Title: Postcards From Another Life
Author: Andy Paulcroft
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 522 Pages
Category: Mystery
At a Glance: I found Postcards from Another Life to be solid, if slow-moving story. The mystery in 1977 was interesting and ended up being what made the story enjoyable. I totally would recommend this to those looking for a cozy little mystery.
Reviewed By: Lindsey
Blurb: Have you ever had a dream where it seems like you are watching a movie?
When Peter Abrahams first goes to university he feels alienated from his fellow students.
Then he meets Sam Morris and his life changes dramatically.
When Peter spends his summer at the Morris family hotel, he starts experiencing dreams – strange dreams – about a man who worked in the same hotel forty years before.
Peter discovers that the man existed, the events he is witnessing really happened, and is drawn deeper into the mystery of what occurred in 1977.
Review: I wasn’t quite sure what to expect From Postcards From Another Life. Anytime there is a new-to-me author—and in this case, what appears to be the first book by the author—it can go either way. This book ended up being middle of the road for me. I enjoyed the heck out of the mystery, but there was an odd conflict where I was torn on how I felt about everything else going on in my head. While the story is solid, it was very slow moving (that is mostly on me, which I will explain later). And while I enjoyed the main character’s voice and narration, it also felt more like a friend telling me a story, meaning it felt mostly surface and not a story I could truly immerse myself into. The secondary characters straddled a line; some I felt I didn’t get to know enough about (or had difficulty forming a connection with, like Sam), while others were written in a way that brought out lots of emotions—some I loved some I hated.
The mystery from 1977 is what really held my interest when it was all said and done. The sucky part is I don’t want to write too much about that particular part of the story because there are many threads and the slightest slip up could give something away. So, I will just go with how much I enjoyed trying to piece things together with Peter, Sam, and Emily as they tried to dissect the movie-like dreams Peter was having. It kept my attention, trying to find the clues to what happened, and I really appreciated the way certain threads were brought together. There was enough confusion as the story is followed to give me a fair bit of difficulty in figuring out everything and how everything went down, and I was surprised more than once.
This story is set in the UK, which is why the reading was a little sluggish for me. I kept having to look up references to certain individuals that I hadn’t heard of, or references made and terms used, and this slowed my progress down a lot. There is a dry sense of humor throughout, and I felt that overall Pete was written well for the eighteen/nineteen-year-old he was through most of the story. At times more mature, but there were immature actions and thoughts that made him more realistic.
Though I struggled with balance in this story, I think that is more on me than anything else, and had to do with my difficulty in understanding some of the references and terminology used. I totally would recommend this to those looking for a cozy little mystery, where the whodunnit isn’t quite as easy to figure out. Though there is angst and some difficult times, it’s mostly lighthearted.
You can buy Postcards From Another Life here:
[zilla_button url=”http://authl.it/B078HMC2L5?d” style=”blue” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]