Rock Point Series: Sharpe & Donovan #0.5 Purchase: Amazon
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New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers enthralls readers with her suspenseful Sharpe & Donovan series. Read the untold story of one of her most beloved characters in this special prequel novella.
Seven years after suffering an unspeakable loss, Father Finian Bracken is recently out of seminary and leaving Ireland to serve a small parish in the quaint but struggling fishing village of Rock Point, Maine.
Review
Although it is technically a prequel to Neggers’ Sharpe & Donovan series, I think Rock Point probably works better if you’ve already read at least one novel in the series first. Rock Point is either a short novella or a long short story, depending on your definition, and it feels a little… unfinished. Not unpolished, but simply unresolved. Rock Point is mainly a backstory for Father Finian Bracken, a secondary character in the series. It also introduces some other series characters as well as at least one mystery. Several of the characters have potential, and I’d like to know more about them. However, neither the mystery nor Fin’s emotions ever come to a full resolution, which left me feeling unsatisfied.
I presume that the mystery (or mysteries) will be solved and some of the other characters will be explored in subsequent books, none of which I’ve read yet. As for Fin’s emotional state, I don’t expect or want a romantic resolution to his grief over his dead wife and daughters, but I hope there will eventually be some sense of… I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. Not closure, exactly. You don’t get over that kind of grief, not entirely. But there’s something missing, some level of acceptance, perhaps. I hope he finds it. And I’m intrigued enough to read the first book in the series, Saint’s Gate.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- COYER Blackout (2016-17)
- The Backlist Reader Challenge 2017
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library
I read one book a couple of books into the series and I was so confused! And worse I was bored! While I like Carla Neggers’ Knights’ Bridge series this one so far has not been for me and after reading your issues with it I think I’ll probably let it go. Too many other great books out there! And for the record Finian Bracken was in the one I read and nothing was particularly resolved at that point either.
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library recently posted…Facials Can Be Fatal – Cozy Mystery Review
Lark_Bookwyrm
That’s discouraging! I am planning to read the first book in the series, but if it doesn’t grab me, I’ll switch over to her Swift River series. (Which I will be reading anyway, at least one book, because I’ve got an ARC for Red Clover Inn.) And I’ll keep the Knights’ Bridge series in mind — thanks for the recommendation.