Review: Dark, sexy.....and a little confusing
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 19, 2011
I love alpha male characters - especially the intense, brooding and unbearably sexy kind.  Really, it's irresponsible to write one any other way :-).  In this series, intense, broody sexiness abounds.  Some of the sexual violence, most vivid in book 2, may be more than the reader can take.  However, the reviewers who think that the bad guys' violence and the good guys' violence are one and the same are mistaken.  There's a difference between giving up control and having control taken from you - which the author tried to point out.  Let's just say I'll give up control to Malcolm Cole any day (book 2)!  Malcolm and Charlie are my favorite couple, and the most controversial.  Daniel and Lily got me hooked in the first book, and I think their union is most believable due to their back story.  I felt like Lucas and Byron were less well-drawn than the other alphas, and that their stories of finding and marking their mates were too rushed - I didn't feel the chemistry in their unions as much as I did with the first two.One criticism I have of these books is that there are too many characters with similar characteristics to keep straight.  Two or three of the villains have blonde hair, two or three characters have green eyes, two of the heroines have strawberry-blonde hair.  It gets confusing at times, especially in the 4th book.  I would have appreciated more explanation about who was whom, because even now, I feel like I have to re-read several parts to get the story straight.  Perhaps that wouldn't have been an issue if I hadn't read them all in this compilation, back-to-back.Also, some of the secondary stories (Seth, The Overseer, the Akyri king, etc.) were not fleshed-out enough to explain the characters' actions.  We meet Seth in book 2 and find out in book 4 what he really wants, but why?  We don't get a scene where his storyline is resolved or explained - at least not to my satisfaction.  Several other characters are like that as well.  Aggravating!Even with the flaws, I still couldn't put it down.  Like I said at the beginning - I LOVE a good alpha male!