Customer Reviews

The Ring: The Last Knight Templar's Inheritance

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The plot idea for this book is a good one. The beautifully designed cover and the blurb "the Last Knight's Templar's Inheritance" drew me in and I was ready for a hopefully well written Templar Treasure adventure. Wrong. Although the story idea was good, it unfortunately was not well executed. Parts of the story were written very well, other parts were written so poorly that I kept thinking throughout the book that it seemed like it was written by two authors. I have to also say that an awful lot of the story was very predictable which ruins the wish to keep plodding along. The issue I have the most complaint about is that the characters are so lame. Three main characters make up the story, three friends from childhood who inherit a legacy and are thrust into a thrilling hunt for the lost treasure of the Templar Knights. These three people have got to be the most immature young people I have ever come across. The dialog between them was so bad, the integrity of the main character of Christina was appalling, and there never was any deep character development for any of them. I cant say I liked one character in this book, they were simply shallow, sarcastic, and all had schizophrenic personalities that changed like chameleons. I would loved to have seen a more seasoned writer pen this same story. This author in my eyes is not accomplished or polished and it really came through clearly to ruin the story. I barely could finish it, many times I almost put it down, and in my eyes, the ending was simply not worth the overly long journey. Give this a big miss. In fact at this moment, for a very new book that was just released, I found it telling that there were so many many copies of it used for just a dollar or two. I guess no one wants to keep it.

I agree with most of the other reviews. While the poor writing might be due to bad translation, by the end of this book I wanted to tell Cristina to just go home and grow up. She sounded more like 17 than 27. While the subject matter was truly interesting (and may have been been better toold my another author) the dialogue and conversations were lame at best.

And ... while the author attemts to wrap up loose ends in the last chapter, what happened to Luis? Every other character is accounted for and no one seems to have missed one of the 3 main characters? Poorly done ...

As others have said, it right up there with Dan Brown. I think its better than his latest, The Lost Symbol and I hope the author continues to write suspense novels like this! I was hooked and couldn't put this down until I finished!

As an avid reader of many different genres, I was intrigued by the cover art and the description on the back. Unfortunately, those were the best parts of the book. I wish I could give ZERO stars, or a half star for the pretty cover. I value my precious time to read, but this book was a waste of that precious time. I kept thinking it had to improve, and I'm an eternal optimist, so I had to keep trying but at one point I skimmed so I could just get through to the predictable ending and to see if anything unexpected would happen to draw me in. No such luck. I know there are books for all preferences and readers all have different expectations or standards of what makes a good book so maybe it works for someone else, but for myself, I prefer for my books to be smarter than I am, to teach me something, to take me somewhere special, to expose me to something new, a new idea or a new plot or storyline, to make me care... this book was not able to do any of those things even at the basest level. I was almost offended that I had been drawn in and spent my money on this book--I have a limited book budget and felt duped--it sounded so much better than it was!

One of my pet peeves is when men think they have the ability to write from a woman's perspective. I have never read a book that did that successfully, and I think it's equally difficult for a woman to write from a man's. It just doesn't work. As a 27 year old woman (the character's age), I never described my friends as wearing a "plunging neckline" or "low-slung jeans", nor have I, when someone french kisses me unexpectedly, responded with a nonchalant, "oh well, my mind was elsewhere anyway" reaction. Also, realistically, you'd hope a woman traveling abroad alone would have far better common sense than to think it "exciting" to see the same "creepy" man several times in a row, then just go back up to her hotel room and comfortably go to sleep. The character was a woman lawyer whom you would assume would be somewhat intelligent, but she was always a step behind everybody else, was easily manipulated and said the most obvious or the dumbest things. These were just a few of the numerous annoying and implausible scenarios the author set for the female character. It gives you a good idea of what the author must think women are really like--stupid! I was annoyed for almost the entire time I stuck out the book. The characters acted and spoke so immaturely and were poorly developed (Alicia could have been so much BIGGER--make her DO something!) , the dialogue was inane and it was hard to really care about any of them. The idea for the story was a good one, and could have been really exciting, but each time I thought "ah hah, a place for some potential action", I was disappointed. (in the crypt..we think we found something...it could be the treasure... ok, let's go to dinner so we have the strength to keep searching. What?! Did you ever see the the characters in National Treasure, just as an example of a treasure-hunting scenario, eating dinner?! Who cares? or when they got the idea to dig under the crypt, instead of actually digging and hey, who knows what exciting or scary things could happen, they decided it was best to ask permission from the priest if it was ok to dig (???) at which time he presented them with what would have been buried there. (???) It's like an adventure story without the adventure!) There were just no layers to this story at all. The main characters' responses and actions made me insane. I kept finding myself saying "AUGH" out loud, like "oh, please". I wish the author well, but good lord, I will remember his name so as not to waste anymore of my summer vacations on painful books such as this.

This is a perfect example of why book stores can be intimidating--with so many appealing books it's so easy to make the wrong choice! Do not waste your time with this one!

It takes a lot for me to put a book down unfinished and it usually is bad writing that pushes me over the edge. This book is so poorly written that I'd find myself chuckling over the terrible prose. I find it hard to believe and any editor would let this work out in this condition; or any publisher would publish it. I thought the story sounded intriguing but at last I'll never know - its going in the donate pile in my garage. I wish I happened on this book here where I could sample the prose instead at my local bookshop. Oh, well. Live and learn as they say.

I must confess - I only made it twenty pages into this novel. This is not my norm, but the writing was so terrible that I simply couldn't read further. After ten pages, I gave the book the benefit of the doubt and gave it the chance to improve, but after ten more pages, it just wasn't working. I can't remember the last time I had to put down a book and purposely not finish.

The writing is choppy, and it's clear that it wasn't a stylistic choice by the author, but rather lack of understanding of basic sentence structure. Characterization is shaky. And strangely enough, as a reader, you are always cognizant of the fact that this book was written by a man. The author's gender is never a problem for me - unless you've got a case like this. The protagonist is female, but she and her female friends are presented as two-dimensional - almost what a 15-year-old boy might think that a grown-up woman is, thinks, and does.

If you like this particular genre, I highly recommend Steve Berry's books instead (especially The Amber Room, The Third Secret, and The Romanov Prophecy), or Kate Mosse (Labyrinth and Sepulchre).

This story is up there with the Dan Brown books. The story is so good you want to continue reading, it is hard to put the book down. The author keeps you on edge. I like the way it goes back to the old times, this is what keeps the story interested.