Review: Cold Lonely Courage

Cold Lonely Courage by Soren Paul Petrek

Summary: Madeleine Toche races to the front only to find her brother mortally wounded during the German Blitzkrieg attack on France at the outset of World War II. His death and her rape at the hands of an SS Stormtrooper cast Madeleine down a path of death and violence as her desire for revenge reaches a crescendo.

My Thoughts: When I first started reading Cold Lonely Courage, I was tempted to put it down and not pick it back up. The prose was choppy and didn’t flow very well, and that’s not even taking into account the copious grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. But, because I had agreed to review it, I decided to push past that and get the book read. Thankfully, it improved significantly.

The plot itself, from start to finish, is good. I think the execution leaves much to be desired – especially in the first quarter (or so) of the book. The further I got into the book, the better the narrative seemed to flow, although I’m not sure how much of that was just me adjusting to the writing. There were still copious grammar, punctuation, etc. errors that the editor in me cannot ignore. Unfortunately, that compelled me to give this book a lower rating, as errors like that are distracting and frustrating. I think this book would have been better had the use of the English language been significantly improved.

Another point of frustration for me was that transitions are quite poorly handled. Rather, there weren’t transitions, but just abrupt changes. For a few paragraphs, we’d be seeing what’s going on with Madeleine, and abruptly a paragraph would be talking about John Trunce, an American soldier. These poorly handled transitions were confusing at times, and created more distraction from the plot. Something as simple as extra space between the last paragraph about Madeleine and the first about John would suffice. It is a device used in many, many books to denote change of scene, change of perspective, or something else that doesn’t merit a new chapter. Some books have just extra space, others put squiggles, stars, or other graphics between the sections within a chapter. Something like that is needed in Cold Lonely Courage.

Despite poor copy editing and transition issues, I did find the plot interesting. I found myself wondering how much of this is based on real events in occupied France during World War II. It actually made me want to learn history – which is a feat in and of itself. Anyway, I think that, if the issues detailed above were resolved, this would be a good read.

My Rating: 2.5 stars

Source: Received as part of a blog tour promotion on Pump Up Your Book.

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FTC Disclosure: All items reviewed were either obtained by me for my own enjoyment or sent (from the author, publisher, publicist, via tour sites, etc.) in exchange for an honest review. I receive no monetary compensation for my posts. All opinions expressed are my own.

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