Reviews

The Bite on the Line by Simon Cantan

_egg_wash's review against another edition

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

sonshinelibrarian's review

3.0

Once this book sort of settled into itself I enjoyed it, but it lost a star because the first quarter or so kept me unsteady. I couldn't tell what kind of book it was trying to be. The very beginning is more traditional castles and kings with a cast of characters that are almost immediately removed, the next section introduces a whole new place and set of characters and feels like a slightly different genre and then that setting and cast are removed and we're introduced to a third place and cast which settles into a more horror-edged feel. Once it settled into the third set the book started to find its stride. I definitely felt like too much time was spent on detailed description, particularly in the second section, when we weren't going to stay there. I think most of the beginning felt unnecessary to the plot because it wasn't enough for me to really get attached to the people there, so they don't really add the impetus to the characters I think they're supposed to, but it was enough to drag the story out and keep us from getting to the things the author obviously wanted to focus on in Bytarend.
I'm also still not sure what the title is supposed to mean. Glancing at the cover and the title, I would assume this was about fishing or something. I obviously read the description (because I don't really care about fishing, so...), but even having finished the book I don't know what the "line" or the "bite" is.

I did enjoy the section of the book set in Bytarend for the most part. I thought Cantan's take on vampires was interesting and I enjoyed the two main characters (for the most part) and the light tone managed to work most of the time, which can be hard to pull off.