Review: Welcome to Lily Port

[image error]

The first thing that I noticed on page one is that there is dialogue EVERYWHERE. In fact, it drives the entirety of the story. When it does break out of dialogue mode the POV suddenly reveals a kind of universal narration to help show the reader what he or she is seeing. Anyone who’s read my reviews know my disdain for use of POV beyond 3rd person. Then I realized that this blended 2nd person viewpoint comes from the author’s background as a software designer (it actually hit me because I was thinking of how much the story’s writing style reminded me of an old text-based video game.) I read the author’s bio before I started the book (I know—I’m kind of a freak like that, I guess.) That helped reconcile my POV qualms and enjoy the story.

Without giving away any parts of the story, it opens in short order on a grisly scene and the apparent emergence of serial killer. It all takes on a very “Skinsaw Murders” kind of feel (in case you’re familiar with the classic Pathfinder module from Rise of the Runelords) but it’s not a fantastical setting. The story is more of a mystery and has a Choose Your Own Adventure feel, except that you don’t make any choices—although you still feel involved in the mystery because of the POV which makes the reader feel as if he or she is there (although I got a kind of Ebeneezer Scrooge vibe, like I was just an observer trying to figure out if Lincoln will ever catch his nemesis, the murderer known as Wishbone.

You can check it out on Smashwords.