Review: Before You Leap by Keith Houghton

Before You Leap by Keith Houghton
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

DNF

I really liked the sound of this book,from the synopsis it sounded really interesting and just like the sort of book that I would enjoy reading.Unfortunately as often happens when you finally get something that you have wanted for a while the reality was a major let down.

It started off really well,the car chase across the bridge was exciting and dramatic but then the book crashed through the barriers and smashed into the water and there were no survivors because no one was worth saving.

The story of what happened to Greg's sister had promise but the chapters were far too long and bogged down with far too much psycho babble and padding.You would get part way through a chapter and Greg would go into a sort of trance and then there would be pages and pages of him remembering events from the past and then he would snap back to the present again.Stories set in two time frames do work but only if the two frames are in separate chapters and clearly marked.I find that having two time frames in the same chapter can be distracting and and break up the flow of the story.I felt no connection to the main character Greg who although he was amusing at times also came across as a whiney wimp.And then to top it all off we had the appearance of the good old tunnel vision cliched cop.Yeah I know they do exist in the real world but why oh why do they have to appear so often in the fictional world,it's just so cliched and predictable.

So unfortunately this is a DNF for me,which is a shame because it sounded so promising.I'm 46% through and am not interested in the story enough to carry on wading through the padding to find out what happens at the end.

Many thanks to publishers Thomas Mercer for an arc of this book via netgalley in exchange for a honest review