Publication Date: May 1, 2013
[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”B00CMB9OV6″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xbhV%2Bn1eL._SL160_.jpg” width=”120″]Sharona’s husband is killed while they’re on honeymoon. She returns home and tries to get on with her life while grieving when she discovers that she’s pregnant. Sharona turns to her friends and father-in-law for support and, with time, is able to entertain the idea of dating again. When she meets Dr. Diago Cruz, Sharona is enthralled but her friends aren’t so sure. Is Dr. Cruz who he claims to be?
I was given a copy of this novel through Library Thing in exchange for my review.
[easyazon-link asin=”B00CMB9OV6″ locale=”us”]Secrets and Lies—(A Medical Suspense Thriller Novel)[/easyazon-link] has a promising premise. Woman marries husband, loses husband, finds out she’s pregnant and gets out there in attempt to love again. Life isn’t always what it seems and perhaps the person with whom she’s trying to rebuild isn’t who he seems to be. With the focus on Sharona and her struggle to rebuild her life, readers might have connected with her and followed her struggle. The premise was promising but the reality was disappointing. In many ways the story presented feels like an outline instead of a realized narrative.
At the start of the novel, Sharona loses her husband and then we jump two months. Sharona discovers she’s pregnant and then there’s a strangely specific focus on a complication of pregnancy which leads this reader to believe that perhaps McKenzie and Jansen has a medical background. We then suddenly jump three years. These sudden stops and starts without seeming logic, throw the reader off.
Of course, a victim with lack of specificity would be character development. The characters come off as quite shallow and difficult to connect. Sharona reacts to what happens around her but we don’t get a real sense of who she is as a person. Sharona is a character that has so many “draw your own conclusion moments” in her being that readers will pull from other works to fill them. Not necessarily a bad strategy because when you make a character who you want them to be, they don’t disappoint. The background characters all sort of melt into one being.
[easyazon-link asin=”B00CMB9OV6″ locale=”us”]Secrets and Lies – (A Medical Suspense Thriller Novel)[/easyazon-link] isn’t really a suspense novel until the end but the end is pretty compelling. I won’t give it away. There will be a second book to flesh out the suspense story line, but the authors make a pretty big move in their story development which gives the reader hope that good things are to come. There are some really outdated turns of phrase and I think perhaps the authors, neither of whom are American, wrote American characters in an attempt to appeal to that market when in fact writing what they know might have come of more naturally. There are grammatical and formatting errors that might be a hindrance to some readers. At the end of this novel I wondered if the authors were perhaps victims of over-editing their stories. If maybe they took out things that would enhance the read to keep the length down and direct the narrative.If you like quick reads, you might like [easyazon-link asin=”B00CMB9OV6″ locale=”us”]Secrets and Lies – (A Medical Suspense Thriller Novel)[/easyazon-link]. The lack of meat in the story line make it very easy to plow through in one sitting. This novel does have a number of very positive reviews on Amazon so check them out and see if this might be a work you’d enjoy, though I didn’t.
If this sounds like a novel for you, you can order it from Amazon.com by clicking the title anywhere in this review. Links for Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk appear below. On the advice of the fabulous Rangewoman Inc, I am going to seek out universal links for future reviews.
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To learn more about Ethan McKenzie and Natashiah Jansen, visit their website.
You can connect with Natashiah Jansen on Goodreads and Twitter @NileChick and you can follow Ethan McKenzie on Goodreads and Twitter @myreaderspress.