Review: It's OK
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 2, 2013
This wasn't terrible, but it wasn't particularly good either. I initially bought this because the main female character is blind. As someone who is legally blind, I'm always drawn to characters who are also visually impaired, as few and far between as they are. I'll preface this by saying first that I commend the author for including a character with a disability and secondly, that her other characters essentially treated her the same as the sighted characters, especially her mates, which in real life can be tricky. There's often an exaggerated effort to help to the point of smothering, where these characters gave the right mix of assistance and what I call benign ignorance.Now to the not so great parts. While some of the things other characters did in regard to offering her assistance worked well, other things didn't ring true at all. We all cope differently, but a person with a life long visual impairment who can't cope with a real or perceived acceptance problem (with 3 generations of visually impaired family members, I never saw an acceptance issue except for people who wanted the handicapped parking space) doesn't hold water. She seemed whiny to me, bringing it up so often that "there's no blind acceptance". Additionally, as you can tell from the fact that you're reading a review I've written and I've "read" this book, there are all kinds of technology and gadgetry that allow us to live in the world on our own, not to mention the skills we learn to use without gadgets. A woman who attended and taught at Perkins (a real institution, by the way) would have both the skills and confidence to go through life that this character seems to lack. Also, we don't run around groping faces to "see" what people look like,our other senses don't become heightened (we merely learn to pay more attention to them) and trying to teach us colors by using feelings, sensations, taste, etc, teaches us nothing about the color, it only gives us a new name for those things. For those who don't have experience with visual impairment, these aren't things that would likely be noticed or cared about, but for me, at least, they're irksome. One thing related to her blindness that I did like was the fact that the author didn't make her mating a magical cure. When authors choose to do this, is can come across as offensive, insulting and disturbing to those who have the disease/disability in question. I did appreciate that she wasn't cured, as strange as that might sound.The characters were rather bland and the plot had a been there, done that feel. I even found myself skimming the sex scenes, which is surprising, as you'd think menage would have a little more spice. A minor thing that bothered me was the description of a concerned mother. Stereo-typically, her husband finds her eating a large sundae,wearing a caftan in an effort to calm her nerves. It's a petty thing, really, but to me it illustrates the lack of creativity and uniqueness put into both the plot and characters. The female lead needs either protection or rescuing repeatedly, even when they know who the culprit is. Nothing is truly done to even try stop him until the end of the book, after an event occurs that our heroine literally walks into...intentionally, not because she was unaware of the danger.As mentioned at the  beginning of the book, this is the "second generation", so to speak, of characters, whose parents had their stories told in another series. Those characters are mentioned often enough that that the author included a family tree of sorts. They aren't the focus of the story but they're there as parents, an alpha and siblings. There are also minor plot points that go nowhere in this book, but seem to be intended for future books.If this is your first foray into shifter or menage romance and characters with a disability you are unfamiliar with, you may enjoy it more than I did. As I said, not terrible, but I've read better.