REVIEW - The Shapeshifter's Tale (Laura Koerber)

The Shapeshifter's Tale"Start at book one, you'll be glad you did."
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(RainHand Books will be beginning its new review initiative after the first of the year. For the time being, please enjoy a selection of my previously published reviews of books by self-published/independent authors, appearing for the first time on Rainhandbooks.com!)
I feel I may have done this book a disservice by coming in at part II. With the separate plotlines going on and some things I had to infer, I probably ought to have started at the beginning. Can't exactly fault the story for that though, and I found that what was going on in this book kept me reading anyway, so that's a plus, and a nod to good storytelling. Overall I found that I quite enjoyed this. Shapeshifters and their quandries are always of interest to me, and the dance of the two plotlines, even if I would have liked more perspective from the first book, still made me want to see where things were going in the next chapter. A little emotion is always a plus too, for I cannot care about the plight of the characters unless I'm given reason to. Many books fail at this. This one succeeded.

I have a few technical issues, some I will admit are matters of opinion, but they were a tad tricky for me all the same:

1) Pretty fonts aren't really the best thing over easily readable ones in prose so I'd change the title/TOC font to something more manageable (the one used for the actual word 'Contents' at the top of the TOC would be excellent).

2) Italics are certainly fine for internal dialogue, but there's way too much of it here (goes beyond just dialogue), and even then, using more than one font in the body of the text is jarring, so at least stick with an italic version of the same font. For monologue, italics aren't really good at all.

3) Perhaps a tiny (say 6 point) lead between paragraphs, to make things a bit easier on the eye.

4) Changing perspective from first to third person in the same story is a tough pill to swallow from the standpoint of a reader.


Overall, a fine read. I thank you.
About the Author: Laura Koerber lives on a island in the Puget Sound with her husband and dogs. She is a retired teacher, presently doing in home care for disabled people while volunteering at a dog rescue. Her degree is in art, and she is a painter, graphic artist, and ceramic sculptor. Her writing started about five years ago, a surprise to herself and everyone who knows her, since she had never written anything before. Laura learned to write by reading. She is a voracious omnivore of books. ('About' info reprinted from goodreads.com.)
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