layawaydragon
Written on Mar 28, 2016
Plot: Started great but nosedived into bloated chaos. For instance, the gotta kill my sire line. Everyone was harping how vitally important it is for her to kill him ASAP. Yet she got distracted and sidelined constantly. It wasn’t subtle or well done. Just seemingly purposeless chaos.
Then, someone rolls through and hands over the head and heart of her sire. Great. How the fuck did you do that? Celia was freaking the fuck out and clueless on how to do it so…WTF? We never learn and it’s just dropped. His deal was more like a gift than business. What was the point of it all?
Same goes for the troublesome vamp trio. They seem random. We don’t know who they are or why or what part they play. But Celia gets into it with the woman, of course. No real motive besides bitchy ego and pride. That’s…hardly necessary. There’s plenty of other shit in the main plot to go on, FFS. WTF? Why?
Characters: Great as outlines, but they never really filled out. Then the cast ballooned. It’s easy to lose track of them. They drop and pop like flies and rotate like tires. I find it hard to care about them. There seems to be a lack of emotion all around. I get bodyguards, kings and blah blah blah have reasons to hide and blah blah blah but blah blah blah.
Celia is usually the kind of protag I go for but something just isn’t clicking. Can’t pinpoint it yet. Maybe she just deals with too much in too short a time. I mean all that shit and losing her best friend.
OMFG that shit with Vicki sucked and she couldn’t go off and investigate it. I understand Vicki’s power level would kill drama and make these easier plus her death is supposed to amp the story up. But it seemed left by the wayside. How was that not connected? It should’ve been an alarming red flag but they acted like it was natural besides beefing up security. Which went just splendidly, btw.
I really wished there wasn’t so much going on and there was breathing room. Without it how are we supposed to get to know these people and care? How are we supposed to follow? It feels like overloading to hide holes and gaps. The basis sounds great, if only it was proportioned and polished instead of doubled and dumped.
I’m willing to give the next book a shot because it could be so great. Maybe after setting up the series plot line it’ll calm down a bit. But I’m nervous since so much is told instead of shown throughout. This novel doesn’t feel organic, but a forced try-hard novel trying to capitalize in the current market without any heart or spark.
We’ll see how the next book, Siren Song, goes.