Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5
Dating Sucks & Love Bites
Happy couple Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra have begun to garner national attention for their quirky New Orleans true-crime podcast, Shadowcast. When Lucy’s brother Harker disappears while researching the popular new dating app Thrall, they’re thrown into a real-life mystery. Aided by their social media expert, Arthur, and Harker’s professor, Van Helsing, they follow the trail, hoping to find Harker before it’s too late.
When their investigation crosses the path of a possible serial killer, the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur. And as they race against the app’s countdown clock, so does the line between friendship and love. What starts as a flirtatious rivalry between computer-savvy Arthur and techno-averse Van Helsing becomes much more, and Mina and Lucy’s relationship is tested in the fires of social media.
As they get down to the wire, the group discovers that nothing on their screens is as it seems—including their enemy.
Well, what a surprising review to write. I will say upfront that this story came back to me after another reviewer who simply could not get through 11 percent of it. Looking at the authors (two favorites of mine) and the story synopsis, I decided to read it. Their take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula sounded interesting and I’m always up for a new release from them.
Wow, just wow. I’m beyond astonished.
Whatever interesting themes or storyline these authors may have had is lost in a (at least for two readers here) totally indigestible format. Whether you are scrambling to gather facts and a storyline through a series of Twitter feeds to the Podcasts of Mina and Lucy or alternating Diary excerpts, the disjointed presentation on whole just loses the reader and, in fact the characters and plot.
How can there be any character development, relationship dynamics, or even storyline flow when there is basically nothing to follow in this fragmented and yes muddled format. It often comes across as more of a writer’s exercise than an actual novel.
So for me Thrall by Avon Gale and Roan Parrish is an indecipherable read, illegible style wise, born out of an interesting idea for a story and format that, imo, should have stayed in the minds and on the drawing boards of these authors. The imaginative idea of it is the only reason it got as high a rating as it did.
Cover Art is jarring and would be perfect for a murder podcast.
Sales Links:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2NNhs8v
All other vendors: https://www.books2read.com/u/bazLN6
Book Details:
Kindle Edition, 1st edition, 529 pages
Published September 27th 2018 by Philtre Press
ASINB07GY2H67X
Edition Language English