Black London

I am a huge fan of the Black London series.  When we got to the big surprise at the end of the last book I got a little worried about what would happen next.  I really don’t care for books that head in that particular direction.  This was really no exception.

 

I am not sure what on earth transpired to make Pete such an irrational bitch.  I understand that she is worried, and scared, but my goodness.  Her attitude and behavior was so self centered and just completely inexcusable.    She really turned me off for most of the book.  When we left her in the previous installment she seemed to be ok with things and not hostile towards Jack.  I really felt lost as to what happened between then and when this took pace.

 

It was nice to have a lot of the book from Jack’s perspective.  At the same time he was so self deprecating I just wanted him to slap Pete and ask her what her problems were.

 

Once we got to the ending of this book everything seemed fine and dandy once again.  All in all I felt like there were huge pieces of the story missing.  Quite a few of the character’s motivations seemed to come out of nowhere.

 

Inter character relationships aside, the story itself was nothing to write home about either.  There were some confusing plot points in the over all “mystery”.

 

All in all I was pretty disappointed in this book.  I am not sure I like where the storyline is heading.  I admit I was a little against where we were headed before I even started.

xoxox

Mia

Oh look, Sookie is in trouble again. It must be Tuesday.

I really was just interested in the short story included in this book.  I thumbed through the other pages and nothing really caught much of my interest.  The dialogue exchanges between Eric and Bill were mildly entertaining.

 

This short story should have been released sooner.  The placement in the Sookie timeline made everything off by one book.  The story itself was pretty lacking, but I think the series had been as well.  The fact that all of these fantastically outrageous things just happen to occur where ever Sookie happens to be is just ridiculous at this point.

 

I am hoping that things can be put back on the right track as the final book approaches.

xoxox

Mia

really?

What on earth just happened?  I was reading this book and everything was going good, then we took a turn somewhere and I have no idea how this went so very wrong, so very fast.

 

Throughout the previous books of this series we learned very little about Dmitri’s life.  InArchangel’s Blade we get his entire history prior to being Made.  We meet a new Hunter, and learn about her past.  Obviously we all know the path that the story will take from here.

 

The issue is that the line from point A to point B is not linear.  At all.  It appears it was easier to just bend the paper to make the points meet than have to draw the line.  The story completely and totally jumps the shark.  To me this was a complete cop out.  It was the easy way to make all of the characters okay with their budding relationship even though they had issues and plenty of baggage.  I would have rather have seen both characters work through those barriers on their own without this nice easy cure all to their inner turmoil.

 

Without the magic wave of the wand this book would have been just as amazing as the others in the series.  With this twist of events its less.  Much less.  The entire story was cheapened.

 

Very disappointing.

xoxox

Mia

Once and Again

Once and Again by Lauren Dane is the first book in the Petal,Georgiaseries.  This is a spin off of the Chase Brothers.  I should just tell you up front I did not like that series one bit. I thought it was a great example of how an author’s writing could grow during their career.  If you read one of those books then pick up one from the Brown Sibling series, the difference is astounding.  That said, one would assume that any new series would stay on that caliber.  Not so much.

 

We were introduced into the town and more than a handful of characters, some new, some familiar.  The story revolves around Lily, who just moved back to Petal and her former boyfriend Nathan.  You read all about their complicated lives and got interested in not only the two main characters but where the people that surround them will end up as well.

 

We meet Lily’s entire family.  They actually make my own look almost normal.  Pages upon pages are spent learning about them, but once the two main characters get together the story just comes to a dead halt without ever mentioning them again.    When I say that the story comes to a halt, I mean within one page.  There is an officially proclamation of the two finally coming together and then within a paragraph the book is over.

 

The bulk of the book was spent with Lily dealing with her family while playing a cat and mouse game with Nathan.  Lily’s struggle with her entire family was really more of the focus than the courting Nathan was working so hard on.  When we never came back to any of those characters the entire story just fell flat.

 

Some of the dialogue and inner monologue was juvenile for the age and education level of the characters.  It also got a little repetitive.  That said, I would probably pick up the next book in this series to see if we ever come back to the rest of Lily’s family. Most made a baby step in the right direction and I am curious to see if they keep on that path.   Maybe this series was set up to read more like a soap opera where you need to keep tuning in to see where the threads weave next?

xoxox

Mia

Hunting for the Plot

I finished reading One Grave at a Time last night.  This is the sixth book in the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost.  This book took me a few days to get through.  That pretty much sums up what I think of it.

 

I am not exactly sure how this went so wrong.  It almost seemed like parts were missing.  The plot took a little bit to get moving and once it did there were really no details.  The bad guy comes.  They fight.  Bad guy runs away.  All of a sudden there is a plan and a trap.  Rinse.  Lather.  Repeat.  Some of the characters we have met previously appeared in the book at equally haphazard moments.

 

There was a little overall plot development with the government agencies.  That again sprang up with no explanation, no resolutions, and no details.  One of the characters has somewhat of an inkling as to what is going on, but decides not to share with Cat and Bones.  They also decided not to share with us.  Again, this was a plot point with no information.

 

It was like reading a trailer for a movie.  We see some of these big things happening but we have no idea how, why, or when anything was going to occur.  All of the guts of the story were just missing.

 

The ending was abrupt.  They literally catch the bad guy, talk about the fact that it will be taken care of and then jump to a senseless, pointless epilogue.

 

There was quite a bit of page time spent on stressing the fact that all of the characters were in a great place in their lives.  Everyone is happy and content.  That is great.  There doesn’t need to be conflict between them in order to make a good book, but that page time should have been spent discussing the actual story at hand.

 

I was pretty horribly disappointed.  This is as if an A+ student just handed in a D paper.  You know what they are capable of and you just cant help but wonder what went on while they were trying to put this together.

xoxox

Mia