Bryn Donovan

Meh. I found myself skipping over a lot of this. This is probably a good book for people who are thinking about writing, or who are not happy with their writing. If you've been writing for a while, there isn't anything new here, and you may find yourself getting frustrated with it. From my own perspective, I've already got loads of lists of names and interesting words and character traits built up, so it didn't really offer me much and I found it rather simplistic. I think it would also be helpful if you were writing in English as a second language, or your English language skills were poor. For me, part of the fun of writing is to explore language and find the words to fully express what I mean, looking for the 'feel' of a phrase rather than simply a bunch of letters stuck together. This book reminded me more of painting by numbers than free expression so it wasn't really my cup of tea.… (más)

This is a decent enough paranormal romance read. Quick and easy, but feels like it's lacking depth. I didn't have any big problems with the plot (other than an issue with the end). It's a fairly standard haunting story but it didn't have anything extra. It wasn't spooky or scary and didn't move me. I liked the characters and cared about what happened to them. I believed their relationship and feelings for each other, and even thought their ending was cute. But I didn't feel like I really connected with them. It was a strange sort of disconnect.

The biggest problem I had with this book is the editing. Transitions in the book were either completely lacking or fairly bad. It made the story hard to follow sometimes as scenes and time would just jump in the very next paragraph with no warning. There were a lot of little things wrong such as misspelled and missing words. ("David set the phone down gain." "…but the times were together… we were really happy. In spite of everything.” "Bitterness welled up in her as rose to her feet." "David set the phone down and took her hand in both of hers." "There were all upholstered with purple scratchy material.") This line where it was third person and first person in two successive sentences: “Oh.” David sat paralyzed. What do I say now? (the first person sentence isn't italicized in the book). And several scenes where a character would move somewhere, not move back, but somehow complete the action all over again: "David kneeled down beside the bones. 'It’s got to be our guy, though.' He knelt down by the bones and dusted the dirt from what remained of the clothing."
"Andi got to her feet, her eyes blazing. 'I am not crazy.'" Four dialogue paragraphs later… "David crouched down in front of Andi and put his hand on her shoulder."
"Andi sat down near him as he took out a set of keys big enough for a custodian…" Three paragraphs later… "Andi ignored him and sat down."

Like I said, the plot was okay and there was nothing really wrong with it other than the fact I think the resolution of the problem was too easy. It doesn't quite make sense to me that everything would be taken care of by that one action and nothing else. Especially since pieces of the house would be left from a fire. Wouldn't the demon still inhabit those bits? Also, considering they talked over the ramifications of taking that certain action it seems odd to me that nothing happened to them after they did it. They talked about arson investigators being able to tell if a fire was started on purpose. In the end they'd trace it to the faulty tool but it would have been very obvious that the varnish had been haphazardly thrown all over the floors and walls. I think that would have raised questions.

There were also some lingering questions that were never addressed, or at least not addressed adequately in my opinion. Such as the scars on David's back – we know it was probably his father, but I figure there's more of a story there. Or whether or not Edgar was ever human. Where did the demon come in and possess him and then the house? The biggest question I had that wasn't answered was whether or not George and Gordon were evil because they were born of evil or because they were taken over by Edgar/the demon. It left off with us thinking that they were irredeemably evil when that might not be the case.

In the end, this book was just okay. Definitely not bad but I don't feel much more for it than that. I'm not sure how it could have been improved other than better editing.… (más)