Review: My least favorite in a favorite series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 30, 2014
Just in pure Kristen Ashley form I love the heroine Ilsa/Maddie. She’s such a tough chick who makes the best of a bad situation. She’s thrown from one hectic life in our world into the other world with no time to adjust and she does it well. There were parts of this book where I felt bad for Maddie though. She kind of gets the raw end of the deal, she’s the replacement wife and is so far the only our world girl who doesn’t get to become a Princes. Seriously, a crown would have made her me feel better.I had many mixed feelings about Apollo while reading. Uh, at first I hated him. I thought he was an non-understanding jerk face. There was a period (quite a large one) where I wanted Maddie to end up with Derrik even. Yet, after a while Apollo worked his way in a little bit and my feelings started to change. They changed so much that by the time we hit 50% I was pretty much in love with him. I even made a note that he could quite possibly be my favorite alpha from this series. Sure he messed up in the beginning in more than one way, but he made up for it and I thought he had learned his lesson. But no, sadly somewhere around 70% we learn he did not change and he royally messed it up again. Apollo has no one to blame for losing his top alpha status but himself. He totally ruined it and I just couldn’t muster those super happy feelings for him again. Sure he gets a little better but he went from the top alpha down to my least favorite of the series quickly.I think some of this might have to do with the secondary plot device in this book… children. Broken Dove reminded me of Kristen Ashley’s Dream Man Series, which if you remember was not my favorite series for her. They all revolved around kids, getting custody of kids, kids accepting them. Maybe it’s just where I am in my life, but this type of drama does not appeal to me. I understand that it might be exactly what some people who are facing similar situations would love to read about, but I am not one of those people at this time. I don’t fault Apollo for making things about his children, that’s what a good Dad should do. I fault him for his utter lack of regard for Maddie while doing so.There is one major stand out thing in this book which I loved. The bedroom scenes. Come on, did you really think anything else from me? The bedroom scenes in Broken Dove are way hotter than in any other Kristen Ashley book I’ve read so far. This gives me great hope that there are books/series out there from her that will explore this more and I can’t wait to read them. Let’s just say this couple plays, no there is not BDSM or anything like that, but Kristen Ashley is normally rather vanilla in her bedroom writing. And while this couple is still vanilla, they might be more of the vanilla with a chocolate syrup topping type of couple. It was refreshing.I also really enjoyed how much perspective we are given from different characters in this book. All the girls are together and they get to kick some butt in Broken Dove, which I loved reading about. This book gets serious, in more ways than one. In the end I enjoyed it but it was not able to redeem itself as my favorite in the series, in fact it’s my least favorite of the entire series so far.But we have another story on the way. Noc is going to the hero in book five!! And to sweeten the pot it sounds as if the girl will be leaving the ‘other’ world to come to our world for Noc. Interesting, but why does the girl always have to be the one to leave her home land? Regardless I can’t wait for this book to come out.. I need it like yesterday. I also really really really want Derrik to get his own story too. I also feel so bad for the men left behind.