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Book Review – End of Dreams by Kim Faulks

End of Dreams
End of Dreams by Kim Faulks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Eve is a young, pregnant runaway, working two jobs as she tries to survive and provide for her unborn child. Edric Hasting used to be a serial killing paedophile, before he sunk even deeper into darkness and has now fixated on Eve as his ultimate victim.

Adley Scott is a policeman who’s haunted by the abduction and death of his nephew by Edric Hasting, who he’s determined to make pay. Rashda is an oracle, seeing glimpses of the present and future, unable to act other than with limited communication to her Family and Adley.

When Rashda receives a vision, she realises that Eve’s unborn son could play a pivotal role in the future of humanity, but only if Edric doesn’t kill Eve first. With the limited information she has, she sets Adley and her Family to find and protect Eve. Time is running out for Eve though, as Edric closes in for the kill while the others are still trying to locate her.

This was an interesting novel, I came to it blind with no idea of the contents.

I have to admit that I almost put it down after the first chapter where Faulks introduces us to Hasting, the paedophile serial killer, as he kills and dismembers a child. Suffice to say this is probably not a book for the weak hearted, or most parents.

Nevertheless, I persevered through the rest of the book and other than one or two other horrific scenes, it was mostly readable. Each chapter is told from one of five characters points of view, but I found it seemed to jump around a bit roughly, rather than with smooth segues or the sense that it was an appropriate time to leave that character’s point of view.

I also found the Rashda / Family plot line a bit distracting. While I assume it was there to give us background on the Family and the kind of things they do, I don’t think it added much to the story (perhaps it’s important in a sequel?) and would have rather more time was spent on the main characters. If we did have to spend time with the Family, I’d have preferred to have seen them as they tracked Eve down.

In terms of the plot itself, it was a little strange, with Eve trying to run away from past horrors whilst the other three all tried to find her. It wasn’t really a detective / investigation type plot and had more in common with a haunted house horror story type plot, but I’m really not sure how else to describe it.

We’re not really given a huge amount of on screen character development. While we see significant changes in several of the characters, most of it just seems to happen off screen, with the character then suddenly realising something has changed.

All up, this was an ok read, but I didn’t feel the pay-off was worth the horror and effort it took to get there. While I’ll probably keep an eye out for a sequel, it won’t be on the top of my to read pile.

If you’ve got the time, and you like the occult / serial killer horrific fantasy genre, then you may want to give this a read, but I’d strongly advise against it if you’re a parent, unless you can cope with reading brutal scenes of child mutilation and murder.

prk.

Disclaimer: Whilst I read this as a judge for the 2013 Aurealis Awards, this review is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging co-ordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.

View all my reviews

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