Title: Tapping at Twilight 
Author: Kassandra Alvarado
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: February 26, 2013
Genres: Paranormal, Historical
Length: 7 pages
Source: I received a free copy from the author
Rating: 3 Stars
Blurb:
A quiet London evening is disturbed by quiet rapping at the door, who or what could it be?
Review:
Visitors aren’t welcomed here.
Ms. Alvarado had a descriptive writing style that pulled me into the storyline before I even finished the first sentence. Seriously, it was that fast! I adored her use of alliteration and the vivid manner in which she described even the most ordinary details of the setting. There is nothing like settling into such crisp writing while allowing it to carry you away to a faraway time and place. She is clearly a talented writer, and I hope to read more of her work soon.
With that being said, I did find myself wishing for much stronger plot development as I read this. I had so many unanswered questions by the time I finished the seventh and final page of it. By no means did I expect everything to be resolved, but it was disappointing for me as a reader to experience a rapid buildup of tension and intrigue only to be left hanging at the end about what was going on with all of the rapping at the door. As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, the sudden and unsatisfying ending dampened my enjoyment of a tale that was otherwise delightful.
The protagonist’s character development was well done, though. Mister Westerfield was a sympathetic man who had been denied his greatest wish in his youth by his disapproving parents. Now that he was old and settled in life, he finally had the opportunity to make some of his own decisions about how to pass the time. It’s not as common as it ought to be for narrators who are senior citizens to be the centre of attention, so I relished getting to know this character and imagining what adventures might still await him in life.
Tapping at Twilight had an old-fashioned feel to it that suited the subject matter nicely.
I replace clothing and shoes as they wear out or no longer fit me, but I find it wasteful to replace perfectly good stuff just because an advertisement says that a certain pattern or colour is no longer in fashion this year. (This is not a criticism of anyone who loves fashion, only of an industry that often strongly encourages people to purchase things they may not need or even want a few months from now).
Other than a few rare exceptions (ahem, see #3 on this list which is something I will never revisit), I found something enjoyable about every book I was assigned to read from Elementary school all the way up through university. Some of them even became favourite titles and/or authors of mine!
Title: The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod
Social media is like water. Context matters.
Purple is my favourite colour. Specifically, I prefer the darker and richer shades of this colour, although light purple can be pretty as well.
Title: Forgotten Homeland – An Exmoor Ghost Story (A Lorne Turner Novella)
I wish everyone had the ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes and sympathize with struggles we know little or even nothing about.
It looks like this week’s list will be shorter than last week’s list was.
Title: An English Heaven