Book Review: Deeper, by Blue Ashcroft

I'm not going to waste a lot of "blog space" talking about this book, because--to be honest--this book needs more help than I could possibly ever offer in this format. 
Deeper is a book about two emotionally scarred lifeguards working at an inner city theme park. Rain, the newest lifeguard and supervisor of this often misnamed and confusing motley crew, is looking for redemption after a terrible accident that led to the death of her fellow lifeguard (a boy who was in love with her) the previous year. 
Knight, the current supervisor, has been emotionally unavailable for the last 4 years, since his childhood sweetheart was raped and decided to end her own life. He blames himself for not being able to help her work through her issues, and as a result he feels especially protective of all of the women under his care, especially Rain.
Deeper is one of those books that you can definitely tell someone wrote "by the seat of (his/her) pants." There is very little structure, the events that occur feel like they could or should have a bigger emotional punch than they actually do, and throughout it's missing that central conflict that can only be developed by first doing some actual thinking about your plot/characters. Normally I'm fine with writing that way--honestly, that's how every great idea starts. However, all authors (and editors) need to learn how to REVISE. Your "seat of the pants" story should never be what you publish. Case in point, I saw several instances of where a character was called by the wrong name. A silly mistake that really led me to question the quality of this manuscript.Take your rough copy, work out the kinks, develop your central conflict, study your 3-act structure, and THEN publish.

One of the good things about this book is that-- with this motley crew of characters-- there was a lot of drama that inevitably ensued. It would have been much better if, instead of multiple dramatic incidents that incited very little emotional investment, the author had concentrated on maybe 2 or 3 incidents and wrote the hell out of them. Unfortunately, like I said, it just didn't happen. However, since this is Blue Ashcroft's first book, let's give her the benefit of the doubt that, from now on, her writing will only keep getting better.

Deeper got 3.9 out of 5 stars (by 21 reviewers) according to Amazon.com and is available for Kindle for $2.99. The book is 179 pages and has an interesting dual perspective, where sometimes Rain is the viewpoint character and other times Knight is. If you're into that first-person perspective, this might be something you'd enjoy!