Nightmares in Paradise

I enjoyed the first book in this series, so I assumed I’d enjoy the second book. Granted the first book got a little silly, and the young hero was a bit of an idiot, but I chalked that up to being whimsical, middle-grade fare. If that is your expectation, you will find more of that here.

I struggled a bit. I really wanted to like it and I did with effort make it all the way to the end. There are some continuity issues and some blatantly fatal plot issues, and central character has nothing to make us root for him. He isn’t really all that nice or smart. And the main characters just wander as aimlessly as the plot as they travel through Eden. They didn’t have any plan except for “wander aimlessly”… it was enormously frustrating as a reader.

The following might be considered spoilers, yet not sure if it is actually possible to spoil a book like this.

There was no: “let’s climb a tree and see if we can figure out where the Tree of Life is” or “Let’s ask the person who carried away my sister, what he did with her” or “Maybe I should be polite to the creatures that I meet on the hope that they will assist me” Nope. Let’s just wander and be rude to everyone we meet. The evil characters were just cartoon cutouts… Uriel only kills things in an extremely impatient manner… that’s the sum total of his character. Lilith and Sabine had no reason to assist the kids – it seemed contrary to their nature. When the kids reached the Tree, Naomi happened to be there too… randomly, because the author apparently couldn’t think of an actual reason for her to end up at the Tree of Life. It was all random and convenient. And… if you have been swallowed by a dragon, and are inside it, and that dragon is now breathing fire… I’m not sure why you wouldn’t be toasted. And how did all the knights and Naomi even get into Eden if Uriel is killing anyone who attempts it? And also Uriel says that anyone who steals the sword is deserving of death, and yet at the end decides he doesn’t want the sword and gives it to a 14 year old kid. The over-reacting parents don’t make any sense either… The City Beautiful shows that this author is capable of writing well (that book is another example of a remarkably clueless, incompetent hero, but at least the overall book makes up for that deficiency). Nightmares In Paradise should have been a better book than it is.

So… I just don’t understand how this book got published. It’s a mess with regard to plot and character. But that said… perhaps you want to find out what happens to the characters after the first book. Maybe you’ll like this one.

The reader for the audio book did a great job.

* * * * *