“She hadn’t meant to pull apart a building.”

That could be the best opening line of any Book I have ever read. Talk about a hook … there was no way that I wasn’t going to read the rest of the book at that point.

Holly Stockport’s debut novel, The Ascension of Melanie Winters, is the tale of a young university student in Britain who has recently discovered that she possesses some very interesting powers: she can move things with her mind. The story leads our heroine, Melanie, on an exciting, and sometimes dangerous, journey where she discovers that she is not alone.

As I said, that opening line had me hooked. I was very excited to find out about this young lady and her powers. I was a little disappointed shortly after, however. Don’t get me wrong … the concept and storyline are really interesting. It’s the delivery that is the problem.

First off, there were no chapters. That made reading a little tricky. Also, the formatting for Kindle was … not good. As an independently published author, I can attest to the frustration formatting can cause, but Amazon has some really good tools to help. Kindle Create, for example, does a good job of walking you through the process. It’s still not perfect, but better than just uploading a Word document and hoping for the best.

Another problem I had was the actual storytelling. For example, the actions and emotions of the characters were very exaggerated. They could go from terrified to devastated to furious then to amazed all in the space of a page or two. A character could be fearing for their life one second, then “stroll” across the room the next. For me, this makes it very hard to believe the character. Just too much for my taste.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the book and will probably read the next one when she puts it out. I just hope the author will stop trying to maximize every scene and just let it flow.

Rated: Moderate. This book contains some language, including two to three usages of strong language. It also has a few suggestive scenes, but no direct sexual content. There are also a few violent scenes that are fairly descriptive.