Most of my book reviews live over at Goodreads, but in honor of #indieApril, I’m porting those about independently published books over to Amazon as well. I’ll also feature the reviews here on the blog occasionally.

I read the first book in Richard Gleaves’ Ichabod Crane series about two years ago and was impressed by the story, the author’s narrative skills, and the production values of the ebook. I’m still not a young-adult fiction fan and don’t see me writing any such tales myself, but who knows? If the right story chased me down and hit me up the side of the head with a jack-o’-lantern, it could happen.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride as an ebook. The narrative starts slowly, hampered by a good bit of backstory. The protagonist and his friends are high-school seniors. Their concerns are about fitting into their school society, finding that special someone, and what adult life actually will mean. But wait. They live in Sleepy Hollow, NY, and they’re the descendants of Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. Once the tale really gets rolling, there is plenty of danger, double crossing, and heartbreak. The cast is diverse in terms of ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities, and illness. This is the first of a series and the problems laid out in this book were not resolved—it was much like the season finale of a TV series, leaving you with more questions than answers. A self-published book, I found it professional in technical and editorial aspects (correctly spelled, standard grammar, and punctuation). It is a fun horror hayride, with a little romance and characters a few levels more complicated than is often the case in popular fiction. Good job.