Blurb:
Everything
changed when Raven, a conduit, accidentally walks in on a slave auction. She
only wants a night out with her friends before her next case as a paranormal
liaison with the police. Instead, she ends up in possession of a shifter and
his guardian. When your touch can kill, living with two touchy-feely shifters
is a disaster waiting to happen.
To
make matters worse, a vicious killer is on the loose. As mutilated bodies turn
up, she can't help fear that her new acquisitions are keeping secrets from her.
The strain of keeping everyone alive, not to mention catching the killer,
pushes her tenuous control of her gift and her emotions to their limits. If
they hope to survive, they must work together as a pack or risk becoming hunted
themselves.
A
Raven Investigations Novel : Book 1
Review:
I received this book in return for an honest review. Unfortunately, that's what I gave to it.
The blurb I read for Electric Storm was shorter and did not include the obvious errors this one does. The first sentence should read: "Everything changES when Raven,...walks in..." or "Everything changed when Raven,...walkED..."
The blurb I read for Electric Storm was shorter and did not include the obvious errors this one does. The first sentence should read: "Everything changES when Raven,...walks in..." or "Everything changed when Raven,...walkED..."
Blurbs should always be written entirely in present
tense, but even more importantly, one should never change tenses in the middle
of a sentence. And there should not be a
space between the word "Novel" and the colon, either. This book is riddled with grammatical errors
such as this. The author thanks her
editor, but I have to wonder if her editor ever took third grade English. One reason I prefer working with a publisher
is that my books go through two editors--one for content and one for spelling
and grammar.
Otherwise, the plot is engaging and the characters are
well-drawn. Maybe Ms. Brutger's editor
was strictly a content person. Electric
Storm is told entirely in the point-of-view of Raven, so there's no pesky
head-hopping from one POV to another.
There's plenty of action without too many "info dumps"--long
narrative passages that slow the action without furthering the plot. I would have liked to have learned more about
the labs that created Raven's condition.
A flashback would have been nice, but Ms. Brutger's allusions to them
gave us a pretty good idea of the horrors there. Finally, the consistency's good. She doesn't have a cast on her right leg in
one scene and on the left in another (a famous anomaly from Hitchcock's Rear
Window with Jimmy Stewart).
Finally, while Electric Storm wraps up the case upon
which Raven is working, it leaves many questions unanswered about her personal
life, and ends on a cliff-hanger.
Admittedly, it is the first book in a series, but it does not stand
alone. A good series is written in a way
that is compelling enough that you want to buy the next book, but neatly enough
that each book stands on its own so you don't HAVE to buy the next book. Each book should have its own beginning,
middle and end. It feels manipulative to
end one book with the beginning of the next.
I don't want to have to suffer through another travesty of bad grammar
to discover who the people were who knocked at Raven's door at the end of
Electric Storm. They belong in the first
chapter of Electric Moon. You can always
include the first chapter of Book Two at the end of Book One. That gives the reader a choice whether or not
to read the teaser that continues the series.
If you failed third grade English and phrases like
"becoming hunted" instead of "being hunted" or "had
gave" instead of "had given" don't bother you, this book should
entertain you. If grammar matters to
you, then give it a wide berth. You'll
be too distracted mentally doing the job Ms. Brutger's line or copy editor should
have done to enjoy the story.
The Chicago Manual of Style is the preferred grammar
reference for most editors. I suggest
all authors who plan to publish independently purchase a copy and study it, or
hire two editors--one for content, and a copy or line editor who owns The
CMoS. Write your first draft and let it
sit for at least a month. Then go over
it for content--head-hops, info dumps, and consistency. Let it sit another month while you study The
CMoS and then go over it backward and look for grammar errors. After you've done that, send it to a good
editor who also owns The CMoS, because you'll never catch everything on your
own.
Length: 342 Pages
Prices:
Print:
$11.99
Digital:
$3.99
Sounds interesting!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but it doesn't end.
ReplyDelete