REVIEW Ultimate Sacrifice by S.E. Green

Vickie has always lived a quiet, ordinary life in an equally quiet and ordinary small town. 

Evil is inching closer to those she holds dear and Vickie isn’t sure who she can ultimately trust.

REVIEW

The Horror…

Why did I write this? Well, besides the reference to a famous movie (that was just for fun), you’ll find by yourself if you’ll have: the patience, pleasure, curiosity or whatever you want, to read the book to its end. I mean to its very end! But if you’ll steal the start and you will peek at the end, you will spoil everything. Mystery books are based exactly on this final twist.

Let's start with the beginning! A horror book addressing to the adolescents... the terms are a little bit contradictory. But before you start fussing about this concept, let me explain you a bit about what it is all about. First of all, we have nothing to do with something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of physical violence, neither with something similar to The Shining about the psychological one. Gooood... The book, if you want me to give you a clue as to where we fit, it’s similar a bit, as the atmosphere, with the True Detective series, but the first series, the one with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. The second season was bullshit. As for violent scenes, since we were talking about teenagers, there are only two. Now, it depends on you if you’ll consider them too graphic or not, however, the author doesn’t insist too much on them. They are the alpha and omega of the story, so remember my recommendation from the first paragraph!

The rest of the book, which is really 99.9% of the story, has an evolution in a mystery or detective style or however you prefer to classify it. The only particular element is that the novel will not have as the main character a detective or a police officer who tries to uncover the criminals and bring them to the law.

The main character will be a teenager (you just did not think it could be someone else, would you?) who will try hard to help her family. Kind of a Miss Marple with a Tennesse accent, but not a nosey old hag way past of menopause, but a young girl at the age when the body and the mind are like a Formula One car, but in the cockpit there is a pilot on which you cannot rely on: the hormones! And at any moment, this pilot can go haywire and drive the car in a parapet.

She’ll investigate, find secrets, draw good or bad conclusions, but if she will succeed to discover the culprit, you will have to find by yourself. Yeah, I don’t give spoilers anyway, but with this kind of books it's even harder because any hint could throw away the surprise. And more than any other genre, in a mystery (and I’m stubborn to call the book a mystery and not a horror) if you ruin its moment of suspense, you will ruin the entire ensemble, thus the entire book. 

Although the development is linear, the book has its rhythm and accumulates tension. There are no boredom or static moments and you will not have unnecessary descriptions or nagging introspective. In conclusion, the premises for the novel to be a successful one are good. Whether you liked the book or lost time with it, the conclusion, again, will be yours to draw. I cannot say too much because for every good thing in the story I could find something not so cool from my point of view, so I don’t have much room to move around. The book is good, this is not the problem, but the way the author saw fit to conclude the show. It's not up my alley, but now do not get wrong ideas. Everyone is free to feel different!

Enjoy the darkness of the human nature!

Description:

Published: October 3rd, 2017

Vickie has always lived a quiet, ordinary life in an equally quiet and ordinary small town. Yet one fateful night a child turns up dead in the woods behind her house in a ritualistic slaughter. Vickie and her family are suddenly thrown into a national spotlight. But as the investigation unfolds, she begins to realize her family isn’t so ordinary after all. Evil is inching closer to those she holds dear and Vickie isn’t sure who she can ultimately trust.

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About the author:

S. E. Green (aka Shannon Greenland) is the award winning author of the thriller, KILLER INSTINCT, the spy series, THE SPECIALISTS, and the romances, THE SUMMER MY LIFE BEGAN and SHADOW OF A GIRL. She lives off the coast of Florida with her very grouchy dog. ULTIMATE SACRIFICE is her debut YA horror, due out October 2017.

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