Review: Sophomore slump...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 7, 2013
The action is fast paced, the sex scenes are hot, and the world building is excellent. I loved that there was back and forth between here and Otherworld. I also liked that there were big reveals about The Guild, Adam's parentage, and Syn's parentage. In fact Syn's reasons for being orphaned took quite a few twists and turns. The twists and turns get cuckoo at the end of the book, and it takes a page out of the M. Knight Shyamalan book of writing.This book is self/indie published so there are grammatical and repetition issues. I honestly didn't even notice most of the grammar errors and if you ever saw the amount of red ink on my high school or college english papers than you'd know why (I was made aware of them by other reviews).  The repetition was a bit annoying, there was more than one occasion that a character said something and then a page or two later said basically the same thing again. Ms. Hutchins would benefit from a good editor or at least a honest friend who was an English major. If you are sort of/or a full on grammar nazi than you should probably skip this book.While I mostly enjoyed the book I was extremely annoyed by Syn and her supposed love of Ryder. Since 50 Shades of Grey grew to popularity I have noticed a lot of Urban Fantasy writes creating male leads that are abusive, but since they are insanely attractive their extremely controlling and sometimes psychotic behavior is deemed erotic. I say supposed because her story reads more like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome combined with the heavy influence of Fae pheromones than one of a woman in love. From the beginning of the first book we have been reading about Ryder's need to posses Syn. When she was human his plan was to keep her as his pet, when it was revealed that she is Fae he planned to keep her with his brand and a version of Fae slavery. It wasn't until her parentage and fate were revealed the he resigned himself to allowing her to live as a free woman. He has been stalking her for years. Lurking in the shadows watching her and infiltrating her dreams. He watched her have sex with her first love and watched her masturbate, while masturbating himself. The only reason this is considered sexy is because of what he looks like. If he looked more like one of the writers from 30 Rock and less like one of the cast from Teen Wolf I doubt anyone would find it hot. Ryder's behavior in this book is as ugly as his face is gorgeous and his body is fit. The man admits to committing murder in order to have her.Tells her he would kill again and names his intended victim. I get that he is Fae and in Otherworld they have other rules, but Ryder is a Sociopath. He literally fits the definition. Syn claims she hates the treachery, deception, and ruthlessness of  the Fae but Ryder is the definition of all those things and she claims to love him. She claims to love him even though he point blank tells her he does not and can not love her, and Fae can not lie.I also thought the pressure from all sides for Syn to choose who she should marry heavy handed and silly. Syn is only 21, that is a young age for regular human to get married. Fae in this world are immortal. For people who count their ages in centuries and Eons it seemed ridiculous for them to want her to make a choice. Especially since there is no divorce among Fae and what was needed of her did not require the confines of marriage. There were also several other inconstancies in the story, but I won't give those away since they are spoilers. The book does not really end in a cliffhanger, the basic story is wrapped so to me it felt more open ended. I was also disappointed that we still don't know who the Horde King is, nor do we know what the hell Ryder is. I will be reading the next book, and I hope some of these issues are addressed and resolved.********************************************SPOILERS***************************************************************************I had a major problems with Ryder and all of his lies. All he talked about was possessing her and having sex with her. There was no talk of love or honor. When he did show a semblance of respect for her it was more about how difficult it would be for him to break her than him being actually impressed with who she is. He killed Adrian so he could get Syn, he made it sound like Adrian only wanted power. And while Adrian did, he also scarified himself for Syn. Syn never went to Adrian and actually talked about why he did what he did. She simply accepted Ryder's black and white reasoning. Adrian is a man she's known since she was 5 years old. He was her first love, she was devastated by his loss. You'd think she would have a closure talk with him for herself. Especially after she and Adam had closure with Larissa.Ryder is some kind of beast. He still hasn't told Syn what he is. She knows he is "something" but never pushes the issue. More than once the beast came out and Syn conveniently forgets or doesn't notice the change. Whenever the beast is out the next morning someone asks her is she ok, and does she remember anything. But every time she assumes she injured Ryder. Even though she knows how powerful he is, she knows he is more than a regular Fae, and he has the ability to erase memories.Waking up and having someone ask with panic and deep concern "do you remember what happened last night?" and when you answer no, they say never mind should have raised major alarms for her. Syn is basically a cop, and major mysteries events in her life are brushed over with a simple "don't worry about it" from Ryder or his men.More about the beast is revealed. WIth these revelations we learn that usually during sex the beast kills Ryder's partner. Before Syn he kept his escapades to Fae women because they are much harder to kill than humans. So when Ryder decided he wanted Syn as a human pet he assumed he would kill her, which explains why he was using magic to have sex with her. He made it clear that only he would have sex with her during her transition. He was