get through it because I had to use context to figure out terminology I hadn't encountered when living in England or enjoying British literature in books, movies, and television. 

This is the second book I've read with this problem recently. 

The story simply didn't make up for these things. It was an alright story, when it moved, but it didn't move quickly, and once the author reached the climax (another one who hit the timing right, so he gets kudos there!), the book actually slowed down again. Action around the climax was slow moving and, for me, boring. It didn't entertain and I wasn't impressed with it at all. 

I have to admit that the ending was something of a redeeming quality, as it was the best-written part of the book (maybe the author wrote this part first!) and it startled me more than most horror novels manage to startle me. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to save this book, and though it might have brought it from a 1 to a 2 star rating, I don't plan on reading something from this author again.

Not recommended!

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This is my honest opinion of the novel.

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Book Review #4: The Beast of Barcroft, by Bill Schweigart

Title: The Beast of Barcroft

Author: Bill Schweigart

Published: November 17th, 2015

Page Count: 202

Price (eBook): ~ $2.99

Format Read: NetGalley PDF

Genre: Horror

Date Read: October 29th - November 6th, 2015

Rating: 4/5 Stars
Recommendation: Recommended

Summary: Ben McKelvie moves into a nice neighborhood in the suburbs with his fiance, but he doesn't realize that he's moving next door to an animal hoarder. Madeline feeds the wild animals, and her yard is unruly. Birds poop on Ben's car, rats infest the neighborhood whenever the lawn is mowed, and the yard is a pit. The neighbors complain about her property, but once she dies, animals begin to pick them off one by one. What is it that's stalking Barcroft, with its glowing eyes? Is it really the mountain lion, the rats, or a wolf? Ben and his little team of believers will find out!

My Thoughts: Another book that I enjoyed, I still must note that this book could still do with some editing and that I don't feel it's ready for publication on the 17th. The author is fond of the word "suddenly" and several actions appear to be very rushed, like Mr. Schweigart doesn't know quite how to make certain transitions (like a particularly awkward kiss in the middle of the novel).

In particular I was happy to see a lesbian couple in a novel, and to see their relationship treated as no more "outstanding" than a heterosexual relationship. I'd like to see more of this.

Both females in the book were strong, stand-up women with good heads on their shoulders (in completely different ways). Schweigart writes women the way that I like to read them, and these two didn't sit back for any man, no matter how chauvinistic both Ben and Richard behaved throughout the book.

The novel actually scared me (which is hard to do with the amount of horror reading I've done) and I jumped several times when interrupted during reading this book. While I'd hardly say that it's at the level of Stephen King (as the description suggests), it definitely frightened me, and that's what I'm looking for in a good horror book!

Recommended!

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This is my honest opinion of the novel.

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Book Review #3: The Cracked Spine, by Paige Shelton

Title: The Cracked Spine

Author: Paige Shelton

Published: March 19, 2016

Page Count: 320 (Hardcover)

Price (Hardcover): ~ $19.25

Price (eBook): ~ $12.99

Format Read: NetGalley PDF

Series: A Scottish Bookshop Mysteries

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Date Read: October 27th-October 29th, 2015

Rating: 3/5 Stars
Recommendation: Undetermined (See Review)

Summary: Delaney Nichols needs some adventure in her life! She decides to take a job working for a bookshop in Edinborough, Scotland, but is surprised to find that tragedy strikes the small bookshop family nearly as soon as she joins it! Now she must solve the mystery of who killed her boss's sister.

My Thoughts: Ugh. This is going to be a tough book for me to review. I've only finished it a moment ago and I feel unfulfilled while still compelled to read any future books in this series or by this author.

I want to be fair in this review while also being honest about my reading experience. In general, I give books two ratings: A star rating and a recommendation. The former is intellectual, usually based on the book's merits (though sometimes I might push a 3-star book to 5-stars if I particularly enjoyed it, even if its merits don't deserve it). The latter is an emotional response to the book. Is it something that I'd recommend to a frient?

In this case, the writing is good and the editing excellent. In terms of actual content, the book is a solid three-stars when compared to other popular cozies that I've read. 

The book would be much more readable if Ms. Shelton wrote dialog in plain English. Instead, she attempts to imitate the Scottish accent by writing dialect (including some Scots) into the dialog. This makes it more difficult to read, to the point that I got regular headaches while reading the novel and had to put it down in order to avoid them.

