Cremated Chains

by Haya Sameer

After falling victim to a sinister kidnapping Cassidy Carlone is left with no choice but to forgo her life in search of a new beginning. A new town was supposed to make things better, but the horrors of her past aren't through with her yet. Can Cassidy make it out alive? Possibly. But will she have anyone to go back to after it all? Or will her assailant prevail yet again?

Cremated Chains is a YA thriller that questions the duality of human nature. Blood is thicker than water, but how far would you go to protect them?

452 pages, Paperback

Published January 20, 2021

About the author

Haya Sameer is the teenage author of Cremated Chains. From short story collections to poetry and author blogs, her writing portfolio is diverse and dabbles in various genres. After self publishing her first novel at 15, Haya looks forward to traditionally publishing her future projects.

Reviews

[Sue Miz · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars 🌟🌟🌟🔅🔅

First off, a big thank you to the author Haya Sameer for sending me this book to read in exchange for an honest review

Now I have to admit that I struggled a bit with this one, but knowing that the writer was 15 years old when she published it (making her 17 yrs now! WOW) changed my perspective.
I mean at 15 I was still struggling writing descriptive, narrative, and expository essays!!!
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So this definetly contributed to the rating

⚜Genre: Crime/Thriller
⚜Theme: Stalker - Revenge
⚜Target: Upper YA
⚜Characters: Cassidy and a number of her friends and family
⚜TW: a lot! violence- kidnapping - torturing - killing
⚜ tropes: This is not a romance in any shape or form
⚜ POV: mainly Cassidy with a few scattered different POVs
⚜ rating: 3.75 stars 🌟🌟🌟🔅🔅
⚜standalone: It could be, but everything is not resolved at the end
⚜Ending: setting the mood for the next book
⚜Edition: Only Paperback

Cassidy Carlone was held captive and tortured by a deranged kidnapper after he or she toyed with her mind and spirit for a long time. One incident of his/her manipulation resulted in her father's death which Cassidy blamed herself for. Cassidy escapes, goes into therapy, and tries to live her teenage life in a new city and school. But fate is cruel for apparently, she lands back again in the hands of her obsessed kidnapper. Cassidy has to find out who is playing with her life before more people die.

I loved the story. I was immediately intrigued by Cassidy's story wanting to know who has been doing that to her.
I loved seeing her going from the timid victim to the strong survivor who takes charge of her destiny and decides to expose the identity of her kidnapper and tormentor.

I also enjoyed, in a dark weird way, the flashbacks to the days before and when Cassidy was kidnapped. They gave certain clues to the identity of the kidnapper.

The writing structure of the book shows that the author has excellently mastered the English language. She is apparently not a native but clearly studied well. there were almost no grammar mistakes - some would mistake the use of commas and connectors as mistakes, but when writing a book, you could take lenience with them.

However, it is this same writing style that put me off and was the reason it took me a long time to finish the book.
The paragraphs were overly descriptive with the use of difficult vocabulary that would be impossible to be used in real dialogues or situations like the ones in the book.

boisterous, exuberant, aberrant, hellacious, interminable

Maybe this was ok in the times of Arthur Conan Doyle, but I do not think the targeted audience will resonate with such writing

a lot of the times I felt that the author was deliberately avoiding using pronouns.
she would be talking about something Cassidy would be doing then continue by the brunette said.. or the bookworm observed..

at some point you had to remember each person's eye color to understand who was talking to whom
oceanic eyes....cornflower eyes..

I am not saying some people won't like that, but even for an English language educator such as myself I found this over the top.

"Auburn fingers pulled back long chocolate brown strands, the smooth locks forming a ponytail before she tied it back with a grey scrunchie. The monochrome accessory...

how can fingers be Auburn? and do we need a detailed description of everything? and this is just one example

Sometimes less is more

The other thing that set me back was the overstretched of unnecessary events in some parts versus the sudden and rushed incidents close to the end. I think some parts could have been deleted and others more explained.

my final advice is to do a thorough research. If you are to use the juridical system in a certain country, you need to research well how it works, how long a trial takes, the procedures before going into a trial, and stuff like that.

Overall, I see great potential in this young author
Just imagine that if she was able to write a book by the age of 15, what else would she be doing?
the world is her oyster.

[Getlyn♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a rollercoaster!
This was a fast-paced, suspensful and really entertaining read. I really connected with the characters, especially the MC since it mostly revolved around her life. It had a lot of depth, where you feel the emotions such as anxiety, sadness, fear and much much more!
Grief really affects people in so many different ways, can’t say the culprits actions were justified in any way, but it just makes you think how it affects your mental health a lot and makes you do unspeakable acts ( in all fairness, to commit such acts as a revenge doesn’t help in any way but that’s how it is for some people). In thrillers my major expectation is that despite all the horrible acts during the book, I need justice to be served and as happy ending as you can expect in thrillers and this book absolutely delivered it!
The writing itself was phenomenal- such good choice of wording which is an art itself and short-medium length chapters which I also like in books, makes them easier to grasp. This was a bit longer of a book than I mostly read, but I’d say it went by as quick! It gets you hooked from the beginning and doesn’t let you go until you have got all the answers you need.
I wouldn’t say it was predictable, since I’m pretty good at guessing the plot twists, I didn’t see them coming regarding the culprits and their motive etc.
I’m very grateful for the provided copy from the author Haya Sameer in exchange for a review.
Definitely worth a read!

[Celinia Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally liked this book, I thought it was well written and it was faster paced. Thriller isn’t usually my favorite genre or something I typically go for, but I was surprised by this book. I really enjoyed the characters, Cassidy and Alex were great, I thought they were written well and they had some good development.
This book was a mix of emotions with some of the twists it had, but I love some of the themes the book portrayed, the friendship theme was my all time favorite.

[Eponine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book! I was pulled in from the beginning and I thought the character development was good! Definitely felt there was a lot going on at times but it didn’t ruin the story line for me. I look forward to reading more from the author!

[Ashton Rios · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a while to finish this book for multiple reasons, but I'll focus on the ones that impact how I perceived the book here.

This YA thriller both tickled my fancy and put me off a bit.

I'm not too keen on the style of writing, as there were a lot of grammatical and spelling errors - enough for me to notice. It was especially confusing trying to follow the timeline of the book at times, as one paragraph would be set in the morning and the next would be set in the evening with no indication of a time lapse, such as how traditionally published books would place a decorative elipses between the two paragraphs to get the point across. Another pet peeve of mine is how the author described the characters and the development of relationships across the characters. The development felt almost too quick and the manner in which each character was referred to without using their name felt a bit juvenile.

All of that being said, I wouldn't put this book down.

This book was written and self-published by a 15 y/o with a natural talent for writing. When I was 15, I was still writing really bad fanfictions on Wattpad. Even with all of those peeves, errors, and mistakes in mind, this novel and the idea behind it was fantastic. I kept wanting to know what would happen next and if the end would play out the way I wanted it to. Again, the fact that someone in middle school or high school published an entire book is a feat that overshadows all of the negatives with understanding and leniency because that is not a usual circumstance that is seen when picking out the next book you'll read.

With a bit more editing, this novel will be golden and I hope to read the next book Sameer graces the world with.