tcbotb_background

Monday, March 24, 2014

Priceless by Crystin Morgan





 From Smashwords:

A gang of art thieves is running rampage around the world, stealing contemporary paintings from galleries, museums and private collections. International police forces are baffled. To make matters worse the criminals are developing a taste for murder. As events unfold through the pages of the British national press, the outcome is more bizarre than anyone could have imagined.

It is certainly an interesting novella, although in all honesty it might be too short to review. The format is definitely novel: a short story/mystery created entirely through news articles. Just like novels that are composed of letters or journal entries, Priceless offers the reader a refreshing change. Although, creating a piece like this is unique, it does kind of sacrifice flow. So it really depends on the reader whether or not they will like this one. The writing is good and  the mystery okay. (Yes, the mystery is only okay. I think it's just too difficult to build suspense or use all those other nifty devices with this kind of writing.) If you're looking for something very quick and different, I'd say go ahead and give it a try. It was free on Smashwords when I picked it up.

Get it here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/383467

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Path of Pins by Hannah Kollef

Path of Pins (Paths, #2)
With the second installment of the Paths series, Path of Pins, the world remains on the brink of destruction. The Rose Queen has been destroyed but a powerful undead villain is released and he won't stop until until everything is consumed by darkness and the balance between life and death is lost. Kat and Jim try to stop this from happening while Kat continues to search for her father. Roger has been separated from his sister and Jim, and he must find his own way back to them along the path of pins.

For a second book in a series, it was good. The story moves along at a steady pace, although it's a much darker story than in the first book.  More characters are killed off and new fairytale and mythology elements are introduced. The characters' individual powers (Kat's, Jim's and Roger's) develop as they encounter increasingly dangerous situations. The descriptive content is particularly well done.

As with the first book, the bulk of the story is carried by Kat. However, in Path of Pins, Roger has a larger part as sections of the tale follow his journey as well. For me, the story didn't flow as well as it did in the first book because of this breaking up of plot lines. Also, by relating some of the folk tale content through Kat's visions or when some of the characters injected it through their own personal histories, the story didn't feel as seamless as it did in the first book. Overall it was a good story, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the first book.

I do recommend this one as a continuation of the Paths series and look forward