Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Book Review: Dead Ringers (Vol.1-3) Illusion, Invertigo, Spider







Dead Ringers (Vol1-3)
By Darlene Gardner
Published by: Darlene Gardner
Publication Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 9781301328260






Amazon Synopsis:

An Original Publication. These are the first three 25,000-word volumes of a nine-volume New Adult serial with mystery, romance and missing memories. The three volumes together equal the length of a traditional book.
ILLUSION Volume One of the Dead Ringers serial 
Do you know where your time went? Jade’s memories of the two days she went missing are slowly returning, but they involve a blinding headache and an evil clown with a syringe. Not exactly the stuff of sanity.
INVERTIGO Volume Two of the Dead Ringers serial
Do you know who you can trust? Max insists Jade’s best chance to find out why she remembers so little of her abduction is to team up with him. But can she trust him? 

THE SPIDER Volume Three of the Dead Ringers serial 
Do you know where the Black Widow is? Someone in Midway Beach isn’t who they seem and unless Jade and Max can figure out what’s going on, they could become the next victims.


My Thoughts:

There are a lot of things going on in this book. Hang on and see if you can keep up. Jade Green is an 18-year-old resident of the small vacation town of Midway Beach. Jade is a fan of horror movies and books.

I like that the serial is written from her point of view, to the point that she tells us what 



she would like to say to the people and not just what she actually says.  Jade talks like a teenager, and sometimes uses a bit of crude language.  Her life is complicated….

 Jade Green knows she was abducted, and can’t remember what happened during the two days she was missing. Trouble is, no one believes that she was missing. That’s not the only complication in her life though. Jade’s mom is a paranoid schizophrenic and took off for 6 months, during which time her step-father was arrested and jailed for armed robbery. Now her mother has returned and is telling Jade she is in danger - “Not my enemies”… “Yours.”

Then there’s the handsome Max Harper. He’s missing a couple of days too, so he and Jade team up to figure out what happened. But is Max who he truly claims to be? When he suggests that they let people think they are dating each other so they can work together on the why they were abducted, Jade agrees, but only to using it as a cover. My favourite quote of the book is Max’s response to this. “If I have to be a fake boyfriend,” he says with gusto, “I’m gonna be the best fake boyfriend I can be.”

Jade and Max get caught up in murders, bomb scares, and memory flashbacks of their abductions as they seek to figure out what happened to them. There are so many plot twists and turns that you’ll want to keep reading until you’ve finished the entire book. While working to discover their mystery, they discover what happened to the “Black Widow” and they believe that what happened to her is related to their disappearances. This twist in the plot is not something could have been predicted.

Since this is the first three installments in a nine installment serial, the story is not yet complete. You’ll need to read the rest to discover all that is going on. However, the book did end at a point where there were some conclusions to the mysteries, but then Darlene Gardner leaves us with a new one.

This book was an amazing mix of genres, a little romance, a lot of mystery, some fantasy or paranormal. It was a very fascinating read. While I didn’t care for some of the language, I would read this book again. I gave it 5 stars.


Thank you to NetGalley who provided me with a free copy of the book in exchange for my fair and honest review. A free copy does not influence my opinion. All thoughts are my own.

Links to Purchase:
Print * Kindle * Nook * iTunes * Kobo * Sony * Diesel * Smashwords


About Darlene Gardner:

Darlene Gardner no longer spends her days waiting for an athlete to say something interesting. Nope. Now she makes up her own quotes and torments teenagers. Fictional teenagers. Promise.

Although leaving her life as a newspaper sportswriter behind for love and romance worked out pretty well, she’s veering off in a haunting new direction with the Dead Ringers eBook serial, landing at a beachside carnival where evil lurks and nothing is as it seems.

Darlene has more than thirty books in print, from single-title romantic comedies to emotionally charged family dramas. Updated editions of her romcoms, as well as a couple romantic mysteries, are available for the eBook market.

Contact Darlene Gardner


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