A. Sparrow

This book was awesome! The author has an incredible use of metaphor that reminds me of a drink of cool water on a really hot day. The plot was also really cool, just because it was so unusual. The book's about a malaria consultant who is targeted to have his identity stolen by the most prominent assassin in west Africa. Instead, the consultant kills the assassin, but then is mistaken for the assassin and decides to impersonate him. Then his cat sitter, who unknowingly helped the assassins, show more decides to fly out to Africa to help him. It's a pretty sick book, I must say. I also loved that I got the book for free on my Kindle, which means that I can forgive the fact that it hadn't been edited for errors yet (not even spell-checked). The book's so good that it isn't a big bother though. I'd totally recommend this novel. show less

This is the sequel to the book "Xenolith" and continues the story of Dr. Frank and his search for Elizabeth, his believed to be dead wife who has actually crossed a trans-dimensional portal to another world. I enjoyed "Xenolith" tremendously, but confess to being disappointed with "Peregrin." In this volume the story gets too diluted, I believe, and that leaves the reader struggling to follow. Like a nylon rope beginning to unravel, the multitude of characters separates and so Sparrow tries show more to keep up with multiple stories at once. In addition there are new characters introduced to help resolve a plot that could have been, perhaps, better resolved in other ways. While I enjoyed Sparrow's writing and thought the plot was a good one, and even the confusion of multi-character story lines might have worked, but the conflict is not well resolved and I was very unsatisfied with the ending. While, I believe it was meant to build to a climactic battle which would thrust all of the characters back together to achieve victory (something reminiscent of the LOTR: Return of the King), the way Sparrow resolves it doesn't account well for all of the characters. This was very unsatisfying to me as a reader as I was seeking a bit more closure after following the story lines all the way to the end. A bit disappointing. show less

Each of several characters is followed for part of the story. The transitions from one world? to another for unclear reasons assist the reader in becoming more confused as the story progresses. That said, most parts of the story remian interesting enough to complete the reading, however, connecting the sections about Frank, who had been searching for his wife, who has been missing for twenty years and his captor, Tezhay, with the sections about Seor and Canu and their compatriots didn't seem show more relevant... almost like there are two or even three stories that are interwoven into one but still separated or unclearly joined.

I wanted to like this story and enjoyed reading about Frank's search for his wife, but the parts regarding Seor and Canu and their compatriots interfered with that enjoyment a bit because of my not understanding why those characters were in the book at all. If there is a connection between the plot lines, making such connection more clear to the reader could be a good thing.

Xenolith was given to me free by the author in exchange for this review, which has been posted on LibraryThing and my blog, Dragonviews. show less

The story starts off with the main character, Frank, whose wife went missing in Belize about twenty years ago. Then a second storyline kicks in and we learn that there are people from another world - a world caught up in a terrible war - who are able to travel between their world and ours.
I like the way the author plays with the two storylines by jumping back and forth between them, although I think the second storyline would have benefited from a main charachter that the reader can identify show more with, like with Frank in the first storyline. Now it feels a bit like the main purpose of the second storyline was to provide a background for Frank's storyline, although plenty of action happened there as well. Also, I was expecting for both storylines to converge at some point, but that never happened.
Still, I enjoyed reading this and was sorry every time I had to put it down. show less