666 Park Avenue - Gabriella Pierce

 

I’m going to start by saying straight out that I have mixed feelings about this book. It, basically, is about a girl (Jane) who meets a guy (Malcolm) who sweeps her off her feet. He asks her to marry him and she agrees even though it means leaving behind her life in Paris, her job and all her friends, and moving to New York to live with his family. Somewhere along the way she discovers that she is a witch and also that Malcolm’s family are not at all what they seem...

Being a general fan of the whole fairytale type thing, I jumped at the chance to read 666 Park Avenue, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. I have to be honest, for about the first half of the book, it was annoying me beyond all belief, however I kept at it because I hate not finishing books, and I also like to hold out hope that things will suddenly get much better, which they did. Around about chapter 27, Jane suddenly realises what she is dealing with and what the hell is actually going on, and from then on it got interesting. The talk of magic and witches up until that point just annoyed me because nobody was actually doing anything about it. I’m sorry, but electric appliances blowing up don’t really thrill me all that much. Post chapter 27, the plot suddenly picked up pace and there were twists and turns all over the place. By the end of the novel, which totally sets itself up for a sequel, I found myself actually wanting to know what will happen next. 

I admit to being a picky reader, and there are always a few words/phrases which annoy me beyond all reason when they are overused. At the moment one of these is ‘overstuffed’. I have no idea why (to be honest, mostly American) writers feel the need to use it ALL THE TIME.  I also have no idea why it annoys me so unreasonably much – I know it’s an incredibly immature thing to focus on, but there we go. So when it turned up in this book, it put my back up. Although the characters annoyed me at the start of the book, with many of them that was intended to be the case and they were pretty consistent creations on the part of the author. Stylistically, it was pretty well written, for me it was just a shame that almost half of the book was lacking in the pace and decisive action which made the last half so much better than the first. 

All that said, for people who are fans of supernatural type novels, 666 Park Avenue is pretty readable – it took me a day. It has all the elements of a good novel, but for me it just didn’t quite get there.

The book was provided to me for review by Canvas publishers. Thanks again!