Nikki
Took me a chapter or two to get into it but it was a fun, fast read after that. The slow burn to the relationship was done really well, I feel like I just wanted either a chapter or two from Konstantin's perspective or at least a bit more dialog about his thoughts and feelings of the events. I didn't quite feel like it was fully fleshed out but I loved how the story played out and the side characters were top tier enjoyable. Definitely a 4 1/2 star read for me.
I thought the MMC was annoying, I didn't care if they even got back together by the end. Everything else was okay. I'll try another book by this author, hopefully she writes her Male leads differently and it's not just a copy-paste of Carter.
I've been trying to find more romance books with a fictional primitive/tribal society like ‘the golden dynasty' and the ‘horde kings' series but this is not that book. It's so poorly written, no relationship buildup, and even if you look at this as purely erotica, it's not good. I'm disappointed.
Cute story; it would've been a four star read but I do feel as if 50 or so pages could've been cut and made the story more concise. It was a really enjoyable read nonetheless.
well... I liked it, I thought it was an entertaining read... until the end of chapter 14.
Now, you may wonder ‘what happened so drastically on chapter 14 that changed your opinion?'
and the answer is that it's nothing that happened in that chapter in particular, it's that I lost patience with the protagonist (Beth) on chapter 14.
The continued assumptions from her that the love interest (scotty) hates her because he didn't act like he liked her for 100 years (even though she admits that she was an angry and bitter person until like 10 years ago) and that's why he hasn't ‘claimed' her as his lifemate; without ever having inquired to him as to why he hasn't ‘claimed' her, is highly annoying.
Plus when her life is in danger (after multiple attempts on it) she stubbornly and to her own detriment refuses to listen to scotty when he says she should stay at the house of the immortal enforcer agency they both work with/for, and have bodyguards, until they (other enforcers, and presumably scotty) can neutralize the threat.
He's the head of the uk's enforcer division that covers multiple countries, with literally hundreds of years of experience with tracking, hunting, and killing ‘rogue' vampires, and she still wouldn't listen to sound advice that maybe she shouldn't be putting herself in unnecessary danger. Especially when she herself is an enforcer and, I would hope, have some enough sense to understand that he has a point, but no... she'll takes any opportunity to go out and promptly get almost killed... and then pout that, even though they both are attracted to one another, that even though they've had sex, that even though he's never said that he didn't want to claim her, he doesn't want her.
I usually don't mind formulaic plots and tropes but the childish ‘I don't have to do what you say' that's mildly disguised as her being a feminist combined with the ‘why haven't you pursued me (or in this case ‘claimed me') really makes me roll my eyes.
however, I did see this book out to the end.
The ‘tell each other our backstories, to understand each other better' and the reveal of Beth's attempted assassin that followed was fine (cliché, but fine), although it was tainted by my frustrations for the above reasons.
All in all if you like tropes, over done clichés, and don't mind a 125+ year old being unable to just have a direct conversation to her 800+ year old potential love interest, than this book will probably be an enjoyable read for you.
I'm gonna be real, I thought that this was going to be the last in the series so I was really expecting that this whole story would be resolved by the end of it. So part of my disappointment is because there's going to be another book, this storyline already feels too drawn out. It's been essentially the same story for three books now, Poppy believes she's one thing, finds out she's another. I would assume that the next book should be the last (or at least last of this plot) since it's teasing a war but at this point I don't even know if I care to read it since it'll probably have some contrived ‘surprise' moment, like the others have, that twist the story around and suddenly they're taking a whole book just to take down a city or something.
I do like the story don't get me wrong, I just think it's been drawn out for no real good reason. Another complaint I have is that the dialog is so YA; the story feels like it's meant to be adult high fantasy but the dialog is early 2010's teen show. It clashes a bit for me and takes me out of the story when otherwise seemingly adult people start talking like they're modern day teenagers. I have issues with Poppy and Casteels' relationship dynamic too, but I really don't feel like writing another whole-ass paragraph to explain that, so I'll let it be since in my opinion it improved a little by the end of the book.
I gave it a shot because I'd heard so much praise for it, but it felt like a poorly done early 2000s rom com
I went in expecting a romance and got a monster murder mystery and only a side plot of romance where the ‘romance' has already happened.
It really wasn't one solid thing that made me not enjoy this, just like a collection of little things that just didn't meet up with what I was expecting and made it a bit disappointing.
I didn't like Jafar all that much, he was just a little too in the middle of good guy/bad guy and felt kinda passive. I mean yeah he's being a dom and stuff, talks a big game but both times Ali shows up he's not there, and he doesn't really have any development, he wanted to bang Jasmine in the beginning and he's banging her in the end, that's about all that changes for him.
The time period felt weird to me since I was expecting it to be set in Agrabah, then suddenly there's zippers and computers... I get why it's brought into a modern age, but at that point it might as well be any contemporary erotica with Sarah and Will as the protags, you know? I thought it was going to be following a bit more with the Aladdin narrative, like: Ali shows up, Jasmine's into him, they start courting, then Jafar gets jealous, realizes he's into her, she realizes she's into him, yada yada, that kinda stuff.
Her calling him Daddy, and him calling her Baby girl, it felt off. Like I get it's part of their kink but it still didn't feel natural to me.
Whatever, if I keep going it's just gonna be more nitpicky and honestly, most people will probably enjoy this just fine. I'll try the next one at some point, now that I got the feel of the world, hopefully it was just that this one wasn't for me.
This is a really interesting take on the narrative perspective for a time travel book.
I honestly thought it was going to either bounce between the two of them (like time travel books I've read tend to do) or be entirely from the perspective of the time traveler.
