The Whispers of the Sprite – Joanna Mazurkiewicz

Description
When Ania moves from London to Swansea city in Wales she is hoping that her life will get a bit more exciting, after all she is running away from her controlling mother to taste more freedom and feel more independent. Everything seems to be going the way she wanted until she almost dies while taking a quiet walk around the beach in the late evening.
When she opens her eyes, nothing seems the same...
She starts seeing people that no one else is able to notice. An enchanting looking man keeps following her and Ania’s life seems to getting more exciting than she ever wished for.
After the attack something changes inside her, she has been blessed with the new frightening gift of seeing and hearing sprites all around her... the magical creatures that only existed in folklore, myths and legends of Britain.
Gabriel is attractive and handsome but no ... he is not a vampire. He keeps coming back and Ania feels an instant connection between them but this might get her into more trouble. Supernatural romance is not on her mind right now.
Because he is forbidden to even touch her ... the line between the death and love has never been so thin and the sprites won’t stop whispering until ... she will choose to love or abandon Gabriel.

My Opinion

This book created some original characters that were interesting and exciting to read about. I love it when a new paranormal creature is developed as it brings a whole new set of ideas to read about. I enjoyed the concept of Sprites as it was unusual and I haven't read anything like it before so I found myself reading on to find out more about their nature. I also enjoyed the twists in this book as it kept me wanting to read on. The romances in this book were developed just right. There was just enough detail to keep you in suspense of what would happen next in the character's lives which was great.

I did have a few issues with this book though. For me there wasn't enough dialogue to break up the long description (which I ended up skim reading at times) and sometimes I felt that not all of the description was relevant. I found myself asking “why do I need to know this?” as it didn't seem to add anything or help to move the story on. I also found myself wanting more details about things that weren't written about, which frustrated me, e.g at one point Mazurkiewicz wrote that Ania had a conversation with Amy and I found myself almost screaming as I would have rather read the dialogue than having the fact stated.

As well as this the book seemed a bit disjointed. Mazurkiewicz used a lot of asterisks to move from one scene to the next and I found this sort of irritating as it felt like the book kept stopping and starting. In some places where I expected to be a chapter break there were asterisks and where I expected asterisks there was a new chapter. I also found a few grammar problems, where the tenses changed from present to past and there are a few typos, but these are few and minor.

The paranormal story in this book is simple to understand, original and interesting. The characters were easy to sympathise with but I didn't get as much of a connection as I would have liked, especially at the end. The end of the book also leaves you on a cliff hanger and even though I had these problems with the book I still want to read the next one.

Overall I enjoyed the new concept, creatures and story line as it was original. However for me, my main problem was the lack of dialogue and long descriptions. I found myself skimming pages and not getting as lost in the book as I would have liked to. If you want to read about a new addition to the paranormal creatures then I would recommend this book as it was an exciting read.

RATING: I'd say this book is somewhere between 2.5 and 3 (but near 2.5) as I did have quite a few problems with it.