Death by Obsession

Typos and grammatical conundrums will have many readers gnashing their teeth: Jaden Sky is a slovenly writer who cares little for the technical aspects of her craft. I’ve read most of the series because they were free, she’s got a decent storyline, and I like the protagonist. But I’m about to throw my hands up in despair and toss the series overboard to the sharks. Silly me. I kept thinking that Skye’s writing skills would improve over time. She needs to hire a proofreader.

I can forgive an author’s limited vocabulary, or lackluster sentences that change tenses mid-stream. But when the writing’s consistently sloppy, there’s no excuse. If you read most of the comments for her dozen Caribbean Murder novels, the same criticisms is repeated ad nauseam: riddled with myriad grammatical errors. I guess she doesn’t read Amazon reviews. A pity, because with an editor, Skye could become a decent writer.

What finally sent me off the deep end as a reader, is that Skye is incapable of distinguishing between common nouns and proper noun and these stories read like bad Victorian novels: his friend’s Dive Shop, she went to the Police Station, they slept in the King size bed. Skye arbitrarily capitalizes common nouns, and leaves proper nouns lower case–sometimes with unintentional meaning. “I’ll handle this mother,” Lynch tried to intervene. Is he swearing, or addressing his mother? (LOL, she’s even got a typo on her web page: Jaden skye.)

Skye conflates characters, in one novel (4) she confused Cindy with the victim, Tiffany, which made no sense at all. Sister Ann becomes Anne. And she repeatedly repeats dialogue. Didn’t I just read that?

Then there are the wrong words spelled right. “For all we know you could be best.” (Hint: best may be spelled correctly but it’s the wrong word. Try next.) Why do I, the reader, have to stop, and supply the right, or missing words? Isn’t that the writer’s job?

She’s unsure of compounds words, which makes for tedious sentences: “he was an ego maniac.” Forget using the word: redhead. That’s too compound a thought.

Misplaced possessive apostrophes: “people often blame the one’s they are close to….” Add missing conjunctions, and a plethora of adjectives and adverbs–Skye should banish all forms of beauty from her limited vocabulary. Especially the word “beautiful.” In book 4, she used beautiful(ly) a whopping 70 times. This volume, over 40 times. Thesaurus much?

And when in doubt, rather than look it up, Skye uses inventive spelling: hor doerves for hors d’oeuvres; St. Marteen for Maarten. Now I’m cringing. Especially when there’s spellcheck and other resources on the the web. I won’t mention the bad formatting issues.

Skye’s strong on dialogue; it’s fairly realistic. She has an interesting storyline, and can cut a good yarn, but the plot tends to be thin and two-dimensional as the characters themselves. And the same old tropes become exceedingly tedious after a few novels. For someone who lives out of her suitcase, Cindy is always stepping out in lovely pastel linen numbers. Really? How does she do it living out of her suitcase, on the road, in the tropics, no less?

BTW, sleuthing clues on Facebook is not realistic PI work. Almost everyone has their profiles locked down tight. But that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. Better to save your money, and your time for a more deserving writer.

I read Death by Obession by Jaden Skye, the eighth book in the Caribbean Murder Series after a recommendation by Free Amazon Books. This book was a three star read.
Cindy and Mattheus, a couple in love, that own a detective agency or vice versa and are hired by Aldon, a distraught father, of the bride, Tara, who cannot accept his daughters choice of Lynch, her fianc. What results is a story where everyone involved is a victim of self-fulling prophecy.

I love a good detective novel and this one was an ok read. The pace of the story was good up to the conclusion which seemed abrupt. I dont recall a single action scene, but there was suspense and tension. I will go so far as to say Skyes is a master of tension as I felt it strongly throughout the story.
Skyes characters each have a solid identity. I did find however, that the antagonists Raina, Lynchs mother, Lynch and I am going to include Aldon with them, were much more relatable and likeable then Cindy and Mattheus. The mother is a brilliant, hard, socialite, business women. Lynch is a loving, doting mommys boy. Aldon is a devoted father determined to hold on the last important thing in his life, his daughter. Then there is Cindy and Mattheus that earn this book its three star rating.
Cindy is no Charlene Elizabeth and Mattheus is no Mike Hammer. Instead Cindy is constantly stating her views and Mattheus is standing his ground while pouting until he relents. Cindy in return spends her insecure moment looking for the slightest betrayal as a sign to run, only to hug and realize he is the man for her until she is ready to run again. When she does win all the disagreements it has terrible consequences for her and everyone around her.

