Wild Hearts: Making the Rules

Making the Rules is the second standalone book in the Wild Hearts boxed set by Doranna Durgin. I received a copy of this book as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for an unbiased review. Brief plot spoilers may follow.

Summary:

Hunter Agency operatives Kimmer and Rio, codenames Chimera and Phoenix, get their first official case together courtesy of a wealthy older woman who needs their help protecting an antique steeped in scandal and danger. Kimmer, who has a skewered view of family and what she can provide for it, struggles to trust Rio as her partner on the job despite him being her lover off the clock. Rio has his own doubts about their success working together, and as the danger factor continually rises, so does the importance for these two to pull it together before its too late. Questionable allies and a host of enemies meet them on this case, and as they deal with the issues in their partnership, they also find themselves framed for a crime neither of them committed. The person pulling all the strings in this case is someone from Kimmer's past, someone hell-bent on making Kimmer pay for not allowing them to finish the job they'd started.


My thoughts:

Making the Rules was a fun read, but I have a few more complaints with it than I did Hidden Steel. First things first, Kimmer is a badass and I loved it. LOL I could see immediately that she had issues, especially with vulnerability and learning to be dependent on Rio. The problem was that she was so strong by herself, so capable and so self-sufficient that it almost made Rio look like a backburner character. This fact was emphasized by how much of Kimmer's work she had to do alone because Rio was somehow incapacitated. I could see the doubt that both of them had with working together, and I think it was that doubt, not an actual inability to work together, that caused problems. The doubt was the seed, and events in the book that played on that added to it. I actually think they have potential to work flawlessly together and if there are more books to come with Chimera and Phoenix back out in the field, I’d like to see that. I understood Kimmer's hang-ups about family and whatnot, but for someone who usually functions on logic and reason, I wondered for a lot of the book if she realized that part of her problem was not seeing that she had an opportunity to provide something to others that she wasn't given. With that being said, I liked that instead of wanting to continue on future assignments alone, she made peace with the knowledge that she wanted to do them with Rio. Even though I think she would have eventually done a great job with her sisters, I think the solution we ended up with was great for everyone. I liked the various twists in this story; I could figure out some of the people who were probably going to end up being a problem later in the book, but some of the others fell into a gray area, and I enjoyed that. The intentions of the ‘gray area’ characters weren't immediately revealed to the reader and being able to go through that process with Kimmer and Rio, feeling everything they were feeling, until they figured everything out added on to the excitement.

One of my main complaints with Making the Rules was that I’m surprised poor Rio wasn't dead by the end of the book; he took the majority of the hits, was attacked the most by far, while Kimmer usually didn't take half as much damage. Hell, the reader’s introduction to the man is him getting shot, and he continues to accumulate a number of potentially fatal battle wounds as the story progresses. Not saying I wanted to see Kimmer as banged up, but it would have been nice to see Rio at his full potential. The various injuries he accumulated then having Kimmer need to rescue him made him look a bit weak and from what I understood about his character, weak he definitely was not. Of course, having to do all of that and wing it—alone, for the most part—eventually helped Kimmer to come to the realization that she needed Rio around on and off the job, which was an important development, so I can see where these plot twists had their purpose. I had read in the beginning that the enemy was someone from Kimmer's past, but with all the action that quickly followed, I’d forgotten all about it until the last few chapters, when they finally revealed themselves. I was just trying to figure out the next person in the chain was, who was pulling that person’s strings. It was intricate in a way, with every individual having their reasons for being involved, whether those reasons were understandable ones or not. This was another layered story, with background stories that contributed to the overall plot without diminishing it. At the end of the book I felt like the main characters had made some important revelations about themselves and this set a pretty solid foundation for future chapters. 


Do I recommend this book?

