Book Review Mystical Circles by S.C. Skillman Cult Suspense Novel #kindle #bookreview
Mystical Circles by S.C. Skillman
Mystical Circles by SC Skillman is a romantic suspense novel about Juliet, a freelance radio journalist, who fears for her sister Zoe, who has joined a strange group called The Wheel of Love and has fallen head over heels for the leader. Juliet arrives on the farm where the group resides to record a documentary, but also to rescue her sister from the strange group’s clutches. While there, Juliet becomes drawn into the secrecy of the group and goes on a mission to uncover the truth.
The blurb on Amazon and the free sample I read on my kindle led me to believe that this book would be about a woman trying to save her sister from a strange cult compound like Waco Texas, but ends up being sucked in and/or falling in love with someone in the group. She then discovers something sinister about the group and needs to escape. Since I’ve never had any contact with a group like that, I thought it would be an interesting read to watch how a normal person is sucked into a cult. That’s not what this book is about so don’t make the same mistake as me.
The Wheel of Love group is not a cult; it’s more like a random assortment of people thrown together, all of them with problems they are trying to hide. It’s hardly a retreat center. The participants only take part in two activities during the entire novel, a weird form of meditation, and dream yoga. The characters spend most of their time eating and drinking wine and perusing and arguing with each other.
There is no serious danger in this story for the protagonist to overcome, only the secrets The Wheel of Love members won’t reveal. Mystical Circles is a novel of troubled people working out their deep seeded issues and finding love. If that’s the type of story you enjoy, then you’ve come to the right novel.
Unfortunately, it’s not my type of story. It realistically portrays everyday life problems like mental illness and entrepreneurs with no business sense. I read to escape reality. I kept hoping the person who didn’t eat at dinner would end up being a vampire or Craig the leader had some sort of twist to him because he kept shifting his appearance during dinner. No such luck.
About forty percent into the novel, I lost interest. The book is slow-moving and not a lot of excitement. I had no emotional involvement with the characters. I tried to pin down why. I think it’s because the reader is constantly being told by the author how to feel about situations instead of letting the reader experience the action that would generate the feelings in the reader.
The kindle formatting needs to be redone at the beginning of the novel, the stuff before chapter one. I don’t think it’s displaying the way the author intends. Some page breaks might fix the problem. Some writing issues could be addressed, such as using “was” when it’s not needed. The beats between character dialog are dry at times and become repetitive, but other than that no major editing problems.
This book isn’t for me, but there are definitely readers out there for it. If you enjoy delving into people’s personal problems, knowing their dark secrets, then you will enjoy this book.