Review: Heart Search: Lost by Carlie M. A. Cullen

Warning: this review contains a few spoilers; I’ve tried to keep them as small and minor as possible, but I find it hard to write an analytical review that can give you my opinion, without including a few ‘spoilers’ to demonstrate my points. I received a free ebook copy of this book, from Carlie herself, in exchange for this review as part of her blog tour for this novel.

Well, where to start? I must admit, when I first started this book, I was sceptical as to whether I was going to enjoy this book or not. And it wasn’t that I didn’t find the prologue engaging; I did. It was more the technical stuff that bugged me at first. Throughout the whole novel, I noticed at least four misplaced apostrophes, and it’s grammatical stuff like that that really annoys me!

The prologue, I loved. It was really engaging and exciting and, I’m sad to say, was one of the only points at which I felt like I engaged with Joshua—one of the main characters. I liked how conciseness of the prologue, and how tension was created, particularly with the short sentences that contrast with the previous convoluted style. So, it was quite a disappointment, for me, to read the following four chapters; I found them to be a completely different style to the prologue, and, if I’m honest, a little predictable, and a bit boring. I don’t know, it was just the way so much tension was built up in the prologue, and then I was propelled into the third-person narrative of Josh, and, in Chapter 2, the first-person narrative of Remy—the other main character—and nothing much seemed to happen. Actually, that’s a lie. A lot did happen, but the the problem was that I found it a little clichéd with the whole ‘vampire story’–there was even an intentional parallelism to Meyer’s ‘New Moon’ which, ironically, I did like a lot.

Not that I’m saying this is like all those other vampire books; it isn’t. Carlie has given the whole idea a new twist; it took me a while to get into it, but when I did, I enjoyed it. It’s different, and you should read it.

Now, as for the narration: I (being favourably biased towards first-person books) connected more with Remy as a main character, however, I did find her annoying in the way that she pined after Josh, her run-away fiancé (who, unknowingly to Remy, had been transformed into a vampire). Just from reading her narrative, and being shown her thoughts, I was liking Josh less and less, despite Remy harbouring few ill-feelings towards him. He came across as self-centred—especially in the way that he doesn’t contact Remy or any of his family for the majority of the book—and arrogant. But, I could understand why Remy was so keen to find him, yet still, I was beginning to want to tell her just to “get a grip.”

Okay, so maybe I’m being a bit harsh? I always am when it comes to reviews. But, I will say that the way Carlie’s used a dual-narrative style worked very well. When it came to Josh’s third-person sections, I loved it—despite not engaging with the character, and liking few third-person narratives! I guess, to some extent, his inner-turmoil was relatable on some subconscious level, and I genuinely wanted to know what happened to the characters he was interacting with, especially Jasna. But, Josh did have a few relatable qualities, which is important for any character, despite how much I didn’t like him. He just came across as a really arrogant man—maybe this was the author’s intention, in which case, it worked well. And one thing that really annoyed me was how he just seemed to accept his new life with no questions asked. When I learnt how he was going to be one of those characters with ‘special powers’ (and lots of them), I cringed, but the execution of it was better than I expected.

Josh’s journey was more action-packed than Remy’s and I love action. I suppose that that’s one of the differences between the two narratives: I found Remy’s to drag on a bit, and Josh’s to be full of life (excuse the pun). Oh, and that’s another thing. For me, in the first half of the book, I couldn’t really see Remy developing as a character much. Yes, I admired her strength and refusal at giving up her search for the man she loves, but the whole travelling and getting no answer again and again seemed a little repetitive. And kind of made her boring. However, that changed in the last third of the novel, which was the real turning point for me. I loved her narrative after that, due to being able to see her character development.

Character arcs are something that this author is good at—even if it takes a little long for them to start. The character changes and transformations (emotionally and psychologically—well, and physically too….) of Samir, Farrell, Remy and Dayna I felt were excellent. And, I could see why they were changing. Although the author hadn’t spelt out word for word all their motives, I could grasp them pretty easily, and it developed these personas immensely.

As for character realism, it was excellent. Although I didn’t particularly like any of the characters much, they felt real. It’s important for all characters to have flaws, and flaws they had! At every decision a character made, I could see why they did it (even if it wasn’t for the best), and that is a sign of a skilled writer. There were characters that I loved and hated, and, ironically, I loved the character of Dayna, the bully. I think the reason I loved this character was because Josh saw her in one way, yet if you read between the lines, you can see an entirely different persona. She had a three-dimensional quality to her—a real sense of being—that sadly, I didn’t feel Josh or Remy (until the last third) had. Another reason I loved Dayna was because of the sub-plot that she caused, which, in a way, reflected the main plot, (something that’s seen a lot in Greek plays).

One problem that I did have with the writing was the head-hopping in Josh’s passages, and the way Remy says stuff that she can’t really know. Regarding the latter point, I can’t really remember the exact thing it was that really drew my attention to this problem, but it was something like the character describing in the first-person narrative, to the reader, how her face was reddening, (I think?), and I just wasn’t sure that she would be able to see her own face reddening—I was pretty sure there wasn’t a mirror in that scene. As for the head-hopping in Josh’s sections, at first I was confused. Although his is a third-person narrative, it’s a close-third—readers are able to see that character’s direct thoughts. The chapter titles indicate which of the main characters that chapter is following, but often when it was titled ‘Josh’ it would not only be from Josh’s point of view, but also other characters such as Samir and Dayna. Not that I didn’t like that—I did—I just found it a little confusing, especially when half the time there wasn’t a line-break to connote a change in perspective.

One of my favourite scenes was the revealing of the last of Josh’s special vampire talents, so you have to read it, even if it’s just for that bit.

Carlie Cullen is a master of foreshadowing. Seriously, I normally pride myself on spotting it and there were many times when these little hints were cleverly and subtly weaved into the prose. This foreshadowing added plenty of suspense, particularly towards the end Additionally, whenever I came across any lunar imagery, I actually smiled. It was so nice!

There was also one scene that I found very annoying due to Josh’s decision, so Carlie has successfully made me care for Remy even when I didn’t always want to. However, by the end of the novel I loved Remy’s character (I know I keep going on about Remy’s character development); one of the major events of the novel really sped up her plight and, I felt, made her much stronger and relatable. It also put a time-limit on her search, and I was so glad! I wasn’t sure how many more pages of her trawling from hotel to hotel I could take!

Essentially, this is a lovely love-story that portrays emotions spectacularly well. And the ending! I wanted to throw the book at the wall—well, actually, I didn’t because I was reading it on my iPod at that point…but you get the message. But, oh, what a cliff-hanger! I desperately want to know what happens, and, for me, it really was the ending that made me want to definitely read Carlie’s next book.

Heart Search: Lost – 4 out of 5 stars.