Ebony by T.C. LoTempio

TITLE: Ebony
AUTHOR: T.C. LoTempio
PUBLISHER: Whiskey Creek Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 82k)
GENRE: Thriller Horror
COST: $5.99

Few people escape the town of Ebony, and the few that do always come back. Such is the case for reporter Jess McCall. She never thinks she’ll return until a mysterious envelope from her estranged sister forces her hand. Worried that something has happened, Jess returns to Ebony, only to be faced with story after story about why Amanda’s not around. None of them satisfy her. It takes teaming up with fellow reporter Frankie Marshall for some of the pieces to come together, but the truth of Amanda’s – and other’s – disappearances is almost too horrific to face.The undead. Voudou. An insane mastermind. How are they ever going to survive?

The book starts out taut and intense, with an opening scene that sucks you in. Unfortunately, the momentum set by the beginning starts to falter a third of the way into the story, so that by halfway through, it’s derailed enough to fail to deliver on its early promise. This is about the time the author hits the pitfalls of necessary exposition, and too many scenes are spent researching and explaining voudou for the average reader. It’s given in long, clunky scenes that had me glazing over just like Frankie the first time he heard it. By the time I hit the third of such scenes, I was skimming. It was either that, or stop reading altogether.

A good editor should have helped this promising author correct those, but unfortunately, I suspect the editor on this book wasn’t as strong as she needed. There are several incorrect word usages throughout the book, as well as several continuity errors that pulled me out of a scene (Frankie referring to Amanda once when he clearly met Jess, for instance). Maybe she got sucked into the story enough to miss them. That’s a shame for Ms. LoTempio, though, because those kinds of errors keep Ebony from being a truly creepy read.

Where the book shines is in creating memorable characters, both with the citizens of Ebony and the town itself. Anybody who ever grew up in a small town knows a girl like Tally Whitehall, or has encountered the wall of silence that greets Jess on her return. As a heroine, Jess works just fine, though sometimes I wondered how she ever survived some of her reporting assignments if she acted out on the field like she did in Ebony. Her chemistry with Frankie is compelling, but I was a little disappointed when his history wasn’t used to better advantage in the story. He was, for me, the strongest and most believable protagonist of the bunch. I would have preferred to see more of him and less of a couple others.

I love a good horror story, but ultimately, this book falls a little short. With tighter plotting, this could have been one of those stay-up-until-midnight-finishing stories. As it is, it was a mildly enjoyable distraction for a couple of days.

Readability	7/10 – Easy prose is hindered by some sloppy editing and clunky blocks of exposition that kill momentum.
Heroine	7/10 – Spunky enough to counter the really stupid moves she occasionally makes.
Plot	6/10 – There’s a lot of deus ex machina in how things get resolved, and while the story has potential for being truly creepy, other elements cripple it.
Entertainment value	6/10 – Enjoyable, but not nearly as scary as it could have been
World building	8/10 – To the author’s credit, Ebony came to life for me.
TOTAL:	34/50