Kristen Banet

Even tho the story opens pretty dark and with a somber mood that I found very enjoyable and intriguing the rest reads like an entirely different book.
As soon as the harem shows up it all becomes shallow as a kitchen sink. We have non stop, shirtless, looking at abbs, asses, breasts, lips, and every other even slightly erotic body part. Constant juvenile and cringe-worthy flirting and innuendo and big bad boys protecting the helpless damsel in distress. All of which completely contradicts everything we have learned about the MC up to that point.
It's painful to read really.
Even though this story would never have been exceptional it could've managed mediocre RH.
But by trying to do the dark and tough girl MC thing but then not following through with any of it the book loses even that.
In the beginning, the story seems to show a pretty mature understanding of the darker parts of society and how consequences work but the author all gives it up for ideas like the power of friendship and if you just believe strong enough you can succeed at anything.
That's where I dropped the book.
That is not "dark" that is the opposite of dark regardless of how much death and torture you pile on top.
I can understand that it is tough to create a meaningful relationship between the MC and all her harem members at the same time which is usually the only way an RH can arise but this is just ridiculous. The MC just takes all the shit like a good meek girl while all the while acting like the tough contrary type. It's infuriating. Gurl, grow a spine for god's sake. It's a wonder you can even walk upright.

Edit:
I've given it another chance and continued for a while. It doesn't get better. It gets even worse. Just worse and worse. Characters contradicted their fundamental motivation in the same sentence they spelled them out for example.

Just don't read this. It's not worth your time.… (més)

This one was disappointing for the most part.
Almost everything about the plot is incredibly contrived and unbelievable.

In previous books, there always was a good reason for why the MC went along with stuff that she didn't like. Sometimes it was her being soft towards a person undeserving of injustice at other times she could only choose between bad options etc.
In this one, she suddenly became a major pushover every time the plot needed it to force her to accept something even though she never had a problem confronting people for their shit before and neither does she later on in the book.

The main villain is a two-dimensional stereotype with a plan that is so ridiculously bad I am baffled they could even think for a moment it might succeed. So is the response of Jacky and her family. Everything about the main plot is ridiculously bad and lacks any logic. I am really disappointed. The entire main plot seems just incredibly lazy to me. This was already somewhat of a problem in the previous book where the plot was so incredibly linear but at least there, things made sense for the most part.

Complain by example time, yey!

If you are an ancient werecat and plan to kill your leader by violating werecat etiquette and honor why the fuck would you do it by risking your own so much.
Just equip your team with hunting rifles loaded with silver bullets, draw your enemy out by stepping on their territory, and you are done. And then instead of using your hostage to actually pressure your enemy, you let her stew for days. The only thing you achieve is giving your enemy more time to find you and prepare in other ways as well as risk your prisoner escaping. Which is exactly what happened. Why the hell would you even target the weakest member first. Obviously taking out the most dangerous first is the more reasonable plan of action. If they did that first they could've won against the rest easily after the bomb. And why did they not control comings and goings to Jackie's territory? They already were around it all the time and it seems like there is just one main road to her house. Just post a human spotter so you know how many enemies you have to deal with. I can go on and on about this. This baddie supposedly is thousands of years old and yet he could be out strategized in seconds by a teenager? A lot more effort is needed to get the plot to be even slightly believable.
There are a lot more detailed arguments like this I could make about a lot of aspects of the plot but I think this illustrates my issue with the plot well enough.


The main reason these problems didn't appear in the first book was that the MC always was under zugzwang. She had neither time for planning and strategizing nor access to the necessary resources. This is a common pattern actually. It's much easier to just craft forcing circumstances around a character than actually giving them convincing motivation and reasoning for their actions. This leads to massive believability differences between books by the same author and even in the same series as is the case here.

Now that I am done ripping the plot apart let's get to the more pleasant parts.

The emotional side especially later on was handled much better. Early on this part sadly was also involved in her giving in to the bullshit that is being pushed onto her but later on it recovered pretty well. The steaming attraction between her and Heath smolders along and I am very much interested in how the relationship will continue but after two books that went so predictably along the beaten path, I don't think I even have to read the next one to guess.

Something else I enjoyed a lot more and which was much better developed than in previous books was Carey. She doesn't have a lot of screentime but she felt much more like a real pre-teen. I like her and her relationship with Jacky a lot!

I could understand the motivations and internal conflicts of many of the protagonists as well as the antagonists (apart from the main baddy I already forgot the name of).
The character's personalities, as well as the interpersonal relationships between them, felt very believable. With the caveat of the bullshit employee forced at the MC at the start and her just taking it. Why the fuck did you do that Kristen? That made no sense. These characters didn't add anything to the book beyond making the MC look like a pushover! And then you constantly iterate this in monologues as well, rubbing it in, constantly. Do you want your readers to lose the respect of the MC? I almost dropped the book right there. A lot of focus went into giving them depth which is rare in the genre and I appreciated that a lot.

But while this is a much-neglected aspect in UF it's not the only important aspect. While I, of course, want books which do everything very well, I personally enjoy books with a more balanced level of quality even if that means the overall average quality is slightly lower.

My verdict for this one is "borrow, don't buy". After paying full price for the series so far, I will only read the next one if I can get my hands on it some other way.

Don't let yourself be tricked into buying a book just to sate your curiosity about the cliff hanger if you didn't enjoy the rest!… (més)

In this book, we closely follow Jacky through an exciting journey.
Even tho this wasn't anything special in regards to writing style, plot or world-building this one just felt very real and believable.
It just didn't have any major flaws that broke immersion or the suspension of disbelief.
The characters felt very human and stayed internally consistent throughout the book. The political landscape around supernaturals wasn't built on a too outlandish baseline.
Let's see how far the author will stretch this ruling council thing.
So far it is within reason but as the pessimist that I am, I expect this to be the first point of failure in later books.
It is just all-around a very well done example of how much more the execution matters over some novel idea.
The climax resolution is a bit too cheesy for my taste but it's all within reason.
The whole tribunal thing at the end seemed a bit forced to me.
I feel like the story would've gained depth if not everything worked out so perfectly.
And I am not talking about some unnecessary death of some side character that obviously only existed for that reason. I mean that the protagonists just left the entire thing seemingly without a mental scratch. Some signs of trauma. Some mental scar or something would've... I don't know. I have a hard time to put it into words... made it feel less like a tv episode and more like a section out of a life of a real person maybe? Endings are really hard I guess.
I am happy that I can wholeheartedly give a 4-star rating after so long.… (més)

This one didn't quite live up to the first one but I would still rate it a very high 3-stars.
The story was just too linear for my taste. There were no unexpected developments or sudden departures from the laid out path.
I still very much enjoyed it and am waiting for the audiobook of the next one to be done.
A minor detail that I already somewhat noticed in the last book was confirmed in this one.
Kerry just doesn't act like she is 11 and much more like 15 or even older. Young children sometimes act very maturely in streaks. But they "break character" and show their true age constantly which she just doesn't do. I initially excused her too-mature behaviour with her just acting mature but that's just not the case. I'll grant that most authors have a very hard time writing children and in comparison, she is written decently.… (més)