Much like I mentioned with Hidden Steel, if you like a story with a strong heroine not given to hysterics, some great action scenes and the ability to live in the moment with the characters, then Making the Rules may be a book for you. I do not recommend the book, though, if you're looking for a romance-heavy plot. Although it is well-known and often mentioned throughout the book that Kimmer and Rio are lovers and one of the plot points is working together as both lovers and partners, there isn't a lot of steam in this book either. Considering the setting, however, the lack of romance is understandable. I also do not recommend the book if you like alpha males who take the lead. Rio is just as much an important part of the plot as Kimmer, but due to circumstance it is Kimmer who ends up having to take the lead in some of the situations. In a general sense though, I definitely recommend this book. 



Helpful links:

If you'd like to download Making the Rules as a standalone book, here is where you can download it:

Amazon ($3.99) | NOOK ($3.99) | Google Play Books ($3.99) | Smashwords ($3.99) | iTunes (price needs to be converted into USD)


And if you'd like to download Wild Hearts as a box set (which I recommend since its cheaper):

Amazon ($5.99) | NOOK ($5.99) | Smashwords ($2.99) | iTunes ($2.99)


Doranna Durgin can be reached here:

Website | Facebook | Twitter



If you'd like to read my thoughts on both books rather than two separate reviews, you can check out my LibraryThing review here. I don't want to hog the site up with book reviews which is why I don't post too many of them, but all of the Early Reviewers books that I read will be given a full post here. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed these reviews!

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Wild Hearts: Hidden Steel

Hi all! I'm back with another book review, but this one is a little different from the other book reviews I have posted. This is actually part of a 2-story boxed set, but I separated them into two reviews so that it wouldn't run too long. The collective book is called Wild Hearts by Doranna Durgin, and it combines the standalone stories of Hidden Steel and Making the Rules for re-release. I received a copy of this book as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for an unbiased review. I've tried to refrain from giving away too much of the plot excluding the summaries but just in case, brief plot spoilers may follow. 

Summary:

In the first story, Hidden Steel, CIA agent "Mickey" awakens in a place she does not recognize, with no memory of anything, including her name. She adapts the name "Mickey Finn" and escapes, finding refuge in a nearby gym, run by Steve Spaneas. Before Steve realizes it, he is thrown headfirst into the craziness that is Mickey's life and becomes her only ally. As Mickey struggles to figure out what happened to her, she also becomes increasingly aware through flashes of memories that someone is in need of her protection. Add in some local thugs, other operatives who do not have her (or her client's) best interests at heart, little to no memory, and a light tease of romance with Steve, and this is the current state of affairs in Mickey's life. This is an action-packed page turner, where the reader is introduced to a colorful cast of background characters as well as a hero and heroine who don't fit into the traditional action/romance molds. 

My thoughts:

I enjoyed Hidden Steel. I appreciated Mickey’s strength in the face of the blank canvas that was her life and not dissolving into hysterics. Even though for her it was a fresh start and she felt as though she’d been dropped into something she had no idea about, life had continued to function and she had to catch up quickly. I loved that the CIA training she’d received had been so ingrained into her it became part of her base personality, something immovable about her that came as naturally as breathing. And if even with all of that training she still nearly got herself killed, I hate the odds for someone who was just one step, one heartbeat, slower than Mickey being placed in the same situation. The author mentioned at the beginning that when Mickey began to trust herself the rest of the story fell into place, and gradually throughout the book, the reader can see these changes taking place. I liked that there were places where Mickey made mistakes, and I also liked the conflict taking place in herself when she was initially confronted with pieces of who she was before having her memory wiped. The amnesiac part of Mickey’s story was interesting; I was waiting for the typical ‘bam’ moment when everything flooded back to her—I think Mickey was too, at first LOL—but I was very relieved when that moment never came. I liked that even though she was eager to find out what her life was about before, she was enjoying discovering who she was becoming as well. Her quirks, more so the choice in songs, were campy but endearing and fleshed her personality out a little bit. I also liked Steve and at first I wasn’t sure what to make of him other than that he was nice. Mickey was bouncy and had a frenetic, constant sort of energy about her, while Steve had this quiet, steady sort of strength about him that balanced things out. He wasn’t a caveman in his masculinity, but Mickey’s strength didn’t diminish his and I think that was an important factor. He had some growth to go through in the book and even though it didn’t get quite the attention that Mickey’s journey did, I did like reading about the changes in Steve. It was nice being able to read about his adjustment to what his life became after Mickey came into it rather than an instantaneous acceptance. This book had a lot of evolving in it, even for a few of the background characters, and that was refreshing to read. 

