Ani's Book Abyss

Maddy's Floor

by Dale Mayer
Book 3 of Psychic Visions

The Actual Rating:  1.5 "I'm done with this series" Stars

Yes.   I think I'm giving up on this series.  I had been on the fence about continuing this series, so I included this book in my 2016 Reading Assignment challenge to see if, by any chance, I'd be able to give the series another go.  Truth be told, while the first two books weren't the best written (and had editing errors like nobody's business), they had some pretty good concepts and the story lines weren't entirely insufferable.

But with Maddy's Floor, things were just draggy and boring from the start.  I made it through the entire book if only because I wanted to see how the author would handle the ending.  I mean, how do you catch a killer who can siphon energy off other people without leaving a trace?  How do you try a villain in the court of law without physical evidence?   Only psychics would ever know who was responsible for the deaths of six children and a dying old man.  Only psychics would be able to determine how said killer is continuing to take other people's energies and life force.

I really wanted to see how Mayer was going to wrap this mystery up.  And you know HOW this story concludes?  By making up a left-field conclusion out of thin air.  And by sheer force of "THE ALMIGHTY WRITER'S WILL":

Let that sink in for a second and you'll understand why I chose to subtract another half a star from an originally "It was OK" 2-Star rating.  Because, if not for that sudden rush of "THE ALMIGHTY WRITER'S WILL" in forcing a resolution, our main evil villain guy would never have been caught.  There was no evidence and there were reasons on a psychic level that pointed to someone else entirely as the responsible party to all the deaths.

I could have lived with a boring, dragged out book about a speshul snowflake doctor and her apparent ability to heal the dying with ideas of positive thinking and positive energy.   I could have lived with the awkward dialogues and monologues.  I could have lived with some of the random tangents, or the fact that nothing really happens in this book to forward anything.

Okay.  Never mind, maybe I couldn't really have lived with all of that.  After all, if there were perfect Mary Sues in the world, Dr. Maddy would be in the middle of that convention since she practically lights up rooms when she walks into them, and need only walk and breathe for people to fall in love with her.

But anyway, I would have just shrugged off a lot of my quibbles, gave the book a 'meh' rating and moved on.  But the conclusion was just so forced that you could tell we were struggling to figure out how to wrap things up, because not only was the conclusion rushed, it also made no sense whatsoever (see spoiler above).

As a side note, there were still quite a few typos and editing errors throughout the book, even if not as bad as the first book.  Mainly, I noticed a lot of inappropriate comma usage, and some narrative inconsistencies.

One scene that comes to mind is when Maddy is making coffee in the morning after the detective stays the night in her guest bedroom to keep an eye on her.  She is narrated to have pulled two mugs out of her cabinets while waiting for her coffee to brew when her phone rings.  While she's on the phone with her friend Stefan, she turns and is startled to see that the detective guy is leaning against the kitchen door frame, and she monologues that she'd forgotten he was in her house; this left me wondering whether or not she normally pulls out two mugs for herself for coffee in the morning.

Then she continues her phone conversation, saying things that I thought the detective guy would have absolutely been suspicious about and start asking questions about, especially since she mentions said detective's uncle's name in a context that sounds rather concerning.  Instead, our detective just smiles at her and reaches for two mugs in the cabinet to hand her a cup of coffee.  At this point, I can't really remember whether or not Dr. Maddy had already poured herself a mug of coffee, because I had somehow been under the impression that she'd gotten herself a mug already, but she takes the mug that Mr. Detective Guy pours for her anyway, thus, somehow negating the mug that she may or may not already have in her hand.

There were more narrative inconsistencies like that, such as a character already standing up, but suddenly "coming to her feet" a few sentences later; or a character already sitting down, but then randomly falls into her chair in the next instance.

In other quibbles, I was a little jarred by the fact that Dr. Maddy's extent of reactions are 90% gasping:  she gasps when someone says something to her; she gasps when someone brushes by her; she gasps when someone surprises her; she gasps when she's having sex; she gasps when someone calls her name... she pretty much gasps when ANYTHING happens.

Anyway... Before I read this book, I was actually looking forward to it, even with my previous, less than enthused ratings for the first two books in this series.  But now I'm definitely sure that I won't be continuing with this series anymore.


***

2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Reading Assignment Challenge

 • COYER Summer Vacation 2016 -- Bingo Board One | Square R5 -- PNR