Forgotten Sins by Rebecca Zanetti
I'm always a bit leery when authors choose to combine romance, suspense and paranormal elements into a single novel - all three plots generally require a lot more time and attention to detail than they tend to end up getting. In Forgotten Sins that both is, and isn't, the case. All three elements tend to suffer a bit from lack of attention.
I love me some reunited lovers - it's one of my favorite story-tropes, so I was excited to know that Josie and Shane were in love before he disappeared for two years. I wanted to know why he'd disappeared, and how they were going to make it work. Unfortunately the further we delved into the truth, the less sure I was they were going to be able to make things work.
Josie could have been a great heroine. She's strong, has a will of iron, and is able to take care of herself. She isn't afraid to go toe-to-toe with Shane, willing him to see that she's not as weak and vulnerable as he thinks she is. Unfortunately, even though I can understand her not quite trusting Shane, her dithering between wanting him and not got on my nerves. It's not the fact that she was taking her time to decide what was right for her, it's more the tone and the way she thinks about these things - which I recognize makes it really hard to truly criticize.
Shane irritated me too, not so much in the present because he was determined to not let Josie go again. He recognized that he loved her, and she deserved the best, and he was sure he would give her everything. But his past actions - which I won't spoil here - were never satisfactorily dealt with. When the truth did come out the whole thing was just sort of shrugged off and things moved on.
As the suspense storyline and the paranormal aspects are tied up together - essentially Shane and his brothers are super-soldiers - I was disappointed in both for pretty much the same reason. The 'villain' was cartoonish and I kept expecting them (the villain and his minions) to start twirling their black mustaches and breaking into evil laughs. By the time the doctor showed up I was rolling my eyes at the over-the-top evilness of the character.
However, all that being said, the writing was good and I'm totally interested in these brothers - and their mission. They've got high stakes, which are heightened near the end of the book, and can't fail. I want to see what happens with them, and how they resolve this situation.
I'll be picking up the second book in this series to see if it works better for me than this one did.