If I had to name something that I didn’t like quite as much, it would be that we didn't get to see Mickey through the process of her actually remembering things; we were just told at the end that she’d since regained the majority of her memories. The meat of the book was about her functioning cold; she had few details of who she was and couldn’t put most of them together just yet so it would have been nice to see a little of pre-wipe Anna or even an integrated Mickey in action. But I suppose you could look at that another way; when Steve was told she’d regained most of her memories he wasn’t told anything other than that because obviously, other things were more important. Lol We found out with Steve, and were privy to the same amount of information and one thing that I noticed with both of these books is that the reader is very much living in the moment with the characters, so that could explain why we don’t get to see Mickey’s growth after regaining her memories. The climactic finish was alright, but for all the drama that had built up to it in Mickey's various interactions with the operatives chasing her, it ran just a little long and I wondered why someone in the area hadn't called the police sooner with all the gunfire that was ringing out. That part was a little unrealistic for me but otherwise it was fine. There were a few small grammatical errors and some of the transitions between scenes felt a little choppy, but it was nothing that took away from the meat of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed this story a lot. I like how even the smaller bits, the background elements, were weaved together to create a cohesive story heavy on action and development with a constant tease of romance throughout. If there is more to explore with Mickey and Steve (and there totally is lol), I’m ready for it. 

Do I recommend this book?

I recommend this book to you if you're more of an action fan and don't want a book heavy on the romance. If you're looking for a kickass heroine, Mickey fits the bill so if you're on the hunt for a softer, more feminine heroine then Hidden Steel probably isn't for you. Same goes if you're after a book with more romance as this book is pretty clean as romances go. Other than a few kisses and the implication of sexy times at the end, there isn't too much steam in this book. It doesn't run super long but after the first couple of chapters things start to pick up a bit, so if you like to read books in one sitting then Hidden Steel shouldn't be a problem as you won't want to put it down until you're finished. Well, I didn't, anyway. lol

Helpful links:

If you'd like to download this book, here's where you can download it:

Amazon ($0.99) | NOOK ($3.99) | Google Play Books ($0.99) | Smashwords ($2.99) | iTunes ($2.99)

To download the boxed set with both books, here are the download links:

Amazon ($5.99) | NOOK ($5.99) | Smashwords ($2.99) | iTunes ($2.99)

If you'd like some more info on the author, Doranna Durgin, here's where you can check her out:

Website | Facebook | Twitter


The second book, Making the Rules, will have a separate review but if you'd like my thoughts on both books at once, you can read my LibraryThing review here.

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Book Review: Ros Clarke Romances

I received a copy of Ros Clarke Romances as part of LibraryThing's Members Giveaway. This book featured three short stories--Reckless Runaway at the Racecourse, The Tycoon's Convenient Wife, and Flirting with the Camera. Reckless Runaway at the Racecourse is about a restrained horse trainer who finds himself coming to the rescue of a more free-spirited young woman early in the story, then he finds himself stuck with her and over time, feelings change. The Tycoon's Convenient Wife brings a pair of old friends back together again for a marriage of convenience, although one friend has been harboring her love for the other for the past 15 years. And finally, Flirting with the Camera brings two people together in an industry obsessed with what's on the surface, but they force the other to look deeper at each other...and themselves...in order to break through to another level of personal growth.  

