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aquariandancer's review against another edition
4.0
Shining Ones Book One
Working at Paddy's Bar and Grill has never been as exciting or dangerous as it is now that Adam Walker has come to town. Poesy gets a tingling sensation every time he touches her, which happens more than it ever has in the past. This stranger both intrigues and annoys Poesy every time she sees him. When another local waitress is killed, the new guy in town is the first place the police look. However, Poesy cannot quite believe that Adam is capable of that atrocity. After she drops by his house unannounced, her world is changed forever.
If you're looking for a new urban fantasy realm with mystery and suspicious creatures, this is the book for you!
Working at Paddy's Bar and Grill has never been as exciting or dangerous as it is now that Adam Walker has come to town. Poesy gets a tingling sensation every time he touches her, which happens more than it ever has in the past. This stranger both intrigues and annoys Poesy every time she sees him. When another local waitress is killed, the new guy in town is the first place the police look. However, Poesy cannot quite believe that Adam is capable of that atrocity. After she drops by his house unannounced, her world is changed forever.
If you're looking for a new urban fantasy realm with mystery and suspicious creatures, this is the book for you!
dtaylorbooks's review
2.0
I’m almost positive WATCHER is self-published. I couldn’t find anything on the publisher by name and considering the author’s last name it just makes me think it’s a formed publisher name for a self-published author. Certainly not an unheard of practice and not a problem since I accept self-pubs anyway. Just a FYI.
As for the book itself the premise is intriguing but it really doesn’t make much of an appearance in this story. WATCHER is ultimately plot/world set-up. There’s very little conflict, no known antagonist, no real problem for the MC to work through. If the story had gone out with a bang at the end I’d be more for it but it didn’t. Nothing was resolved because there was nothing to resolve. Well, the murders but those came pretty far into the book and the threat to the MC was indirect at best it was all ultimately rather dull.
I was really uncomfortable with the portrayal of the few people of color in the book. The best friend black woman was, of course, a sassy loud mouth who threw down the word ‘nigger’ a lot in describing people of her same race who were slimeballs. Use of the word cracker abounds too. The Asian best friend, while not herself wholly stereotypical, has a father who owns a Chinese restaurant who talks like every stereotypical Asian in every 80s movie you’ve ever seen. You have problem? You buy now. The best friend was also trying to escape an arranged marriage so there’s that too. These things just really stood out to me and really rubbed me the wrong way and genuinely made me feel uncomfortable.
Poesy, the main character, is an adult who hasn’t made much of her life, still waitressing on the island she grew up on. Her biggest problem is the token Barbie bitch who insists on giving her a hard time and rubbing her lackluster life in her face. Not sure why Poesy wasn’t like, ‘I see you’ve done a lot, still hanging around the same bar you did in high school’ but okay. Brianna, I think her name is. This woman is Poesy’s biggest source of conflict in the story.
Well, there’s Birdie too. A completely overbearing male best friend who has the hots for Poesy and grossly oversteps his bounds, especially when Adam comes into the picture. But as the book goes on Poesy calls him on his crap, which I liked. It was starting to get old by the time she did that.
Adam is the question mark in all of this, who Poesy is inexplicably drawn to. His secret is revealed probably about midway through the book but it’s not met with much of anything. There’s sort of an ‘oh my’ moment but it’s sort of brushed aside for more mundane things like Birdie’s band or . . . waitressing. Really, the story is mostly a ‘day in the life of’ for Poesy and you may get a sliver of something ‘other’ happening. But you’ll have to really watch for it.
You get two murders in the book. The first is super distant and isn’t even considered a murder for a short while. It acts as background noise and gets people a little on edge but not enough to disrupt their lives. The second hits Poe closer to home but seemingly has a culprit, albeit an unknown one. Still, it doesn’t knock things off kilter all that much. The very end of the book something happens to Poe that could possibly link everything together but it’s left hanging. She’s rescued, we don’t get any explanation for what happened to her, and the book ends. Not a whole lot going on here.
