Thursday 7 May 2009

FICTION REVIEW: Legend of the Crystal Lens - Samantha Graves


BOOK BLURB:

Tomb raider Simon Bonner wants out of the looting game...until a mysterious crystal lens lands on his doorstep. Legend has it that this lens holds the key to the archives of man - a Mexican tomb that explains the root of all knowledge. There's just one problem - he doesn't know how to use it. Museum curator Jillian Talbot's ability to see an object's history is her secret, so when Simon approaches her, she finds it hard to believe that she's the seer of legend - that only she can unlock the mystery behind the crystal lens. Journeying into the jungles of Mexico, with evil crooks hot on their tail and a growing passion between them, every move for Jillian and Simon becomes a terrifying dance with danger.


REVIEW:

A romantic adventure that blends Indiana Jones, Lara Croft with Romancing the Stone and a huge set of double deals that everyone else appears to be in on apart from the principle characters. Its well written with the key to the tale being blurgeoning romantic development between the principle protagonists as they both learn repect for each other whilst learning their own roles within their group struggling to get past their own traumatic pasts as well as learning to trust other people again. What didn’t quite work so well for me was the name of the male lead, one Simon Bonner or Boner as I elected to call him, which seemed to be quite ironically accurate as he did numerous times within the tale. Whilst I don’t object this within a story I do like a tad more build up with hormonal angst literally getting them to rip each others clothes off after a few near misses.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a good bit of escapism and it’s a fun trail to follow, but I got the feeling that the build up could have been something more than it was. Why? Well to be blunt, I was left feeling slightly cheated when the discovery of the quest goal, along with completion of the tale seemed to wind up in the last 20 pages after a carefully controlled build up. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for successive novels in the series and I hope that the author allows the final part of the next book to eek itself out rather than allowing an outpouring rush to reach the end.

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