Cindy and Mattheus are that couple that if you were reminded in the morning, Hey honey, just a reminder we are going out with Cindy and Mattheus this evening. You would spend the rest of the day thinking maybe I should kidnap someone and hire Cindy and Mattheus to find them, so they might cancel out of dinner tonight.
Once you abandoned your kidnapping plan and show up for dinner. Cindy would order the steak and Mattheus would order the shrimp. Cindy would explain why he should not order the shrimp. As Mattheus begins to pout and people around you begin to become uncomfortable, you gently kick your spouse under the table and share a glance.
Cindy begins to think, a man that likes shrimpmaybe hes not the man for me.
You then look around the restaurant and begin to rethink that kidnapping.
Mattheus suddenly relents and orders the steak.
The steak comes overcooked because they ordered it a shrimp shack.
You and your spouse finish your shrimp accept you are never coming back to this restaurant and sigh, a breath of relief that this night is over.

I have no intention of reading any more of the series, but if you are in the mood for a solid three star read, with a lot of tension, this is your book.

Reviewers After Note:
My reviews will reflect on some of the following, if not all; story, characters, enjoyment or lack of enjoyment, plot, overall thought, background and would I recommend the book to you the reader. You will not find any editing, grammar or structure critique, when reviewing self-published authors, unless it would be unique for the reader or the story is completely unreadable. The reason for this is there is no staff behind most of these authors which is reflected in a free or cheaper book price, but a less polished outcome.

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.

The beautiful Cindy and fabulously handsome Mattheus are partners in their work as private detectives and also in their personal lives. Called from an idyllic break together to a Caribbean island by a wealthy businessman, it soon becomes clear that this assignment will have grave implications for their own personal relationship. Sounds fascinating but in fact, I found this dull and unrealistic, peopled with cardboard characters placed in most unlikely situations. The businessman, Aldon, fears for his soon-to-be-married, beloved, daughter, Tara and tasks the detectives with finding anything suspicious in his future son-in-law’s background. On the face of it, the bridegroom, Lynch is a paragon of virtue, unlike his mother, Rainer, who is a stereotypical, rich bitch. With the wedding, a highly public, glitzy affair, only days away, the detectives have little time and at first, little inclination to interfere in the young couples’ lives. The ‘terrible’ secret our pair uncovers, or rather are told by a local informant, is nothing that any of the previous PIs apparently hired by Aldon couldn’t have found out just as easily. Their reliance on friendships with the local police and their informants to do the bulk of the detective work made it difficult to understand why they were supposed to be top of their game. As they seemed to know next to nothing about what a private detective actually does, they were possibly the most unlikely pair ever to be in their line of business. Set, as they were, against a background of equally unrealistic people, attitudes and behaviour, the plot, such as it was, never really stood a chance. We never discovered why the ‘secret’ would be the ruin of everyone concerned. Nor did we ever really get to the bottom of Lynch and Rainer’s somewhat unhealthy relationship. In fact, any so-called background information was so sketchy, that it was almost impossible to feel any empathy with any of the characters. This series is definitely not one I would recommend.

I truly did not enjoy this book. The lack of proof reading was evident but can be looked over but there were no likeable characters or real plot. This is the first one of the series and to me Cindy is weak, whiney and precious, Mattheus seems to be one sandwich short and the other characters had no substance. I had worked out who did it at the start, it was too obvious. There also seemed to be a lot of words dedicated to Cindy’s wardrobe – why? I don’t think I’ve ever given 1 star before and I’m a prolific reader, but this was dire. No plot, no substance, no suspense and characters you hoped would all meet a quick end.

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