1 out of 4 stars
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Lemoncella Cocktail by Rene Natan is a story of intrigue, smuggling, bravery, and love. While walking along the road after his truck broke down, Patrick Carter heard harsh whispering and thrashing in the bush near the river. Suddenly a scream ripped through the air. A former lifeguard and bartender, Patrick rushed to the river in time to see a young teenage girl frantically struggling in the strong current. Without a thought for his own safety, he jumped in and pulled Samantha McLeod to safety. He bundled her up and took her to her grandmother’s house down the road where they called the police.
Samantha, believed to be a witness to a large weapons exchange, along with Patrick, the man who saved her, were marked for death by a ruthless arms dealer. A task force is established to safeguard the country against terrorist attacks, and Patrick is soon coerced into helping them keep Samantha’s family safe.
It is extremely obvious that this book has never seen an editor’s desk. It has words missing in sentences, and so many errors in spelling, punctuation, verb tenses, typos, missing prepositions, and incorrect usage of words that it is difficult to read. For example, Explaining him, I go to bus terminal, I never being there, This was I need, are types of mistakes found in almost every sentence. Others include: No will do, Oscar. There are charges against me, but there aren’t very serious, He took him by the collar of his coat and drugged him outside, and Romance that turned out to be inexistent. The story takes place in Canada, and I understand the differences between British English and American English, so I’m able to make allowances for that, but the grammar in this book is deplorable. It’s a shame because the story itself could be made fairly interesting.
I was tempted to not finish the book after I read the first couple of chapters, but I wanted to see if it improved as it went along. It didn’t. The bad grammar was not the only problem. Toward the end of the book, three sentences were lined out. Other times, the storyline went off the track. For example, Amelia headed to the bus stop to leave town, but the next sentence she was in the cafeteria where she worked with no explanation.
I had to rate this book 1 out of 4 stars because of these problems. I was so baffled by how poorly this book was written that I looked it up elsewhere to see if a youngster had written her first book. I was astonished to see a retired professor as the author of this and several other books. I downloaded this book as a PDF file, so I’m wondering if what I got was perhaps a working copy, one not yet edited or published. If this book is to be enjoyed by the American public, or anyone, then it needs to be edited by an American copy editor with a very sharp, red pencil.
In Lemoncella Cocktail, the author has created a very likeable man with a tragic background who reluctantly becomes a hero. Samantha’s grandmother, Jessica, shows an abiding love for her family and those who become her family. Emy struggles with a demanding father and learns how to become the person she wants to be. Amelia, Samantha’s sister, overcomes unimaginable obstacles. Ms. Natan has done a fairly good job of developing her characters and the storyline, however, I cannot recommend this book to anyone until it has been properly edited.
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Lemoncella Cocktail
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