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4.3 AVERAGE
4.3 AVERAGE
I love these books so much! It's nearly impossible to put them down, and this one is no exception. I craved reading it like Charley craves coffee, and that is saying something. It's very fast-paced, which is great, except then I finished it too quickly and now have to wait (impatiently) for the next one.
I finally figured out who Charley reminds me of: a combination of Janet Evanovich's heroine, Stephanie Plum, and the character of U.S. Marshall Mary Shannon, played by the actress Mary McCormack on the TV show "In Plain Sight." Charley is brash and often crass, independent and yet endearingly vulnerable and empathetic. She gets herself into all sorts of messes because she barges full speed ahead in pursuit of justice and in defense of the defenseless. It's a really good thing that she has supernatural healing abilities and can sometimes stop time or leave her body to act in times of life-and-death emergency--qualities both Ms. Plum and Agent Shannon lack.
For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, and I definitely would not suggest this series to anyone looking for "clean reads," as the language and sex scenes are not tame.
NOTE: This review is a bit spoilery, so be warned.
NOTE: Also, this review isn't fair because I didn't read the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th books. Why, you ask, would I do such a thing? I'm an idiot, crazy, eccentric, take your pick.
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I like Charley's wit, and that's about it. I don't understand her relationship with Reyes. At. All. They spend wayy too much time having sex and not nearly enough time talking and building an actual relationship, and Charley spends wayyy too much time describing his hotness, which violates the cardinal rule of writing to show instead of tell. I admittedly skipped books 2, 3, and 4, but have they ever had a conversation that didn't end in a roll in the hay? Or have they had any normal couple interactions, for that matter?
It's more than the fact that they're not normal, though. Not normal is fine, it can even be interesting and fun. The problem is that nothing in their interactions seems like a logical/natural conclusion to their past behavior. Charley proclaims undying love for Reyes several times, making it clear that she's loved him from the moment that she saw him, and I just wonder, why? I get that he's hot and all...but a lot of hot people exist in the world and I'm not falling in love at first sight with any of them. One second, she believes that he's an arsonist and is willing to turn him in to the police (indicating a certain lack of trust), and the next second she's having hot sex on a counter with him and she would never let anything harm him, and the next he's threatening her or some such thing. It's all a jumble of confusion that I couldn't make sense of. The arc of their relationship took a drastic leap in this book, from sorta-kinda dating to very committed, and I have no idea how it happened. Did I accidentally skip the middle half of the book?
All the other characters, for their part, are way too pretty and shiny and perfect for their own good, except for the bad guys, who are, of course, evil people who should rot in hell. Not much variety in the supporting cast, in that way.
Can't decide if I'll get the urge to read another one of these, it was a bit of an impulsive decision to begin with and I thought that I might have misjudged the first book back when I read it, since I remember not being particularly wowed. I think that probably wasn't the case.
