Who by Water by Victoria Raschke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Actual Rating: 2.5
*Thank you to Griffyn Ink Publishing for sending me a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.*
The blurb for this book sounded very interesting, and that was one of the reasons why I accepted it for review. The synopsis talks about the main character, named Jo Wiley, who becomes entangled in a web of mystery when several of her friends become murder victims. And of course Jo seems to be the missing link. But there are questions left unanswered, and Victoria Raschke spins a crazy story that balances a bit of mystery and a bit of fantasy.
I think the strongest part of the story was perhaps the plot. There were definitely ups and downs and I was surprised to find that the story didn’t quite fit into the genre that I had quite expected it to. After reading the book, it in fact does feel like a bit of paranormal or urban fantasy, but nevertheless the atmosphere that the author created was very unique and powerful.
I also really like the setting in which the story took place: Ljubljana. It’s definitely the first time I’ve read a story that was surrounded by such a historical setting, and this really gave the story a different meaning.
Unfortunately, for me I felt like the characters were a weaker point of the book. Because there were definitely a lot of characters with names that were hard to remember, I personally felt a bit disconnected from each of them and I couldn’t quite grasp who they were and what their characteristics were. Everything became a little bit muddled in my head as the story went on and I couldn’t quite remember how each character was linked to our main character.
The writing style I thought was good; there are some scenes that I really liked and I did enjoy the very casual dialogue throughout the book, but overall, nothing really stood out to me. The pace of the story was steady, but because of the characters I couldn’t quite get the full experience that this book was trying to provide. Nevertheless this book would probably be good for people who enjoy reading urban fantasy or something along those lines – and remember that it’s only the first book in the series so there’s definitely more to come!
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