@DorannaDurgin, #Archive_Review, #Coming_of_Age, #Fantasy, 4 out of 5 (very good)

 

Devin has a demon blade.  This blade is like a sentient being.  It hungers for chaos, so Devin uses it in a productive way and helps people in trouble.  Natalie is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or is she?  Devin uses it to dispatch her would-be assailants. 

I liked that Natalie's background was questionable.  I liked that she was doing better. She's got some attitude (but not enough that she was a bitch/unlikable).  I did think she should have caught on sooner then she did.  Both she and Devin work together nicely.  I also liked the end.   

I really dislike harlequin's new 2-in-1 release, mostly because I like to pick who I'm buying and well, I'm stuck with one. Also, they need to inform Amazon of their new policy so Amazon will stop trying to pre-sale the individual books in dead tree format.

 

Authors really should rethink the ol' enemies to lovers idea. It's difficult to pull off without creating an annoying character. *Both* books have this as a theme.

 

Leopard Enchanted

If I ever figure out why I continue to follow this series... Ok, it's because while I like the idea of shifters, non of the authors I've read manage to execute it without something dropping me out of the story, so it's not any worse than others. But I really am tired of the enemies to lovers angle, and all of these seem to have it, even when both characters are on the same side, so this one just takes that idea a bit further.

 

The heroine in this came off as willfully naive, bordering on TSTL I got that she'd been brainwashed and abused for years to the point that she *believed* what she was told, but when the evidence was staring her in the face...and she had opportunities to get away...

 

The players - I find it somewhat ironic that the Core seems to be so...thoughtless... about the world they live in. Protect the world from what exactly, since they seem to be doing the most damage. I suppose that's the purpose behind the series but it seems a bit of a stretch that they'd be that oblivious. And the new guys seem to have the same theme. Why? See, I'd be more impressed by new guys that just hunted everyone than more environmental tamperings.

 

The whole thing with the amulets at the end... Just a slight thought but the whole corralling them all into one spot bit seemed contrived to do the most damage, particularly since just moving 2 beside 2 others would have gotten everyone out of danger with a lot less drama.

 

Dragon's Promise

Ok, so the H was cursed into being a dragon, and he's not fully integrated with his "other". Also, because of the purpose behind the curse, he has some urges he doesn't like or understand. And...he's left home to regroup when he runs into the h. After 3 days of nookie (that she was pretty much mindless about, even though she's a succubus of sorts - her family history really needed more page time), they get around to asking names and, upon hearing that she's a St. George (dragon slayer), his dragon pretty much panics and blows the joint.

 

A year later, she shows up to inform him their son has been kidnapped...by the one behind his curse, naturally (not that she realizes at that point that he is).

 

I had a *lot* of issues with this heroine. She's thoughtless, irrational, and to a large extent, self-absorbed. She wants the baby back. I get that. She's seen visions that indicate that if he and his brothers go after the bad guy, they'll all end up dead. She knows the bad guy wants them dead and it never ever occurs to her that his hatred extends to their children. The H tries to point out that giving him what he wants isn't a certainty. She doesn't listen. Just keeps demanding that he get "her" child back NOW. So just a day or two of this - and his being captured by the enemy at one point during this very brief timespan - he comes up with a plan. Of course, she's upset that he'd take such a risk (which did nearly kill him). Well geeze lady; you wanted him to do something. So he did, and came up with something that inflicted the least damage to his family. Not like YOU want to be a part of it.

 

That's the other thing. She's determined that after the baby is rescued, she's taking it and leaving. Like she's equipped to raise a dragonette. Every time he tries to 'splain this to her, she either goes off on him, or does this understanding bit that she'll let him "visit" with the kid.

 

There are actually two previous books in this series but I hesitate to look them up because of the potential irritation.

Wolf Justice by Doranna Durgin is a completely mediocre book, there’s nothing particularly bad but neither is there anything spectacularly good. And reading it right after The Night Circus means that it suffers a bit by comparison. It’s a very quick, light read but it just doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the bulk of generic fantasy.

This is the sequel to Touched by Magic, but only in the sense that it has the same characters and not in the sense that it continues the story found there. Like Touched by Magic this is a complete story and could be read as a stand alone novel. I need to steal the Amazon summary outright because it just didn’t stay with me that well.

There’s also a very pleasant love story built in and it’s one of the more enjoyable aspects of the book. But it wasn’t a surprise, it’s been telegraphed from the last book. That’s probably one of my issues, there are so very few surprises in the novel. Everything is very strongly telegraphed, and I knew exactly what was going on about half-way through the book.

There are hints at the end of this novel that there might be a third story in this world, as there is a bit of set up done, but I’m not going to rush out and see if I can track it down. Like I said, there is nothing terribly wrong with the novel, but it’s just mediocre. And coming right after a great book means I’m feeling very disappointed.

This is another book that was originally published by Baen in the late 1990s and then self-published when the rights somehow reverted back to Durgin. As I said in my last review, I’m fairly impressed by this publishing tactic as it does keep her work available long after other similar works have faded into obscurity. That said, the errors were a lot more present in this book. Typos and sentence errors abound, to the point where a characters name isn’t capitalized at one point. Small things that should have been caught. So while I admire what Durgin is doing in keeping her writing available to readers, I think she ought to invest in an editor after she does her tweaks, even if the books have already been seen by the Baen editors. (I mean, it was a Baen paperback, I doubt is saw the most thorough editing in the first place.

I can’t really say YES GO READ THIS NOW. Because I don’t feel that way at all. But I also think there are worse ways to spend a morning then reading this. And I do think I would have eaten it up as a teen. And you know what, it’s WAY better then The Sword of Shannara. So there’s that.

2.5 stars really. it's not great fantasy, but it's decent. there are some wording and grammatical errors, but nothing particularly egregious. it's ok, not great, not quite good, but ok. I'll read the second because I bought it at the same time, but I'm not sure I would seek it out if I hadn't.