Image from Amazon

Reckless Runaway at the Racecourse--Instead of the male being the one in need of a grown-up wake up call, it was actually the female. I wasn’t completely fond of Fliss to be honest; she was flighty, rather immature, and too indecisive which led to her flip flopping on her feelings throughout the book. She ran quicker than the horse that nearly ran her over at the beginning of the story. I thought she was a bit too persistent for someone who was intent on not having any lasting connections, yet was still hurt by the fact that Luke didn’t want any either. Luke, despite being rigid, brought a steadier energy to what otherwise probably would have been an annoying read had they both been so quick to run. His presence in the novel ended up being just what Fliss needed to grow up and finally commit herself to something, which I liked as it is usually the female in that role. Her more light-hearted approach helped Luke to loosen his self-induced chains on himself and let someone into his life, and her more family-oriented ways helped him to begin letting his father in as well. I liked the stability Luke brought to the book, and the sense of freedom that she brought to it. They were exactly what the other needed, even if it took one more time than the other to realize and make peace with it. I read so many stories where it is the man who needs the reality check, the man who puts his foot in his mouth, and even though it was still annoying, it was nice to see that for once it was the female doing those things. It was the man in this story who was sure of what he wanted earlier on and battled his fears to have it. Opposites do attract and this story showed it well. I think the story was well-written and despite it being a bit of a short story, there was still adequate time for both characters to grow sufficiently.

Image from Amazon

The Tycoon’s Convenient Wife—I really liked Emma. She had a few moments where I wanted to shake her a little bit, but otherwise she was a really likeable heroine for this book. She was innocent in terms of not knowing just how good of a person she was, but was still womanly enough to stand on her own, she just didn’t realize it. I liked the growth she went through as the book progressed in terms of wanting something more for herself than her current level of existence, which had grown stagnant. I also like that despite her love for Guy, she didn’t become completely reliant upon him or expect him to bail her out of everything in her life. Guy was a bit lackluster for me; he had a very one-track mind even though I can understand how he got to that place. I really didn’t like that Emma used Ben’s accident and Guy being there all week as something to throw in his face; that was a low blow. It seemed like it went against her character and was just a shoo-in for some convenient conflict. The main thing that stuck out for me as being a little unrealistic is the concept of having to fake a marriage simply for the sake of one business account, regardless of how large a coup it would be. I also don’t know that a businessman as important as Tripp Bailey would concern himself enough with the personal life of others to call him in the middle of the day about the latter’s feelings (or lack thereof) for his fake fiancée. Family oriented or not, I just can’t see the fate of a business deal that large hinging upon a person’s ability to read his fake spouse. All in all though, I liked the story. You got a good feel for the characters, their motivation and the reasons why they are the people they are, and it makes sense. The story was allowed to build gradually instead of rushing to a finish and I liked that.

Image from Amazon

Flirting with the Camera—At first, Hattie’s inability to be serious grated on my nerves, until I was able to see why she became that way, why she put on such an act for others. Her flippant, unaffected attitude disguised a perceptive and sensitive nature, and I like that she was layered that way. She wasn’t a typical empty-headed brat or an uptight control freak, and that was a breath of fresh air. I also really loved that she was plus-size. Many heroines are either tiny in stature/frame or average-sized, and “just right” for the hero. Hattie was a different shape entirely, was completely confident in it, and that too was “just right,” which I thought was great. Neither of them needed to come to terms with her size and it wasn’t a focal point of the plot like it ends up being in many stories. It was an enjoyable change of pace that instead of simply avoiding commitment because he’d been cheated on or because it just wasn’t his style like many other men in these kinds of novels, Tom was carrying a massive amount of guilt that held him back. He was rather bland, which I think could have been explored more so that we could see a little more of the man behind the camera. What I did like was that he wasn’t a CEO of some anonymous big-wig business; he was an in-demand photographer for the modeling industry and instead of glamorizing Tom’s work conditions; some of the real was explored and I enjoyed it. I just wish I could have gotten to know Tom a bit more beyond his past guilt. 