surprised that his beast wasn't attacking her during the sex. Which means from when he was stalking her, to when he had Adrian killed to have her, to when he decided that he and he alone would see her through transition he assumed that his beast i.e. he would kill her during sexual intercourse. The man is a serial killer who basically planned to kill her all along. How sick is that.After the discovery that Syn is the light heir and therefore should marry Adam, Ryder admitted that if it wasn't for the fact that the children of Adam and Syn would save the world he would have killed Adam. And Syn didn't even flinch. Adam, sweet, loyal, honest Adam. Ryder's brother. Syn's best friend. The Fae can't lie, and Syn knew he had Adrian killed to get to her. So the man is not bluffing, but somehow that got no reaction out of Syn.Syn's resistance to Adam was annoying. We got it he's her best friend and like a brother to her. Syn kept saying it over and over, but it was a stupid. It's fine that she doesn't see Adam that way and doesn't see it happening. But he is not her brother. And being raised together didn't stop her from having a romantic relationship with Adrian. Instead of even considering the possibility with Adam, who declared his love she was focused on Ryder. She kept going on and on about wanting passion and not a loveless marriage. And while Ryder has passion in spades he admitted he does not and can not love her. While she may not be in love with Adam she does love him, and he does love her. So the quickest way for her to end up in a loveless marriage for all eternity is to hook up with Ryder the serial killer.I get that Syn is only 21. Her only relationship was with Adam. He died right when it was coming out of the puppy love stage and maturing into an adult relationship. But she kept going on and on about wanting this passion and talking about Ryder was over done. While the Light Fae had a screwed up marriage, Syn and Adam's parents were very much in love. They both were arranged and each couple was unknown to each other. But through mutual respect and building a family they fell deeply in love. Syn and Ryder are best friends and already care deeply for each other. Syn never once looked around and thought while it may not be ideal there is hope for a amazing life together. In choosing who to spend all eternity with you'd think she would be a little more open to the idea of her best friend over the weird dude she's been banging for about two weeks. That's right over the two books only a month has gone by. So Ryder's ability to remain faithful to Syn is a lot less impressive when you realize they have been together less than 30 days. Syn knows he is a womanizer and has a harem, he keeps saying he is going to use her until he's done. A year or a decade may seem impressive to a 21 year old but what happens after he gets tired of her after a century when they have thousands of years of life left to go?Initially the big reveal that Syn is not Light Fae but Blood Fae was good. Then it was revealed that her parents loved her and hid her because the Horde King wanted her, awesome, it should have stopped there. Her witch parents died because her brother came to get her was stupid.  One attempt, and then sixteen years of war and strife go by and no one went to get her. Her Fae parents put her with those witches because of their connection to the guild. So they could have easily found her at any time. They gave her the tattoo to make her appear human,so obviously they wanted her safe and away from the Horde. So if everyone thought she was dead, and they knew she was safe, why was Liam the brother the Horde King wanted to trade her for in the castle. Her parents were shocked to see her. So that meant Liam had already been released. What was the point in handing Syn over. Also her parents had at least one other daughter. If she was supposed to be dead, the Horde King has a thing for Royal daughters, and her parents don't really have an issue trading one child for another, why was her sister chill in? Shouldn't she have been in a harem somewhere.Also the crazy brother who went to get her for trade but killed her parents instead, why didn't he go back and get her? He knew she was with Guild witches, he knew she had no idea who or what she was. If he wanted to kill her and take her powers all along why did he wait over a decade until she was with one of the most ruthless and powerful Fae before he went to get her?The end of the book just got stupid. Syn had morning sickness for two days, then it disappeared. The first thought was pregnancy, why wasn't that the first test given to her blood, simply to rule it out. And the excuse that her low iron levels made it the pregnancy test take longer was stupid. A pregnancy test checks your hormone levels, and if there was blood issues why didn't the "doctor" have her take a pee test. Honestly the pee test should have been the first thing done. It was also weird that Ryder was all worried about his child in her womb, but when he contacted her in her dream he never mentioned it.Ristan saw Syn hand Adam a baby. A baby that will heal Otherworld. There was already on case of mistaken identity, and Syn's mother and her aunt the Light Queen look almost identical. I really hope that the author doesn't pull a Patty Duke Show and have the actual Light Heir look just like Syn, identical cousins style. Also the whole Ryder and the Horde King are never in the same room at the same time, and he is only technically Adam's brother. I really hope the beast isn't really the Horde King, and Ryder shifts into him. That would be so cheesy and a exercise in semantics. I know the Fae can allude, but Syn straight up asked Ryder if he is the Horde King and he said no. Sure he could say that he is not the Horde King but they share a body, but that is a lie by omission. Which would once again make Ryder look like poor choice. Who wants to spend eternity with a man who refuses to simply tell you the truth? I'm not saying I want Adam to be Syn's HEA, but unless Ryder goes through a major overhaul it need to be Adam or someone else.