The Chess Queen Engima by Colleen Gleason: Book Review!

Hello, everyone! I'm back, and I'm here to review The Chess Queen Enigma by Colleen Gleason! This is the third book of the Stoker and Holmes series featuring Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes. When a chess piece that works as a key to untold treasure goes missing, Stoker and Holmes are on the case. At least, they would be on the case if they weren't babysitting a visiting royal princess. But what happens next? Well, I'm not going to tell you! But, let's get onto the review!

Okay, as much as I love the premiss of this book and, for the most part the characters, this book has a bit of a pacing problem. I thought that some parts of the plot should have happened way before when they actually happened. I also thought that the dramatic parts weren't dramatic enough. The last book ended with such a cliffhanger, and I was expecting some followup in this novel. But it wasn't even mentioned until halfway through the novel. And when we finally get to that part, nothing came of it. Definitely a letdown.

I also had a problem with certain characters of the book. I felt like they weren't being portrayed as well as they could have been. There were so many missed opportunities to deepen the characters backgrounds and motives, but it just didn't happen. Just as an example, the guy from the future who has a thing for Mina doesn't even appear in the book until about a third of the way in. He seems to have turned into a plot device rather than his own character, and it makes me kind of sad. He's become a solution to a problem rather than a complex individual with deep emotions.

There are some high notes to the novel. I particularly enjoyed the ending to the book. It was so surprising, and while I guessed some elements of the mystery, there were others that definitely through me for a loop. The motives were surprising, and I thought that it added another element to our bad guy, the Ankh.

I also like how our main characters evolved through the course of the novel. We get to see our heroines fail and how that affects them. We get to see how severing ties with love ones can affect our heroines. It's what I want in main characters, and I was really excited to see how their lives changed through the course of the novel.

With everything said and done, I'm giving this book three and a half batteries out of five.

That's it for this post! Comment down below with other books with characters you think have more potential. Subscribe to the blog by adding your email address to the Subscribe Box down below or off to the right. Add me to your circles by clicking the Google+ Button on you right. Follow me on twitter @KK_Donna_Blog for up to date information on the blog and ridiculousness about my life. Follow the tumblr dedicated to the blog which you can find at this link. Read on, lovelies! I'll see y'all next post!