Friday, February 22, 2013

Sliding Beneath the Surface by Doug Dillon

Title:  Sliding Beneath the Surface
Author:  Doug Dillon
Series:  The St. Augustine Trillogy #1
Published:   September 2nd 2011 by Old St. Augustine Publications
Page Count:  294
Genre:  Paranormal
Shelf: Review Copy
Rating:  ★★★

Synopsis from Goodreads:

A new resident of America’s oldest and most haunted city, St. Augustine, Florida, fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden suddenly finds himself up to his eyeballs in frightening paranormal experiences. At the end of his rope in trying to figure out what is happening to him, Jeff decides to rely on his friend Carla Rodriguez, and Lobo, an old Native American shaman, for help.

Despite this guidance, things get even worse. Jeff’s spine tingling encounters increase in number and intensity at an alarming rate, scaring him even more. Eventually, he makes the startling discovery that unresolved circumstances involving a bloody event directly out of Florida’s distant past threatens his sanity and possibly his life.

Finally, overwhelmed by forces he cannot understand or control, Jeff’s world shifts from frightening to downright terrifying. In desperation, and on Lobo’s advice, he leaps headlong into the unknown in order to save himself. What Jeff discovers though is that he has entered a level of reality he is completely unprepared to handle while unwittingly dragging Carla with him.

Like all the books in THE ST. AUGUSTINE TRILOGY, the premise for Sliding Beneath the Surface is simply this: You create your own reality.


My review:

Dillon manages to capture writing in the first person brilliantly. Everything is portrayed the way that a teenage boy would think it, right down to the jumbled up thoughts. It adds a very intriguing aspect to the novel. He also portrays the volatile emotions of a teen quite well. The descriptions and narrative in this novel set the scene for the action very well. There was a seamless flow from one section to the next.

I found that the novel was quite hard to relate to at times, mostly because the paranormal does not tie back to reality in any way. It makes it hard to imagine yourself in the place of the characters. Also, I felt that the characters could use some more development which would have made it easier to relate to them as individuals.

Even though this was an extremely well written book, as a whole it was one of those novels where a great deal happens but it doesn’t really catch my attention making it hard to get into. I found myself just floating from page to page to see how it ended.


Buy your copy online here today.


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