Title: Bleeding Hearts
Author: Icehorses12
Genre: Mystery/Thriller Chapter
Count: 22 (Ongoing)
Blurb [sic]: Camryn Lucks has always thought herself to be lucky. That is until the night her "perfect" boyfriend tried to kill her. Then again, maybe her name is still good luck since she survived the attack.
Carson Lynch still on the loose and possibly still wanting to kill her, Cami must explore her memories of their relationship in the hopes of bringing the suspected serial killer to justice.
Will her memories help to catch a killer or at least give her some kind of understanding? Will Officer Isaac Collins manage to keep her safe? Or has her good luck finally ran out?
This story is entered into the Wattys2015
Thank You Rapscallia for the wonderful blurb!
Onto the review
Bleeding Hearts is a thriller revolving around Camryn "Cami" Lucks and her ex-boyfriend Carson Lynch, but to me the story didn't feel like a thriller. At most I could have pegged it as a horror romance. There was nothing that kept me on the edge of my seat and more often than not the romance took front stage, which is not what I expected when reading a thriller/horror.
Bleeding Hearts reads more like a teen horror than a mature one. The transition between scenes can be jarring, especially with the flipping from past to present in the story. The peculiar thing is, there are moments when Bleeding Hearts is beautifully written and moments when the text tells me what I need to know rather than shows me. The prose is uneven, some parts more polished than others and some of the description is clunky: such as, "I nod my head."
The use of first person felt wasted to me, if anything it only took away from the suspense. It would have been much easier to transition from past to present in order to reveal mysteries if Icehorses12 had used third person limited and went from past to present on chapter breaks rather than from one paragraph to the next.
Bleeding Hearts isn't bad, it's just not revolutionary. It didn't stick with me. The characters, while seeming to have motivations, centered around the plot in a way that made them feel bland. Their dialogue and the situations (especially within the police station and her relocation) were unrealistic in a way that took me out of the story.
All in all feel free to check out Bleeding Hearts, but don't expect to be wowed or moved by the characters, situation or descriptions. You won't hate the story and you won't love it. I certainly think it would have profited more as a romance horror with a focus on romance and an undertone of horror rather than trying to promote itself as a thriller.
Verdict: 5/10 a very average read.
-Reviewed by
