As with several other indie novels I’ve reviewed, I found this one through a FB group I am in.
The synopsis of the The Foreboding intrigued me. Here is the description from its Amazon webpage:
Destination drawn unceremoniously from a hat, quiet, bookish Shiloh leaves her cliché life and all the expectations that went with it without any intention of looking back. Upon arrival in her new city, a dark past lurks in her musty apartment and invades her subconscious. She is quickly enveloped into an unbelievable plot that turns her assumptions about the world upside down. When personal tragedy and evil unmask a long-standing plot for power and dominance, Shiloh is forced to confront the unharnessed potential of the human mind and the interconnectedness of the world she worked so hard to learn about in school. Through the painful introspection of early adulthood and eye-opening discovery of scientific truths beyond her wildest dreams, Shiloh must learn to trust her own instincts and an unlikely group of comrades to fight the power of obsession and control threatening to obliterate all she holds most dear.
The novel has a strong start. I was especially impressed with the quality of writing in the Author’s Note — and the novel premise of its story. However, and sadly for this reader, while the novel did deliver a story that bends and challenges our conceptions of physics and nature, the novel failed to engage me emotionally and create a landscape of possibility beyond the microcosmic world of its characters.
My personal preference is for character-based literary fiction, stories in which the human connection is the fulcrum around which the rest revolves. The Foreboding lacked the character development I wanted. Shiloh came through as a distinct, fleshy voice, a strong presence as the novel’s lead protagonist, but Margaret and the others felt flattened, making it difficult to understand their motivations and purpose in the novel, especially in their interactions with Shiloh. In some parts, the dialogue — even Shiloh’s — felt contrived; likely as a result of a lack of character development, their words sounded hollow, conveying the author’s voice and intent more than their own.
For this reader, the story required smoother introductions into its concepts and more nuanced context to both bring the landscape around its events to life, and highlight its events as a singular. The world Foley suggests is an unique and intriguing one, but this quality is obscured by a too-casual framing of those events.
All this said, The Foreboding delivers on other points. First, it is technically well-written. There are few, if any, typographical errors. Its syntax, grammar, structure, and organization are largely correct, and were clearly considered with care. Second, the author has an interesting, original, and creative premise. There is a story here worth the telling, even if this reader found its delivery lacking.
As such, my overall review is mixed. Readers should read The Foreboding themselves, as they may find their experience of it to differ from my own. The novel can be purchased on Amazon here. The paperback is $16.83, the hardback $27.43, and the ebook is available on Kindle Unlimited and for purchase for $3.99.
Dr JoAnn LoSavio 