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suzjustsuz's review
3.0
I'm slightly torn on the rating for this. There were several things that caused me to spend a considerable amount of time rolling my eyes at this book. Let me count the ways -
There were a lot of times in a lot of different situations that I found myself thinking that I was uncomfortably aware of the difference in ages between the author and myself. Sometimes I wondered if it was just an age difference, if it was just my own peeves about tropes in the genre, or if it was lack of research. I mean, why would a woman in her 20s who is working on her PhD in Psychology, with a lifetime problem with dreams, never have heard of lucid dreaming? No, they didn't call it lucid dreaming in the book but the "techniques" that the protag was reluctant to try were lucid dreaming. Is it really feasible that a 550 year old man would obsess like Twilight's Bella over a woman, even if he's genetically programmed to "mate" with her? When she hit her head and lost consciousness and you said her eyes were "fully dialated and fixed" did you mean to suggest she was in a coma? If so, do you really think it was reasonable for her to wake up in a short time and then want to eat? I'm thinking a head injury that significant is probably going to cause a bit of nausea for a while, too, not to mention the headache. I could go on with these sorts of examples.
There was a bit too much sex for me, although I readily admit that I tend to lean to romances that have so much "non-relationship" plot going on that it's a 50/50 mix between romance or urban fantasy. This is a romance. I may not have found the amount of sex to be over the top if the mutual, mind-talk obsessing hadn't been even more frequent. It's entirely possible that the mind talk that sounded like middle school love put me off in general.
The author may have hired an editor but the piece is in pretty significant need of a copy editor. It's not things that make you think the writer doesn't know how to diagram a sentence. No. It's more like typos and inner struggles about sentence structure that didn't get finalized. It is enough to cause a mental stumbling block when reading the book. There were enough of them that another run through the eyes of a fresh copy editor is warranted.
And yet I give it 3 stars. Why is that? Well, it's not a bad first effort for a young indie author. The lore and the story line is not exactly original, in fact it reminds me a great deal of Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed series in terms of story line. Even so, there is enough originality in the way she's built the world, developed the characters, and put together the long arc to be engaging. I mean, I rolled my eyes a lot, but I read it pretty much straight through, too, so something spoke to me. Be advised, the non-relationship subject matter is pretty dark. If you've got sex abuse triggers you might want to avoid it.
If I got a wish it would be that the characters are a bit more adult-like in the way they deal with conflict and in the relationship aspects of the story.
I'll probably read the next one, too. I find I care about the primary and secondary characters and would like to see where it goes. I'm also hoping that the author spends a bit more time on the copy edits. ;)
There were a lot of times in a lot of different situations that I found myself thinking that I was uncomfortably aware of the difference in ages between the author and myself. Sometimes I wondered if it was just an age difference, if it was just my own peeves about tropes in the genre, or if it was lack of research. I mean, why would a woman in her 20s who is working on her PhD in Psychology, with a lifetime problem with dreams, never have heard of lucid dreaming? No, they didn't call it lucid dreaming in the book but the "techniques" that the protag was reluctant to try were lucid dreaming. Is it really feasible that a 550 year old man would obsess like Twilight's Bella over a woman, even if he's genetically programmed to "mate" with her? When she hit her head and lost consciousness and you said her eyes were "fully dialated and fixed" did you mean to suggest she was in a coma? If so, do you really think it was reasonable for her to wake up in a short time and then want to eat? I'm thinking a head injury that significant is probably going to cause a bit of nausea for a while, too, not to mention the headache. I could go on with these sorts of examples.
There was a bit too much sex for me, although I readily admit that I tend to lean to romances that have so much "non-relationship" plot going on that it's a 50/50 mix between romance or urban fantasy. This is a romance. I may not have found the amount of sex to be over the top if the mutual, mind-talk obsessing hadn't been even more frequent. It's entirely possible that the mind talk that sounded like middle school love put me off in general.
The author may have hired an editor but the piece is in pretty significant need of a copy editor. It's not things that make you think the writer doesn't know how to diagram a sentence. No. It's more like typos and inner struggles about sentence structure that didn't get finalized. It is enough to cause a mental stumbling block when reading the book. There were enough of them that another run through the eyes of a fresh copy editor is warranted.
And yet I give it 3 stars. Why is that? Well, it's not a bad first effort for a young indie author. The lore and the story line is not exactly original, in fact it reminds me a great deal of Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed series in terms of story line. Even so, there is enough originality in the way she's built the world, developed the characters, and put together the long arc to be engaging. I mean, I rolled my eyes a lot, but I read it pretty much straight through, too, so something spoke to me. Be advised, the non-relationship subject matter is pretty dark. If you've got sex abuse triggers you might want to avoid it.
If I got a wish it would be that the characters are a bit more adult-like in the way they deal with conflict and in the relationship aspects of the story.
I'll probably read the next one, too. I find I care about the primary and secondary characters and would like to see where it goes. I'm also hoping that the author spends a bit more time on the copy edits. ;)
emmajaye's review
5.0
Gorgeous vampire heroes, nasty baddies and brave feisty heroines, just what the doctor ordered. Mix in some mystical psychic gifts, and the world Ms Kreig is intriguing, steamy, full of action, suspense and ancient enemies. Carefully crafted, this story might not be the most original story in the supernatural genre, but it does exactly what it's meant to do, provide an enjoyable, entertaining read.
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