Review: It started out well . . .
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 11 4, 2012
I thought it started out well. But then I didn't like when Luca went all caveman on his mate. He showed up in his mate's house and started moving his mates belongings, to his hotel, without a word to the man about it. Who does that? I'll tell you who, controlling men (or women), who abuse their significant other, that's who. Then when his mate protests, he goes all, "I'm ruler of the Vampires and you need to know your place and do as you are told" on his mate. Obviously, Luca did not see this mating as an equal partnership. All of that is classic 'abusive' boyfriend (or girlfriend) behavior.Then there is the whole anamchara thing. The submissive partner in the vampire culture, sits on a cushion at the feet of their dominate mate. Then, unless given permission, by the dominant mate, no one is allowed to touch the anamchara. Seriously, are they in the middle east? Yeah, no equality between mates here.I am so not a big fan of the Alpha, beta relationship thing, where the alpha makes all the rules, and submissive beta follows, whether he wants to or not and sometimes has to be forced to do so, and the idea that it's okay, actually great, and the submissive one should love it, that his dominant controlling, sometimes verbally and physically abusive mate, treats him like a child, when he's an adult, and makes all of his decisions for him, because the alpha-type only does so because the alpha-type loves him so much and will insanely jealous, if someone so much as shakes his hand, and only gets so jealous because he loves him so much. Yeah right! Inequality in a relationship is NOT ROMANTIC to me, not even in fiction.Then there is the thing with the other coven leader Daniel. Daniel is bad a$$ enough, to have Luca's mate attacked, then tranquilized, and taken and brought to him. But when Luca's mate get's to Daniel and throws a "temper tantrum", Daniel is too afraid of him acting like a bratty, ill-behaved child to tranq him again and throw him in a room, lock the door, and post a guard, until he's negotiated with the Luca the price of having Luca's mate returned. Really? He wasn't afraid to kidnap him, but he's afraid to say to him, "Sit down, and shut-up or I'll have you drugged again, and put in a locking room, until your returned is negotiated". That just did not work for me, and nothing there after in the story made up for that. I guess the was going for the bratty child, that the kidnapper pays the parents of the kid or turns himself in to the cops, to get rid of the child. Yeah, I think that only works in comedies (which I didn't think this book was), or with the mate of said bratty little man, because the bratty man's mate loves him and wants no harm to come to him. Daniel was not the bratty little man's mate.All in all, I think it was poorly written. I plot was good, but I didn't like Luca's character and Daniel's character was poorly developed, it's like she couldn't pin down Daniel's character, was he a bad a$$ leader or a whimp? She really needed to pick one of the other. And if he was supposed to be a little of both, she did a poor job of conveying it. Her creation of Daniel, in my opinion, and the story as a whole, was a "hot mess!"