Tag Archives: paranormal

Whispers From Another World

Book Review of Whispers From Another World (Whitney Powers #1), by Jason Paul Rice

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I received a Audible code for a copy of Whispers From Another World (by Jason Paul Rice) from the narrator Tiffany Willams.

Description from Goodreads:
A strong-willed woman. A new cop on the local force. Two lonely souls find each other and embark on a paranormal mystery adventure.

Twelve-year-old Whitney Powers looks at the books on supernatural phenomena in a dark corner of the Granny Larson Library. As she stares, the bookshelf begins to shake and a prism-like flash of light blinds her momentarily.

Whitney goes missing for the next three days. Finally, a local patrolman finds her a few miles from the library. Her explanation of the incident causes her to be ridiculed for the next eighteen years. Despite countless opportunities to leave and end the abuse, she’s stayed in this small town.

Why has she always remained close to the Granny Larson Library, which is supposedly haunted?

What happened during those three days that’s forcing her to stay back and work at the library?

Review:
I really hate doing this. I always feel guilty when I offer to review a book and then have to say bad things about it. I know there are reviewers out there that request a book to do just that. I’m not that person. I go into a book hoping to love it and I’m disappointed when I don’t.

But honestly, this story just does not hang together. The ghosts are extraneous to the plot. Whitney is a random ‘chosen one,’ special for no apparent reason and far, far too perfect. But worst of all is the attempt an being a police procedural. Reasonably, if she didn’t end up dead she’d be in jail for impersonating a police officer and interfering in an active investigation, instead of being given some vague ‘clearance’ and invited to work with the special police. None of it works! At all.

I try not to generalize. But I honestly think some male authors shouldn’t try to write female characters. Whitney is so incredibly unlikable I almost can’t verbalize it. The things she’s supposed to think are important just make her horrible. Her whole life comes down to pettily rubbing ‘her man’ into the face of people who made fun of her. As if having a man makes her complete. I cannot tell you how many times I rolled my eyes, said “gross” out loud or made gagging motions. For real, if I hadn’t accepted this in exchange for a review I wouldn’t have finished it. It’s that bad.

The writing seems mechanically fine, though I had the audio so I can’t be certain. But its the sort that leans heavily on ‘very,’ ‘extremely,’ ‘really’ and far too many adjectives. Tiffany Williams did a fine job with the narration, but the story is an utter flop.

Book Review: Midnight Crossroad, by Charlaine Harris

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midnight crossroad cover

Description from Goodreads:

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth…

My Review:

Honestly, it wasn’t as good as I’d expected. If I didn’t know this woman has dozens of books to her name, if I hadn’t read almost all the Sookie Stackhouse novels and know she can write, I might call the writing in this book amateurish! In the beginning, I thought it was an effect, something she was putting on just for the prologue. But it just didn’t get much better. I liked the characters and all, but the writing just didn’t flow particularly well. Was there maybe not as much editing as in past books? I’m willing to give book 2 a chance, to see if it improves. But unless it gets better, I won’t be continuing the series.

The Spirit Tree

Book Review of The Spirit Tree (Tess Lamar #1), by Kathryn M. Hearst

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I received an Audible credit for a copy of Katheryn M. Hearst‘s The Spirit Tree through AudioBookBook.

Description from Goodreads:
Tessa, a southern girl with a crazy family and a brand new college degree, wants nothing more than for her life to start. When her uncle dies unexpectedly, she inherits more than his old truck. Lifetimes of family secrets unravel and nothing will ever be the same. After learning that she is not only a Fire Bird, but also half Nunnehi—the Cherokee equivalent to a fairy—Tessa is forced to fight for her life. Good thing she was raised by two tough southern ladies.

Review:
Pretty good. I liked the characters, Bryson was especially wonderful and I liked that Tessa had a backbone. The writing was smooth, as was Holly Adams‘ narration. Mostly I liked the book, but I had a few gripes.

I’m not down with the pointless love triangle. There was no need for it, but more importantly, it meant I never really felt the actual romance in the story. Sure, Tessa chose one man over another and we’re told why, but the whole thing was just too diluted by there being two men.

Similarly, the secondary mystery (or maybe primary, it did come first) was solved too easily and then just disappeared from the plot in favor of another one. So there too, having two mysteries meant neither was strong enough on its own. Plus, it made the book feel awful long.

There were also a few TSTL moments in which Tessa threw herself into danger and had to be rescued. I got tired of her apologizing to Bryson for endangering herself.

Lastly, I’m a bit iffy with the use of Native American mythology in the plot. I’m not screaming appropriation or anything, but there were several occasions where I kind of had to side-eye the book.

On a broader, genre level, I have to ask why young women in such books are never raised to know their own heritage, such that some man (or men) have to step in and teach them amidst a crisis. This is practically a constant in fantasy and I’m ALWAYS confused by parents/guardians who raise their wards without teaching them the basics of their powers. I mean, if you’re a shifter or have magic, shouldn’t learning about them be as expected as, say, teaching a young girl about the period she’ll have one day? Why do they NEVER do this? Why?

Despite my few complaints, the book is worth a read and I’ll be happy to read more of Hearst’s writing, but it wasn’t perfect.