Loved

The House of Night Other World, Book 1

By: P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast

Narrated by: Caitlin Davies

Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's Summary

The best-selling series has returned! Join P. C. and Kristin Cast in celebrating the 10th anniversary of the House of Night series by going on a thrilling new adventure with your beloved Nerd Herd.

It's Zoey's 18th birthmas, and the Nerd Herd has been scattered across the country, busily adulting for almost a year when Stark calls them back to Tulsa to surprise Z. But all is not well in T-town. Strange, dark signs are appearing - could it be possible Neferet is stirring? Not willing to chance disaster striking again, Zoey calls on her newly reunited friends to circle with her and add a layer of protection over Neferet's grotto jail. Easy peasy, right?

Wrong. Nothing at the House of Night is ever as it seems.

With rabid red vampyres closing in, Zoey and the Nerd Herd must come together again and battle evil. But a year is a long time. Have these old friends grown too far apart?

When the world fractures and allies become enemies, will darkness devour friendships, or will light save those she's loved?

©2017 P. C. Cast (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Had Me Hooked But Was Still Disappointed

What did you like best about Loved? What did you like least?

As always I liked the way Ms. Davies reads and acts out each character. Getting to see some of the characters grow and deal with real life issues was also nice to see. However, I felt like this series was a cheap way of bringing back characters fans were mad about having been killed off during the original series.

If you’ve listened to books by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast before, how does this one compare?

The reading was great but story line lacks substance. I was a bit disappointed feeling this series is just filler for the author's to have something to do in between their other projects.

Have you listened to any of Caitlin Davies’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have listened to her read the other HON books and it is always a pleasure to hear her act out the characters.

Was Loved worth the listening time?

Yes and no. After awhile I had to give it a rest for about three days before finishing listening to it. The story does captivate you only because of the reader and the great job she does but the story line had me going "up and down" with how I felt about it.

Any additional comments?

The whole "zombie apocalypse" story line was lame and dry. There wasn't as much action as it kept hinting towards with the whole "while bull death and chaos" angle. Also, even though the audio book is missing the epilogue excerpt that leads into the next book "Lost" I was able to read it on ebook from the library. I found it rather silly to have Zoey going to the "other world" just because she wants to see her true love Heath who is dead in her world but alive in the "other world". I guess that is where all the action this book lacked is supposed to happen; hopefully. Thank goodness there are only three books planned for this series even though I will still listen to them only because I want to know what happens next.

Extraordinary Series

I absolutely loved this book! Every single thing about it is amazing. I would recommend it to anyone who likes comedy, romance, friendship, and brotherly sisterly love. I chose is rating because the book was absolutely perfect in every way. The authors of the book did a great job, and I congratulate you and the narrator as well for being so awesome! Cheers to your success

fabulous book

I'm so glad they came back with it well written book :). . . .

wow! so friggin good!!!!!

I bought the hard cover to add to my collection and bought the audio. so worth it on both!!! I was so surprised and happy to see the authors decided to continue on the series of characters and their new lives bringing them back to Zoe, well written, great story line, I was afraid that it would be so different from the original series but it's like slipping on ur favorite sweater so easy to get back into the characters even if u have never read any of the other books before. u will want to, after finishing this book. I so hope there r lots more to come. thank u P.Cast and K.Cast. I can't say enough!

One of my favorite series!

I've loved every second of this series since high school and still enjoy it enough to re read the entire series even into my adulthood! The characters are so well written, the story keeps you on the edge of your seat (I've actually teared up reading these books) and the narrator, Caitlin Davies, does such a good job with voicing them! I would definitely recommend reading this series. You won't be disappointed!

I missed the Nerd Herd

Great story!!! I want more of Kevin! I'm glad to see the how the characters have grown.

Loved it

I really loved it. It seems like no time has passed since HoN ended. Caitlin Davies was really excellent.

Love their books!

I find it so hard to put down one of their books once I've started it!

The narrator is fantastic!

Once it's finished I find myself searching for something else they've written.

Amazing!

So satisfying! Definitely a great read for House of Night fans! what'll happen next who knows!

Better Than Expected

Any additional comments?

I actually really enjoyed this book. Having thought that the House of Night series was atrocious, I was expecting this to be just as bad, so I was pleasantly surprised.

The plot was alright and better than most of the books in the main series. All of the Nerd Herd reunite in Tulsa to celebrate Zoey's 18th birthday/Christmas. A circle inevitably happens, which is interrupted by Aphrodite's mother, and all kinds of chaos occurs, but primarily evil red fledglings and vampyres from another world. The Nerd Herd thus have to deal with them.

The pacing was better than before, though I was listening to an audiobook rather than reading a physical copy which may have helped with the flow of the novel. Caitlin Davies was an incredible narrator for this book, and successful gave each character their own distinctive voices. I loved her voice for Aphrodite, who sounded exactly how I'd imagined for the last eleven years. The writing itself felt better as well. The characters all felt like they were the right ages, with appropriate conversations and reactions in their situations, which was my major complaint for the House of Night series.

Characterisation actually happened! Woohoo!!! This came most noticeably from Damien and Aphrodite.
In the year bridging the two series (the math of this series still doesn't work out, but hey, I'll let it go for this novel) Damien has been at the New York House of Night, but he hasn't been coping with the loss of Jack Twist from 3/4 of the way through the main HoN series. For the first half of this novel, he's suffering from pretty deep depression, leading him to lash out. I did like that they actually showed depression and that men can suffer from it as well, but I really didn't like how they solved all of his issues by (view spoiler). Depression doesn't just go away like they portrayed. Damien still has to grieve for Jack, because Jack and Other Jack are still different people, they've had different experiences, different lives.
Aphrodite's character development comes from her mother, her coping mechanisms and her Prophetess abilities. Can I just say that I loved the interaction between Aphrodite and Nyx, and the Marking/Changing/Judgement angle? I think that that is really cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing her in action in future books. As for the coping mechanisms, I didn't personally see Aphrodite being a drug addict and alcoholic coming, though it's not hard to deduce from the main series with her love for champagne and Xanax. It did feel like it had gotten worse in the year between the series, but then I suppose that Aphrodite did have one of the hardest blows at the end of the series. It didn't feel entirely realistic when Aphrodite had to choose between Nyx and self-destruction, because if she truly were addicted, it wouldn't be that easy. Much like Damien's depression, I don't think that the Casts treated Aphrodite's addictions brilliantly.

I really like the differences between the worlds. I thought it was pretty cool introducing this other world where Zoey is dead (finally, it happened somewhere) and her brother is the chosen one of Nyx, and he's a Red Vampyre. Just the differences between "our" world and their world red fledglings and vampyres were pretty cool.

But of course, Heath is alive in the other world, so I'm expecting that to become something massive at some point in this series.