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4.0 out of 5 stars
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4 star
23%
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2 star
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1 star
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Kassy
2.0 out of 5 stars Coulda Been a Contender
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2017
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The best I could give this poorly written and edited book is two stars. The premise of the story is great. It held great potential for an intriguing mystery with a paranormal flavor. It could have been a really fun read. Unfortunately. after the first few pages, it turned into a mishmash of typos, lack of continuity, with scenes that should have been in one chapter showing up in later chapters out of context. The author switches freely from first person to second or third person. Sometimes in the same sentence. I didn't want to give up on it. I finished it, but the last third of the book was boring.

If this were a work handed in for a college creative writing course I would grade it D, because of the really good story idea, and there was real effort put into the story.

For this author I would tell him to take a few classes, get some first readers and some beta readers who will give him honest criticism to help him with the editing, and reissue the book. It could be good instead of sad.
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Stephen MannTop Contributor: The Beatles
1.0 out of 5 stars Eeeeeeeeee-xposition Where The Tale Gets Buried In The Words
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2018
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Oh crumbs, another book where the author deperately needed to get "Show! Show don't tell!" yelled at him often and loud.

CAVEAT: I only made it twenty pages into this book.

Do you remember the ludicrous opening exposition for that late-80s "Kung Fu" reboot? The one that basically tells the entire plot of a show they never got to make that would have been the prequel to the one you are about to see? No?

No worries. You can get the same experience with this book.

It starts promisingly enough with a mean lawman unintentionally dealing more harm to a young man than he intended, leaving him unconscious and bleeding in the street and legging it.

But then the young man is found by an old Chinese guy. The old Chinese guy was sold to slavers by his jealous brothers when he was a kid gifted with magic powers and finally fought free of his enslavement to grow up avoiding being noticed. Anyway, he takes the kid and trains him as a shaman, using techniques he, the old Chinese guy, picked up in India (WTF? When did the old guy get the time to do this? Never mind, the exposition is still going on) and the kid comes back, enacts revenge and then we get to the heist in which we can barely hear the conversation of the truck's crew over the exposition going on between their sentences. Then we get to the private detective, Hokee Wolf - who was called that because he was left with no parents and was taken in by a shaman yaddayaddayadda.

That was where I gave up. Page 20. My ears ringing from the exposition being fired at them (metaphorically - you see my ears were not hearing the print, couldn't have done even had the print spoken aloud since that accident with an exploding exhaust system, when I was dragged, stunned, from under my car by a passing shaman who shared his knowledge with me over many years some of them in Tibet and etc magic powers etc long years of study etc).

All the elements of this clunker could have been woven into a compelling and vital story. But lucky for us the author didn't know how.

Advice to the author: Secondary characters can be used to deliver small chunks of exposition and backstory in an interesting way. A former girlfriend of the kid. A partner in the detective's business. A friendly diner can hold all sorts of secondary characters for this purpose. An ex-wife. In fact, there are almost infinite possibilities but, and this is a big but, Omnisceient Narrator isn't one of them, as your book so ably demonstrates. Inner dialog works too, but works best in Mis-en-Scene situations.

Not recommended. Really not recommended.
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jbb
1.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea not well executed
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2017
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It's the authors first novel so I tried to give it as much of a chance as possible. The story sounded appealing but the book didn't deliver for me. I'm open to stories in which characters search for knowledge in another realm, but it seemed too facile here. The story was almost incidental to describing a supernatural belief system, instead of the other way around--telling a story that happens to be set in that belief system.

The book desperately needs an edit. Grammar is rudimentary, run-on sentences with unusual word order abound, and punctuation (especially commas) was truly baffling. There are frequent misspellings and incorrect word choices, such as building an 'alter' for a ceremony, when that's an 'altar'. There is a lot of repetition (most notably in chapter 8), so I kept thinking, didn't I just read this exact thing a page or two earlier?

I had to persuade myself twice not to abandon the story, because I find it hard to enjoy a story told amateurishly. As a writer myself (but not of novels), I find it very distracting to constantly ignore my Inner Editor while reading. Others might not have that problem.
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Kindle Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Missed the mark
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2017
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There was something strong in the story line somewhere, or I wouldn't have read to the last page. I really don't think excruciating details of meal after meal was moving the story along. Big man, beautiful woman 'thoughts' WAY overused. In a climax scene Glory and Hokee are running through the hotel the girl/woman (make up your mind) "hardly noticed the lovely floral arrangement the hotel manager...blah, blah, blah. There were so many times the author was 'teaching' us, rather than the character showing us. Like I said, something in that book had strength, but it was a tough read at times... especially when the Native American mixed Hokee has Navajo rugs in his home and the description includes woven by Navajo 'squaws'. REALLY! Last I knew that was a derogatory word.
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V. Stewart
3.0 out of 5 stars Meh
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2017
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I lost interest in the book and stopped reading about 2/3 of the way through. The proofreader missed a fair number of errors. The biggest blooper was as follows: if one wants a delicious steamed seafood treat, it's mussels and not muscles. The comments on shamanism, while entertaining, are not always accurate. Also, the term half breed is offensive, kind of like the n word. This is a shame because when I first started the book, I was enthusiastic about reading it.
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Top reviews from other countries

Y. Coyle
3.0 out of 5 stars The worst example seems to be that a discovery talked about ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2017
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I agree with some of the previous reviewers in that the editing in this book leaves a lot to be desired. The worst example seems to be that a discovery talked about in chapter 6 as having happened, is not actually made until chapter 7 and the way these chapters are written it looks like chapter 7 should come before chapter 6. Ignoring these and other editing blunders I enjoyed the story subject & characters but the inconsistent editing annoyed me so much it would prevent me from reading another of these books.
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JimAsh
4.0 out of 5 stars Easy to read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2019
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It's well written it kept me interested inasmuch that I finished the book just a bit unsure of some of the content but I do know there are some strange things out there and I have been well travelled in the distant past and have had some strange encounters of my own so give the book a read and figure it out for yourself.
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S. W. Price
4.0 out of 5 stars Unusual
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2017
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This story is intriguing and interesting, and could be great if not for the almost obligatory sex interest. It is too wordy, detailed and repetitive, making it clunky instead of sharp and pacey. It could do with a pointed red pencil.
An unusual detective story set in the mid west of the USA.
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Kandy
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and different
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 5, 2017
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I would have given it 5 stars but for the repetitive beautiful sexy reporter and handsome Indian hunk we got the message first time so didn't need to be told again. Otherwise it was an intriguing different story and interesting info on Native American shamans and doppelgängers with a good fast pace.
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John
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 2, 2019
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Something worth reading. Nice change of pace from others. Some good descriptive work which is missing from parts but generally a good read.
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