1. The Lake
Rating: 2.5/5
Read between July 8th 2018 to July 10th 2018
Edition Details:
Format : E-book
Page Count: 44
ASIN:B01N3KUWSA
Publisher:Lulu.com
First Sentence:
“Hey, Bill,” said a tired looking old man in the first booth at the Millview Restaurant.
Shafter is a town that’s dying slowly. Once it was thriving but after the mill closed, there was nothing which was left there. People are now willing to sell their properties and move out from there. They don’t envisage any future there. The people who are there don’t think there’s any hope for the town.
But then Greg Truque arrives. He’s a big shot developer who has sent his employee Fredrick Mentiroso to execute a development plan for Shafter. Greg thinks he can revive Shafter and turn it from it current sorry state to a booming profitable business town. He thinks an aritificial lake is an answer for it. He needs some land and he’s willing to bend few rules to get it.
Did Shafter get it’s lake?
What had to be done to make the vision of Truque to come to existence?
Did Shafter became what is once was viz a town full of life and happiness?
The lake by Shane Bowen was an okay read for me. It has it’s moments. It shows how the corporation works and how the law is more often than none in cahoots with them. Redevelopment projects keep happening all the time and there have been times when developers have adopted shady methods to eliminate people who try to thwart them. The greed makes them do horrendous things.
This story has supernatural elements in it but in my opinion they a little late in the story. Although,once events start occurring the thrill factor in the story increases.
But in my humble opinion this story would have worked better if the writer would have used back-flashes or if the story would have been told in two time lines ie a chapter from the past and a chapter from the present. The chapter in the past would unfold the story of how the lake came in to being and the chapter in the present could have had supernatural events that were happening in the lake now. In this way the writer would have introduced the supernatural elements very much earlier than what’s happening in the current form of the story. And thus the thrill and suspense quotient of the story would have increased many folds. I think the linear form of story telling is not doing justice to this particular story.
But still, i think the story can be read once. I enjoyed it. I just think the idea is so good that it could have been much much better executed.
2. Motel Road
“I can’t believe we had perfect weather all week and now it’s going to storm!” Scott Prage said, dragging a table covered with all sorts of picnic food into his garage.
The plan was to be outside and grill some burgers and patties and have a picnic with friends. Atleast, Scott Prage along with his friends Fred Jones and Chris Parker wanted to do that. But the unexpected storm ruined every thing. Fred and Chris had to go back and Scott had to move inside his house to wait out the storm. Scott lived in motel road with his wife Ashley and two sons Ryan and Grant.
A storm was visiting them and it was bringing with it some things which shouldn’t have been there. Things which should have been long since dead.
What did the storm bring?
Would the Prange family be able to survive that?
I enjoyed reading this supernatural thriller by Shane Bowen. This is a second story by her that i have read and i would like to try some longer works by her.
Life is sometimes inexplicable. Things happen to people which don’t have any reason and which leave a lot of questions unanswered. This story is a lot like that. It’s thrilling but leaves a lot of things unanswered which personally i don’t have any problem with.
Life often doesn’t give you chance for closures, right. So, if the story is enjoyable, the events that are happening are thrilling then i leave it at that. And this story kept me flicking the pages.
The story also has Stephen king reference which made it more fun for a fan boy like me but people who are not aware of Stephen king wouldn’t be able to picture Annie Wilkes(antagonist from Stephen King novel Misery) like i was able to do. So i guess author should have avoided that sentence and instead described the action which was going on.
It was an entertaining read for me. If you are into supernatural thriller i guess you’d like it. I enjoyed it and hope you do so. I’m looking forward to reading more works by the author.
If you have read theses stories then do tell me what did you think about them. If you want to read them then you can get them from the following links:
The Lake
Motel Road
