Review: A mixed bag :\
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 29, 2012
I have to give it to Anderson, she did go a bit out of the box (well, for her) with this one.  There are body switches, the girlish heroine has Fem-dom moments, and most of the stammering was kept to a minimum.  I will say though, that I found both Lissa and Saber to be very bland characters.  Lissa's characterization bears a striking resemblance to Nadiah's, in that she is a virgin and is portrayed as an innocent young woman in need of a man to awaken her sexually.  And while Saber is likeable enough (he's not too obsessed/overly concerned, at least) he just wasn't very interesting. These characters and the scenarios they are put in are always played out the same exact way.  Their behaviors are generally very predictable.  It wasn't hard for me to imagine Saber in a submissive position because Kindred men are not true Doms anyway, at least not with their brides, so I will agree with the other reviewer that the angst between Lissa and Saber near the end of the novel (regarding a certain event that I will leave unspoiled) doesn't exactly jive with the Kindred M.O. and didn't make a whole lot of sense, although it was resolved in a very adult fashion for once, which I appreciated.I enjoyed the first part of the novel the most; the sexual tension and build up was done nicely as usual.  Both Lissa and Saber are clearly attracted and into each other, and in spite of the cultural taboo that two people from the same clan can't hook up, they both are willing to look past that.  There is some token resistance, mostly from Lissa at first, but it didn't get too annoying as it has in some of the past books.  There was also some quality adult conversation and introspection that kind of surprised me.  I am not used to seeing that, and it's very much welcome, as I've found the lack of communication between other pairings to be annoying and lazy.Unfortunately, the latter half of the book suffers from what I imagine was a rushed writing job.  Perhaps Anderson wanted to get this one out before the craziness of the holidays, but I think it would have benefited from her putting a bit more time into the body-switching stuff and the psychological effects of that,and maybe saving the L/Draven romance for the next book, since she's says she's changed her mind about ending the series with this installment.  The way she wrote their story into the second half left much to be desired, and we didn't even get any sexy time out of it.  Draven came around FAR too easily, IMO, which is why I think that others are saying the same thing; he needed his own book/story.  I noticed a couple of big grammatical and naming errors as well, although those don't annoy me as much as they do some people.  Since she's going to continue the series, I am hoping for a different angle or scenario in the next one, or at least some different character types than what we've been seeing thus far.