Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Book Review: Catching Echoes

 Title: Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist Book 1) 
Author: Meghan Ciana Doidge
Genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Rating: 2 stars out of 5 

This is a bit of a tough book to review. It's a new trilogy set in an existing world where many of the characters are already known if you've read the previous books. I have not read the other trilogies (two I think) and this series is being marketed as not needing to. But after reading it I think it's probably much more enjoyable if you have read the other books. 


It's clear there's an elaborate paranormal version of our world built here but I never felt like I was immersed in it. Instead I felt like there were some scratches on the surface but that I was missing a lot of somethings. 


Our characters are fairly one-dimensional. A typical, all too powerful, gorgeous vampire and the timid, not so good at magic witch. It's just been done and I didn't feel there was anything here to really stand this book apart from the very saturated paranormal genre. In fact, for me, it felt like a not as good version of Guilty Pleasures by Laurel K. Hamilton, without the smut. Hamilton may be onto something when it comes to having lots of sexual tension and release in her books; maybe this genre just really needs that to make it palatable... 


It's really too bad because the writing is decent and the plot was intriguing; but it just wasn't enough for me. Maybe I've read too many paranormal books but I just wanted something more. 


If you're interested in this book I would suggest going to the beginning if the series as a whole; as many people love this world so there's hopefully something there to build off that is missing if you jump in at the beginning of this trilogy. 


Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review. Don't believe me? Check out the other books I've had eARCs for that I gave great reviews to. I always give my opinion whether good or bad.

1 comment:

Leonore Winterer said...

Thanks for the warning, if I ever come across this and feel the need to give it a try, I will find the first one to start with. I usually do that anyway, but when universes are split across several series, it's sometimes hard to figure out where to begin!