A review by pelicanfreak
Lone Star Showdown by Delores Fossen

slow-paced

2.25

I love a good suspense-y, action-packed start and this book delivers that.

At times, I felt that being shown the circumstances would’ve elevated the book—as, while it was at least semi interesting most of the time, I couldn’t help but notice this author favored a lot of ‘telling’. That does tend to dull down even the most exciting content.

So …

This was an interesting approach as … I suspect it’s intended to be romantic suspense? There’s definitely suspense … and those parts are somewhat fun & action-y and then somewhat dull because much of the parts are ‘told’ instead of ‘shown’ to the reader. The book gripped me initially, but before long, I realized I was sorta forcing myself to pay attention.

And … there was … I hesitate to say romance, as it was all so textbook. These characters are definitely angling for romance and I think I’m supposed to believe, as the reader, that they had feelings for one another … but this was poorly executed. It wasn’t shown, no ‘real feels’ were conveyed, and it was all so matter-of-fact, between the narrator’s bot-like delivery and the writer’s penchant for ‘telling’. By the time the steamy scenes occurred, I was just like, ‘Come on.’ They lacked any sort of passion or excitement or heat. 

Action scenes.

Danger.

Suspense.

Pop culture references.

Humor, at times.

Vi0lence.

Unalivings.

Vengeance. 

Overall:

Not a bad concept, but not executed particularly well. Perhaps with stronger writing skills it could’ve been great. Falls somewhere around 2 or 2.5 stars for me as-is. Based on this experience, probably will not read anymore from this author.

🎧 Audio:

This could’ve been a bit more of a professional production. The overall sound quality is not crystal clear, with static audible at times. As for the narrator: obviously subjective. For me, he was too robotic. His voice was pleasant enough and if it took a ‘voice acting’ approach instead of just the bot-like dictating he opted for, I expect he’d be quite good. As it stands though, I’ve heard worse, but not great.