Reviewed by Kimberley
TITLE: What Lies Beneath
SERIES: Lancaster Falls Trilogy #1
AUTHOR: RJ Scott
PUBLISHER: Self Publishing
LENGTH: 288 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2019
BLURB:
In the hottest summer on record, Iron Lake reservoir is emptying, revealing secrets that were intended to stay hidden beneath the water. The tragic story of a missing man is a media sensation, and abruptly the writer and the cop falling in love is just a postscript to horrors neither could have imagined.
Best Selling Horror writer Chris Lassiter struggles for inspiration and he’s close to never writing again. His life has become an endless loop of nothing but empty pages, personal appearances, and a marketing machine that is systematically destroying his muse. In a desperate attempt to force Chris to complete unfinished manuscripts his agent buys a remote cabin. All Chris has to do is hide away and write, but he’s lost his muse, and not even he can make stories appear from thin air.
Sawyer Wiseman left town for Chicago, chasing the excitement and potential of being a big city cop, rising the ranks, and making his mark. A case gone horribly wrong draws him back to Lancaster Falls. Working for the tiny police department in the town he’d been running from, digging into cold cases and police corruption, he spends his day’s healing, and his nights hoping the nightmares of his last case leave him alone.
REVIEW:
I liked this book. It did however come with a few issues in terms of flow. It felt rushed in some parts and lagged in others. This went on to about mid-way into the story. The book had a really good premise, but it needed more character development. I couldn’t really connect to any of the characters because it felt so rushed. Then came the lagging in other parts. I felt that the author spent too much time describing things that could have been summed up with just a paragraph in terms of scenery and setting. It created an ‘info dumps’ that dragged the book down. It was flipped. I felt that more effort should’ve gone into character development. I didn’t connect to these characters. There was more information provided on the scenery and the outside than the characters themselves.
It turned around about the mid-way into the story. There was a shift where you saw just a little more of the MC’s personalities’ come through and you got a glimpse of the demons they were both fighting. But not enough, I feel. I still didn’t feel truly connected to these characters. But at that point, my attention was diverted and I was more interested in the mystery and suspense of the book.
The editing was really good, the dialogue was good, but a bit stilted. The storyline was great. The flow was inconsistent with it feeling rushed in some parts with the info dumps causing it to drag in others.
The presentation, in terms of covers, fonts and such, was great.
Overall, the book wasn’t bad. I liked the mystery and suspense of it and would love to know what happens next.
RATING: 
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