DNF Early Review – Casting Shadows (Casting Shadows, Book 1) by Dziyana Taylor (2/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: GenZ Publishing
Release Date: January 12, 2021
ASIN : B08P3W42N3
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Casting Shadows series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for Review
Rating: 2/5 stars
“For two years, Rebecca Grimwood has been plagued by the same dream: an overturned ambulance vehicle, a long winding road, a motorcycle, and a man whose face she can’t make out. Dreams are just dreams, though, and she tries not to pay them much notice. Yet when a fortune teller tells Rebecca that her destiny involves a sacrifice, Rebecca seeks the answers she didn’t know she needed. To find them, she returns to the beginning: her old hometown of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
There’s always been something haunting about Harpers Ferry— maybe because it’s old Civil War ground, or the fact that ever since arriving, Rebecca has started seeing things she can’t explain. Things lurking in the shadows, in the farthest corners of streets, their voices whispering. Things out to get her. But one night, when a man named Derek saves her from certain death, Rebecca can’t help but feel that some good can come from the shadows..”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Casting Shadows series. I got a copy of this from NetGalley to review.
Story (2/5): I got about 25% through this book before I decided to stop reading it. The writing style is very poetic but also uses strange comparisons and imagery to try to explain stuff to the reader; it’s almost overly flowery but awkwardly so. At 25% in, not a whole lot has happened. We get an initial chapter set during the Battle of Gettysburg where we watch a soldier who is supposed to be defending some sort of journal die. Then we come back to the present time and start reading from Becca’s POV. Becca is an 18 year old girl who has had a recurring dream for 2 years, that just now makes her decide she should go to her grandmother’s house in Harper’s Ferry to sort things out. In the first quarter of the book we get to her grandmother’s house.
There are also some inconsistencies throughout. For example Becca loses her phone and a bit of a deal is made about it, but then a few pages later she is using her phone….maybe I missed her finding it (this was pretty tough to read) but I don’t think I did.
Characters (2/5): A huge issue I had with the book was the “voice” of Becca. She is an eighteen year old who talks like she’s in her 30’s or 40’s (or maybe even older). Maybe she is being portrayed as an old soul, but her thoughts, the way she talked, and her actions were not at all 18 year oldish (unless Becca was raised under a rock or in a time gone by). I was constantly confused by the fact that she was bouncing between guardians houses and then constantly having to remind myself that she was only 18.
Setting (2/5): Most of this book looks like it’s going to be set in Harper’s Ferry. However, at 25% in we mainly have had very detailed descriptions of Becca’s grandmother’s house.
Writing Style (2/5): This is just flat out hard to read. The flowery language compared with strange mental imagery just made things hard to picture and has an awkward flow to it. Couple this with a number of inconsistencies and I struggled with this a lot. For example, there are inconsistencies in what was happening (Becca’s phone loss) and inconsistencies in tone (Becca sounding much older than she was). This was just poorly written and needs some serious editing.
My Summary (2/5): Overall, the struggle I was going through to try and read this wasn’t worth the payback. I didn’t enjoy the writing style, it was tough to follow, not much happened, and there were too many inconsistencies. The premise sounded interesting but from the other reviews I’ve read it sounds this book gets worse, not better as you get deeper in, so I decided to stop.
