Solid Illusions: A Claire Winston novel

by T. M. Gannaway

[brokentune]

Curiosity has a lot to answer for. It was curiosity that made me pick up this book.

I tend not to read urban fantasy or paranormal stories but having read a book in this genre that I really liked, I thought I'd expand my horizons.

Solid Illusions was mentioned by a colleague and I thought "Well, why not..."
Did I get hooked by the paranormal or romance aspects of the story?
Absolutely not. They are not my bag.
However, I did enjoy how the author used the paranormal aspect as a comparison to the state of mind that the main character goes through after losing her family in a road traffic accident.

The beginning of the book was extraordinary: a woman at the verge of losing it, gets confronted with a reality that is unreal, and in the process of accepting the events that unfold I wondered whether the events were real or whether they were an expression of her mental state whilst dealing with grief and medication.

As the story goes on, we find out and the paranormal elements of the story take over the plot.
I'm sure that I would have enjoyed the rest of the story a lot more if I liked urban fantasy or stories about time travel and historical romance set in 17/18th century Ireland.
As it is, I liked the story but it didn't quite live up to the strong beginning.