Review: Underwhelming
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2011
I'd call this a very weak three-star book. There's an intriguing premise here, but none of the elements are fleshed out enough to be engrossing. All the components - romance, world building, action plot - are almost skimmed over, making them feel perfunctory.The hero and heroine meet and spend a few days on horses together, which the author does not actually write out for us to see, then suddenly they're consumed by passion and hooking up. The world building names the components of her "steampunk" world, but then doesn't go into details, leaving it just another "Our Vampires Are Different" paranormal romance. She mentions the "Guild," "bloodhounds," vampires, ghouls and the "Deadlands," but never explains them. Then the action plot, the conflict that sends our heroine off into the dangerous wasteland with a scary bloodhound, resolves in a anticlimactic *pfft* of a weak fight scene. No sense of unbeatable odds, no dazzling maneuvers, no dramatic last ditch efforts. Just a werewolf...er, bloodhound turning into a wolf..er, beast and mowing baddies down handily before the heroine tosses off an attack that easily vanquishes the villain with no risk to herself./yawn