3 out of 4 stars
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Cindy Ziperman’s Hallowed Ground tells the story of Samantha “Sam” Paige as she moves to her uncle’s farm in search of a little peace and quiet. Tired of both her job as a nurse and her life in general, Sam packs up her belongings and relocates to historic Franklin, Tennessee. Upon her arrival, she very quickly finds that her uncle Rufus is involved in a fight for the ownership of his farm. Caught halfway between a ruthless real estate developer who plans to use the land to build a new shopping mall and the charming Civil War battlefield historian who merely wants to restore it, Rufus is determined not to sell. Unfortunately, he is left with little choice; as historian Thomas Jonathan “TJ” Carter gets closer and closer to his niece, Rufus and his entire family are forced to deal with the fallout of the real estate developer’s rage.
There were a lot of things that I absolutely loved about this book. In particular, I felt that the characters and their relationships to one another were extremely well done. In fact, even the villains were given backstories, logical motivations, and realistic dialogue. Furthermore, I found the plot really interesting, and the author does an amazing job of making sure that the blossoming relationship between Sam and TJ actually helps move the plot forward rather than completely taking over the narrative. Unlike many writers, Ziperman is able to use the romantic relationship of the main character, and even the explicitly romantic moments themselves, as a way to add to the tension surrounding the main action. As a result, this book has a certain depth that other novels of this kind do not always have.
The only thing that I didn’t enjoy about reading this book was the amount of errors there were. Although the errors, most often in the form of punctuation issues, were not on every page, or even within every chapter, the fact that they were so obvious made them somewhat distracting. For instance, in some chapters, there were quotation marks where there shouldn’t have been, as well as the lack of quotation marks where there should have been. In other chapters, the number “1” appeared randomly within the text. Luckily, issues like these were not overly common, but they were obvious enough and frustrating enough that they detracted from the reading.
Even considering these errors, this book is absolutely perfect for lovers of action, mystery, and romance. However, if you are the type of person who might be triggered by mentions of violence, murder, and suicide, I would not recommend reading this book. In particular, there are several instances of sexual assault and extreme violence. If there’s even the slightest chance that these topics might pose a problem for you, please do not read this book. Furthermore, I would not recommend this book to younger readers, especially considering the frequency of profanity and sexual encounters within the text.
I have decided to rate Hallowed Ground by Cindy Ziperman 3 out of 4 stars. Although I would have loved to rate this book 4 stars, there were just too many errors for me to do so. After one more round of editing, though, I believe that this novel will definitely be worthy of 4 stars. In fact, even in its current state, I highly recommend it!
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Hallowed Ground
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