Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Thank you to the publisher, Park Row, for providing me with an ARC of Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gist
I have wasted almost an hour trying to write this review for Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder. During that time, I have cleaned the kitchen, made myself a tea, ate chips, moisturized my hands three times and watched 22:39 minutes of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
The thing is, I don’t want to sound mean. I am not a mean person. This is not going to be a positive review and I’d much rather braid my short hair with a sprained finger (it hurts a lot) than do what I’m about to do.
The Details
What I’m about to point out are common mistakes I have noticed in authors’ debut novels. And rest assured when and if I ever write my own novel, I will probably make the same ones.
In the first two chapters of Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder the author introduces us to three female characters. Which one is the main character? As far as I could tell, character 2 cannot be character 1 or 3. Character 1 could be the same as character 3. In chapter two we find out that character 3 is the protagonist, only because her name is mentioned in the title.
Are you confused yet? Well, it gets a whole lot more convoluted from here one out. But let me backtrack just a little.
The title included the word “murder” in it, so obviously I will sign up to read this, no questions asked. And yes, there is murder, however; it is so shrouded in the wordiness that is this story that it was difficult to detect it.
As I said, two chapters equaled three different characters thrown at us. On top of that we have immense world building that is layered on top of the ordinary world we are used to. This makes the subtle differences between the regular world and the world created in this book extremely difficult to keep apart and understand.
I think boiling this down to one major issue, I would say it is the issue of rushing things along too quickly. Sometimes this can be a very common rookie mistake. There are all these ideas floating around and they are great and have so much potential, but that fine tuning when spinning that delicate web of a story isn’t quite there yet.
A little more time editing this story would have done it a world of good. I am so frustrated with it, because I can see the potential. I can see myself reading this story in two days, because it is just that good. It all just got lost in the words and descriptions.
Also, I began to notice immensely long paragraphs and sentences. One paragraph consisted only of two sentences, throwing so much at us, it was impossible for me to stay focused.
The Verdict
Overall, this had real potential. Sadly, now I’m sitting here with a headache, constantly running different possibilities through my head of how this could have been a great read.
I feel awful about it. I don’t think I would recommend it.
About the Author
T. A. Willberg was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and holds a chiropractic masters degree from Durban University of Technology. MARION LANE AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDER is her debut novel and launch of her detective series. She currently lives in Malta with her partner.
