1 Star review for Past Suspicion by Therese Heckenkamp

I received "Past Suspicion" by Therese Heckenkamp free in exchange for an honest review.  Heckenkamp’s writing for the most part was good.  There were a few errors, but we will place that blame on the editor.  That is the editor’s job to check for, find and fix any such mistakes.  The really big glaring mistake Heckenkamp did was what a majority of people do.  She used the term “Victorian style” to describe her protagonist’s uncle’s house.  There is no such thing.  It is Victorian Era.  There are quite a few style that came fourth during the Victorian Era such as Italianate.  Again, her editor should have known the difference.

To the story itself, I’m even less impressed.  It was touted as a Christian Romance story.  It was more of a religious story.  Every third page or so there was some religious reference.  It is quite overtly Catholic.  It really was a put off.  I don’t like reading such books.  I read an Amish love story once and that was enough.  If I want to read an overtly religious books, that’s what I’ll do.  I’ll go and read one of my church books.  Not a novel that I’m reading for please, for an escape from reality for awhile.  There was another author I read that did a trilogy.  The first book had a little reference, the second book and the third was just too much.  Then she wrote more books in the serious and I won’t be reading them.  But to each their own.

Heckenkamp’s protagonist Robin finds herself an orphan at age 17 and is forced to move from California to Wisconsin to live with an uncle she never knew existed.  She wants to return as quickly as possible to California.  This sounds like the great beginning of a book.  That’s where it ended.  She does a prolog, and it’s supposed to set up the book.  By chapter 9 the prolog still does not make any sense.  It could have been left out entirely or used as back story throughout the novel.

I was so bored with the book that I gave up at the end of Chapter 8.  When Robin works in her uncle’s bookstore she meets two young men, two young men totally different.  At the end of the meeting of the second young man I had figured out which one was going to be the good guy and which one was going to be the bad guy.  I skipped to the end of the book, read the last chapter and the epilog.  I was right on which one was the good guy.  I’m not going to bother to read the rest of the book.  I really don’t care about what happens to Robin, her uncle or the two boys she meets.

Theresa Heckenkamp’s writing was good, I just did not care for her story.  I sincerely hope she does well.