Official Review: The Salt Water Ghost by Shiela Jane

[MandalynnJDG]

Thank you for your review. I have noticed that sometimes the American English can be difference than British or Canadian English in terms of spelling and it can be confusing. I do like the fact that you wanted to continue to read it even though you seemed to indicate that you were uncomfortable with the spelling.

[truebookaddict]

A well thought out and constructive review. I have purchased a copy and I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks to GMJ Creative for the clarification on that line. Since I just purchased my copy, I'm assuming that line will be corrected in my copy.

Congrats to the author on the great reviews and on being Book of the Day!

[purplepeepleeater]

Love the review, I have downloaded it and will be reading it soon. Thanks

[K_Kaori]

Just got the book free. Read a page and found interesting. With the review am just looking forward to it.

[ashnance]

Great review! You bring up a great point about expecting the reader to have an understanding of Indian culture. Here's what I thought of the book:

What events in life truly make you you? What defines you? Do you let it? Or can you define yourself? Shiela Jane’s The Saltwater Ghost explores these questions under the guise of an old mystery. Alden Jurrien is haunted by the ghosts of his past, his estrangement from his family, and his lost love for his profession. And just like many of us, when life knocks you down, what do you do? You go home. But for Alden, home is more than just pleasant childhood memories. The suicidal drowning from the 1870s hangs over the town, while the accidental death of Alden’s best friend, Garnet Macklin, looms over Alden.

As Alden sifts through his past, his present situation, and his hopes for the future, he uncovers more questions than answers. Through the help of a current student, Alden is able to piece together the mysteries that have bothered the town for many years.

With the cozy, relaxing feel of a warm summer afternoon sun on your face as it is setting for the evening, this books proves quite enjoyable. Without being too overbearing or fast-paced, this book is truly such a peaceful read. Jane does a great job setting up various characters, only to have their seemingly unrelated paths cross later on in the book. However, there were quite a few characters, so it was sometimes difficult to keep track of them.

The time periods were also rather difficult to keep up with. As the book spans over three time periods – the 1870s, Alden’s childhood, and the present – it would have been helpful to have some sort of labeling. It was not terribly difficult to figure out, but it did detract from the first couple paragraphs of each chapter, as those were spent also focusing on what time period we were in. Likewise, there were flashbacks and reflections throughout the novel. I typically find this to be a delightful feature that adds depth to a story; however, without proper labeling, this also proved to be a distraction. Something as simple as putting flashbacks in italics would have been perfect.

Although I very much enjoyed The Saltwater Ghost, I can only give it 2 out of 4 stars. In addition to the time awareness issue, there were also many errors in the Kindle edition. Some quotation marks, were missing so it was difficult to figure out when one person stopped talking and another started. Furthermore, there were issues with the paragraph structure. At some points, the writing was not even in paragraph form, and in others, sentences were actually out of order. This proved to be quite distracting. All of the negatives about this book are easy fixes and might not occur in other versions; the important part – the story itself – was quite a good one.

[MrsCatInTheHat]

I enjoyed this story as well. Very surprising ending (but I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it yet). Like others, I enjoyed the way the past and present were interwoven.

[GMJ Creative]

Thank you very much for your thoughtful review. Yes, we recently learned that there were formatting errors that only appeared on some e-reader devices. We have since corrected the issues and re-published the e-book with the following note:
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Publisher’s note:
In this September 2016 release we have addressed the formatting issues that caused errors to appear on some e-readers. While this updated version of the e-book is now compatible with the most popular e-readers on the market today, until an industry standard is introduced we cannot guarantee that it will be free of formatting irregularities on all devices.
Also, please note this novel is written using British/Canadian spellings (e.g. “colour” as opposed to “color”; “centre” as opposed to “center”).
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The corrected e-book can now be accessed on the “Manage Your Content and Devices” page.

Given the gravity of these formatting errors and the fact that they did not appear on Amazon's Kindle Previewer before publishing, we are asking Amazon to issue an update notification to everyone who downloaded or borrowed the e-book. We are awaiting their decision on this request.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read and review The Saltwater Ghost.

Kindest regards,

Gillian
GMJ Creative Hands Publishing

[GMJ Creative]

Thank you very much for your review! I'm very glad you enjoyed the book.

Also, if you downloaded the e-book version please note that we've addressed the formatting issues that appeared on some e-readers; an updated version is available on your "Manage Your Content and Devices" page.