1 out of 4 stars
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Lemoncella-Cocktail. The theme and narrative of the book remind me of the earlier Harlan Coben novels, but nowhere near as well written. I think with heavy editing, this could become a reasonable read, but as it is it is really difficult to get through which is why I give it 1 out of 4 stars.
The story revolves around Patrick Carter who, walking one night, hears a girl crying out and rescues her from where she has been thrown in a river. It transpires that the girl, Samantha, has been mistaken for her sister, Amelia. Amelia witnessed an arms transaction, conducted by her boyfriend Oscar and Oscar wants to kill her. A Special Task Force figures this out exceptionally quickly and implausibly recruits Patrick to work for them undercover. During this, he meets a Task Force agent with whom he falls in love.
There were just so many problems with reading this book, which is why I didn’t enjoy it. Firstly, it reads as though it is written by somebody for whom English is not their first language. There are constant grammatical errors throughout that detract quite easily from the book. An example of the some errors are:
[the puppy] began leaking her face and her arms.
I walk with you
This what I need
He knew it won’t be possible
What he wanted to do was taking off
She’d have probably drawn
Don’t you were pyjamas
Martha should have gone after the pilot who made the discover
That’s was fine for Patrick
Maybe its a boy the culprit and she became involved
The man for whom she’ed lied to her family and she was now in so deep trouble, was a hard criminal.
Secondly, the whole premise of the story is lacks credibility. Sisters being mistaken for each other despite the age difference, a guy with a dodgy background being asked to go undercover just because he can make cocktails, a secretary and a ‘goon’ talking about how to murder that guy whilst eating dinner in a restaurant, another case of mistaken identity….. In almost every chapter something happens that just seems so unlikely that it stretches credulity and therefore detracts from the reasonable premise of a bystander getting involved in matters he’d rather not.
Patrick, the main character, thinks he has been told by a psychologist that he should never have a family because he grew up in an abusive family and accidentally killed his father to protect his mother. I hope nobody reading the book believes that any psychologist would state it is impossible to break the cycle of abuse and therefore people who have been victims of it should never have a family. That’s a really irresponsible message. It highlights the nagging feeling that the author has done very little research into any aspect of the book, which detracts further from any credibility.
Even taking aside the implausibility of the plot, the characters feel one dimensional. Patrick and Emy fall in love, although Patrick’s reason for doing so seem to be she’s a looker and she’s nice. There’s not a single relationship in the book that feels realistic.
If I hadn’t been reading the book to review it, I absolutely wouldn’t have got past the first few chapters. There are some really good nuggets but they are outweighed by the poor language, the shoddy characterisation and the implausible elements.
******
Lemoncella Cocktail
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