Author Who Can't Stand a 3 Star Review

Due to the fact that I was the only one who gave this book by David Pereda a 3 star rating and the others were all glowing praise, the author of the book complained and managed to get my review removed. So, I am posting it here. I normally don't review books on my blog, but will make an exception when forced to remove a review because someone cannot stand honest criticism and that someone did not like their book.

Note: the facts presented here were what was in the copy of the book I received when I bought it from Amazon. The author had complained that I had gotten a few keys fact wrong and therefore my review was unwarranted a violation. I bet if I had given him 5 stars he would have had no problem with the review.

Twin Powers is a thriller type mystery the takes place around the world instead of in just one area. The book begins in Cuba where a little girl named Stephanie is kidnapped by a man from the Middle East. He says that he has kidnapped her for revenge against her mother and even leaves a note, of sorts, telling her mother, Sonia, that that is the case. The Cuban authorities are called, but can’t really help, so Sonia is forced to ask for help from a man she never wanted to have to see again, Raul, who apparently is part of the Castro family and so has a lot of pull within Cuba. He calls in an assassin name Marcela to find Stephanie’s father, Raymond, in Florida, where together they will conduct their own investigation. When Marcella arrives at Raymond’s place they soon learn that the name of the kidnapper in Mohamed and he is from Pakistan. Knowing that they will never get his daughter back unless they are the ones to do it, Raymond and Marcela fly to Pakistan where they meet with Abdullah, a man with a lot of pull there. Abdullah is evasive the entire time he pretends to help them, keeping them busy with parties and what not, until Marcela takes matters into her own hands. While all of this is going on, Sophie, Stephanie’s twin sister is having visions of where her sister is. It turns out that the twins have some sort of telepathic communication with each other, and she uses this to try and help locate her sister. As the investigation continues, they soon learn, especially Stephanie, that was about more than just revenge. It turns out that there is some sort of international slave trade and prominent politicians, especially a few U.S. Senators, are involved, and Stephanie is just their newest acquisition. Though Mohamed did kidnap her for revenge, a mystery within itself for Sonia does not know who he is, he stands to make a lot of money by selling Stephanie. However, Stephanie isn’t some damsel in distress. For a six year old, she is quite feisty, intelligent, and puts up a good fight. This book has a good element of mystery to it, but it wasn’t as thrilling as I thought it would be. It is somewhat reminiscent of Taken, in that a man’s daughter is kidnapped by a sex trade, and he has to travel the word to find her. But whereas Taken had a lot of action, this book does not. Unfortunately, the narrative gets drawn out in some areas and repeated, thus making for a drawn out read, at least until you get to the action scenes where the story finally starts to move along. The writing is okay and average, comparable to a lot of books published these days. Though not super stellar, it’s not horrible. It is easy to read and you can read this book in a couple of days. I didn’t understand the purpose of Mons character though. Hess Sonia’s first child and is full grown. I guess the author was trying to use him as a way to expose and bring down the international sex trade ring, but you could take his character out and the story would not suffer for it. I liked the concept and this isn’t a bad book. Though not as intriguing as I would have liked it to be, it is still worth a read if you like international mystery type thrillers. Though, I do have to admit, the cover is awesome so, kudos to the illustrator.