Moving Target

ISBN: 0-7887-8859-0 Order from: Recorded Books

While sprinkled with moments of suspense and some pleasant interplay, most of the book suffers from a weak plot, overstated mystery, and repetitive romance elements.

Reviewed by David on June 15, 2002

Genre: Mystery (Romance, Suspence, Paranormal, Art)

Synopsis: This is an unabridged recording of Moving Target.

Serena Charters, a young woman, inherits a burned-out cabin and several pages of a beautiful medieval manuscript when her grandmother is murdered. Trying to investigate her reclusive grandmother's legacy, Serena stumbles upon several individuals with strong motives to get the same information—including a ruthless old billionaire and a captivating young man. Serena's paranoia, nurtured by her grandmother, seems justified, as several parties try to kill her or to get the ancient pages.

Full Review: While having a colorful premise, with a mysterious manuscript and a treasury of old weaving secrets, the book instead uses these as ornaments in a fairly predictable mystery and romance. The mystery proves to be disappointing, and overly portentious style of the book appears to serve only to delay the predictable, if not very realistic, resolution. The romance between the two main characters is regretfully equally trite, with small portions of fresh dialogue overwhelmed by repetitive, overly intense descriptions.

Added to frequent view-hopping, the plot leaves one underwhelmed. The narrator, Alyssa Bresnahan, tends to enunciate each word clearly; while easy on comprehension, this limits the range in both pacing and accents that could otherwise improve the solidity of the characters.

Overall, this is a disappointing book, relying more on superficial color and portentious hints than on real mystery, history or romance implied by its premise.

Overall: 4.5; Plot: 4; Characters: 4.5; Style: 5; World-building: 5; Originality: 6;

ISBN: 0-7887-8859-0 Order from: Recorded Books