In my quest to read all the books on my Kindle, I have come across more than a few duds. They must have found their way to me as freebies because I can’t think of any other reason I would have picked them up.

I’m a person who once I start a book, I have to finish it. Maybe that’s why I can’t make any real headway on my Kindle list. Right now I’m reading a book that shall remain nameless for now. I can’t wait to finish it, not because I love it but because it’s making me angry.

The protagonist is a doctor from New Zealand who now lives in London and who ended up in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. She speaks with a British accent and all the Americans she comes in contact with do too. Ugh. Next she got on a plane from Baton Rouge to Boston and expected to sleep for six hours on the flight. A non stop flight on this route takes 3 1/2 to 4 hours tops. This author took on an American plot line without much knowledge of how Americans act, talk and think.

The story line that irritated me most however, was Hurricane Katrina. Having lived through my fair share of Category 3 and 4 hurricanes during my forty years of living in Florida, I don’t feel this author did any justice to the pain and suffering of that time. The pacing of the story for me made it all look too easy. The aftermath of a storm like Katrina continues for many to this day, fifteen years later.

As an author myself, maybe I’m too critical of others. What I learned from reading this story is that research is paramount especially when you are dropping fictional characters into real life events. Editing comes next to make sure not only that the periods and commas are in place but that speech and dialect are true to the story line as well as the character’s speech pattern.

Even though I want to move on to a more captivating book, I will stick this one out. And I will study my own writing to make sure I don’t make the same stupid mistakes and irritate my readers. Because without readers, my writing has no meaning.