By Abby L. Vandiver
Story rating – 3
Editorial rating – 2
Justin Dickerson is an archaeologist suffering from a case of manic depression. Walking through her life like a lost soul, she survives with the support of her family and her work. Until she stumbles upon an ancient secret that captures her imagination and sends her on a quest to translate ancient documents buried with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The repressed documents explain the origins of civilization and some of the great mysteries of the world. Will it change how we view the world? The foundations of our religion? And if you were destined to receive this information, what would you do with it?
This story moved slowly for me, spoon feeding pieces of information to unlock a secret thousands of years old that would change the course of history. The ultimate revelation of that information was an interesting concept, but the slow start coupled with the lack of a professional editor made it difficult to stick with the story to its conclusion. I was 75 percent through before it caught me and carried me to the end. While the author's characterizations are strong and the story is interesting, structurally, I struggled to get to the payoff.
Totally agree with your rating. I am slowly loosing interest 3/4 into it. Too slow moving providing droplets of information here and there, little suspense and in need of a good editor.
ReplyDeleteGood review
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ReplyDeleteThanks, Toni. She put a lot of work into this, and the concept is interesting. There is a lot of good in this book, but yes, she really needs an editor, not just for the typos and misused words ("sorted" details, rather than "sordid" comes immediately to mind) but also for the flow and presentation of GMC.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Karla for the honest review. I am writing another book and the constructive criticism helps me to be a better writer and tell a better story. It is so much better than getting a a lower star rating and not know what you can do to improve. I have really put a lot of thought into what you wrote. I did the editing myself and found that not to be a good idea. I've fixed "sordid," and welcome any other comments or corrections you may offer. Thank you, again. Abby Vandiver, Author of In the Beginning. (Tried to post this a couple of times, so if it comes up more than once please delete others.)
DeleteThanks for giving me the opportunity to read it :-) I wish you the best on your future endeavors. It is my experience that with each book, we get a little better - the old "practice makes perfect" cliche. As I mentioned earlier, this book isn't awful (there's a lot of good in it). It just needs a little "Lemon Pledge."
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