Kalen Cap

I received this book through Making Connections ARR Group, for an honest review, thank you.

Well, my honest review is I couldn’t finish Tangled Ties With a Manatee. I got to fifty pages and just had to stop, the book couldn’t hold my attention. The part I read is just about people, way too many people, and short little snippets of their work, their relationships or lack of and it jumps around between all of them with the manatee thrown in for a short bit of time. All the events surrounding the people are boring, mundane things. There’s nothing gripping that makes me want to continue reading the story or that makes me care about the characters.

… (mehr)

This is a fun read that will keep you turning pages and have you googling Shakespeare and ancient Greek history. More than anything, this books seems like Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons) for young adults. It’s full of ancient secrets hidden in plain sight and the reader is left wondering how much is true and how much has been made up to serve the plot. It’s a fun kind of confusion, and it kept me eagerly reading until the end.
What I liked best:
The book is filled with complicated characters, both teen-age and adult. It centers on teenagers who are realistically drawn, as they deal with their own issues and those created by the adults in their lives.
The author presents a lot of mystical and new age ideas, and yet structures the plot in way to leave the reader free to believe in as little or as much of them as the reader chooses. It’s a tough balancing act, but by the end it works.
The overall plot is interesting and the dangers feel real. It’s not a story which tries to trick the reader with gotcha-type surprises, but rather one that builds in complexity and then reaches a satisfying resolution.
What I liked least:
I felt the chapter titles gave away too much of what was about to happen.
The decoded message and other parts of the mystery occasionally become too complex to follow.
There were enough characters, referred to by first and last names, that I had to start a list so I could remember who was who.
A few issues were resolved too easily or things came together a little too well, even for a novel in this genre.
In spite of these minor issues, I enjoyed this book. As a YA novel, I give it a solid 4/5 and would recommend it to those of all ages who like tales of hidden codes, ancient relics and resurfaced mysteries from the past.… (mehr)

Northeast Ohio has been home for most of my life. Imagine my surprise when the story of a manatee is set a short two and a half miles south of me at the Grove City Zoo! It never occurred to me all the years that I traveled to Columbus that a crime thriller about a manatee would take me back to some very familiar places.

Ankh likes swimming in the large tank with the other manatees, but she develops a strange itching sensation. When she begins to rub her expanding body against the tank it worries the doctors and zoo officials. They are concerned about the pup she is carrying, and move Ankh to a smaller isolation tank.

College students, who have internships at the zoo and others who volunteer at a local environmental retreat center supply interest for the college age crowd. Then there is their professor who assigns extra credit to students who join in to canvass for the retreat center. However, the center is under investigation as a cult and several agents are undercover to determine the truth.

Challenging personal relationships tangle things even more. Kalen Cap does a wonderful job of developing interesting and believable characters. He develops each ones strength and weaknesses and ties their destinies to Ankh in a surprising twist that you will just have to read.

I felt that Jerry who is developmentally challenged is the true hero of this complex tale. He stumbles onto a couple of bumbling conmen. Meet his friends in the halfway house, and the people at the café where he works. Will they be able to save Ankh and her unborn pup when the power goes down?

Tangled Ties to a Manatee is a well-written novel that will keep readers engaged right through the epilog.… (mehr)