Review: Jaded by Kenya Carlton

Title: Jaded
Author: Kenya Carlton
Series: Standalone
Genre: Supernatural Romance
Format: E-book
Source:  Bewitching Book Tours
Pub. Year: 2012
Purchase: Amz/ B&N
I receive this novel free of charge from BBTours in exchange for an honest review.

Blurb from Amazon:

War correspondent Mia James is back on US soil and ready to tackle a juicy political story that could make national headlines. A politician’s aid goes missing, and the son of the wealthiest family is the only suspect. Determined to take down the mayor of the small seaside town, Mia comes up against an angry ghost with her own agenda.  Afraid she may be suffering from post traumatic stress Mia figures that she’s way over her head and enlists the help of resident black sheep Gabe Montgomery. Now, she must solve the mystery of her not so friendly ghost, stop herself from falling in love with the mysterious winery owner, all while making it out alive.

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Random: Am I reading the same book as everyone else? Because this is not what I was thought it would be.

(P.S-I’m sick right now so I might be judging the book too harshly)

I’m in complete disbelief regarding this book. Either I am a really negative person when it comes to reviews or I misunderstood the book completely because I’m unsure of it. I think it has potential but it was squandered away by the book’s short length. This is a book that should have been longer by at least another 100 pages.

Let’s talk characters. I had trouble separating characters from each other because there was a rapid introduction. Mia and Tracy are the journalist who are investigating a crime that is just launched upon the readers.  It turns out only Mia is investigating a mystery while Tracy investigates Sheriff Martin Conway. There is Gabe who knows Mia right off the bat. There is Jonathan and his father, the Mayor, who are feuding with Gabe. In the beginning, it was hard to keep track of the characters but they were shelled out later. That’s the good thing. I like that Sherriff Conway was developed a little more than just the Mayor’s errant boy and Tracy’s boy toy.

I have issues with the crime introduction. Yes, it is in the blurb that an aide disappears but it should be introduced in the book more gently. The disappearing aide disappeared before the books started and as a reader, I didn’t know that. I had assumed that the missing aide would disappeared after the women arrived in town because it looked like Mia just wanted a gossip piece on the Mayor instead of investigating the missing woman angle. It would have been nice to know that the characters were already investigating the disappearance prior to their arrival so the information doesn’t appear out of nowhere. I was like “What aide” and I thought I skipped something so I had to re-read the first twenty pages. There was one reference to the aide and it used to word “diddled” but I thought “diddled” meant “fool around (sex).” I’m starting to think it meant “killed.” Yeah, it meant killed. Maybe this is my misunderstanding. I don’t know. (I’m blaming it on the fact that I’m sick). I guess in the end it doesn’t matter because I still felt like I was dropped into the middle of an investigation.

One of the things that lays heavily in favor of the book is Jade the Ghost. She is really fantastic in her possessions and how she makes her presence known. She is aggressive and strong. It’s halfway scary. Her background and the events before her death are interesting. Jade’s background is interesting because I haven’t read a modern book that uses that twist anymore. I love it because it proves that classic twists are classic for a reason and they stand the test of time. I was surprised by it because it is so classic that it is rare to find in a modern book. Jade and the dream memories are amazing, by the way.

Technically, I should give this book four black butterflies because every lost element is a half of butterfly. Rapid introduction of characters and dropping the case on the reader is one lost butterfly. Except I can’t give it to the book because it lost the potential to tell a fantastic story. More pages, more character development, better transitions between scenes would have gone a long way. There is a scene that starts “Where the hell have you been” and I thought Mia had said it about her sunglasses because she was looking for them. Maybe she lost the sunglasses previously. No, that sentence is spoken by Steve, her boss, and it’s a cell phone conversation. I’m like “Where did he come from” because Mia is not on phone, she never picked up the phone nor did she dialed Steve. Awkward. There are a few scenes like the one above. Random but there are not enough commas in the book.

A lot of what I focused on may seem like minor things but they are important to me. I think that it is a good book. It has a solid storyline. The mystery is good and it doesn’t have major plot holes. It just needs more fine-tuning.

3.5-Pretty to look at, maybe capture

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65th in the 150+ Reading Challenge
Also qualifies for: E-book, Ghostly, Men in Uniform