Linked, by Hope Welsh
This is a review of the book Linked, by Hope Welsh, a paranormal romance / thriller.
I am always a little cautious about paranormal romances, probably because of the Twilight effect – namely, that after the success of Twilight the market was flooded with teen paranormal romance titles, often of dubious quality. As a result, anything with vampires, especially, usually has me running for the hills. On that note, Linked was a pleasant surprise, with not a vampire to be seen. Evil spirits and shapeshifters, yes, but not vampires. 
The book is short, and this is both a curse and a blessing. A blessing because it’s refreshing to have a well thought-out story expressed with so few superfluous words and scenes; a curse because I felt that some aspects of it should have been fleshed out more. The romance aspect, without giving too much away, felt a little rushed – while a connection like that in the short space of time in which the story takes place doesn’t bother me in itself, I didn’t really feel the relationship. Perhaps if more space was allocated to the feelings of the characters, their yearnings, confusion, maybe even fighting against the surprising strength of their attachment, it would have felt more convincing.
In addition, I would have liked more exposition about the evil spirit that is stalking the heroine, because that also felt underdone. Perhaps more elaboration on the spirit’s history and why it took the prophecy so seriously might have helped. I quite liked the lack of information at the start because it felt more mysterious and made me want to read more, but by the end I still felt that spelling it out more would have been useful. As this is the first book in a series, though, it’s likely that I just need to read more books to find out what I thought was missing. :)
That said, though, it was an entertaining read – easy, engrossing and well written. The story was well thought out and had enough suspense for me to keep turning the pages (or hitting the “next page” button on my kindle – but you know what I mean) to find out what happened next. The characters were solid and believable and the premise well thought out. If you are looking for a decent, quick read with a bit of suspense and paranormal themes, I can recommend this book wholeheartedly.
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Linked, by Hope Welsh
Published by ROM On Line
136 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as ebook or paperback
