Wednesday, February 26, 2014

RACING DESIRE by Pamela H Bender



This is my first review.  I feel by posting reviews, it might help me identify the weakness' in my own writing.

The story takes place in Hanover, PA, the harness horse racing world.  I loved the setting.  I'm a farm girl at heart, lived on one for seven years before it got washed away.

Pamela Bender added some minor characters which helped the story, and they weren’t human.  I loved her dog Rowdy and the goat Nanny.  Jo Martin is the primary character with Brad Kirby as the secondary.  I liked the way the author introduced Brad Kirby to Jo Martin.  I cried where I was supposed to and smiled at other times. 

What I had a problem with was the POV.  The first few chapters and the latter chapters were fine.  But in the middle, she switched the POV so many times between Jo and Brad that they started sounding alike.  The characters lost their individuality.  And I felt she got lost in her plot.  Didn’t really have the middle of the story fleshed out.  In her bio, she stated she dusted this manuscript off after sitting for over 20 years and changed the character traits for Jo.  Maybe that was the problem. 

There also wasn’t a lot of conflict.  She had a tendency to Tell the story instead of Showing it.  That could've been the issue.  I did lose my interest in the middle, but kept with it and the ending was much better.  Didn't quite end the way I thought it should.  A typical romance ending, but still not what I expected.  Felt like the ending was rushed. 

I did find a few editing issues, but nothing to detract from the reading of the story.  Overall I enjoyed the story and would recommend it.  I give it 4 feathers.

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