Lauren
Contains spoilers
This story was both annoying and pointless.
Adena and Mac were the best 2 characters in the previous books. The novella was by far the best of the 3 and that's because we didn't have to read about Kai and Payden.
The sewer scene was gross 🤢
Ummm, how long is the chain they are tethered to? They are getting on and off of horses, running from bad guys, and she is shooting bad guys with a bow and arrow while practically having to drag an injured Kai.
Kai and Payden made me think of middle school drama. "I love him, I hate him, I love him...." Over and over and over.
Aside from the bad plot or really lack of plot, the writing was bad. I'd say about 90% of all sentences were the same in structure. They are all the same complex sentence with a comma in the middle. It was distracting. It's actually kind of impressive she wrote an entire book with one sentence type. If you don't believe me, open the book to literally any page and read 1-2 paragraphs. Once I noticed that I was done.
I finished the book because I was told the ending would shock me. It didn't. I predicted the ending when I read the 1st Kitt chapter.
This story could have been better if it was 150 pages, Kitts character was developed into a real villain, and Mak made at least one appearance. Also, the resistance was a huge plot point in Powerless. In Reckless the resistance was non-existent. They simply said the plan didn't work so we quit.
I currently have no plans on reading fearless but I'd bet it ends with kitt being "taken care of" making Kai king and Payden queen. Happily ever after. Siman and Shuster should know better than to back this.
I read a lot of books from many categories. I've read some pretty boring books that while boring, still offered something substantial either in story or facts. This book was boring and shallow. The story was so underdeveloped. I felt like there were many opportunities for a great story. It was like reading a rough outline of a story without meaningful substance. The story had so much potential.
SPOILERS
There were parts of the book that didn't need to be there. I don't know why so much time was spent on her sister. She had some impact on Mary's actions but not enough to justify how far the story went into her religious lifestyle. I found it difficult to relate to Mary or her family. The end of the story came out of nowhere and not in a clever or exciting way. I think the characters could have been better developed, perhaps more background detail specifically as it pertains to her coworkers. In the story, there is a lot of suspicion on different coworkers but it doesn't give much detail about them. The only coworker with any substance had so much pointed at him that it was obvious that the author was trying to divert the readers attention so she could throw in the random “surprise” ending. This leads to the end of the story where the person who is stalking her comes to light but I knew so little about them that it killed all suspense. I didn't care. The story was missing the normal climb to a suspenseful end.
I would not classify this as a legal thriller, or a suspense novel. It was not clever or exciting. I found it to be predictable. I probably wont read another book from this author.