Genre: Supernatural/Romance
Description:
Way
up in Alaska a small, grieving family are having a holiday with some old
friends, hoping a change of scene and a sojourn in nature will help them heal.
They go out hunting in an area renowned for Bigfoot sightings, and run into
something way worse than Bigfoot.
Author:
Caitee Cooper grew up in Laramie, Wyoming,
where she enjoyed all things outdoorsy, musical, and bookish. She went to
college at the University of Wyoming, where she earned a B.S in Psychology as
well as two minors: one in music and one in business management (which is code
for ‘she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up so decided to just
cover her bases.’) While attending school, she met and married her husband,
Dallin, and they went on to have many adventures. Caitee currently lives in Riverton,
Wyoming with her husband and their two children.
Outdoorsiness, music and books feature large
in the novel. And she has obviously chosen the right profession because ‘not
knowing what to be when you grow up’ is pretty much a standard description of
writers. Except for those that always knew they were going to be writers, end
of.
Appraisal:
This is a book with two foci. On the one
hand it is (especially in the early part of the book) a truly scary
supernatural story. On the other hand there is burgeoning romance. This is fair
enough – it’s a sub-genre now: love and zombies/werewolves/vampires/demons,
take your pick.
Unfortunately the couple falling for each
other spend far too much time seeking to spare each other pain, misunderstanding
each others’ brooding silences, and attempting to protect each other from the
Alaskan evil. There is much weeping, concealment of weeping, soul-searching, dark
circles under eyes, internal monologues, with occasional attempts to unburden
to others when they are routinely disbelieved regarding the supernatural events
in Alaska. Around the middle of the book this slows pace to a crawl and leads
to a lot of repetition. Not of the helpful kind. (But, full disclosure:
I am not a fan of the sort of romance that is fed by constant misunderstandings .)
Silverskin appears around the middle of the
book and makes brief appearances thereafter. His role does not seem to be pivotal,
as far as I could tell. Thus the reason for the title eludes me. And doesn’t
give much of a clue as to what the book is actually about. See what you think.
Towards the climax of the book pace picks up
again. Problems are going to be resolved: it is do or die! But that resolving event
then doesn’t occur! Without any heads-up for readers, it was kept back for a
second book, which I see was published in August 2024. That was naughty. An
author should always be kind to his/her readers, and attempt to satisfy their legitimate
expectations. If this is a two-parter the reader deserves to be told.
So, the author writes well: settings are
varied and obviously well known to Cooper (Alaska, Colorado, California): the
action set pieces are powerful and flow well: the human characters are all
warmly drawn, it is easy to like them and care about them: the evil things in
Alaska are well scary: Big Foot is … big. But the book is flabby in the
middle. And you will not be vouchsafed a proper conclusion to your reading of
this lengthy book unless and until you read the second one. One hopes that the
denouement that was set up in the first book will finally be delivered there.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues
Rating: ***
Three Stars
Reviewed
by: Judi Moore
Approximate word count: 120-125,000 words
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