I get offers to review e-books all the time, it is the most efficient and affordable way for an author to get their work out there. However, I do not own an e-reader just yet. So as per my Review Policy, I found a guest blogger to read and review the book for me.
Lavois is an intelligent, honest gal that I’ve know most my life. She’s an intuitive reader, a good friends, and happens to own the device needed to help sort through pending e-book review requests.
I hope to feature more of her reviews and guest articles in the future.
Author: Gerald J. Kubicki
Publisher: Self-published/ Indie
Format: E-book
Let me begin by letting you know that I am not an experienced reviewer of books. In fact, this is my first. I’ve always been a voracious reader, even to the point of having to avoid reading certain books during certain times in my life, knowing that the book would consume all of my attention and free time. I had recently allowed myself to really start diving into reading full time again when my wonderful friend Anakalia offered me the opportunity to review a book for her. The book she sent me was A Dubious Artifact by Gerald J. Kubicki, the sixth novel in his Colton Banyon mystery/adventure series.
I think it’s also incumbent upon me to let you know that I have not read the first five novels published by Kubicki. I began with the sixth. I feel that it’s important for me to let you know this because I believe I may have connected better with the novel had I been involved in the rest of Banyon’s adventures. I initially wanted to chalk this up to weak character development but after thinking about it, I realized that these characters had been involved in five previous adventures together. Kubicki probably assumes that his readers would have started with book one and routinely references past adventures and past characters with only minimal explanation in A Dubious Artifact. For this reason it may serve you to start from the beginning. The first in the series, A Dubious Mission, can be found on Amazon by following the title link.
I must admit, had difficultly staying engaged while reading A Dubious Artifact and I believe that this can be remedied in large part by another round of editing. Kubicki’s story had some true potential, and at times I could feel myself slipping into the story, forgetting that I was reading a book, but then a spelling error, misused word or clumsily written sentence would yank me back into the reality of my reading chair. This was somewhat frustrating for me, not only because I so badly wanted to get into the novel, but because these were completely avoidable issues. Eventually, I had to set the book aside because I couldn’t get past this. It may be a good time for Kubicki to take stock of his entire series and come out with a newly revised second edition. While I had some difficulties with the novel this time around, I did get to know the characters enough that I can genuinely say I would give them another go in a revised edition.