I'm glad this wasn't, it made for a really unique story experience to forgo the mandatory pages of ‘how'd I get here? how do I get back? do I even want to go back?' blather that can be so predictably boring. This was able to hit the same notes but not feel at all the same, and I appreciate that.
Whilst it did leave a few questions unanswered (and ask some questions I don't think there's an answer for) I don't really mind; good characters that feel real and don't turn into caricatures makes up for everything else.
Would recommend this to anyone who likes time travel romance, doesn't mind a more animalistic/primitive mindset to see the world from (a quite literal caveman) and is cool with basically no dialog between characters.
okay, so...
This was very formulaic, and tropey. It wasn't horrible but, I could see everything coming from a mile away.
I really didn't need the bad guy pov, not that there were many pages of it but still; I didn't need to know what ‘they' were planning nor did it really do anything except offer unnecessary exposition.
The love story between Ian and Sarah was fine, if a bit too convenient. What with her being a sensor and Ian being a fairy she couldn't sense. Ian came off as just a little too perfect, I get that it's a romance but, like give the dude a some faults why don't cha? And I don't count minor jealousy and him ‘having to leave her to save her' for plots sake as character faults.
Also, I don't really understand the point of Sarah being so concerned by, not only her age, but by their age gap (her thinking him to be younger, even though he's a 600 year old fairy), when it literally stopped being an issue for no real reason halfway through the book.
For real, if I have to sit through her agonising over thinking she's ten years older than him than, at least give me a line of him telling her that if anyone is too old for anyone it's him.
Sarah's ex-husband is one mustache twirly son-of-a-bitch, I don't get why he's so contemptuous of her. ‘Cause she left him (nearly 20 years ago, mind you)? Because that sounded like it was mutual; if all he wanted from her was money than why didn't he try harder to stay married? They weren't even married for a year and there wasn't even any mention of him pretending to try to make it work. Also how did Sarah not know he was a dirtbag since she's got all that magic person-sensing power? Like, why would you marry someone that terrible?
Anyway, I could go on but, honestly, I'd just be getting into nit-picks ‘cause if none of the above bothers you than nothing further said would either.
It's beautiful and terrible, and will tear your heart out and tell you it's okay.
Truly it is a hard read, but worth the praise it receives.
I liked the writing, and I enjoyed the main characters but, I didn't connect to the ‘plot' aspect of this.
I don't really like fan-fiction, or I guess more accurately I'm not interested in fan-fiction, nor stories inspired by other stories. It's a detraction for me, whenever it's mentioned as a selling point for a book. And same goes for a story being told in other stories. So all in all, it's a credit for this book that I enjoyed it as much as I did.
I'm not in the mood to read about someone with Alex's personality. I don't care about what's happening in the story. It feels so 2000s teen melodrama, it's just not for me.
I thought I'd like this but, I had the hardest time getting myself to pay attention to the story. It's well written and I understand why this is loved, but I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters or plot, maybe this is my fault ‘cause I read this in the middle of reading another fantasy book that I do like a lot and so every time I pulled myself away to read this, I just wanted to read the other instead.
But then again, I do recall not being interested in this book as a kid too, so maybe it's just not the story for me.
It's melodramatic teen drama, if you like that then you'd like this. I didn't.
I probably wouldn't have read this if it wasn't on the list of a hundred YA books (that are suppose to be great) that I'm trying to read through, so take from that what you will.
I honestly think if I'd of read it when I was 13/14 I would've liked it but now... I'm just not in the demographic for this book and I think this book didn't age all that well, it feels very early 2000's to me; even though it's from 2010 it feels like 2005...
Two stars for the bits that did actually entertain me, otherwise would've been one.
I really wanted to like this more than I did.
It just doesn't hold up over time; it was written 20+ years ago and it shows.
For me Hawk was a bit too one dimensional, good at everything, excessively attractive, and no real flaws. I thought for a moment it was going to explore his trauma of being used as the court courtesan but it never went there and just glazed over it, and pretty much said it was fine ‘cause now he's really good in bed... like I said, this book is very much a product of it's time.
The villain/main conflict was really ‘meh' and predictable. I did actually like Adrienne, her present time (1997) story was an odd choice but I guess it works for a good reason to want to stay in the 1500s.
so yeah, it was just kind of a forgettable read for me. I have read others in this series that I liked much more so I'll just keep going and hope the next will be better.
It's really been an up and down with this series for me. Some I love, others I barely get through without DNF-ing. I almost want to say I didn't like this one because I've been reading them back to back and I think I'm getting burnt out but I can't help but feel that if it had been more interesting, or different then the others, maybe I wouldn't have been so over this story by the halfway mark.
Would've been a four star read but, the last 30-40 pages were dragging, felt a bit like they were just there to reach a page count number/or for another conflict after there was already so many conflicts. Other than that, it was an enjoyable read. Anyone who already likes BDSM, troubled people kind of genre would like this book.
(sort of a) Minor Spoiler Ahead:
Also, (although it does seem to just be used for the friction) I would assume that someone with trauma of their own would be more understanding of someone else's, that they wouldn't just demand answers then walk out on them when they don't say the right thing. Maybe I'm wrong, but it felt odd.
This book was just kinda... bleh. I didn't hate it but I didn't feel any really positive things for it either.
I will say the use of ‘shuck' and ‘klunk' instead of any actually swears actually started to annoy me.
I understand this was aimed at a younger age range, but as an adult I would've rather there had been no swears than a constant stream of faux curse words and, to be honest,
even if I had read this when I was in its age range I think I would've been annoyed by the faux curse words. It feels like something media for kids under ten would do and this book is definitely aimed for pre-teens/teens.