nancy campione

There are things I admire in this book, the characters are strong and the author's style of writing is quite good. But it had some flaws I can't get past. The genre is horror, but the scenes that should be frightening are so drawn out they lose their punch. The author has for some reason chosen to wander off on some rather lengthy tangents that have no relevance to the plot. And the ending is abrupt, ineffective, and for lack of a better word, silly. I will read this author again, but this book comes up short.

Silly, uninspired plot of no particular interest. So unmemorable, I'm having difficulty using all of Audible's required fifteen words.

Entertaining, light listen. Seriously frivolous premise, stretched thin, but nevertheless holds it's own in the whole arcane ancient texts, mysticism genre.

The biggest flaw is the main character, who is a complete stereotypical jerk. Puzzling choice by the author, since this guy is so annoying he becomes distracting at times.

Wish I could give it 3 1/2 stars.

This starts off with a full set of characters, with whom great pains are taken to establish motivation, personality, etc. About 25% into it, you begin wondering why the author devoted so much time & effort on them.

Similar questions arise throughout..almost seems as though the author was short on plot, so just kept churning out incidental characters.

So much about this book is drawn out & filled with tedious detail. And then, an abrupt, random ending.

That being said, there were some intriguing stretches where I became involved. Not awful, but disjointed & ultimately unsatisfying.

Although I've previously enjoyed Russo's work, this was disappointing. Tedious pace, tired humor, uninspired characters. Overall, I was bored.

I'm a King fan, but this book is, in all ways, silly. And it's not scary, it's depressing. Lots of bitterness & anger in this one. That being said, I still enjoyed his characters & humor.

Richly drawn characters and a well evoked sense of time and place overcome the disturbing themes of this book.

Well written, enjoyable read.

My least favorite of Brown's three Robert Langdon books.

Brown's formulaic theme is becoming stale, which would be more easily overlooked it the plot were more engaging.

Just a light, mildly entertaining listen.

Wow, Koontz ran out of steam on this one! Seems like he was obligated to write the third & final installment to this series, and with great reluctance and absolutely no thought threw this together. Or maybe he just needs a co-author to produce something worthwhile. Don't bother.

Rambling, plodding writing & shallow characters, with little bits of historical trivia thrown in here and there. Ambitious effort, but it never succeeds in creating an interesting or believable storyline. In short, tedious.

Started strong, with a fresh & intriguing slant on vampires. Unfortunately, once the groundwork was laid, no story followed. Just degenerated into good guys chasing bad guys, and good guys chasing bad guys, and .......