Location: Germany
Member Since:
March 15, 2011
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Romana Grimm
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Smashwords book reviews by Romana Grimm
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Payback's a Witch
on May 21, 2011
Unfortunately this book starts out with an interesting description. I even liked the cover and thought: It's only a dollar ... but that's where I went wrong. I'm a reader who's used to reading fanfiction (in other words, used to reading less-than-stellar-stories). As I grew older, my patience with bad storytelling and grammar waned. Still, I wanted to give this book a try because I liked the idea and the premise and because I also believe in giving "indies" a chance. Now, why am I so disappointed? First of all, the narrative could be better. Much better. Orthographical erros and stylistic boredom aside (Your xy = you're xy ... dear God, I'm from Germany and know better than that. Mistakes like that really make it hard to be patient and read on, especially when there's more than one.), every character speaks like the other and dialogue sounds so flat that, at times, I wanted to shake the characters. Also, there was simply no depth to the characters, especially Nelle. She's a girl who's single at the beginning and felt that no man was good enough for her ... until the Adonis Sam comes along. They hit it off instantly - and I couldn't care less. There's nothing about Nelle that I liked. For example: When meeting the ex-girlfriend her first thought is that she's out of Sam's league. (Don't get me wrong, women really think so but for a reader it is really, really annoying to have such a shallow character as the lead. Why doesn't Nelle wonder what Sam saw in Anna if she wasn't as beautiful as him? And why would Sam care if he is the perfect boyfriend? Sam seems to strike me as that kind of guy who likes a girl because he likes all of her, not merely because she's a super hot sex bomb. That shallow-part really needs to be worked on.) Every other character had more substance than Nelle in my opinion and added to my growing frustration. There's more but I don't think it is my job to edit this story. For me, this was thoroughly disappointing. I really liked this "discover your inner witch"-thing and I hoped to read a compelling story. It's a pity that so much plot was stuffed onto so few pages. In my opinion this story has the potential to be much more if the author would take the time and add all the little ingredients like different speeches, perfect orthography, not-too-many twists and an antagonist who actually appears more than twice in the story and gets a better characterization. If she's bad I at least want to know her well enough to hate her! To the author: I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I'm a writer myself and know how much work it is to write a story, even if it's a short one. I respect that and want to help (which, I hope, I could do with this review, even though it might sound harsh) because nothing is more important than the satisfaction of the reader. As a reader, however, I expected more service. The dollar is not my problem, you can keep it; my time is.
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The Invisible Husband
on Nov. 07, 2011
I finally got around to reading „The Invisible Husband“ and was quite well entertained. The story was sweet with touches of drama and humour. Eve and her light-hearted banter with her husband were especially fun to read but I also liked Davis the butler. It’d have been a solid four star read if not for a few things: 1) The typos: Throughout the story there were missing words, redundant words and so many comma faults that even I as a non-native speaker stumbled while reading. What a pity! That alone would’ve kept the rating higher than it is now and it is nothing that can’t be fixed easily. 2) The somewhat shallow plot and characters: Yes, it is rather shallow as in "man sees woman and marries her and then there’s drama of the home-made kind". I still liked the story although I’d have really loved to see more of Adam’s family, or Eve’s impossible family, or later complications after the attack for that matter. It’d have made the book seem “fuller”, more alive with people and atmosphere. And I agree with the other reviewer that called Adam a bit soft. He could’ve acted hurt without sounding like a wallowing pirate-poet. But thoughts are free, even those of fictional characters ;-) 3) And last: The abrupt ending. Call me nitpicky but I like to know when a story is truly over. A little “END” would’ve helped in that regard. The way it is now it was simply cut off. If the last chapter had been labelled as epilogue I’d have understood better and been more prepared. It’s also a pity that there was no info on the author as back matter, or perhaps an exerpt from one or more of the other books. Still, I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it to anyone who’s looking for something light and romantic.
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Chase Of A Lifetime
on July 09, 2012
I bought this book on a whim; at 99c I'm not usually one to raise a fuss. This book, however, was so badly written that I couldn't get past the first 1/5th of it. Characters act illogically (my main peeve being Jim, the protagonist, who claims to be a shy virgin but has toys at home that'd put a porn star to shame) and the dialogue consists mostly of "Ah, well"s. Furthermore, there are a lot of repetitions in the narrative, which really put me off. As I said, at 99c I usually cut authors a lot of slack, but for me this was without any redeeming features. If anyone wants to give this a try, I recommend taking a peek at the sample first. The story in itself could've been nice, but as it is, I couldn't read it without frustration.
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Once Upon A Christmas
on Dec. 01, 2012
I bought this book because I wanted a sweet Christmas story. That it's set in the Regency period only made it better for me. I already liked the sample and definitely wasn't disappointed after reading the whole book. :) I won't say anything about the contents, as other reviewers summed the story up already, just that I found the ending a tiny bit dissatisfying. A small epilogue would have been nice, although I don't yet know whether there are more books in this universe. After reading "Once upon a Christmas time" I'll certainly go and find out! This book had me literally laughing out loud (and dissolve into tears on several occasions because the hilarity was too much), something that not many authors achieve! Humour is very hard to write, and for that reason alone the book is a new favourite of mine. Of course, there were also sad moments, and very emotional ones. The main characters, too, were well executed in my opinion, although Jack's younger sisters and father didn't have much play time. (If they did, the book would've been quite a bit longer than it already is, I'd imagine ;) ) All in all, I give this story four stars and recommend it to readers who love uplifting, heart-warming Christmas stories.