REVIEW: Ribbons of Death! (+$Giveaway!)

Title: Ribbons of Death 

Author: Edita A. Petrick

Series: N/A

Pages: 372

Date Published: Feb 6th, 2015

Publisher: Solstice Publishing

Format: Kindle

Genre: Paranormal 

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours
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Synopsis:
The ancients believed that once in a Blue Moon a child with Peacetaker powers is born. Such child, when grown to maturity, can seed murderous madness in people's minds by merely walking amongst them. A simple amulet activates the Peacetaker’s powers. When a horribly scarred man knocks on the door of Stella Hunter’s ramshackle cottage in upstate Montana, she lets him in. What’s there to lose? The book critics killed her chances to warn the world about myths and legends behind the myths and legends. But once the man pushes a book smudged with bloody fingerprints across the table, Stella sees a glimmer of hope. She may re-establish her credibility within the scientific community and vindicate her ‘peace-taker’ theory. She may also be murdered by anyone standing next to her if her theory is correct because the ancient curse is anything but extinct. In fact, the ancient curse has a new attitude

~My Thoughts~

In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I will try to keep my mouth shut, but it will be really hard because I kind of want to gush! Timothy Carter, exploring ties between a book and several fantastic occurrences, pursues author Stella Hunter in the badlands of Montana. Searching for clues and connections, they discover that a myth about the Peacetaker, may in fact have become a reality. 

The mystery and search for discovery about the myths and legends was really fun. I've never heard of anything like the Peacetaker, so exploring the depths of its legend was sweet!

I do admit that I found myself asking..why is this happening? What are they doing? I felt as though the plot meandered at times and went around in some circles so that I was just a touch confused. Still, the story was engaging and interesting, even if it stumbled at times. Hey...those stumbles were fun to experience! The one thing that really grinds my gears was the ambiguous nature of both Carter and Stella's jobs. Carter is something like a mix of all the different government agencies combined, dubbed as a "government contractor" and Stella is a professor with PhD who studies myths and legends. I like my stories with heavy realism, even when being asked to explain the unknown...so these sorts of jobs seem to tenuous for my liking. 

The blend of modern day with ancient myth is always one that I enjoy. I love seeing how the MC's deal with their reality shifting to include the unknown, and how they react to the strange becoming real. A fun and fascinating read for anyone who loves myths and legends! 

~Try an Excerpt!~

“Of course. Why didn’t you just say so,” he said gruffly but knew she’d see that his eyes were laughing. Then something occurred to him. “Wasn’t the Benedictine order founded by St. Benedict?”

She rapped her knuckles on the back of his hand. “No. He only wrote their rule—its prologue and seventy-three chapters—commonly known as RB. It spells out basic virtues a man should have—humility, silence and obedience. It also gives details of common living and sharing. Many a broken marriage today would still be intact if the partners had only taken trouble to learn the ins-and-outs of St. Benedict’s Rule.” She let him ruminate on her lecture and turned to McEwen. “What’s in the tabloid/diary that would interest me?”

The antiquarian resumed his story. His friend Peter immediately set to translate the Latin text of the diary and, when finished, he sat back reflectively, much puzzled how such a fanciful tale could have indeed been written by a monk. Brother Lucien, the scribe at the Clairvaux Abbey, was inspired to become Abbot Bernard’s unofficial biographer when he heard that clergy in Paris had already started this noble pursuit.

~Meet Edita!~ 

By profession, I’m an engineer and ten years ago, I left a corporate job to concentrate on writing. It was perhaps the scariest thing I’ve done. Of course, there were other considerations at the time, life, kids, economy and my mother who was battling cancer. I wrote as means of staying grounded because I had to hold it together. There was no one else to pitch in. There wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t have doubts about whether what I was doing was the right thing or not, but doubts come and go, while the need to write goes on forever. Since 2005 I’ve published 5 books and this year alone I have 6 new ones coming out. I live in Toronto with my family and our two pets – wheaten terriers. And whenever I’m tempted to look back, and start second-guessing my past decisions, I sit behind the computer and start another book. At least for me, that’s a cure-all.

Edita will be awarding a Kindle copy of “Ribbons of Death” gifted from Amazon to 4 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.

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