Review: Better than "Bitten" (but is that saying much?)
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2011
This is the second "book" in the series (though the author chooses to call them books, it's more like a serial story -- in both, the action cuts off mid-scene without resolving any plot points).  At the time of this writing, the average review for the first book is two stars and the average review for this book is three stars.  While this story is slightly better than "Bitten," I think the review score has mostly benefited from the fact that the first is so bad that the only people who would read installment would be people who can't tell the difference between a good book and a bad one and people who -- for whatever reason -- don't mind taking the time to read a book that will probably be bad.  It would be a rare reader of discernment who would read the first one and then knowingly download and read this one.One of the main reasons why this installment is better is that much, much less time is spent presenting the story from Ally's point of view.  Ally's immature perspective is capable of causing unfathomable amounts of irritation in a reader of even below average intelligence.  Perplexingly, the author has made the decision to even narrate actions that are taking place from Ally's point of view in "Ally-style" ("Gosh, how was Ally to explain what was really going on?").  The "goshes" and the "gollies" are mixed with R-rated language, making me wonder why on earth the author even chose to use them.  She's a heroine without a single redeeming quality.So, still way too much Ally, but less is better.  Unfortunately, a lot of the time is spent with Ben, a character who is so dumb and pathetic that you rapidly grow to hate him as well.  He's pretty much a cipher in the first story -- a vampire dedicated to finding his mate.  In this book, he's a vampire who has been parted from his mate.  He then spends most of the story doing vampire paperwork instead of looking for her.  He doesn't suspect Moira, the person who clearly has the most to gain from Ally's disappearance.  He just takes her assurances at face value.  Ben's friend, Gabe, does suspect Moira.  It's fortunate for Ally that somebody around her has a brain, even if it is somebody that she's never met.  Gabe has valid reasons to suspect Moira of being capable of evil.  Weirdly, though Ben and Gabe are best friends (and are immortal), Gabe has never had the time to tell Ben about the evil they'd done to his family.For a book supposedly about the intersections of vampire politics and romance, the world described in the novel is pretty vague.  There is a lot of talk of "realms," which I think are vampire territories.  There is a vampire "council" and their business is important, if ill-defined.  Despite the fact that vampires can mate for life with humans, nobody seems to have many helpful details about this process (Why?  If you're immortal, wouldn't your group knowledge about things like that be huge?).Reading these books would be difficult even if the story was fantastic and the characters compelling.  Why?  The incredibly careless use of language displayed throughout.  I think English may be the author's second language.  I had my suspicions after reading the first book.  The grammar in this one is even worse.  Gemus can't even keep the same tense consistently.  You're presented with sentences like "Could someone, from Vincent Verdon's circle, possibly saw him with Ally?"  and "Not a sighting had been seen."  We're far off the track of English as spoken by a native user.  The author needs to get a second set of eyes for these books to help with these pressing issues.