Review: Silly but still likeable
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 24, 2010
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 6/10PROS:- I love the idea of eternal love and soul mates, and very few storylines can get away with that as easily as the "werewolf meets his mate" one. They see each other the first time and just know that they were made for each other. (see cons below also)- The characters are cheesy and stereotypical, but I must admit to finding a guilty sort of pleasure in reading about small, victimized men who are rescued by their heroic, strapping lovers. Sasha is THE stereotype of a helpless damsel in distress like those so popular in the bodice-ripping romances of years ago. And Vadim is, of course, the perfect Alpha. Strong and imposing yet utterly selfless and kind. He's quick to anger, but only when someone's being taken advantage of or he discovers injustice in the world.- There's never a shortage of action and drama in Glenn's stories. The characters get over one hurdle, have sex, get over another hurdle, have sex, misread each other and separate, make up and have sex, and so on.- This story takes the mental communication between werewolf mates to a deeper level than I've seen in other stories. I liked not only seeing Vadim and Sasha carry on entire conversations no one else can hear, but also seeing other mated couples engaged in discussions no one else is privy to and having to guess at what they're saying based on their body language.CONS:- As much as I love stories about werewolves and their life mates, the idea that a character can meet someone and automatically be in love with him seems to me like a lazy storytelling technique sometimes. The author doesn't have to put any effort into establishing an emotional connection or building up sexual tension. It's just there. Bang. In this story, the characters have performed the mating ritual (which is basically akin to marriage, with no option of divorce) before Sasha even knows Vadim's name.- The writing tends to be shallow and repetitive sometimes. This occurs near the beginning, for example: "The little man was his now"...and then a few paragraphs later: "The sexy man beneath the desk was no longer theirs. He belonged to Vadim now."- The whole book reads like a first draft that was written in about 2 weeks and then never edited. There are obvious editing errors throughout, and the story incorporates a large number of clichés and hackneyed phrases. Some of the typos are so blatant it seems like the author didn't even read the story over before it was published, much less an editor.Overall comments: Glenn's stories have a tendency toward over-the-top drama, as is evident at the end of the first paragraph of this story: the two main guys meet and immediately recognize that they're mates, and Vadim is "stunned!" (I didn't add the exclamation point; it's in the book.) But I keep reading her stories, because in spite of their soap-opera feel, they're entertaining little diversions.