For my birthday almost two years ago I received a Kindle. I hardly ever use it. For one thing, I’m not good with technology of any sort. For another thing, being a poor, struggling author myself, I don’t like to spend a lot of money on books. But occasionally, I download free books or ninety-nine cent books and occasionally I read them. Mostly when I travel because one thing I like about the Kindle is it’s easy to pack and it holds a lot of books.
I took it with me on a recent weekend trip, and I read Saving Rachel by John Locke.
The story starts off strongly and is uniquely compelling. It rolls along and is a real page-turner. I followed the character of Sam Case through some unique plot twists and turns. I arrived at “Part Two” which is Donovan Creed’s turn to tell his side of the story. And “tell” it he does. He tells the whole story. Plus it’s almost all back story. It’s interesting to a certain extent, and again, it’s unique. But suddenly, I sort of don’t care. After being yanked out of Sam Case’s story so abruptly, I’m a little disappointed.
Basically, what we’ve got here is two separate stories. I’ve been accused of doing something similar in my early, unpublished work. Perhaps it’s common among new writers. Although I don’t know John Locke’s history as a writer and I don’t know how new he is to the business. I did read yesterday that he’s sold a million ninety-nine cent books which is something I’d love to do.
While I enjoyed Saving Rachel and I didn’t pay much or maybe anything for it, I do believe it could have been better written if the author had incorporated both stories into one. John Locke has good ideas and good twists, but I think Saving Rachel would have benefited from a better story structure.
I have another of John Locke’s books to read on my Kindle, however, so stay tuned.
P.S. Today I read John Locke doesn’t care if he’s a good writer. My next blog might be about such an attitude.
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