Review: Awesome, but....
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 27, 2013
Historically, I haven't cared for werewolf stories.  I prefer to read about vampires.  :)  To be honest, I avoided werewolf stories.  This month, my husband kindly hinted ("Woman!  Do you know how much you've spent on books this month?!") that I blew my book budget early, so it was time to find some good free books for a while.  Since there were several books in this series, it was free and rated highly, I decided, "What the heck?"I LOVE werewolves!  I liked the first book a lot and liked this one even better.  I like Nicky Charles' writing style and I love all of the characters.  Ryne and Mel were so like-able and I love how it took a while for their romance to develop and finally boil over.  These books had so much -- romance, suspense, hot sex, and humor.I do have two big problems with The Keeping, though, but to air my grievances, there will be spoilers, so if you haven't read this book yet, stop reading now.SPOILERS AHEAD ----------------->Why oh why did they have to kill Lucy?!?!  I thought she was wonderful and could have made appearances in future books.  I felt that killing her off was unnecessary and considering the major part she played in the book, that her death was kind of glossed over.  I may have missed something, but one minute, she's lying in a pool of blood, Ryne calls 911 and has to leave her near death (BUT STILL BREATHING WITH A PULSE) as he hears the ambulance coming.  A few chapters later after all of the Ryne, Mel, Greyson, Cassie drama, POOF!  Lucy is dead and they're having her casket sent to Stump River.  I felt that Ryne and Mel got over her death rather quickly considering how close they were with her.  The whole thing just didn't sit right with me.Second, I felt that the blood bonding in the end was a bit fast.  It seems like Mel and Ryne had just officially professed their love and she had just accepted that she was a werewolf and bam -- "Mel will you be blood bonded with me for the rest of our lives?"  Don't get me wrong.  I really wanted to see those two blood bonded, but considering the rocky start to their relationship, it just seemed to be decided upon rather suddenly.Anyway -- overall, I loved the book and I am excited to start book 3 today.  Thanks to Nicky Charles for changing my mind about werewolves.  :)  Still upset about Lucy, though!