Overall:

I liked this trio of stories. I think they were all well-written, with fleshed-out characters who all had motivations and behaviors that made sense considering their past situations. Ros Clarke managed to cover a lot of ground in all of these short stories and made the small amount of time seem much longer, which allowed for a more thorough story to me. Each story brought something different to the table and I was glad I wasn’t reading the same story or plot repeatedly. The only complaint I guess I’d have is that we didn’t get to see what happened after these couples got their wishes; they all ended just as proposals were being made. I would have liked to see how Emma and Guy got on with the kids after moving and how Emma and Marilyn made their partnership work. It would have been nice to see how Hattie and Tom came together during her pregnancy and seeing Hattie really let her guard down, knowing Tom wasn’t going to humiliate or leave her. I think each of the stories had something left in them that I would have liked to read. I enjoyed each story and was sad when I got to the end. If you're a fan of romance stories that don't ramble on forever and have a more realistic, everyday approach and characters, then I recommend giving this book a read. Intimate situations do occur, but they're more racy than erotic and not the focal point of any of these stories. 

Rating:

If you'd like to download this collection yourself, here's where you can pick it up:

Amazon ($4.99) | Smashbooks ($4.99)

You can click the book links if you'd like to buy just one of them, but it's cheaper just to get all three. 

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Book Review: The Good Enough Husband

I received this book in exchange for a review as part of the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing. This romantic novel by Sylvie Fox features an almost 40 year old woman named Hannah on the cusp of making a big life decision. While en route from Orange County to her intended destination of Oregon, a case of puppy motion sickness forces her to stop in a small town along the California coast, where she meets town vet Ben. Ben is everything Hannah feels her life should be about, everything her current life is missing, except there's one little complication: Hannah has not yet told her husband that she wants a divorce and Ben is unaware that she is technically still married. Her decisions during this time end up affecting everyone and teaching them a thing or two about their families and making peace with those who have hurt them.

To be honest, I found Hannah to be selfish and quite cowardly for much of the book and I just couldn't find much sympathy for her. She created her own problems, way before meeting Ben, and she continued to create more problems and involve more people in them instead of making things right before moving on. So many of her problems could have been avoided by just putting everything out there, yet she chose not to. While I understood some of her decisions, like her reasons for getting married, I still thought she could have made smarter decisions. Instead of trying to save her marriage, she selfishly decided that because she was done, it was done too but neglected to tell Michael any of that. Michael was no saint and wasn't all that likable himself, but both he and Ben got the short end of the stick where Hannah was concerned. Despite knowing how badly Ben had been burned, both by his father and his ex-wife, Hannah continued to let her lies sit between them and chose to keep allowing him to believe that she was the only bit of honesty in his life. Instead of dealing with any of her problems head-on, Hannah ran from them. It took her hurting both Michael and Ben and getting pregnant before I saw substantial growth from her. Unfortunately, the book ended before we could see this growth really being put to use in her relationship with Ben. 

Despite the fact that I didn't really find any of the characters very likable, there were a number of things I enjoyed about the book. Firstly, I sort of enjoyed that I couldn't fully get behind any one character. Usually I don't like that, I want to find my sort of ally in the story, someone that I can get behind and root for. I couldn't do that with this book, but it worked for the content. It was real. Everyone was flawed, in a big way, and the reality of it is that that's how the world works. Most of us are flawed, in a big way. Nobody's perfect and many of us make insanely shitty decisions. Many of us shut down, preferring our judgments about others based on past experiences to keep us company instead of actual people, like Ben did. Many of us love the idea of something but aren't ready to really love it because we're too self-involved, like Michael. And many of us still end up making situations we're in worse before they get any better, like Hannah did. You could even push that to the extended family. Many of our grandmas (and grandpas) or hell maybe even parents stayed with their spouse after they cheated. Many of those who cheated ended up creating an illegitimate child. And many still will stay afterward, out of obligation like Ben's parents or because they realized they loved their spouse. Too many of us know people like Michael's parents, judgmental folks from 'the old days' who don't venture outside a circle of people who look, think and behave as they do. Hannah's problem, marrying out of loneliness/comfort rather than love, is a common one for women who seem to keep missing out on real love, so I couldn't fault her there. Hell, I've contemplated doing the same thing a time or two myself. I understand needing time to get away from the problem, my problem with that is that Hannah's mind was made up when she left and I think she should have explained that instead of running from it. Even though I didn't like many of her decisions and spent a lot of the time facepalming myself over them, sadly they too were pretty realistic. They were stupid as hell no doubt, but none of them were things I’d never heard before.  

