Review: Decent series
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 16, 2013
I've now read all of the books in this series. What I first want to say applies to all of the books in the series (so am putting it in all of my reviews). I had to go to the author's website to try and figure out the best order to read them in. In the end, I went with chronological order: Bonded, The Mating, The Keeping, Betrayed, then The Finding. Overall, I think the stories were interesting. Clearly, if I didn't like them I wouldn't have continued to read the entire series. I was prompted to read them in the first place because of the good reviews and the price (can't beat FREE)! However, I can only give them 3 stars because they were so overly redundant I found myself skipping over a great deal and wanting to get straight to the point. I think they could have each been shortened by 30+ pages without losing anything of value. Many things were unnecessarily repeated and actually took away from the plot development. The author did a good job developing her characters and the storyline, so there was no need to repeat things over and over again. I'm thinking specifically of how she may have told a story about something that happened in a character's past multiple times throughout the text. If you told it once, you can just reference it or put a one liner in that will prompt the reader to remember. I felt she didn't give the readers enough credit to put things together or their own or connect the dots. Everything was explained in great detail too many times and some of the stories felt dragged out. Still, I was drawn into the stories and connected with the characters (hence the 3 stars). As other reviewers have said, these books are available free elsewhere if Amazon is charging for them!The Mating wasn't my favorite of the series, but was an easy and enjoyable enough book. Elise's character was different from the werewolves introduced in the first series, but her naivety and strength were well developed. While this book wasn't as redundant as Bonded, it was still a bit dragged out. I also would have liked to see some more of Kane's past from his days at the Academy brought into the mix. This book also contrasts the first in the series, Bonded, by being so sexist and "traditional" with woman's roles in the pack. I personally relate to a more independent main character, and while Elise was strong in her own ways, she was still very docile. If I had read this book first I would have been under the impression that this way of life was the norm for all female werewolves in the series, which is certainly not the case. It contributes to the overall series, but as a standalone novel leaves a lot to be desired.