Author: JC Daniels
Publisher: Shiloh Walker
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
This is volume 4 in an ongoing series, but there was nothing in the blurb or on the cover to let potential readers know this, so here's yet another series which I came into in progress without having read any of the earlier volumes!
I'm not a fan of series because they're rarely done well and seem to me to be just a cynical way of milking money from hapless readers by means of a second-hand idea rather than making the effort to come up with something really new. This particular story smacked far more of authorial wish-fulfillment and fanfic than ever it did of anything which looked like it wanted to tell an original or interesting story.
Once in a while, an author can make a series work and work well, but more often than not we get something boring, and readers facilitate this by continuing to follow the series even when they really don't like it! I've seen reviewers rate a novel two stars and then announce in the same dismissive review that they cant wait to read the next one in the series! I don't get that mentality. I guess people do this because they just can't stand to leave something unfinished, or they absolutely have to know what happens next even if it's going to be boring or irritating! They become attached to unlikeable or dysfunctional characters because they know no better, or because they cannot adapt to a new genre or author. It's sad.
Some people might argue that it's inappropriate to write a review if you haven't followed the series, but I disagree. Usually series volumes come out once per year or even less frequently, so in addition to revisiting what's essentially the same story, the reader needs to revisit what's already happened either by means of written notes taken when reading the previous volume, or they must simply re-read said previous volume(s). The only other alternative is to rely on the author to give some back-story to help us out. This is a recipe for disaster if it's not done well. Otherwise the reader goes into the volume pretty much as blind as I did with this one!
Be warned that this author gives no back-story whatsoever here! We hit the ground running and there's no guidance at all as to recent events or any character history. It's just blandly assumed that readers have eidetic memory. The main character, Kit (appropriately named, as we shall see) is so shallow that she has only two things on her mind: fighting and sex. At least that's quite literally all that ever crossed her transom in the part that I read. I couldn't make up my mind if it was more boring than pathetic, or the other way around.
Kit isn't an appealing character at all. She lives in a world of shape-shifters, werewolves, and vampires, all of whom are evidently on such a hair-trigger that they're ready to tear out each other's throats in a heartbeat, yet they all happily romp off to a testosterone-slathered Halloween party? Seriously? In short, it's nothing more than the same clichéd quiche of a fantasy that we've read a baker's dozen times before.
Is it needless to say that Kit dresses like a hooker (she's supposed to be Tinkerbell!) and every single male figure at the party lusts after her and tells her she's beautiful? She in turn lusts after her erstwhile date, a were-cat predictably named Damon, who is predictably tall, and predictably strong, and predictably muscular, and predictably insanely protective of her. This is why she's named Kit - she's treated like a fragile kitten and the property of any male who is near enough to put his protective masculine arm around what surely must be her needy, frail, wilting, female body.
We're expected to believe she puts up with this patriarchal crap - indeed, is deemed to need it - even as she's so deadly that she kills a were-cat female effortlessly at this same party! Whiplash much? That particular female was also the property of a guy. All the clans: the witches, the vamps, the weres, live in packs and have an alpha male in control of them. This is not a book that's good for, or complimentary of, or complementary to women. It's a novel which for whatever reason has an inescapable need to categorize women firmly as secondary to, and hand-maidens of, men. I was turned off it at the party and I couldn't stand to read any more.
