Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Synopsis From Back Cover:

It's a cold day in Sleepy Hollow, and Ichabod visits Patriots Park for a moment of peace.  Instead, he receives a disturbing vision from his wife, Katrina, in which she delivers a cryptic but urgent message: he must retrieve the Congressional Cross that he was awarded by the Second Continental Congress for bravery in action.  There's just one problem: Ichabod was killed before he ever received the medal, and he is not sure where it might be.  Together, Ichabod and Abbie set out to uncover the mystery of the cross and it's connection to George Washington and his secret war against the demon hordes.  They soon learn that a coven of witches is also seeking the cross in order to resurrect their leader, Serilda, who was burned at the stake during the Revolutionary War.  Now they must locate the cross before the coven can bring back Serilda to exact her fatal revenge on Sleepy Hollow.

It's not often that I even take an interest in reading a television tie-in.  Most of you know that I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I own all seven seasons on DVD, and I watch them all at least once a year.  For a while, I was devouring the tie in books as well, especially those written by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder.  For the most part I loved them, though there were a few misses.  I've, in the past, even been able to get into a few Torchwood books, and have reviewed a few of them on the blog; The House that Jack Built by Guy Adams, Bay of the Dead by Mark Morris, and Something in the Water by Trevor Baxendale.  Now I've been in love with the show Sleepy Hollow since it debuted last year, so when I was given a chance to review a tie-in book, I was on board.

I was expecting to fall in love with the book as well, and while I can't say I disliked it, I'm pretty sure I didn't love it either.  I'm not sure what the show has that didn't translate into book form, at least not this particular book, but there was something missing for me.  I think part of it was trying to take Ichabod's accent and speech patterns, and putting it on paper.  They just don't come across the same way they do if you are hearing them.  It's all well and good for an author to point out that a character is being sarcastic or if they are being a little slow on understanding modern vernacular, those things just work better when you can actually hear what is going on.  I think another part of it may be that the chemistry between Ichabod and Abbie works better on screen.

The other issue I tend to have, and it was the same problem I had with the Buffy books that didn't work for me, is when an author tries to work the book around certain episodes of the show.  It makes the whole thing feel a bit disjointed and odd, and is an extra story is being forced in there, where it really doesn't belong.  Television tie-ins, at least for me, work best when they take the basic structure of the show, and go from there.  They don't try to force the book into a certain timeline dictated by the parent show.  Yeah they are in the same universe, but they tend to be separate from what's going on on screen  I want to be able to truly get into the books, even if I've never seen the show.  I'm just hoping that if I pick up another Sleepy Hollow tie-in, that it will work for me, better than this one did.

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books, for this review.