Cold Play [Kindle Edition]

I received this book from the author with a request for review.

I liked this book from the very start. The setting is marvelous and unusual: a vintage cruiser ship currently doing 7-day Alaskan cruises. Jason, an entertainer on the cruise ship, is the story's narrator. He has a great voice with a gentle sense of humor that shows in his observations of his life, fellow crew members and the passengers, and frequently about himself.

This is not a thrill-a-second story. Rather, it slowly unfolds and reveals more layers of intrigue. However, it never felt slow to me. Jason is a good story teller and pretty much the book could have been about nothing more than life on a cruise ship and it would've been interesting. Pointless, but interesting. Fortunately for us readers, however, there's more to this story than life on a cruise ship. The pace continues to pick up as events twist and turn to the final revelations in the end. Nothing horribly surprising - unexpected, but not surprising - but well told and compelling enough to keep me turning pages until I was finally done. I'd actually look forward to another book featuring this character, but this one doesn't really hint at a sequel or leave much mystery for another.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it's a good value for the price.

When Winona Kent visted my website, Cruise Bruise, and asked me if she could send me a copy of her new book, Cold Play, I was reluctant. I'm on record as not being a fan of novels, especially romance novels.

As soon as I opened the cover of Cold Play, I began to stall between words. It seemed odd, the writing seemed off with incomplete sentences and phrases. Kent was deliberately stalling the reading and comprehension process, making me stop to think, to hover on the words. I didn't like it at all and I was only on page two of the book. I wanted to put the book down, refuse to read any more. After all, it's no secret that I don't like fiction; I'm highly critical of love stories and novels that have no real life value. Yet here I am on page two, my mind stopping and starting like a car being clutched for the first time by a teenage driver, trying to figure out, what in the hell this author is doing.

As I get to the bottom of page two, the last paragraph, everything changes. Kent has my attention, my full attention. I have work to do, real work on the computers in front of me. Yet, I know, I won't be able to put this book down until I've read the last page.

Kent starts the story off quickly with drama and action. It's the middle of the night, wee hours of the morning, nearly all the passengers are asleep in their cabins, when a musician aboard, Jason Davey, happens upon the smell of something burning.

While he wants to run, to save himself, he feels compelled as a result of his training to aid and assist with the reporting and containment of the fire, then to assist passengers, who are bewildered, squinting from the sudden exposure to light, wearing their pajamas which are still warm from being snuggled beneath the blankets on their cabin beds.

While the novel is fiction, the event is very real, as terrifying as it gets on a real cruise ship in the real world . . .

Anyone who has ever gone on a cruise and wondered, "What are the staff really like, and what happens behind the scenes?" will enjoy this book - but let's hope it's not YOUR next cruise it's based on! Life onboard an Alaska-bound boat is well-described with details experienced cruisers will recognize. The descriptions of passengers and crew are touched with humor, and multiple mysterious story lines keep a reader's attention. What sets this book apart from other fast-paced reads is the quality of the language - the author's MFA is evident - but it's never stuffy, just fun. This would be a perfect beach book - or one to take on a cruise!