Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Nica of Los Angeles (Frames) / Sue Perry


Reviewed by: Sooz

Genre: Fantasy

Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Sue Perry has had many jobs over the years (scientist, professor, TV producer) but writing is what she loves. The California resident has two children, five cats and a dog.

Description:

Rookie PI Nica takes a case where she enters multiple dimensions called Frames. She is called in to help a great struggle between good and evil that could have great consequences.

Appraisal:

Maybe Gumby is real? At least in Nica’s universe, there are Gumby people – and so much more.

In Sue Perry’s re-imagined universe, there are different frames that beings live in. We currently live in one, but there are thousands (maybe even millions) of others that are similar with subtle changes or altogether different. One of them is even filled with Gumby people who can stretch and contort into about any shape.

Nica is trying to get her life started over by becoming a private investigator. She immediately gets new clients and all of them seem shady and mixed up in things she doesn’t want to know about or understand. But money talks, even though she trusts her guts and ends up working for the other side in two of the cases.

Also, two of her clients seem otherworldly and trustful, and she immediately wants to help them. Nica is pulled into their world of animate buildings and sinister people trying to disrupt the natural flow of the frames. Perry has a unique voice told in the first person of Nica. Her voice is distinct and allows readers to slip into Nica’s world as she discovers these new frames.
However, I did find parts of the book melodramatic. As soon as one minor subplot was wrapped up, another jumped up to bite a character. It’s almost as the book read like a serialization and bundled for an e-book. While this may work if the chapters were spread out over weeks, it was a bit too much for one reading.

I would like to learn more about the other characters. We learned a lot about Nica, who is layered and complex, but we didn’t know much about those around her. Perhaps that was by design, but I would have enjoyed a bit more background as to what makes these others tick.

The world is one of creativity and fun. The frames also allow Perry to create just about any world she wants when the only thing holding her back is her own imagination.

Format/Typo Issues:

There were some issues, but nothing glaring.

Rating: **** Four stars

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