Review: One of those books I found myself in a love / hate relationship with.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 27, 2014
Burdened By Desire is one of those books I found myself in a love / hate relationship with.  While it is the second in the series, it was written so that is was not hard to decipher where we were in the tale and appears to take place shortly following book one.  In this installment we follow the journey of Jocelyn and Landon.  Jocelyn is the long lost sister who has been recently reunited with her older sister Jenna and has relocated to New York from California to live with Jenna and her husband.  She is an elemental who has to meet her mate before her powers kick in and oops - her powers are kicking in folks, but she is not so sure who her mate is or if she even wants a mate.  Landon is the Alpha werewolf; there is only one, which leaves him with the responsibility of procreating within his pack to prevent their extinction.  Yes, there was even a mention of new puppies for the pack.  This presents him with the need for some major problem solving should he decide to step outside of his traditional role and acknowledge his mate.In the meantime there is a power struggle going on between the good guys and the bad, which is really fun reading, but I wish there were more of this in the book.  The peripheral characters are very colorful and well written and scream to play a more prominent role in the storytelling, which I think would have made this a much more enjoyable read overall.Now there are multiple schools of thought when it comes to the beginnings of a new romance in a novel; to include a few are the ever touted insta-love / lust and the I hate you but can't take my hands off you, as well as the I will ignore you even though I want to jump all over you until destiny slaps me in the face to wake me up scenarios. Well it appears that Landon and Jocelyn get face slapped and are now going back and forth with self-recriminations and apologies and back again until you want to lock them in a room and tell them both to get over it so we can get on with the story.  This got to the point where I was ready to shoot Landon and hand Jocelyn over to Malums myself and unfortunately this takes up about eighty percent of the book.  This is not a bad read, it is not poorly written, and for me had all the angst been cut down by about seventy percent, it would have been really good. If you are a reader that enjoys this type of struggle between characters, this is definitely for you. However, if you want more substance than angst, you will not find it here.  However, I did enjoy the world of Burdened by Desire enough that I would like to read the next installment in the series and see what happens next. I received this book from NetGalley.