1) Okay, the reader is coming into the book cold. We don’t know a single thing about this world or its characters. The author begins in medias res, which is great, but I love how she makes such a big deal about the glass case. We need something on which to hang our attention, and Vikki shrewdly puts a lot of importance on the glass case and the book.
2) I love how the author gives us just enough characterization to keep us happy, while allowing the action scene to play out without a big exposition dump. For now, all we need to know is that the first person narrator is Gemma and is Dr. Bickel’s girl friday.
3) This is a pulse-pounding action scene, so Vikki uses a lot of short sentences, sometimes glued together with semicolons. Short sentences mean a quicker pace. Longer sentences, sometimes studded with many clauses, and which feature more complicated clauses, tend to nudge the reader, your dear reader, into a more relaxed state.
Check out the book and Vikki’s web site!
