Intrigued both by the cover illustration and blurb, I chose, The Edge of Insanity, one of our new arrivals into the Book Dragon Book Shop, to read after a busy day at our Headquarters. And what a great choice I made!
Once I started the book I couldn’t put it down, and ended up reading the entire book in one night. What a delightful surprise to find that this wasn’t the adult mystery book I was expecting to read, and it so happened to fall into one of my personal favourite genres. I was completely hooked from beginning to end. And, as far as this particular type of genre goes, I would say that it is one of the best books I have read to date, both in terms of its descriptive telling, building the atmosphere as the reader progresses, & eliciting an emotional response.
I really enjoyed the way in which the plot progressed and moved between all the different characters to tell Maria Bartonelli’s story, slowly piecing historical events together as they impacted on current day events. The dialogue was good, and there was an explanation included in some of the pages of the ‘slang’ references used, which was a nice touch but for some I felt, they didn’t really need the terms explaining.
The characters I found were relatable. Although there were times when the Author could have delved a little deeper into their psyche, and told more of their back story.
Overall the pacing was good, however between the end of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3 there was a small jump in the story, the author describing through character dialogue what had taken place, or not in this particular case. As a reader, I almost felt I had missed out on something significant happening. It is only a minor point I make, and I soon caught up as I read further into the Chapter, but a potential lost opportunity, for more atmosphere!
The only critique which I would offer to the Author is more in relation to the formatting and editing of the book. Which, I must stress, did not prevent me from thoroughly enjoying the story, but other readers may be less forgiving, when reading. These can easily be addressed, and it would certainly lift my current review rating.
I have awarded The Edge of Insanity 4 stars.
