Review: About the Series: At Least Try the First Book
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 25, 2013
If you are like me, a big part of the fun of ebooks is the hugh influx of new writers. Maybe someday you or I may be brave enough, creative enough and dedicated enough to be among them!  A big part of what I do involves writing, so I have a real appreciation of how hard it is to conceive of, organize and effectively communicate your topic and keep your audience awake. Awful writing and editing does make my hair hurt, but I am pretty forgiving about a few typos, a little fractured grammar or syntax and some of those pesky plot gaps. What I am demanding about is a fair price for what we get.  Most of us have invested a fair amount of money in our reader(s), are doing a green deed and saving trees, not to mention the money we are saving the publisher in producing, storing and shipping a book (which savings are past on to the seller.  I get emotional, in a bad way, when I think an appropriate part of the savings don't get passed onto me and you, the buyers.  So, beware that each book in this series is about 140 pages. They are either robust novellas or anemic books.  Roughly the last 10% of Book 3 is a "free sample" of another book.  I am so NOT a fan of this deception.  At .99 for Book 1, I'm in!  At $2.99 for each of the other two books, not so much.  But I liked the first book, so I swallowed the hook and bought all three and read them in succession (it did not take long): I think I mentioned, they are pretty short.That being said, there were many things I liked about this series. The world Ms. Mayer draws for us is creative and a bit different from the werewolf and vampire genres, we are so regularly fed (both of which I like).  She has effectively borrowed and blended some supernatural beings and tales we have encountered before and thrown in some new ones. I liked the main characters and empathized with the sisters trying to figure out how to safely navigate in a world about which they knew nothing and are suddenly central and critically important. While regularly frightened, confused and a bit whinier than I like, the heroine tries to be honest with herself. She womans up, analyzes her options and her actions and tries to learn from what worked and what didn't, wields her paranormal powers and magical weapons and kick some A.  She listens to others who may or may not be on her side, but mostly relies on herself and the things she knows, she knows.Ms Mayer has a great number of players and does a good job of individualizing them and doing so in such a way that I didn't get confused.  Some of the relationships and outcomes that develop or are revealed were surprising.  I like it when I don't see it coming too soon or at all. There are two men to whom our heroine is attracted.  She was believably confused by this.  I mostly liked them, but I like a bit more romance and neither of our potential heroes made me want a fan or a cold drink.  For a few of the characters, she created an affected speech pattern that was (I guess) representative of their cultural backgrounds.  For one of our heroes, it came across more as the speech of the poorly educated than the brogue I think she intended. So I would have liked him a lot more if he had not made me grate my teeth a bit when he opened his mouth.In summary, I gave this a 3.5 star for the read.  While not a five star series by any stretch, it is a great start, kept my jaded attention and enlisted me to share my perspective. I would foresee better things to come.  Based upon all the other great books I have read from new(er) writers, I took away a half star because I think these books are all no more than .99 "centers."  For example, give the Sunwalker Saga a try.