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Book 19, 2013
Aug. 31st, 2013 11:15 pmThursday night, I finished the book Retrieval by Jeanie London.
It was a paranormal romance, with the paranormal element being that the main characters were dead. They weren't angels; rather, they were dead souls who were lingering in the "Passage" before moving on. It was a difficult book to follow. Apparently, it was a sequel to a short that the author had published in an anthology. That's fine, but she could have given some more backstory. Another thing that bothered me was how long it took for the male lead and the female lead to actually meet. Conventional wisdom says that in a romance, the two should meet within the first chapter. In this instance, it took half the book. Guh.
The premise was that newly-dead Roman Barrymore, the head of the anti-terrorist Sanctus in life, has been tasked to fight against legions of demons for control of the Passage. He is to gather a team, and one of the main people he needs is Nina de Lacy. She has the unusual gift of being able to see souls, which is a skill she never used in life but has been using in death. Nina has been dead for over 300 years, and she has been missing for several weeks. Her male companions, Damian and Gray, have no idea where she is, but Roman knows. Nina has been "crowding" a living soul, meaning she is residing within a living woman. It is considered an egregious sin to do so, and Roman must "retrieve" Nina to proceed with his battle.
So...half the book blathers on about how Roman recruits Gray and Damian to help him retrieve Nina, and the second half consists of the newly-formed Soul Retrieval Unit planning how to thwart a coup being plotted by the demons.
Sound complicated? It was! My reading comprehension is top-notch, if I say so myself, and I was having trouble following this. The author had far too many points of view going on, didn't explain some things very well, and there were maddening editing errors in the first half of the book that made me have to read a line two or three times to understand what the heck the author was trying to convey.
The only thing that saved this book is the fact that the story line was rather unique and engrossing. It's just that following it was a chore. Oh, and Nina was a Mary Sue, which didn't help matters. She was unbelievably beautiful, Gray and Damian both loved her (in life and death), and Roman falls for her, too. Of course. *yawns*
I give this one two stars...one for the unique premise and the other for effort.
★★
It was a paranormal romance, with the paranormal element being that the main characters were dead. They weren't angels; rather, they were dead souls who were lingering in the "Passage" before moving on. It was a difficult book to follow. Apparently, it was a sequel to a short that the author had published in an anthology. That's fine, but she could have given some more backstory. Another thing that bothered me was how long it took for the male lead and the female lead to actually meet. Conventional wisdom says that in a romance, the two should meet within the first chapter. In this instance, it took half the book. Guh.
The premise was that newly-dead Roman Barrymore, the head of the anti-terrorist Sanctus in life, has been tasked to fight against legions of demons for control of the Passage. He is to gather a team, and one of the main people he needs is Nina de Lacy. She has the unusual gift of being able to see souls, which is a skill she never used in life but has been using in death. Nina has been dead for over 300 years, and she has been missing for several weeks. Her male companions, Damian and Gray, have no idea where she is, but Roman knows. Nina has been "crowding" a living soul, meaning she is residing within a living woman. It is considered an egregious sin to do so, and Roman must "retrieve" Nina to proceed with his battle.
So...half the book blathers on about how Roman recruits Gray and Damian to help him retrieve Nina, and the second half consists of the newly-formed Soul Retrieval Unit planning how to thwart a coup being plotted by the demons.
Sound complicated? It was! My reading comprehension is top-notch, if I say so myself, and I was having trouble following this. The author had far too many points of view going on, didn't explain some things very well, and there were maddening editing errors in the first half of the book that made me have to read a line two or three times to understand what the heck the author was trying to convey.
The only thing that saved this book is the fact that the story line was rather unique and engrossing. It's just that following it was a chore. Oh, and Nina was a Mary Sue, which didn't help matters. She was unbelievably beautiful, Gray and Damian both loved her (in life and death), and Roman falls for her, too. Of course. *yawns*
I give this one two stars...one for the unique premise and the other for effort.
★★
