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rosekk 's review for:
The Wicked Cometh
by Laura Carlin
This felt like two stories crammed into one (relatively short) book. There was a romance and a horror/thriller. The romance side, I liked. I could understand why the two characters were drawn to each other, and it was enjoyable seeing their passion and affection develop.
What I found odd was seeing it develop alongside a really gruesome and horrific murder mystery. The mystery element also worked well in isolation, with a slow build up, hints as to the truth, and a dramatic conclusion. The epitome of this was towards the end, where the protagonists find a piece of someone's decaying body, and then go home and (after a clean up) end up in a sex scene. I don't know what the traumatic experience of discovering pieces of human bodies would do to a person (maybe some people would react by seeking sex or any other kind of distraction/comfort), but it makes for very odd reading.
Further more, some bits of the plot feel as though they rely a bit too heavily on coincidence. One of the protagonists is hit by the carriage of the others brother. That protagonist also happens to know people who are involved in the mystery, which is some how tied up with the others family. It doesn't stretch credulity too far, but it does seem a bit convenient that these two people, each in a position to provide information to the other, get thrown together by a random carriage accident.
As a side note, the book was a very different kind of story than the sentence on the back of my edition lead me to believe. 'We have no need to protect ourselves from the bad sort because we are the bad sort...' made me assume that the main character would be much more morally grey (and a dark shade at that). I was envisioning a kind of anti-hero, or villain-turned-hero type of story, or at the very least something where the hero is forced to commit some immoral actions to achieve some greater good. Instead, both the protagonists are pretty good people, barring a few minor flaws and some terrible relatives/carers. The 'we' of the story aren't a bad sort. While I thought that was a great line (and makes sense when you see it in context in the story itself), it felt misleading to have on the cover.
My complaints might sound more negative than I really feel; I did like the main characters, and that was enough to keep me invested in their story.
What I found odd was seeing it develop alongside a really gruesome and horrific murder mystery. The mystery element also worked well in isolation, with a slow build up, hints as to the truth, and a dramatic conclusion. The epitome of this was towards the end, where the protagonists find a piece of someone's decaying body, and then go home and (after a clean up) end up in a sex scene. I don't know what the traumatic experience of discovering pieces of human bodies would do to a person (maybe some people would react by seeking sex or any other kind of distraction/comfort), but it makes for very odd reading.
Further more, some bits of the plot feel as though they rely a bit too heavily on coincidence. One of the protagonists is hit by the carriage of the others brother. That protagonist also happens to know people who are involved in the mystery, which is some how tied up with the others family. It doesn't stretch credulity too far, but it does seem a bit convenient that these two people, each in a position to provide information to the other, get thrown together by a random carriage accident.
As a side note, the book was a very different kind of story than the sentence on the back of my edition lead me to believe. 'We have no need to protect ourselves from the bad sort because we are the bad sort...' made me assume that the main character would be much more morally grey (and a dark shade at that). I was envisioning a kind of anti-hero, or villain-turned-hero type of story, or at the very least something where the hero is forced to commit some immoral actions to achieve some greater good. Instead, both the protagonists are pretty good people, barring a few minor flaws and some terrible relatives/carers. The 'we' of the story aren't a bad sort. While I thought that was a great line (and makes sense when you see it in context in the story itself), it felt misleading to have on the cover.
My complaints might sound more negative than I really feel; I did like the main characters, and that was enough to keep me invested in their story.