Darswords

Relic: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 1 by Anne Hagan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the book clubs I belong to mentioned that this book was free a while back. I went over to Amazon and found it free on Kindle Unlimited. Then a couple days after that the book was really free, so I turned in my ‘borrowed’ copy and got my own.

Look, um, I’m not crazy about mysteries or suspense/thrillers, so I was hesitant to read this. Turns out it wasn’t too anxiety producing. So I could move to my bedtime book. Well, that is, until near the end of the book when I realized I was still awake reading at 4 AM.

I did like the main characters. I liked how the author, Anne Hagan, divided the points of view between both of them. That way she could let us in both women’s thoughts and actions.

For most of the book, I found the writing fair. Towards the end though, sentences were hard to understand and there were words that should have been other words. Like the word ‘man’ should have been ‘main’. Maybe earlier in the book I wouldn’t have noticed but here we are in the thick of trying to solve the crime and the tempo of action has sped up. I often had to reread passages to understand what happened.

In my opinion, using cuss words should be full out, and in this case warranted, or not used at all. I felt spelling a cuss word with asterisks felt like cheating. It was another thing that pulled me out of the book. The other cheat was in how the book ended. We’re in the middle of the shake-down (or whatever that part of the arrest process is called and we don’t get to see what happened until later. Sorry, I nearly threw in a spoiler. Then when it is all explained, it felt anticlimactic. Then the next book has a preview which is that scene duplicated. Truly a letdown. I do understand why the things in that last part of the book got jumbled. When I write a fast scene or erotica I find my grammar and spelling give up the ghost. And my descriptions are horrid. Note the above review. But I hope that part and the beginning of the next book can live up to the rest of the first book.

By the way, this book can be rated “G”. What I mean is the sex scenes are kept to the minimum. For me, this story didn’t call for long erotic scenes. Maybe in the next book or so? Mostly the story kept to the mystery. Relationships are building, but the main characters try to keep it ‘professional’. I won’t say how successful they were, but the author did a good job keeping it real.

I hope I haven’t been too critical. I did like the book and do look forward to reading the rest of the series. Like I said, I liked the story and the characters. Worth the read, folks!

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