Readers are capable of inventing the accent in their own imaginations and do not need the author to do it for them. (That being said, some -- such as my husband -- love dialect in dialog. I'm just not one of them, and it's considered poor form for writers, besides).

This was the biggest drawback from this novel for me, but it was far from the only drawback that I experienced.

The book starts off slowly, with too much description of "what it's like to be an American in the UK." It would seem that the author has had her own experience with this (since her descriptions were adequate), but as someone who also has lived in the United Kingdom, I felt someone insulted by Delaney's response to the cabs and the accent. For a clearly intelligent character, she struggled with culture, and I was glad when the mention of "G-Forces" (in the car) finally stopped. 

Description has its place, but this book could have been cut by about two-thirds if only the unnecessary description was removed from it to leave the reader with more story and plot.

I also found it disturbing that the clues of his mystery didn't seem to point to its conclusion. Perhaps the author is attempting to avoid the formula, but the formula works for a reason (it tends to be more engaging to the reader). If one followed clues throughout the novel to reach a particular conclusion, we were thrown off-balance with the climax (which I felt came just a bit too late in the book, feeling rushed).

My opinion is that Ms. Shelton should have focused more on the pacing of her story throughout, and less on descriptions of the Scottish countryside. If she can do this with future novels, I'd happily read the next book in this series (which leaves me feeling conflicted on whether or not I recommend the novel in the first place).

The characters were well-developed and mostly likable (one reason I so enjoy books set in Scotland and Ireland is that they remind me of my time living in the UK and how generally hospitable these people were compared to the English!), but I found it someone strange that the majority of them were described as "older." Most of the characters -- except for the protagonist and Hamlet (one of the workers at the bookstore) -- were over the age of 50. 

While I appreciate diversity in all fiction (including books and movies), I felt that this was somewhat less "diverse" and more focused on the elder characters than on a good mix of characters from various backgrounds and ages. This may be setting the stage for another book in this series, which I would find believable.

All in all, my favorite character was Elias, and I hated the way that Delaney used him and Aggie, but have to confess to having liked Delaney well enough to give another book featuring this character a shot.

I read the book in about two days, which says something for someone who usually only reads about one book every week and a half. It will be released in March of next year and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.

Recommended for very patient readers.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This is my honest opinion of the novel.

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Book Review #1: The Last Reading by Gillian Larkin

Title: The Last Reading

Author: Gillian Larkin

Published: August 13th, 2014

Page Count: 77

Format Read: Kindle

Series: Storage Ghost Cozy Mystery #1

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Date Read: October, 2015

Rating: 3/5 Stars
Recommendation: Recommended

Summary: Grace Abrahams works with her brother's second-hand shoppe by attending storage locker auctions to pick up merchandise for the store, and she meets ghosts in the abandoned lockers who are attached to items in the lockers. 

In The Last Reading, Grace meets Mae Moonshine, a psychic reader who was killed during a psychic fair. now she must work with Mae to find the killer and answer the questions the befuddled ghost has about why she had to die.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this quick and easy cozy mystery. In the last few years I've read a number of mysteries which cannot be solved based on the clues given to the reader, and Larkin successfully built a solvable story that wasn't so completely obvious that I groaned and rolled my eyes when I reached the climax of the story. She has considerable skill as a storyteller, which is what got me through this book. 

Before I get into the specifics, I do intend to pick up more books in this series to give them a further read. I liked the book and would recommend it.

That being said, I do feel that the characterizations were a bit thin and that the author could do with hiring a good editor with a mind toward fleshing the prose out. There were moments in the book when things changed unexpectedly -- and not in a good way. One example that comes to mind is that Grace is confident throughout the story that she can use her sleuth powers (like Jessica Fletcher, on Murder, She Wrote) to solve the mystery, and then she very suddenly loses all confidence and has a meltdown in front of Mae.

The characters could do with more definition, but were likable and I feel that all in all, these characters will follow through with more development in future stories.

It bears mentioning that while this book is the first in a series, it is a continuation from another series. Grace and her brother Frankie, as well as Pearl (the ghost of the thrift store) are characters from another series by the same author. This may be confusing if you don't understand this point from the beginning (as I didn't).

I like Ms. Larkin and would love to see more from her. 

Did you read The Last Reading? If so, what did you think of it? If not, do you plan to?

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