Paul McAvoy
Genre(s): Paranormal, Supernatural
Published: July 18th 2015
Pages: 180
Rating: 2.5 stars
“On a foggy morning, thirteen year old Jessica wakes up in a strange forest, not knowing how she got there, but with a feeling she is being watched. Helped to a local police station, memories start to come back, about where she has been the last few days… She remembers a deal she had to make to stay alive… to obtain a small bottle of vampire’s blood. With the use of a magical phone, her journey takes her to the English Lake District, a lonely Scottish village and the bright lights of New York. She meets mysterious men who work for a secret government organisation and a vampire who seems willing to help, but is he and his teenage vampire friends to be trusted? On the run, she must reach a government hide out before her adversaries catch up with her and take her to a realm of darkness and blood… ”
A copy of this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review
From the start, things looked interesting and promised to be good. The tone of the story was set early on, as was the scene. I instantly got a sense of foreboding and air of creepiness, with the narrator struggling to remember things and talking of drowning. However, I do think there was an overkill of ellipses in the initial setup. They’re good for creating suspense and uncertainty… when they’re used sparingly.
I’ll admit that I was surprised to discover that the narrator was female as she didn’t read as female at all to me. It wasn’t something I minded; in fact it was quite refreshing to read a character like that. She came across as quite smart and I liked the way she kept calm, despite what had happened to her.
The writing style was easy and pretty fast to read, with good variation in regards to sentence length and structure. Nothing was jarring or choppy, yet nothing dragged on and on either. I did, however, notice a few more poetic and metaphorical lines had been included every now and again, and these felt a bit off to me. It wasn’t that they were bad, they just didn’t fit the tone and overall style, in my opinion.
The dialogue could be a bit more refine, and it was here that my biggest problem emerged. Adults didn’t read as adults; they came across as childish and trying too hard to be funny. There were also times when I found it difficult to follow conversations (but that may just have been me and nothing to do with the dialogue). Contractions needed to be used more often to make some sentences less formal and stilted, especially when the young narrator spoke.
I’m not entirely sure of the intended age range of this book, but to me it came across as children’s or young teen paranormal fiction. I don’t have a problem with that, but it was a bit of a surprise after the initial setup, as things did seem to take a bit of an odd turn, most notably when Jessie gets set her three tasks.
Overall, this had its ups and its downs. There were moments I thought could have been better and moments that were action-packed. Some of the more action-packed scenes did feel a little out of place next to the more subdued parts, but in the end it wasn’t a bad read. That being said, I did prefer So... I Met a Demon.
Paul McAvoy and his work can be found at...
Website
Amazon UK
Amazon US
