THE HIDDEN CHAMBER IN THE GREAT SPHINX

THE HIDDEN CHAMBER

IN THE GREAT SPHINX

By Linda A. Cadose

Self-published

100 pages

ISBN #978-1-4685-0807-9

More and more would-be writers are discovering self-publishing and realizing their dreams of being published.  Unfortunately most of them do not have the services of a  professional editor and a great deal of what we are seeing is rife with typos, grammatical errors and sadly devoid of any real literary styling.

Linda A. Cadose is a Registered Respiratory Therapist and teacher with a Master’s Degree in technical and professional writing from Northeastern University. That’s a very prestigious academic background but none of it is a substitute for good storytelling, something that is instinctive to good writers and cannot be taught.

Ms.Cadose’s first book is intended for the juvenile market which is obvious from the start and she narrates a good tale with very likeable characters.  Unfortunately she is falls into the teacher’s trap of assuming the book must be filled with lots of accurate scientific, geographical and historical facts.  All well and good, but not to the point of interrupting the story in long running exposition paragraphs that instantly pull the reader out of the fiction she is weaving.

Despite these faults, I did like this book.  I liked it because of the characters and the adventure they go on together.  Sure the writing was stiff and too “instructional” but it kept moving forward and there was an evolving plot that gradually produced a genuine mystery with a few legitimate surprises towards the end.  Still, I would have enjoyed delving a bit more into characterization, especially of the foreign players. 

Everyone in this book spoke too well.  Most people, even the highly educated, rarely speak in the same manner they lecture or write. They speak in short phrases, use lots of slang and colloquialisms. Every person has a unique speech pattern/rhythm that is discernable to an experienced writer and they use such to differentiate their characters from one another.  These are part of the writing craft that I hope Ms.Cadose will discover and she continues in her new writing career.  She does have talent; it’s crude, but still visible in this first outing. With a good editor, I’m confident her skills will mature.

I’ve a ten year old granddaughter who is a ferocious reader and I am passing along this book to her because I believe she’ll enjoy it.  Perhaps that’s the best thumbs up I can give “The Hidden Chamber in the Great Sphinx.”