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| Book cover via Amazon.com |
Get yourself a by line, don’t forget to lock your doors, and whatever you do, don’t go dancing at Diva’s if someone's watching. This is a review of “Adam’s Witness” by JC Paulson.
Opinion
JC Paulson and I follow each other on Twitter, and one lovely day she asked me to review her book honestly. I picked this beauty up on Kindle Unlimited and I started to read. My first impressions were excitement. The beginning of this story had me captivated right away, both with fear and with familiarity. I used to go to church a whole lot as a kid, and I could feel and see the opening set as it unfolded, which was gripping but terrifying at the end.
What this story gets so right, is the gripping and clawing fear that is needed for mystery stories to really attract the reader. The initial hook, followed by the subsequent events after are well done and had me at the offset. I got my mystery journal out and started following along right away, as this book is perfect for keeping track with a journal. If you are a fellow sleuther you will love this aspect of it.
Now, before you get your detective hat on Sherlock, please be aware the story is a mystery romance. If you were unaware of it or you weren’t sure that was happening, consider this my letting you know. There is some sex in this book, so if you aren’t a fan you can skip over the pages. It has some of the classic tropes to romance, lots of attraction of one into another, and distractions upon reason because of lust, etc. This focus on romance is the balance to the book, but the main focus of this specific book is the mystery itself. So if you feel your detective hat will melt with the romantic subplot, I would like to recommend not adding that bit into the mystery journal.
Let’s go into the only major critique I found, which has everything to do with the e-copy and nothing to do with the actual story. I downloaded my copy and there were a couple of issues, but upon talking to JC about it, it likely could be my copy only that was affected. That said, you may see it too. The fix for it, uninstall the book, reinstall it and check. Granted, you may also have the same issue where the PC copy on Kindle’s browser add-on does it too. I noticed initially there were some chapter issues at the endings of chapters crammed up next to the start of a new one, and there were page numbers doubled even at the smallest of fonts. If you notice it these problems it shouldn’t be a deal breaker, it just is something that caught my eye. Try the uninstall reinstall.
Now for some positives about the book that I really enjoyed, and we start with the grammar, punctuation, and writing. I think this book deserves an award for proper semi-colon use. I really enjoyed it, as I have come to find that most writers have been steering away from semi-colons entirely as of late. Second, the hyphenate use was fantastic, and it wasn’t used as a substitute comma. I enjoyed that too.
Story structure wise, the actual tale was written well. This was a classic mystery, there was a murder, clues set, and a lot of red herrings. I really enjoyed that. The line up for what should fall where in the story was on point. I thought that the layout structure of this mystery was superb. The actual murder and subsequent crimes that occurred were disturbing. It wasn’t overly graphic, but it was violent which I think is preferable in a mystery story of this nature.
The reading pacing on the story was fantastic. It added to the tension where it needed, and considering the violence in the crimes, the tension was done well. The way the acts blended and were done made the pacing more comfortable. I really enjoyed how this read over the course of the pages. it wasn’t exhausting at all, and this book reads so well.
The last thing I want to thank JC for was the funny jokes that eased the tension when needed. She made a Don Rickles joke, and it was lovely, it was one of those classic ones that never was told to offend anyone, and I enjoyed it.
If you love mystery stories and keep a mystery journal as I do so you can follow along, this is a good story for that. I think you will have fun for hours while you follow the tale as it goes. And if you like romances with bits of violence, suspense, and solving a murder, this should be a fun one for you as well.
Score
Score here is going to be a well-earned 92/100 which is a five-star review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you need some mystery in your life to enjoy this one!
