“Tala had proven herself to be level headed, more so than most of the women Graham had ever encountered.” 

 

 

Ummmm... poor Graham.  I don't think I am even past the first chapter and I am done.  I'll say it is better edited than the former (both editions that I looked at), but it isn't anything I would allow to be put out for sale.  

Best of luck to Ms. Shaw and I hope Bang makes it through the series, but as for Graham, he and that sentence awoke my inner feminist and pissed her off..  

EDIT-  

This is my review that will be posted to Amazon and my blog:

Despite the author's attitude, I owed it to her to check this book out because I do feel that her characters and plot show promise.  I hoped that she would improve in her craft and bring her writing up to par with the level of promise the characterizations and plot had promised.  I should have known better by her disposition and response to my review for the first book.

To be fair with this review (as I was in the review of the first book), I will let readers know that I only read the first chapter of Cascade Preppers (for the first book I read over 50% of the novel).  As for the GSP... spelling has greatly improved, but the grammar and punctuation, while not as bad as the several edited (and I use the word 'edited', loosely) versions of the first book, it is still lacking.  Not what I expect and demand from a novel that I would purchase.

I had hoped it would be tolerable enough for me to continue on to find out what happens to the great characters Ms. Shaw has created, but it is not.  Great characters and an interesting plot are only a few of the building blocks of a successful (or readable) story.  I found Graham's internalized misogyny, as evidenced by this quote, to be disturbing:

“Tala had proven herself to be level headed, more so than most of the women Graham had ever encountered.”

It was the 'had ever encountered' bit that got my inner feminist screaming for blood and realizing that instead of the structure of her writing rising to the level of the characters and plot, that the characters were diving to meet the sub-par writing standard.

I will not give Ms. Shaw another chance and for those that demand a certain standard of writing, I doubt this series is for you.  By all means, grab a sample and try it out, but do so before opening your wallet or I fear you will be incredibly disappointed.