It’s not necessarily poorly written. For an indie I think it’s actually pretty well put together. I think too much focus is put on the mundane and not enough on what the story’s actually about but the writing itself is fine. I just don’t think the real story even started until more than halfway through the book and then it just ended. I didn’t even have much by the way of conflict to hang on to to want to lead me into the second book. Poe’s relationship with Adam was conflict-light, ending before it even began and then circling back around to Brianna for additional typical conflict but that’s about it.
I need more when I read a book. Adam doesn’t even have much of a role in the book other than to tell Poe what he’s doing there and then has a small moment at the very end. Other than that he’s background fodder. Poe has stuff happening around her and she reacts but it feels like she’s just coasting through it all. And when she does get active it’s in an overt, almost nonsensical sort of way. Almost a means to compensate for when she isn’t. Just not digging this one.
2
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
As for the book itself the premise is intriguing but it really doesn’t make much of an appearance in this story. WATCHER is ultimately plot/world set-up. There’s very little conflict, no known antagonist, no real problem for the MC to work through. If the story had gone out with a bang at the end I’d be more for it but it didn’t. Nothing was resolved because there was nothing to resolve. Well, the murders but those came pretty far into the book and the threat to the MC was indirect at best it was all ultimately rather dull.
I was really uncomfortable with the portrayal of the few people of color in the book. The best friend black woman was, of course, a sassy loud mouth who threw down the word ‘nigger’ a lot in describing people of her same race who were slimeballs. Use of the word cracker abounds too. The Asian best friend, while not herself wholly stereotypical, has a father who owns a Chinese restaurant who talks like every stereotypical Asian in every 80s movie you’ve ever seen. You have problem? You buy now. The best friend was also trying to escape an arranged marriage so there’s that too. These things just really stood out to me and really rubbed me the wrong way and genuinely made me feel uncomfortable.
Poesy, the main character, is an adult who hasn’t made much of her life, still waitressing on the island she grew up on. Her biggest problem is the token Barbie bitch who insists on giving her a hard time and rubbing her lackluster life in her face. Not sure why Poesy wasn’t like, ‘I see you’ve done a lot, still hanging around the same bar you did in high school’ but okay. Brianna, I think her name is. This woman is Poesy’s biggest source of conflict in the story.
Well, there’s Birdie too. A completely overbearing male best friend who has the hots for Poesy and grossly oversteps his bounds, especially when Adam comes into the picture. But as the book goes on Poesy calls him on his crap, which I liked. It was starting to get old by the time she did that.
Adam is the question mark in all of this, who Poesy is inexplicably drawn to. His secret is revealed probably about midway through the book but it’s not met with much of anything. There’s sort of an ‘oh my’ moment but it’s sort of brushed aside for more mundane things like Birdie’s band or . . . waitressing. Really, the story is mostly a ‘day in the life of’ for Poesy and you may get a sliver of something ‘other’ happening. But you’ll have to really watch for it.
You get two murders in the book. The first is super distant and isn’t even considered a murder for a short while. It acts as background noise and gets people a little on edge but not enough to disrupt their lives. The second hits Poe closer to home but seemingly has a culprit, albeit an unknown one. Still, it doesn’t knock things off kilter all that much. The very end of the book something happens to Poe that could possibly link everything together but it’s left hanging. She’s rescued, we don’t get any explanation for what happened to her, and the book ends. Not a whole lot going on here.
It’s not necessarily poorly written. For an indie I think it’s actually pretty well put together. I think too much focus is put on the mundane and not enough on what the story’s actually about but the writing itself is fine. I just don’t think the real story even started until more than halfway through the book and then it just ended. I didn’t even have much by the way of conflict to hang on to to want to lead me into the second book. Poe’s relationship with Adam was conflict-light, ending before it even began and then circling back around to Brianna for additional typical conflict but that’s about it.
I need more when I read a book. Adam doesn’t even have much of a role in the book other than to tell Poe what he’s doing there and then has a small moment at the very end. Other than that he’s background fodder. Poe has stuff happening around her and she reacts but it feels like she’s just coasting through it all. And when she does get active it’s in an overt, almost nonsensical sort of way. Almost a means to compensate for when she isn’t. Just not digging this one.
2
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
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