Chance Damnation by Deanna Knipping

Review by Jessika

Chance Damnation by Deanna Knipping was a thrilling ride, indeed. The story is about a small town that gets invaded by demons, half bull-half human looking creatures, who search for and kidnap a magical little girl in order to gain their chance take over the world. The action started right from the first chapter, which was much appreciated. The voice was comical and honest. The plot twisted, turned, and somersaulted throughout the entire piece. Once I thought I had something figured out, something else changed and I had to go back to the drawing board of my imagination. Even during times when I was unable to read, I found myself contemplating the outcome of the novel: the next chapter, the next scene, or the ending.

I LOVED the characters various and strong personalities. I found it easy to become emotionally invested in most of them. Aloysius and Theodor were my personal favorites. Surprisingly, however, I didn’t feel hardly any attachment to Jerome at all. I wanted to and I tried to force it, but it just didn’t work for me. That is not to say that I didn’t think his character was nicely done. It was. As was everyone else’s in the story, which is an admirable feat all on it’s own.

One thing that did bug me about the characters was that they all seemed to accept various things way too quickly. The most troubling being, witnessing the death of their own family members without one tear being shed. They just kind of went on about their business and thought about the incident in passing. Furthermore, this may have been done to show some kind of divide in the family, but they seemed to care more about people outside of the family. Again this could have been intentional, but I found it very strange and a bit off-putting.

Lastly, there were quite a few grammatical errors and very unfortunate places. It took me a while to read through this book 1. Because I really like much of the dialogue and read them twice sometimes for entertainment value, and 2. Because there was some errors that made certain parts not make since at all, so I found myself reading whole pages over because I was sure I missed something. Things like that take the reader out of the story and gives a sense of confusion and incompleteness in the reading experience.

With all of that said, I still LOVED this novel and will be adding it to my personal collection to read again sometime later. From the way it ended, I don’t think there will be a second one, but enjoying the first one was good enough for me.

I give Chance Damnation by Deanna Knipping a solid 4.5/5

To get your copy of Chance Damnation: A Tale of the Weird West please check out the following Amazon links:

UK: Chance Damnation: A Tale of the Weird West

USA: Chance Damnation: A Tale of the Weird West