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Sat Mar-04-06 09:49 PMby jschara
By Lazette Gifford, 2006
Review originally published March 4, 2006: http://www.mercuryranch.org/blog/2006/03/04/muse-by-lazette-gifford/
I purchased and downloaded Muse by Lazette Gifford earlier this week. I printed it Thursday night, and last night around 8 pm, I settled down to read it. I finished it at 2 am this morning. It's the first fiction offering on HollyShop, and readers won't be disappointed.
Killian Fox's '66 Rambler breaks down in a small Nebraska town as he's transitioning from Denver to a new television newsanchor job in Chicago. The townspeople are friendly and helpful, getting him to the local mechanic late at night so his car can be towed to the shop and putting him up with the mayor, but something seems scarily wrong--they're plotting how to kill people, and talking about it with the Chief of Police.
I figured out early on what the deal was, but I put myself in this vulnerable stranger's shoes, and I had no trouble believing he would be frightened. This story's pacing is tremendous. Zette has achieved a wonderful balance of suspense and humor. In several places, I laughed out loud and, had I been in an Internet chat room, I would have described my reaction to at least one situation at ROTFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing). One would never expect a bare room to be so funny. Later on, Zette managed to get Zinsser and Tolkien mentioned in the same sentence and had me laughing out loud all over again.
The town Killian finds himself in is in real danger of flooding from heavy storms and losing everything. The people are fighting to stay safe, while, at the same time, someone is trying to kill one of the town's respected residents, and Killian finds out he's a target as well. The town has numerous factions involved in petty squabbles, yet they pull together when it counts.
This book has ups, downs, mystery, suspense, passion, and wonderful humor. I think I had most of the mystery figured out before it was revealed, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this book in the least. In fact, with the other factors, I found it enhanced the story. If you're distracted by such things, there are twenty to thirty minor proofreading misses throughout the book, but the story is great. You can't go wrong buying this book. And it has good pizza.
~~~~~~Signature's Off~~~~~~
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