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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Book Review: Stepping Forward by Paul Carroll

Stepping Forward by Paul Carroll

Stepping Forward by Paul Carroll

This novel was beyond anything I’ve ever read before. The closest story I could compare it to is, “The Stepford Wives” – except it was much more fast-paced. The author has a sturdy voice that takes the reader to the brink of curiosity in waves upon waves of suspense.

I downloaded this book for free from Smashwords. It was the 3rd book I read on my Kobo (teehee, I love my Kobo). Yes there was some spelling and grammar errors, and words missing from sentences which was, of course, distracting, but I’ve read novels that I’ve downloaded, that do cost money, that were far worse off than this. And at least Stepping Forward had meat!

When I got to the end of the book I was a little disappointed. The potential is there, this book could be amazing, Paul Carroll has already got the goods in the palm of his hands, but the execution needs some tweaking.

To make this book everything it could be, it first needs all of the storylines explored and explained. There didn’t seem to be a real conclusion anywhere and all of the questions the reader is left asking aren’t answered. After tying up the storylines, a good editing eye to fix up the little issues that distract from the story – and voila, we’d have a real kickass novel.

I hope Paul Carroll keeps up with his writing and turns this so-close-but-not-quite-there suspense sci-fi story into the amazing oh-my-god-I-can’t-put-this-masterpiece-down novel that it almost is.







You can get your free copy of Stepping Forward here.

4 comments:

  1. Nice of you to review. I'm curious about it now. Time to visit Smashwords again. OOOh - I just saw the link- download here above the +1. Cool. P.S. How's YOUR novel coming along?

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  2. Mmm... not so well I'm sad to say. I keep switching ideas and haven't really gotten anything done. I'm getting a lot of reading in though!

    I recommend you give the book a read - it's definitely fast-paced and a page turner.

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  3. Paul Carroll wrote this book as a novell crammed with details and humor.

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