Review: Children of the Cross

Title: Children of the Cross

Genre: Paranormal

Author: Lawrence Van Hoof

Published: April 2012

Publisher: Lawrence Van Hoof

Available at: Amazon   – Smashwords

A golden fireball crashes into the Walters’ car during their drive to the cottage for summer vacation. Thirteen-year-old Cora survives without a scratch. Her twin brother, Nathan, spent two weeks in critical care and endures months of rehabilitation.

Nine years later, Cora works as a high-end call girl in Toronto and looks after her brother, who began suffering from schizophrenia during their last year of high school. On the streets, meanwhile, a supernatural mafia hunts for the Light. None of them knows where it will manifest. None of them knows how it will manifest. But their leader, Teresa, believes the Light is her only chance to destroy their progenitor before he wakes from his centuries-long sleep.

When their search finally bears fruit, Cora’s daily struggles explode into one for the twins’ very survival, perhaps requiring the ultimate sacrifice of all.

I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.

The Good:

The character development in this book was well done. You got a definite sense of each person.

I don’t necessarily find fault with the author’s style of writing. It’s very easy and smooth. He transitions from the view point of Cora the call girl to her brother Nathan to Alex, a soldier in the “supernatural mafia” well.

The author is also good at visual descriptions. I could picture the streets they walked very well. I could picture the dresses Cora wore. I could see Nathan’s apartment. It all came vividly to life.

This is a great dark and gritty novel. It gets into the harsh world of what it means to be a call girl. No illusions are left for the reader as to what a hard life Cora leads as she takes care of her schizophrenic brother.

The same can be said for Alex. As he fights off the nightmarish psychic hold of “the Father” with alcohol, his life is nothing but hardship. All his friends and loved ones have died or been taken away from him. This is starkly laid before you.

The Bad:

If anything, this book was too dismal and depressing. there wasn’t a single ray of hope until the very end. Reading it took extreme effort.

Cora’s life was so hard, I didn’t understand why she didn’t throw in the towel and run away. Instead we are given to understand she is some sort of church-going angel that sticks to what she believes is her duty no matter what.

If it weren’t for the blurb, I would have really had to puzzle out that Nathan was her twin. It barely mentions that fact. Yes, he’s her brother but her twin? No, that fact was only glanced at.

As for Alex? What a lost cause! He was running around town on some hell bent mission that I never did end up figuring out. I think it was revenge but he was also looking for “The Light”.  All the while he’s chugging beer after beer after beer in an effort to drown out “the Father”.   I got sick of his throwing beer bottles at the walls and his search for the next beer.

Then there was “the Mistress” and her hopelessly devoted soldiers. She was unstintingly cruel and spoiled. Yet she commanded the devotion of all these men? It just seemed skewed and wrong. She didn’t seem like the head of a “supernatural mafia” so much as a spoiled child given a bevvy of servants.

What about Paul? There are a whole lot of unanswered questions about him. So many I can’t enumerate them here without giving away too much of the story in case you do decide to read it.

And what about those weird sexual dreams Cora kept having? What was the point of those? Were they just meant to unsettle the reader? They seemed wildly divergent and off the mark. Not to mention disturbing.

The climax and resolution were chaotic and confusing. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. There was a kidnapping. They confronted “the Father”. People died. There was a big showdown. There was a happy ending? What? What just happened?

This book was like a buffet where you were just given an end table.

My experience with this book was most unfortunate. Your experience might be different. If it is, I’m willing to have a discussion.

Review – Timeless

Timeless 

by Gail Carriger

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire’s second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell’s acting troupe’s latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia’s enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

I was sad to learn that this is the last book of the series, but if ever was there a series to go out with a bang then this one was it! There are surprises in store in the end! I won’t go into them for fear of spoiling the story, but I had a really fun time.

Prudence, Alexia’s child, was adorable and I’m not generally a fan of little people. She was precocious without being bratty. She also had intriguing powers and idiosyncrasies.  It was quite enjoyable just to read about her. I think that Carriger is doing a series about Prudence sometime in the future and that should be fun.

Alexia was her indubitable self, strutting out her irrefutable logic in the face of each crisis at every turn. Even if it was done before I didn’t get tired of reading about it.

Biffy was further developed in this story and how I loved that he was. He was always one of my favorite characters. I won’t go into those developments. I think it’s best I leave those surprises to those who will read the book unsaid.

This was a great read. It had me wondering what on earth was going on and where the story was going. It kept me reading until the late hours of the night, anxious to know what would happen next. It had me laughing. It had my heart in my throat. All in all, a really wonderful book.

Death Screams

Death Screams

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

(also available on NOOK)

This is the third novel in the Death Series and it’s normallywritten in the first person through the eyes of the protagonist Caleb. This one starts off with Jade’s perspective. The book continues to take sporadic leaps off of Caleb’s narrative into other people’s perspective. I found this a bit dizzying, disconcerting, and bumpy.

Otherwise I thought this book was as much fun as the first two books. It was a fun, frolicking ride with a bunch of teenagers with paranormal powers in a futuristic setting.

There are very bad guys. Despicable to the bone. One of them is preying on Astral Projection students. When they’re in the Realm he attacks them at their most vulnerable.

If that’s not enough, Jade, Caleb’s girlfriend is becoming an emancipated adult and her abusive father is making threatening moves towards her. Carson and Brett, the antagonist jerks from previous years are back to their old tricks. Finally, Parker, the extraordinary government Grey Sheet necromancer keeps showing up at inopportune times with his zombies.

There’s a kick-ass grandpa. He made me wish he was my own.

Caleb is a sympathetic hero even if he’s prone to machismo that tends towards sexism. His intentions are good. If truth be told his girlfriend really does tend to be the helpless sort, which is frustrating to say the least.

More often then not, it does come off as being sweet. So it’s easier to swallow.

It’s a fast-paced book, filled with not only fun adventures but serious mayhem. I’ll admit that Blodgett is one of my favorite easy-to-read, fun-for-an-afternoon-escape Indie writers. I was looking forward to the release of this book for quite awhile and I wasn’t disappointed by it.

4 of  5 stars