Review: The Lamplighter

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Book information

Title: The Lamplighter

Author: Crystal J. Bell

Where to buy: Amazon.

Around Pru, it's easy to forget the shadows in the world. She is my sun.
- Tempe

I have fallen in love with the man, not his looks.
- Pru

Never stop shining. For you are the sun.
- Tempe
*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.*

Likes:

First sentence is already exciting, making a reader want to read more.

Nice writing style. No words are too often used, great variety. Feelings are describes in literal and metaphorical way, giving a great variety as well.

Temperance, our main character has a rare British name. It's not the usual names one hears in books, at least not for the main character. It's gives the story it's certain originality.

It addresses the difficulty one has when they wear trousers as a girl in old times. I see that the author made some research, and that's good!

The ending wasn't predictable.
Dislikes:


Pacing. The beginning of the book was exciting, but it got dull over time and nothing exciting happened anymore.

The characters are all a bit stupid. They make decisions too fast or without thinking logical. I was ripping at my hair at one scene where we almost caught the culprit but the main character was too stupid to leave everything open, so the culprit could erase the evidence before she comes back with the police.

Most side characters are flat. Gideon has his personality, we get to know him more and his past with the main character, but Josiah, Henry ans Leonard are all flat and just have a single purpose without making the reader actually getting to know them.

Overexplaining everything, leading to a slow pace and unnecessary information.

The culprit was predictable.

At the ending she didn't help Henry at all and just watched. That made me go so mad. I am certain that the main character was made to be liked by the reader, but that failed.
Rating

How it works: Only everything that is lower than 9 gets reduced from the final rating. Depending on how strong it inflicted the overall enjoyment of reading it effects differently. 

[ Story 6 / 10 ]

[ Characters 7 / 10 ]

[ Triggering 0 / 10 ]

[ Topic/Genre 10 / 10 ]

[ Writing style 9 / 10 ]

[ Grammatic and spelling 10 / 10 ]

[ Ending 10 / 10 ]

Final Rating

3/5

Thank you for the advanced reader copy of The Lamplighter by Crystal J. Bell.



Started the book: 22. March 2024
Finished the book: 22. March 2024
Wrote the review: 22. March 2024
Hi I'm Mika! Reviewer of ARC's but I also review unknown and small presses. My favourite genres are horror, thriller and graphic novels. I tend to be a strict reviewer but my average rating for small presses is 3.7

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