Author: Shannon Mayer
Publisher: Shannon Mayer
Rating: WARTY!
This is book 6 in the 'Rylee Adamson' series, and I have not read the others, so this review is based solely on what I read of this one volume. I picked this up because it was free on Amazon and looked interesting, but in the end I find I cannot recommend it.
Perhaps if you've read and enjoyed the previous five volumes, this would be more enjoyable, but for me, having read part of it, I didn't honestly feel it was something I could get into, even starting with volume one, especially if that that one is written in the same breathless young-adult tone which this one was. I really don't get why this one would show up as a free special instead of volume one - surely that volume would be the one to promote if you want to get people into your series wouldn't it?! This particular technique suggests that sales are not quite what a writer might dream of for this series.
I'm not a fan of series. With few and treasured exceptions, it's a lazy way to write, retreading old stories and characters, trying to wring them for more. It's like using the same tea-bag twice. Ugh! I actually didn't realize this was part of a series when I picked this to read. I paid for that in that I honestly couldn't read it after the first few chapters. The writing, as I've indicated, didn't appeal to me. It felt adolescent - more like fanfic than anything else. There was no real substance to it, and nothing in it to really bring you up to speed (with one interesting exception which I will note shortly) or to serve as a refresh for those who are following this series, but for whom it may have been a while since they read the last volume.
The writer seems to have tried to pack this full of every fantasy creature she could think of, and it was too much for the bag to hold. It exploded in all directions, and I just couldn't get into it. This really wasn't because it was volume six; it was because of the writing. It was way too rushed and conversational, with little descriptive prose, and what description there was seemed to have more to do with social interaction, wise-cracking, and love interest than ever it did with life-threatening situations, dire straits experiences, and contingency planning.
It was because of that, that it felt completely inauthentic to me and this is what put me off - this and the fact that out of nowhere, ads were popping up on my phone screen for this novel series even as I was actively reading it! I'm sorry, but that's a massive no-no. Even had I been enjoying this, I would have ditched if after about the second or third time an unwanted add flashed up on the screen.
Clearly this is a new trick (at least to me!), but this novel had a somewhat unusual format to begin with. I've seen many ebooks where you can tap the chapter title in the contents list and go to the chapter, and tap that chapter title to return to the contents. This is a really useful feature. This novel took that idea a step further in that you could tap on a character name marked as a link in the text, and be transported to a glossary at the back of the book, where you could read a very brief description of the character. Tapping the name there takes you back to the text you've just left. Finally, ebooks start to grow up!
I liked this feature, but it really wasn't of much use in bringing me into the story because it was so limited. Yes, it told me briefly who this character was, but that really didn't help in getting up to speed with what was going on, who was whom, and where the story had come from or was headed. Again, this is my fault for not having read the previous volumes, but I expected a bit more help than this even for regular readers of the series.
This is one of the many problems with series - they're typically published a year or so apart, so what are readers supposed to do? Make detailed notes with which to refresh their minds before they read the next volume? Read the previous volume(s) each time before the newly-released one can be read? That doesn't work for me! I'd rather wait until the entire series is out - or until there's only one more volume to go, and then read them all at once. But usually I'd rather not read a series at all. I prefer to find something new each time I open a novel. I like to smell the roses rather than find myself trudging through heavily trampled foliage where there's little new or interesting and rarely anything of beauty on view.
