Review: More great world building, interesting characters, and a love story I can get behind - Ms. Croft, plz write faster :D
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 31, 2013
Second books in a series are toughies; so many expectations, a world to continue building to keep readers interested, and you have to introduce a couple that readers want to invest their time in. Ms. Croft did indeed deliver a hot paranormal romance with a side of mystery. She managed to stay highly original in her world building and tight in her writing. Her supporting characters are again stupendous and I needed to know more about everyone! Yeah, I kind of liked this book…Roz (short for Rosamund) isn’t entirely sure what she is but she’s been on the earth for a long time. She was “rescued” from being burned at the stake as a witch by Asmodai but at the price of having to do 13 tasks for him. She’s almost done and on her last task when she runs into complications in the form of Piers Lamont and the Order of the Shadow Accords. It doesn’t help that she’s been told very little about the supernatural world but does know she needs to steer clear of the Order.Roz, for all her years, is resourceful, smart, slightly jagged around the edges, but is definitely a heroine I could get behind. I almost likened her to some of my favorite leading male characters, those guys who are cranky and closed off but always end up doing the good, soft-hearted thing in the end. Kind of like John Wayne in “True Grit”, but without all the stories about his life (okay, my limb is shaky, work with me here). Either way, she could have ended up a total wanker from all the years of servitude, torture, and such but she really is kind of cool, calm, and has a good heart. It’s about time she got a HEA.I met Piers in Bittersweet Blood and he almost stole the scene from Christian (who is the hero in that story). He literally strolled into the room in all his leather-clad, rock-star hotness, tried to pick up Tara (our previous heroine), and left. He was not the nicest guy. So I was really curious how Ms. Croft was going to win me over to his side. Turns out his backstory is quite “colorful”, as in the color blood red. I thought this is where Ms. Croft’s world building really shined. His story is very unique, gave his character a ton of depth, and made it very easy for me to “fall” for him.There were so many other places that Ms. Croft took us that I just wanted to know more about: the Faelands, the Abyss, the Crooked Hat. I actually came into the story hoping it would have more of Christian and Tara because to me, it seemed like Tara’s story wasn’t quite finished at the end of Bittersweet Blood. But Piers distracted me so I got over it.I’m getting long winded with my reviews again so let me sum this up… awesome supporting characters in Ryan, the cop, and Sister Maria, the nun. The story flew by with no lulls and Ms. Croft managed to jam a ton of story in just 300 pages without leaving anything out (except specific Tara and Christian follow-up). And the last 25% of the book surprised me and held me captive. I actually just got done re-reading those pages – still loving it!Now, where’s book three?