Death by Marriage

Jaden Skye writes interesting books, but her grammar is sorely lacking in many of her stories. Also, in placing the book from published paper copy to digital there are many formatting problems. Some words are misspelled, some are missing, and Ms. Skye (in my mind) has become infamous for placing adverbs at the end of the sentence. She also has some clich sentences used over and over again in the titles I have read. Ms. Skye started with Cindy finding her husband’s killer (hubby was killed on their honeymoon). For someone who is so brilliant as a detective, she maligns Mathieus’ behavior when he becomes emotional, but she does not acknowledge her own behavior when reacting quite similarly. (Okay for her, not for him.)

I read her books because they are not too hard to understand where she is going with the plot. When I sit down to read, I don’t like complicated as I do not have that much time to sit and enjoy a good book. I have to squeeze in the reading time.

I have ordered most of her books and am going through them relatively quickly, but I would find the time to be a proofreader for her if the job would pay enough to take on the task. I would enjoy being a proofreader for her books. They need a bit of editing and to have those edited items pointed out by someone who actually knows how to proofread.

Unfortunately, although the story line is interesting, and the characters are entertaining, THE EDITING IS AWFUL !!! I hate to leave bad Feedback and this series of books is the first EVER for which I’ve left negative feedback. After reading the initial book in the series, I purchased the set of 12 volumes in this Caribbean Murder Series. The editing gets WORSE and WORSE as the series of books goes onward. Having struggled through 7 of them because I enjoyed the characters, I am finally throwing in the towel. I am NOT interested in reading books 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 (although Amazon will NOT refund my money because it is 15 days since I purchased) and I must say FOR SHAME on the Author: Jaden Skye for allowing good ideas to be presented in such a slip-shod manner. Not only excruciatingly BAD USAGE, but also confusion of character names. Nothing wrecks a story more than to have the main Detective’s name exchanged for the name of the Murder Victim, and then the Murder Victim’s name following in the next sentence. . .wait, who? REALLY BAD – NOT RECOMMENDED.

I really enjoyed the first 2 books in the series (despite the many typos) but this one was not of the same caliber. Honestly, the mistakes were so bad this time around that it was really hard to stick with the flow of the story. Characters names were wrong, whole sentences just didn’t make sense, and it seems there was no editing done at all. But in addition to that, the storyline didn’t have the same amount of though put into it. There was no foreshadowing or clues along the way that made you think about a particular individual being the “whodunit” but rather she just meandered along and then all of a sudden, Oh, it was this guy we never even met along the way. What? Just not a well written book. Save your money.

I’ve read the first 10 books in this series. Most of them I downloaded for free through various websites. I’m a fast reader but with this series I really struggled with these books. Books 1-7 it took me several months to read each individual book because (1) the plot was not fast paced enough to hold my interest, (2) there were several consistency errors in each book, and (3) there were TONS of typos throughout each of the books. However, books 8-10 were interesting enough that I finished all 3 of those within 2 weeks. If you can get past all of the errors then this is a fairly decent series.

The author either didn’t have the books professionally edited or the editor she used needs to be blacklisted from the industry because the mistakes were major mistakes. Things like:
“Peter suddenly put his heads back into his hands.” Unless I’m mistaken this is a mystery series not science fiction and the character only has 1 head. I could understand making this mistake once but it popped up in other books too!!! “…gave the bartender a heads’s up.” Seriously? That’s just sloppy typing and would have been caught if spell check had been used.

She would also misuse the apostrophe after characters names. She would sometimes leave out entire words so you were left wondering what she was trying to say and would have to guess at the intended meaning of the sentence.

As far as the consistency errors, sometimes a character would meet with Cindy and tell her something and then in the very next paragraph approach Cindy and she would mention it to that character and he or she would act as if they were hearing it for the first time.

Those are the kind of errors that almost made me stop reading this series halfway through the first book but I kept plugging away at it hoping it would get better or at least more interesting. Each book it finally did get interesting but not until the final 5 or 6 chapters except for books 8-10 and those held my interest right away. The editing is still atrocious in those and all of the books feel like she was completely distracted while she was writing them.

Overall, I think the entire series would benefit from a review by a professional editor.

I write my reviews by saying what I personally thought about the book. I have no intention of repeating the storyline, you can find that in the detail of the book.

I read the book because it was free, it was an okay read, not a massive page Turner but the storyline is strong enough to hold the reader’s attention. I found the book a very easy read. There was no complex characters and the story itself was extremely easy to follow, and I felt there was no depth behind the storyline and characters. At times I felt that this book could very easily be aimed at the younger reader.

There are not many twists and turns that perhaps is usually aimed at an older reader. There was one twist that I never saw coming.

There is a simmering romance between the couple of Private Investigators who take on the case of murder.

Having said all the above, it was a good read that kept my attention to a certain degree, it was an easy and uncomplicated read that meant I could put this book down and easily pick back up without losing the plot of the book.

I understand this book is part of a series, who knows, if I read the rest of them they could grow into a more adult storyline. I have another free book from this author that is from this storyline. I will read it, but I have other books I would like to read before reading the next in this series.

One other thing I have to say is to do with the simmering romance between the two main characters. The romance side of the book is “back in the day” as the younger generation say. I felt that the romance was an older type, it kind of felt very chivalrous, the kind where doors were held open for women. The female P.I does have a stubborn streak however and it is her ‘woman’s intuition’ that cracks the case wide open and of course it was down to her stubbornness that solves the case.

I wish that I could give half stars because I felt a four star rating was too high but a three is a tad too low, but a three and a half star rating is more appropriate for this book.

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