Monday, January 14, 2013

DOWN THE CHIMNEY by Mallary Mitchell




Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Date published: 12-12-2012
ISBN: 978-1-61217-447-1
Western Historical
E-book
Reviewed by Helen
Obtained via publisher

 


Odessa Courtland’s husband has died leaving her with two daughters and another baby on the way. It’s almost Christmas, almost time for the baby to be born, and her husband’s less-than-legal business partner is hounding her for money he says her husband stole.
The Sherriff sends Deputy Deacon Ramey to check on the outlaw activity at Odessa’s home and while chasing a bad guy he falls and gets stuck in her chimney.

This book had the potential to be absolutely wonderful. The basic premise is clever and the ideas for some of the scenes are excellent. However both the publisher and the author seem to have been very careless about the story. There are far too many typos, misused words and outright errors. (grown/groan, twentyforth/twenty-fourth, etc). The publisher’s blurb describes the girls as rambunctious, which means noisy and lively, yet they are silent and obedient for most of the book and even when they speak it’s extremely politely for such young children.But I could have coped with all this had the story not driven me insane with head-banging, whiplash-delivering POV changes mid-scene. Four times the POV changed in one short action scene until I couldn’t even work out what was happening any more even though I wanted to keep reading. Then twice in the same paragraph a little later the POV went back and forth.

There were also a few messy plot holes, like the bottle of laudanum her husband emptied before the book begins is brought out and fed to the hero to ease the pain of his wound. Also, the resolution of the story will not solve her problem with the townspeople.
All in all, this book had so much potential, but it totally disappointed me.


This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.





 

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