REVIEW Rose Petal Grave.

TITLE. Rose Petal Graves
AUTHOR. Olivia Wildenstein
PUBLISHER. Patchwork Press - Cooperative
RELEASE DATE. May 16th 2016
PAGES. 182
FORMAT. Ebook
GENRE. Fantasy

Thank you Olivia Wildenstein, Patchwork Press – Cooperative for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

DESCRIPTION.
Ancient secrets cannot remain buried forever.

Founded two centuries ago by an aloof and powerful tribe of Gottwa Indians, Rowan was a quiet town, so quiet that I fled after graduation. Staying away was the plan, but Mom died suddenly, so I rushed home.

Dad said she suffered a stroke after she dug up one of the ancient graves in our backyard, which happens to be the town cemetery. Creepy, I know. Creepier still, there was no corpse inside the old coffin, only fresh rose petals.

As we made preparations for Mom’s burial, Cruz, the new medical examiner, arrived. I should have felt relieved, but how could I? He was unnervingly handsome, glowed like a human firefly, and knew absolutely nothing about examining dead bodies.

But, he did know what killed my mother…or rather who.


REVIEW.
So this is the first book in The Lost Clan series, a new series and for me, a new writer. I got this book through NetGalley and was charmed by it’s pretty cover.

Okay, okay a pretty cover is not really a recommendation for a book.. but it is just gorgeous and the description sounded interesting as well.. Also, only 182 pages, so worth a try to see if I like it.

And I did like it, though it was not very special. Because it was only such a short story I felt a bit rushed. I wanted more info, more time to get to know the main character, to get to know more about the history of her people. And I missed that.

So the story is about Catori (totally cool name) who comes back to her hometown Rowan because her mother suddenly died of an heart attack. There she meets Cruz, the medical examiner who comes to take a look at her mother. But there is something off about him and soon she finds out what it is. He is a fae, and she is a descendant of a powerful faehunter family. Turns out her mother got murdered, but it is not really clear who murdered her, is it the fae or one of her ancestors who her mother raised from the dead out of their back garden. Oh yes, their back garden. Because apparently her home is built on an ancient burring ground which harbours a lot of family members who buried themselves alive so they could gather power to rise again when needed.. Catori seems to be in the middle of all this and tries to find out what is the truth and who she can trust. 

The plot was very fast paced and sometimes I felt like I was missing something. I really like the combination of fae with some ancient Indian tribe faehunters.. but she could have got so much more out of the story if she took more time. It has potential, and an interesting story.. but it was all done too fast.

The main character was likable enough, but we never really got to know her. Her personality stayed to the surface and not much development happening in that department. The same for the other characters, we met them.. but we barely know anything. 

She develops some sort of a relationship with one guy, but I did not really feel it. When you would explain the story in itself, and the romance, it could be some epic star-crossed lovers thing, but it just didn't work out like that. 

FINAL THOUGHTS.
Most of the problems I have with this book is because of its shortness, all of my issues are traced back to that one thing. And I feel kind of sad because of that, because I can see that it has so much more potential, but it just didn't work like this. So even though I liked the story and its characters, but I would have wanted to know more. But, even though it was not a great read, it was entertaining and I would like to know how it would continue. So I would like to give this book 3 Freyja’s. 

My advise would be to take more time to make this book better, or perhaps it's sequel, longer and take more time to explain things and work on the character development. You can get so much more out of this.