Lassoed, knocked down, face planted in the dirt -- best thing to happen to Frank Bowen in years. When wife Liz went missing in the wilds of Belize, the constables of San Ignacio could find no trace. Years later, on a pilgrimage to her remote 'grave,' Frank is abducted and whisked away to a place he can't identify, by people whose motives and origins baffle him. Could this be what happened to Liz?
My Review:
Ok. So I reviewed Peregrin, the second book in this series, earlier this month as part of the A to Z Challenge. If I had realized that I had picked Xenolith as my X letter I would have read the books in order.
I liked this one about as much as I liked Peregrin and pretty much for the same reasons.
I liked the characters. This time around I got to know Tezhay and Frank better and I have to admit out of the two books Tezhay has been my favorite character. He's a good person and funny as well. Seeing what led the characters to do what they did in the next book did help me to understand some of them better, and why they made the choices that they did in the second book. However there was very little background on Liz. I had been hoping that in this novel, the first one in the series, that it would maybe tell a little more of what happened to her. How she got abducted, how she got her injury, what actually happened to Father Leo, all things that I would really like to know.
I enjoyed the world that the author created. Having read the first book finally it did clear up some questions that I had about it from the second one. Overall I think that the author did an amazing job with the world they created.
Again, as with Peregrin, my biggest issue with the book was the writing style. It only happens in the beginning of the novel, but the author does a lot of skipping back and forth from the past to the present. I liked that the author gave background on the characters, but the way it was done became frustrating. First you would go back into one characters history then come forward in another characters, then go back in another's. It annoyed me in Peregrin and it annoyed me in this one as well. At least in the second book the all the stories eventually met up and then the timeline stabilized from there. In this one I assume that the present timeline for one group of characters is the same as the time for the second, but I'm not sure. It just left the book feeling like it was jumping all over the place.
Also, as with the second book, there were some minor editing issues. I didn't bring them up with Peregrin because while I noticed them they really didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the book. However seeing that there were similar issues in the first book that basically carried over in the second and they were never corrected does kinda irritate me. It's something that an editor or a beta reader should have picked up on and then been corrected before it went to be released.
Overall I enjoyed Xenolith as much as I enjoyed Peregrin. The main issue I had with Peregrin, the jumping back and forth between past and present, was the same that I had with Xenolith. I would be interested in reading a third book in the series if there was one, especially if it meant finding out more about some of my favorite characters from the first two novels. The series is interesting and I would definitely recommend it, with the exception that it be read in order. (Which I unfortunately didn't do! Bad me!) In fact the first book is currently free for Kindle so why not pick it up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This post is part of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge 2013.
I enjoyed reading your in-depth review. The jumping around and editing mistakes would have bothered me, too. I'm glad you liked it enough to want to read the third.
ReplyDeleteGreat review! :-)
Thanks for stopping by. Glad you liked the review. I try to be honest....sometimes I feel bad though because I really enjoy a book, but it has issues that bother me.
Delete