This is Why I Reserve "1's" in 1-5 Rankings...The Ones So Bad I Can't Stand Reading!

Anybody who reads my blog a few times, soon learns that Cats Reign Supreme in my life... especially my own...

Soooooo, I have a habit of automatically assuming that a book with a cat on the front cover is going to interest me...I now have learned differently. Actually, I have no idea what the story line is...the writing was so bad, even though I tried several times to proceed, that my mind just refused to acknowledge this in comparison to all the great books that I've consumed...

Daytime usually meant another day of life. The warm chill in the air went through every moving little being’s skin as they headed to their usual destinations while time went on. If anyone could be asked about their life then, they would share their own opinions whether it was negative or position. But still, nothing could change the concept of it, except death. 

Death was an opposite to the concept of life. While a new day meant another day of life, it can also be the day of death. Almost no one can predict their time to die, which was in the case of another day at the street of Melbrock. 

No one had expected a car accident to take place at the parkway street. The road itself was divided into two lanes, with the middle divided by trees long ago planted in a single line. Usually, such accidents were caused by minimal crashes, but the recent car accident was different and horrifying. The vehicle was upside down, with its body torn off, dented and scratched badly. Its state was less compared to a truck, which only had its hood dented as it stayed a distance away. Already people were gathered at the scene and stood behind a barricade tape. News reporters were present as well, but none of them were allowed through the tape. A few of the police officers stood at the tape to prevent civilians from getting through while the investigation was ongoing. Among these men in blue was the man in charge, the chief of the police department. Already, he had his eyes on the tumbled car while making sure his body didn’t touch.

~~~

My apologies to this Black Sheba... she tried to tell me with her eyes--do I look like a "cute" cat?!!! This is a cute cat...I am not! But after she said that, she admitted that since I already had her picture in my files, that she knew why I wanted to check it out...

The name on the book, Shane Ross, on the Amazon site says he is the Editor... Interestingly, there is no biographical information along with the book, nor, when I found the reference, did I find anything on him since the site had been suspended... Also interestingly I found a man on LinkedIn with this name and title...but nothing on this book...Identity Theft??? I wondered...

In any event, I immediately started to think about the rule of making every word move the book forward... Aside from the grammatical and spelling errors, there was a consistent use of entire phrases that needed to be deleted to tighten the narrative, even though it already is a short book.

No one seemed to pay attention to the tree. But even if anyone did, none of the people would be bothered much of the occupants on it. Their presence didn’t add anything to the accident - at least that’s what they would think. It wasn’t everyday people saw three cats sitting in a tree, observing the scene from a clear position. The top view from the tree gave clear sight to the scene. While many people were gathered to see the scene of the crime, the cats comfortably sat on the branches, watching the whole thing from where they sat...

His companions were both female mixed breed and sat on a branch a bit higher than his. Unlike the male, both cats laid on the branch in their own way. One sat with her legs dangling at the sides while the other stayed with her legs curled to her. One of them being a cat with black and white fur licked her paw as a yawn later followed. The way she put her head down was enough to express her boredom...
“How long are we going to wait for him?” She asked. While she was clearly a female, she was a mixed breed cat. Her fur was a mix of white and black. The parts purely white were her nose and lips, stomach, paws and the tip of her tail.
“Yeah.” Another bored-faced female cat agreed. “We’ve been waiting for her for some time now, Charles.” She said. Being a mixed breed also meant she had characteristics almost similar to her friend. Though she wasn’t close to the same breed as her, she had dark green fur combined with white far that covered almost all of her body. The only exception was her face, neck, paws and her tail...

“I don’t know.” He told them firmly. “You know how Toby is like. I swear that guy never…” 

“Oh there he goes again.” said the bicolour cat. “I know right.” 

The other feline snickered. “Why does he always have to be a stick in the mud sometimes?”



Of course, the rule "show don't tell" was prevalent... Ok, again aside from the writing issues, let's talk about cats in a mystery. According to everything I found on the Amazon site, this book is supposed to be unique...NOT! Anybody who writes a cat mystery "should" be totally aware that there is an entire genre and so many thousands of this type of book, most of which I've read, that we all know about writing and talking about cats...Mixed Breed? For shame... Green far...Yikes! Cats in books are identified by name only...in the description, we learn about her heritage, markings, etc., but if we really need to know how the colors look, we get a picture, otherwise, forget it...The descriptions are so involved that we lose sight of the story... P.S. my cats were selected purely because of the front cover cat and that the cats were in trees...LOL! I did not find any green cats...

You can tell the writer is not a cat lover...By the time you have introduced the cats, we should know each of their names, instead of trying to differentiate them by their color... or "the other cat"...

Can you understand why I was disgusted? Of course, any professional novel writer would immediately understand...And a cat mystery writer!?! They would faint from the five-star reviews this book has already got!

PLEASE if you don't trust my judgment on a cat mystery book, read the sample shown...If you don't mind the writing...go for it, but don't ever tell anybody I recommended it to you... Let's stop accepting books of this caliber...the only reason I wouldn't return it is because I needed to document what I found! I had no guilt giving this the rank it deserves...


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