Review: 4.5 star really
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2012
This is really not a stand alone book, none of them are in the series so it is highly recommended to read the other four before beginning this one. I absolutely love all of the 'Kindred Bride' books. This is the only one that I couldn't give 5 stars to and the reasons aren't really much of a criticism on the actual story since I loved Rast and Nadiah in this book. There were 3 reasons that kept it from being a 5 star rating for me.1. The Y'dex character. This is supposed to be a story involving the Pure Tranq people of Tranq Prime,  specifically Nadiah's horrid fiance Y'dex. In 'Hunted' with Sylvan and Sophia we learnt a lot about the Tranq people, both Kindred and Pure. They were a very cool, rational, rather frigid race that hid there emotions. Kind of like Vulcans in Star Trek, at least I always thought so. Y'dex was supposed to be a prime example of this race of people since he was of a Pure bloodline. So not so in this book. He was portrayed as an evil bastard who took quite a bit of enjoyment and satisfaction out of torturing Nadiah through their blood bond, which let me just say involved a lot of sadistic emotion on his part. It was just hard to remember that he was Pure Tranq with his irrational behavior throughout. I think his cruelty would have been much more effective if he had been written with the cool restrained emotions instead of the raving lunatic. But I will admit to quite a bit of satisfaction with his final fate, even though it did make me really squeamish to read that chapter.2.  Rast and Nadiah fell in love just a little too quickly for me in this book without much interaction or talking at all. By the time I was half way through the book though it really didn't seem as important, it just had to be mentioned.3.  The grammatical errors throughout. This is a personal pet peeve of mine because it seems ever since spellcheck was invented publishers, in both print and ebooks, have not bothered to have anyone actually physically proof read the books the old fashioned way before publishing. A word can be spelt right but be in the wrong place in a sentence very easily and unfortunately it happens quite a lot in this book. Since the previous books in this series have had a very minimal amount of grammatical errors I am just going to assume that Evangeline's proofreader was on vacation. If not than she really needs to fire the person and get a new one. Sorry, Evangeline but it just had to be said, and if you don't hate me too much after this review I would be willing to volunteer for the position! LOL This is the real reason I had to knock the review down a star.Enough of the negative points about this story let's get on to what I loved about this book!I kind of knew from the beginning where Evangeline was going with the Rast character but even though much of it was quite predictable she writes in such a way that the journey to get there is just so much fun to read! I also loved the new story arch and the new bad guy is going to prove to be an amusing, yet completely evil character. The All Father was a sick, slimy bastard but this new guy Draven is going to be even worse I think because of his twisted sense of humor. I admit he won points with me after the Epilogue and what he did to a much detested character. Can't wait to see where she goes with him!I love the way she interwove the characters from previous books. My favorites of course are Xairn and Lauren from 'Found.' I mentioned it in my review of that book that even though authors seems to be writing a lot of BDSM in romances now it really doesn't do much for me, yet in 'Found' she really made it work. After the steamy scene between Xairn and Lauren in 'Revealed' let's just say that Xairn can Master and collar me in the bedroom anytime he wants to! And his reaction to some exciting news was just so adorable! Though I'm not sure if Lauren will be getting any in the bedroom anytime soon. I know Evangeline will explore that dilemma with, I am absolutely certain, totally delicious results in the next book!The newly introduced Touch Kindred. I think I can see a future story with the Priestess Lissa and perhaps her 'older brother' who stood up for her. Sounds very intriguing to put this new addition into the series. Especially since they are kept away from all the other Kindred and not allowed on the Mother Ship. Who doesn't love the obvious underdog!Merrick and Elise. I so cannot wait for their book! Just write really fast Evangeline. Who needs to eat and sleep anyway?Then there was the mud worm in the Challenge. Uck. I've always said that Evangeline has an incredible imagination in this series and she really amps it up with the yuck factor in that particular scene. Very well written and so descriptive.Something else I noticed in this book compared to the previous ones was the added level of erotica involved in the sex scenes, or at least it seemed so to me. Anyone who has read Evangeline's earlier 'erotica novels' know what I mean. Though all of the previous Kindred books have had some really hot and steamy love scenes I think she outdid herself in this one (and no I am not complaining). She was definitely dipping her pen deep into the well of her erotica muse throughout. Not a book for those faint of heart or easily embarrassed with certain words used in erotica story lines. This book was definitely rated XXX on the steamy factor! I'm assuming anyone reading this series already knows this and won't be taken by surprise, or easily offended, in this book.I also wanted to thank Evangeline for self publishing this book. On my e-reader it was 603 pages and I only had to pay $2.99 for it. I don't think anyone can complain about that price. I'm getting really tired of overpaying for books a lot shorter in length when purchasing through the publishers. I know everyone has to make money but I feel the publishing houses are getting really greedy with what they are charging. I'm pretty sure the authors aren't making anymore on each book whether in print or paperback, yet the publishers keep charging the same no matter how you buy the book. An example, I recently purchased a novella of 36,000 words for $5.50. Evangeline's book was 130,000 words and only $2.99. Does that tell you whose raking in the dough on these books? Certainly doesn't seem like the authors to me. So please don't try to save a few bucks and download these self published books illegally. I think the authors are doing us a great favor by offering them at such an incredibly low price already and they deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. Having said that I will get off my soapbox now.So after finishing that rather lengthy review I will sum it up for you. Buy this book, and if you haven't read this series yet start with the first one and read them in order. You really won't be disappointed you took the time.