Review: "The Storm Within" by Hope Welsh

Title: The Storm Within
Author: Hope Welsh
Available: Smashwords
Summary: "Kari Davis is on the run. Witness to a murder she's been framed for, she's got nowhere to go and no one to run to. When she is stranded in an Oklahoma blizzard, she discovers her guardian angel rescuer is more than she's bargained for. Is he her salvation or will Cade Williams be the source of her ultimate destruction? Danger is coming..."


Review: This book is kind of tough for me to determine a rating. I liked it, but I did have some problems with it.


It needed... more, for me. I realize the author has a note at the end that says she had originally planned a longer story but chose to go with a short story ultimately, and that's fine. I don't necessarily think it needed a lot more, but just more hints inserted earlier in the meeting of the characters to show later what she says they think/feel about the other.


For example, she writes that the Hero had wanted the Heroine perhaps since he first saw her, but when I read that first scene, I didn't get that from it. I would have liked more magnetism and just a few more hints, pieces of history and information here and there before they were suddenly coming together, and before he believes her story so entirely. Not that I don't think his belief was unreasonable, precisely, but just a little bit more for it.


Maybe more time on that part and a little less on how lost she is on the highway in the first sections might have worked, but that could just be me!


There was also a bit of head hopping that got a little tough.


Otherwise, though, I did like the basics of the story. The skeleton of it, you could say. Welsh is a decent writer and I liked the basics of the characters. I just wish there had been a little bit more of things earlier to make the later things make more sense, so I give this 3.5 Fireballs.