Review of ‘On the Run’ by Charlotte Greene

This was an okay lesbian action romance book. I’m a fan of Greene since her last two books were fantastic. I had high hopes for this read so I’m sorry to say that it was just average. This story was missing the special spark Greene’s stories can have. It’s not a bad read, parts were exciting and fun, but it wasn’t any more than an average read.

First, I just want to mention you might want to skip reading the book’s blurb if you are interested in reading it as, in my opinion, it gives a little too much away. I knew this was a story about two women on the run, but that’s all I knew and I enjoyed being mostly in the dark. The story was different than I expected and that was one of the fun parts. In fact, the whole storyline was pretty fresh. While I might have read books with similar elements before, the overall feel of the story felt pretty different which I appreciated.

The beginning of the book starts off well. Both women are a bit of a mystery and before you can even get comfortable, there is some action and suspense right off that bat that kept me turning the pages. The middle was one of my issues. It slowed down too much for the type of book I was hoping for. I think Greene was trying to grow the romance here but instead of enjoying it I wanted to get on with the action. The ending of the book was fun and entertaining but I just wish the middle had held up.

My other main issue is I’m not sure if I cared about the characters enough. I liked them alright, but in an action-thriller type of book, I want to really care what happens to them. It was not because the characters were morally grey, in fact, that was one of the more interesting parts about them. The problem was I had trouble really connecting. This book is written in third person but from only one point of view. This is one of my least favorite ways to read. If a book is only going to be one POV, I want it to be first so I can really be in the main character’s head. If the story is in third, I want both POV’s. Only getting one POV in this book caused me to really miss out on learning and connecting to the other main character. And because of that I struggled and didn’t care enough about her.

While this book was entertaining at times, it really felt like something was missing. The story was there, the idea good, it just did not all come together. Greene’s last two books, Legacy and Gnarled Hollow, were so much better than everything else she has written. Both books are horror-paranormal and were so much fun to read. I hate to say this but I think she should concentrate more on that category instead. For one, there are not many lesfic authors that even write horror-paranormal. Greene fills a space that is seriously lacking in new releases. Secondly and even more importantly, she excels at writing in this category. Greene does creepy and scary really well and I hope we will get to see more from her very soon. 3 stars.

A copy was given to me for an honest review.