Official Review: Widow Falls: Blood Heritage

[SidnayC]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Widow Falls: Blood Heritage" by Angela Jackson.]

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Have you ever read a book that was so amateur in every sense of the word but you were still unable to put it down? Because that was exactly what Widow Falls: Blood Heritage was a simulation of for me. It will become immediately apparent to readers after reading just a few pages of this young adult fantasy that this book is not going to be a literary masterpiece and is unlikely to win any awards for having the most original and creative story-line or concept. Because, put simply, for me this book was a watered-down poor imitation of both the Twilight and Vampire Diaries book series. Despite this however, for some strange reason I drank every word of this book and continuously thirsted for more of the story until it finished.

This story centers around seventeen year old Olivia Ayers who moves with her father and little brother to her deceased mother's hometown of Widow Falls in what her father believes will better help her come to terms with her mother's tragic passing. Upon starting her new school, Olivia meets and falls for her 'beautifully mysterious' classmate Charlie. But Olivia soon learns that Charlie and nothing else in her new life is as it seems. Not only does Olivia discover that her second cousin Penelope, whose house she now resides in, is a powerful witch, demon and vampire hybrid whose goal is to leave a trail of blood, destruction and chaos, but she also learns too that she is a dhampyr - a half-vampire, half-human species who possesses incredible supernatural powers. With Charlie by her side, Olivia is determined not to be used as a pawn in Penelope's evil plan and seeks to uncover her true potential as a dhampyr.

The main issue I had with this book was the author's juvenile writing style. It lacked sophistication and depth to be able to bring the story to life in reader's minds. Everything from the descriptions of the settings, actions of the characters and their emotions seemed very mechanical and provoked no sentiment when reading. This had the effect of making character's reactions to all the weird and chaotic goings on seem very impassive, unrealistic and detached. The ending was perhaps the most heightened example of this. It appeared to be very rushed and despite the major things that seemed to be happening to her, Olivia's reactions were 'non-reactionary' and not believable at all. She didn't appear scared or even phased by the various instances where death seemed to be staring her right in the face. In fact she seemed to welcome it. This was not in a brave type of way but in a very naive and ignorant sort of way. Consequently as Olivia's decisions and actions became more and more ridiculous and unrealistic, it became slightly painful to read on at times.

Honing in on the author's use of description or perhaps lack thereof, the author seemed to un-creatively describe most things as being 'beautiful' which appeared to be her fall-back adjective whenever she introduced a new scene, an object or a person. Olivia's love interest Charlie was also frequently described as being 'beautiful'. It was very frustrating to realize that the author offered no further description of Charlie beyond this. We were not told his basic hair color, eye color, build... nothing! This was very unfortunate especially when one considers the fact that Charlie is a main character and thus should have been described with more substance both physically and mentally if readers are to identify with his character. Continuing on with the subject of Charlie, his relationship with Olivia seemed artificially constructed and didn't develop in a natural enough pace for me. After only sharing one class together and him taking her home, Charlie begins professing that he would die for Olivia and do everything in his power to protect her which I was a little stunned to read about as it seemed to come from nowhere. They had known each other literally a day or two.

Additionally the grammatical errors throughout this book was disturbing. There was various spelling mistakes, issues with tenses, incorrect sentence structures and placement of certain texts. Most shocking of all was the fact that on one page a sentence was actually cut off mid-point obviously by mistake.

With all this being said, I would still give this book a 2 out of 4 stars. This is simply because so few books are able to spark my interest and keep my attention throughout reading such book, but Widow Falls: Blood Heritage possessed such quality and I finished it in only a few hours. Although the general 'vampire' story has been done a million times over recently, Widow Falls: Blood Heritage had enough action, mystery and suspense to at least keep me intrigued. While this didn't make up for the author's writing style, it still made for a pleasant, quick and easy read and I did like how the story didn't waste time in parts by giving unnecessary long-winded and irrelevant details and just got straight to the point. However I still feel that perhaps if more 'flesh' in the form of emotive and substantial descriptions of characters and their actions, were added to the bare bones written in this book, then this could have complimented the story tremendously, made the writing style less rudimentary and scenes more believable. Nevertheless I recommend this book to all fantasy young adult lovers who are looking for something light to read which will still be able to provide enough action and romance to keep them engaged.

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