dislikes

I read two books in a row that both really disappointed me.  I didn't know what to say about them.  Then I read some that I did like but the number of titles I had to review started to quickly stack up.  Instead of trying to be fairly comprehensive in my comments, you're going to get quick and dirty impressions in small bursts, so I can knock all these off my list.

The fortune teller by Gwendolyn Womack.  This was so good!-- for about 3/4 of the book.  The end was a major flop.  There was a great story about the ancient piece and all the hands that held it.  For the modern-day-setting, the story was reasonably competently handled.  There were a few things that weren't a great choice-- the mysterious text messages between chapters were supposed to increase tension, but since there wasn't much in the story to support them, they were merely annoying.

The ending was horrible!  Spoiler time: the main character's paranormal manifestations came out of nowhere and made no sense in the story.  They were explained away as having been ignored or suppressed by the character, but that was invisible to the reader in the early part of the book.  Making that a part of the story from the beginning would have made it believable.  Also, the life-or-death chase around the world was rushed and contrived.  This was a good story without shoehorning in unnecessary thriller plots.

Partway through reading this, I recommended it to friends who liked parts of People of the book.  Unfortunately, it's like this author read that title and said "I can go bigger."  The good parts are better-- smoother writing, more realistic-sounding characters and believable relationships-- and the bad parts are way worse-- fake-feeling and poorly planned, like the author was unsure of who her readers were and what they'd want.

The moon in the palace by Weina Dai Randel.  Since this won a RITA award, I was definitely expecting something very different-- this is historical fiction and Women's fiction, not romance by any stretch of the imagination.

Historical fiction readers will appreciate the detail and setting-- unique and richly described-- but there are problems with the writing.  Primarily, if we can't see the character, she doesn't exist.  Between chapters, there are sometimes time jumps; during those periods, nothing has changed.  The character hasn't grown, she hasn't had a life off-screen.

It's not obvious from the way the story unfolds that this ends up being a short series.  It reads as a poorly-planned plot.

Pass.