Noorilhuda

I almost hate to admit it, but I read this entire book. Not because it was a great read, but because I was infatuated with one of the main characters. And it has great bones.
Basically this book is about a Daniel, a ten-year-old boy who is kidnapped. He’s quickly found by police with minimal effort. The story starts off at a frantic pace. That’s Fiction Writing 101: Drop your readers in the middle of the action. But this time it didn’t pay off. Police officer Aurora Fox is brutal. Immediately she’s unlikeable, and one of the major flaws in the story is that the main protagonist has to have one redeeming quality, one thing that the readers can latch onto.
Aurora is aided by a local puppeteer who came to the police station to offer his help. He knew where Daniel was being held and who was behind it. He’s right, but that doesn’t make Aurora trust him. I found the puppeteer to be the character I was fascinated with. I had hoped to learn about this craft or see how he was able to empathize with Aurora and Daniel, but that never came to be. Instead, he turned into a creepy Norman Bates-esque character.
Part of the problem with this story is that English in not the author’s language and it shows in the choppy sentence structure and the badly placed backstories.
Another irritant is that smackdab in the middle of the book, the reader learns who kidnapped Daniel. After that revelation, the book is a mishmash irrelevant happenstances.
I give Catharsis 1 out of 5 stars.… (mehr)

Slow to start, but an overall heart-warming story

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you like historical period drama you might enjoy this book. The story builds very slowly to action; there is a lot of background exposition in the first portion of the book, and it seemed like some details were too drawn out. The main character is likable and it is easy to sympathize with her considering her husband's unfair treatment. Everything becomes more interesting when Jane hires a lawyer to get her father's business back and restore her reputation, because I think no reader actually wants to see a main character remain destitute. There is a glimmer of hope in the budding friendship between Jane and Lockwood despite a few misunderstandings between them. There is satisfying end to this story. The romantic touches are very subtle. The last 200 pages are what kept me reading.
… (mehr)

I find it difficult to give this book a fair rating. There are passages that are extremely good and merit a good three stars and other, long tracts that greatly distract from the pace of the story and spoil the atmosphere and mood the author has created.

Aurora is a damaged and angry cop hunting for a skilled paedophile. A strange old man who claims to be a psychic turns up at the precinct to assist Aurora and she is ordered to work with the psychic to recover a missing boy.

Aurora was too violent a character for my tastes. If she had not been a police officer her aggressive reaction to numerous events and other characters in the book would have been more believable - for instance in a diner she repeatedly slap a mother who has used too much force to reprimand a child, she kills and shoots a number of men who are suspects and should surely have been taken into custody, she exhibits disturbing behaviour on a number of occasions yet works without a police partner...

The old man/psychic is similarly a weird character with secrets to hide. However, I enjoyed the interchange between old Mr Caine and Aurora in many places. The unravelling of the mystery around Mr Caine was also enjoyable. The way the author reveals Aurora's own damaged history was less skilfully handled - being dumped in several long tracts which I found difficult to wade through.

That said, the author has created a number of non-stereotyped characters whose quirky behaviours have an appeal. The District Attorney in the story is also a weirdo and his own story and that of his wife is an interesting addition, as is the somewhat odd story of the mother and father of the missing child.

(end note - I found the terminology and reactions of Aurora to be homophobic, which I presume was intentional on the part of the author as part of Aurora's character.)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest, non-reciprocal review.

… (mehr)

The best one word description of this book is "raw." The characters are described and portrayed with all their exaggerated flaws and they are a little unusual, if not a lot unusual. Don't know what I expected from the title but it does not follow the psychological term I was taught in college. The book has some twists and turns to keep you interested. All in all I'm glad to have read it, but it is an unusual book to say the least.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the Isms" "Wesley's Wars" "To Whom It May Concern" and "Tell Me About the United Methodist Church"… (mehr)