About the author:
As you might have already guessed, Isobel Irons is a pen name.
In real life, I am (among many things) an indie film director and TV producer with a deep”“some might even say obsessive”“appreciation for onscreen storytelling and a lifelong book habit that I just can’t seem to kick.
In film, there’s nothing I like better than a JJ Abrams “show, not tell” character reveal, or a Joss Whedon banter session. Or an Erik Kripke-level “bromance.” And of course, I’m a die-hard fan of the will they / won’t they trope, where the fans start shipping two characters agonizingly long before they share their first kiss.
In my novels, I use my visual storytelling skills to show the reader an entire menagerie of hidden worlds. When it comes to imagination, there is no production value and no budget. But if there was, I would spend it all and then some. To me, my characters are real people, who just happen to live in my mind. Before I write, I scout locations to set the scene, I hold exhaustive casting sessions to find the perfect quirks that will ignite the maximum amount of conflict. Then, I throw in some tricky, but believable situations that allow my characters to expose themselves”“sometimes in a figurative, emotional sense, other times quite literally. Rawr.
There was a lot of waking going on in this book, besides just waking from a coma. Viola wakes from what she thought was a perfect, privileged family life, to Sam having to wake from the tendency he had to just “go with the flow” instead of grabbing what he wanted. They were two broken and ostensibly different people, who were actually perfect for each other, finding out after dealing with Viola’s car crash, coma, her stint in the psych ward, shocking family secrets, Sam’s tendency to cave and cover things up when the going gets hard, and multiple attempts to kill Viola. I loved all of the characters””including the secondary ones like Brady. Some of them seemed simple and easy to predict, but had hidden depths to them, which were shown as the story went on. The switch in POVs between Viola, her dreams””which were quite colorful and insightful””and Sam were well done, each melding into each other to give a better view of the story. The end, can we say “surprise?” I know I was stunned and was totally not expecting what was revealed. I loved this story. I just wanted to learn more about Viola and her Uncle. I definitely want to read the next book””which is to be about Brady””and recommend reading this book, which is a great start to a series.
Leave a Comment