#300 (#18 of 2013) - Dark Prelude ~ Andrea Parnell *NEW AUTHOR

Description:

This short novella is a prequel to the novel Dark Splendor.

A chance encounter offers lovely young Silvia Bradstreet an escape from her miserable life in London. The Eastwind sails for the American colonies in two weeks. If Silvia chooses to accept the offer of a mysterious benefactor, she must be ready to risk her life for a chance at freedom. 

Silvia's dark fate starts here, in a novella-length prequel to the sexy Gothic romance novel Dark Splendor.

Product Details:

Purchased on Kindle as a freedown load actually, at the time of writing this post it is 77p as a Kindle Book.

Novella - 67 pages.

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Summary:

Well, I'm glad I snagged this as a freebie!

Actually, in this instance not because of the writing, which from the very short example of it, was just fine and dandy.

Having thought about it .....  if I paid the current price of 77p I would feel more that a bit cheated, as this piece of literature is no more than half a prologue.  True, the author has provided a good "hook in", but there is absolutely no conclusion or satisfaction in reading it, other than to decide that it might be wroth seeing where she goes from there.

Pretty much better to have written a true short story or Novella setting the scene that was was offered.  I read many authors who have nice well concluded prologues at the beginning of the books .... and they don't have the bare-faced cheek to make you pay for it.

All in all, because I feel that this is no more than an excerpt that they are expecting to be paid for, not a satisfactory prelude/prologue ... the writing alone justifies a 2 star rating overall.  This could so easily have been much higher (the quality of the actual writing was better than a lot of others) if it could be perceived as better value for the money.

Don't get me wrong, I would probably read the book attached to this at some point ... but now won't be making it a priority due to my perception of having been ripped off a little (even though I got it for free).  I'm all for "hooking readers in", but expect slightly more usually to make it worth while picking up the Kindle.

Hugs

Kay