'A Portrait of Pain' by Jane Washington
- Polly
- Aug 4, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 18, 2021
FTC disclaimer: I was not sent this product. I am not affiliated with the companies mentioned. All opinions are my own.
Overall Rating: 6/10
Plot Overview (written by me):
Seraph Black is FINALLY in the know! Memories she didn’t know were missing have been returned, and her pairs aren’t keeping secrets from her for her ‘safety’. Whilst this is a comfort, Seraph’s changing forecastings are becoming frightening, and her stalker is determined to win one last game. Bodies start popping up around Seraph, and now the human press is involved.
Can she prevent a massacre, prove her innocence, and maintain her morality?
My Thoughts:
On paper, ‘A Portrait of Pain’ was a satisfying climax to a paranormal tetralogy: characters were developed (through Washington’s multiple POV’s), the romance remained a point of interest even after the confessions of love, our main character got a darker streak (“I’ll let a thousand more people die if it means keeping them alive”), and events of the previous three books came back to haunt the plot. Everything was wrapped up neatly in ribbons.
But if I was to judge the series as a whole, I’d have to say that the stakes never felt high enough for it to be a showstopper. Yes, the writing was punchy at times, but Washington needed to do more fleshing out. Perhaps the action needed a change of setting? Maybe even moving out of the United Sates? The characters just played into the one stereotype chosen for them, rarely surprising the reader. To close, the plot of four entire novels cannot revolve around ‘stopping one stalker’. We needed fresh conflicts!
Quotations:
“It wasn’t the bond that drew me at first; it was the way you looked at me, like you wanted me to disappear but you couldn’t look away at the same time. And then.. of course… you ran the hell away from me.”
“I let the static take over, filling the space with unspoken words. Which unspoken words didn’t matter to me. She could dream them up and then hang herself with them, for all I cared.”
“Pain had never been a stranger in a painting, or a shock of feeling jarring through my heart. Pain had been with me from the start; it was the very shadow that dogged my steps. I had mistaken it for peace: my quiet, violent little hell-hole of a life. I had thought that if I stayed quiet, if I stayed hidden, unknown, and unassuming… peace and pain would simply merge and become one. I had never considered the possibility that pain could heal, or that peace was something that happened after. What I had been feeling had not been peace, it had been calm. Specifically, the calm before the storm that would rip my life apart.”
Author: https://janewashington.com/
Review finished on 04/08/2021
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