Review: Divided? Reunited!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 17, 2014
Where to start? I could give you some spoilers, but I'll restrain myself. What I can say is that this is right up there in the top entries in the Brides of the Kindred series. There are Twin Kindred separated at birth, an almost nun, old friends (but not too much, this book is firmly centered on our featured trio), new friends, horrible families, a new, sweet family, cultural taboos, touches of "The Matrix", "a teeny bit of "Total Recall" and maybe even an itsy bit of "Back to the Future". Trust me on those...read it and you'll see what I mean. There's love, lust, sex (lots of sex) and all the confusion they so often cause.The characters are fun,  fresh and not carbon copies of previous characters, as so often happens with a series.  They'll pull you into feeling for their sorrow and have you smiling with their happiness.  Of course, there is a HEA.Two things I must specifically address: one huge positive and one tiny, tiny negative.First, the positive. There is none of what I call gratuitous description. Some authors, when writing about romantic partners of differing ethnicity or species, as the case may be, almost beat you over the head with it. They describe, over and over again, the difference in their appearances, when that doesn't, or shouldn't matter. Cultural differences and so on should be part of character description and interaction, but constantly emphasizing that they look different or having characters addressing it, is at best just too much and at worst, offensive.Ms. Anderson does an excellent job of describing her characters, letting you know what they look like and then leaving the differences alone and putting the emphasis where it should be, on the beauty of each character, regardless of their similarity ,or lack thereof,to the other characters, and in the appreciation of whatever physical features they may have.And now, the tiny, tiny negative. We know the Kindred featured are twins. We know there is no sexual interest or contact between the twins. It is a veesome, no twincest whatsoever. Yet in a volatile scene (volatile because their society is vehemently against the Twin Kindred type of relationship and what happens within it) with one twin's adopted family, that twin refers to his brother and their shared female as his "mates". It's a very, very minor point, but that was a bit out of place given the scene and everything that lead up to it, plus the squick factor (for those opposed to twincest) of a twin referring to his brother as his mate. As I said, very, very minor. Really, the only true negative I find.One final point: I was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed it so much, I also bought a copy.