Denise

I am not sure if I can finish this book. I am almost four hours in and it is so boring…blah, blah, blah the hero runs through the night…blah, blah, blah the heroine is a hoity toity witch. Emeline is an extremely unlikable heroine. She is haughty and belittling to others around her, all I can picture is a scrunched- faced little shrew. I can’t even remember at this point how she is described in the book, I’m so overwhelmed by her odious personality. There is absolutely no chemistry between Samuel and Emeline, nothing fun, amusing, or flirtatious. I know they are going to fall in love, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why Samuel would bother with such a testy little cow! Oh and don’t even get me started on the ‘first kiss’…if some man grabbed me and kissed me hard enough to draw blood, I would punch him in the face! That is all that has happened in four hours, a violent kiss, to set up some sort of believable chemistry between the main characters. The whole story of Samuel searching for answers to the massacre is so drawn out and piece-milled that is loses all intrigue. At this point I don’t really like or give two figs about either main character, which does not bode well for my overall enjoyment of the book. I think I am more interested in finding out if Samuel’s sister, Rebecca, is going to fall in love with the Irish footman, and they have only had a few lines of interaction in the book. I am going to give it two more hours, which will complete the first half, and take me 1 hour into the second half. However, if it does not get a lot better that is all the time I will waste on this book.

This book is about Indigo Wolf, the daughter of Hunter and Loretta Wolf from Comanche Moon, and the niece of Amy and Swift Lopez from Comanche Heart. Its 15+ hours of torture! I think the writer has a knack at describing human emotions and inner turmoil, but 15 hours worth is just tedious. I could understand and empathize with Indigos struggle to cope with her inferiority complex, mistrust of men, and terrified misgivings of sexual intimacy, after all she had a horrible thing happen to her at the age of 13, something that would cause scars to remain on most any woman. However, after listening to it described repeatedly for 12 hours, I just wanted to scream, get over it! The long repeated descriptions of her angst ruined the book for me. I got it, I understood, I empathized, I ached for her, but after about 5 hours, it just turned exhausting. I’m not exaggerating when I say, It’s 12 or so hours of Indigo struggling with personal demons, then everything is wrapped up a little too quickly in the last 2.5-3 hours of the book. She forgives her husband a huge lie, a little too easily, and the ‘suspenseful’ ending is so cornball, I was rolling my eyes. The narrator is horrible. She has an old lady sounding monotone voice and her pace is painfully slow. Listening to her read the ‘big’ love scene is somewhat gross, sort of like your Grandma reading soft porn aloud. Yuck! Oh and you will laugh when you hear her pronounce the word, areola. OMG!

I think this is a book you will either love or hate; I am firmly ensconced in the LOVE camp. I read romance books for an escape. I suspend reality and let myself believe in the fairytale and that true love will heal all wounds and triumph in the end. The plot is one that has been done repeatedly, and a little thin, you can see what’s coming from a mile away, but that was ok with me for this book, because the dialogue between the protagonists is sparkling, witty and fun. The repartee makes up for anything the plot may be lacking, in my opinion. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride with Simon and Catriona. Simon is the typical hero, tortured from emotional wounds inflicted by his parents; he’s turned to a life of meaningless debauchery and sexual, but not emotional fulfillment. Cartonia is a doe-eye, tenderhearted optimist who forgives a little too easily anyone who hurts her. There is one particularly corny scene in a ballroom, that had me rolling my eyes, but I was so in love with Simon and Catriona by then, I would have forgiven a hundred corny scenes. This book made me happy, and that is why I read romance!

I've listened to most of the Mallory books and while the regular narrator has annoying habits that had begun to grate on my nerves, I'm very disappointed in the narrator of this book. His voice in regular reading mode is pleasant, but his voices are horrible. All of the men sound so haughty and dispassionate I can't seem to even like Derek. The other Mallory family voices are just as snooty sounding...I don't even like James and Anthony in this book and they are my favorite Mallorys. Pity I think I would have liked the book with Laural Merlington as the narrator and I had just written a review about how annoying I was beginning to find Merlington and wished for a different narrator. Be careful what you wish for...

I love the Mallory novels and this offering is par for the course. All the usual suspects appear in the book and it's like a family reunion at times. If you are a fan of the series, you will probably enjoy this book. The narrator is another story. After three books narrated by her you would think I would be use to the her by now, but the things that are annoying about her just keep getting more annoying with each book. Her voice is pleasant enough in plain narrator form and she does a fair job with the female voices, but the male voices all sound like differing versions of a haughty Billy Goat Gruff! My biggest pet peeve is that she performs the laughter. When the characters laugh, instead of just reading the phrases, "he laughed" or "chuckled James" etc, she actually imitates the laughter. The sound sends chills down my spine. It's terribly annoying and borderline creepy when it is a male character laughing. Ms. Merlington if you ever read any reviews...Please, Please, Please stop imitating the laughter and simply read it.

This is my 2nd Amanda Quick book and I guess I'm just not a fan of her writing. I find the dialogue between the two main characters corny to say the least. This one is so bad I can't even bring myself to complete the book, I've listened to the first half and just hate it! Will not download another of this authors books.

To say I was excited to listen to this book is an understatement. I am a fan of this genre. Based on the plethora of rave reviews, imagine my surprise when I found myself HATING this book.
The dialogue is juvenile to say the least. Although the BDB are hundreds years old, plenty of time to sound intelligent and cultured, they converse as if they learned how to speak from listening to rap music (dig my brotha?). The interaction between the ultra alphamale characters is so cheesetastically written, I actually laughed aloud. Maybe if this book was marketed as a spoof of the genre I would not have been so disappointed, at least I would have been prepared for the corny writing. The story is spotty and inconsistent. The hero is suppose to be almost totally blind (strange concept), yet he can see to fight. He is so blind he can barely eat and cannot tell the difference between mashed potatoes and rice on his dinner plate, yet when his libido kicks in; he can see juice running down the heroines chin when he feeds her a strawberry. What tripe! The hero is the only purebred vampire, but how did he come about, the history of the race is not fleshed out. The BDB do not kill humans, so why does the Lesser society want to kill them?
I cannot see any redeeming qualities among the brotherhood, one is so twisted, the others suspect him of murdering prostitutes, which seems to be ok with the others, until they think his actions may focus the attentions of the police on the brotherhood. Great hero to root for!
This is billed as a romance, but you get very little of that, no real emotion, just sex. I think the book spends more time on the sadistic psycho head of the Lesser society then the relationship between the hero and heroine. I could go on and on, but I will not. I am clearly in the minority with this review. To each his own!