I also liked that Hannah was half Black but it wasn't stereotypically weaved into the larger plot of the story. I appreciated that Ben and his family saw her, not her color. Most of the time when there's an interracial romance in novels, someone always mentions that "I prefer black women" or "I don't usually date black women" and I can't remember how many times I've been reading a book and one of the parents innocently comments, "Oh, so-and-so's never brought home a black man/woman before," as if it was some new toy and not a person. I also enjoyed that after awhile, Hannah finally came around and allowed herself to grow a little bit. I say ‘a little bit’ loosely because she continued to make ridiculously stupid decisions for almost the entire book. Unfortunately, that bit of growth came after she'd already hurt both Ben and Michael and ended up pregnant, but this proves that it's never too late to grow. Ben grew some as well; as much as Hannah's betrayal hurt him, I think it set the wheels in motion for him to look at his family situation in a new light and stop being so closed off. I won't say Michael grew per se because just as I was about to say that he had, he'd do something completely ridiculous and change my mind, but he did have moments in which he showed that he truly grasped what was going on.

There were a couple of spots in the book that could have used some continuity. In one scene towards the beginning, Hannah and Ben are in the car, but about a paragraph or two after setting the scene, Hannah's dipping her toe into some water. Now unless there's a leak in the footrest, I don't think there should be any water in the car. Throughout the book, Michael's stance on Hannah's singing changes a few times. He starts out in the book as being the one to have killed her dreams, saying they weren't practical. Later, he was the only one of his family who didn't think her dreams were dumb and made a grand gesture that made Hannah remember who she'd married, then he was back to not supporting her dreams. His stance changed depending on how he was supposed to be seen at that time, whether it was in a good or bad light. It wasn't consistent and I think this affected how I saw him overall, because at the end of it I wasn't quite sure what to make of him. I didn't like that we weren't able to see what came of Hannah and Ben; he came to her in Copenhagen but the events after their reunion are where the real work for their relationship would have kicked in. I would have liked to see that. Some of the scene changes as well as the ending felt rather rushed and this was a little jarring for me, but otherwise I'm glad I read this book. I like that it wasn't a perfect romance and didn't have this perfect neat little ending. I wish it wasn’t so rushed, but with such an imperfect situation there really was no way to end it neatly with the way everything unfolded without flipping the script entirely.

Rating:

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Book Review: Soul Cutter

*Warning: a couple of brief plot spoilers are in this review*

I won a copy of this book from another LibraryThing program that I am enrolled in called Members Giveaway. It’s sort of similar to the Early Reviewers program in that you still have to go through the list of books offered for that month’s batch and request the ones you want, but it’s different in that in some cases, the recipient has to provide a review in exchange for the book. I consider that requirement a win-win since I was going to review it anyway. lol I never request books in either of LibraryThing’s programs for funsies or leisurely reading; every book that I request from LibraryThing is for the purpose of reviewing it on here. I like both programs; there’s such a wide array of books to choose from that it would be hard not to find at least 3 books per month that you want to read. Enrollment in the program is free, just make sure that you read the description carefully and fulfill any requirements that the author may ask of you (providing a review, having a certain amount of books in your library, etc.) before requesting any copies of a book. Anyway, that’s Members Giveaway in short. Let’s move on to the book.

Soul Cutter is the debut novel by Lexa Cain. This young adult horror/romance book mainly centers around 17-year-old Elan, a young woman with a few dark secrets who debunks fake psychics and ghosts for a living. A student from the school of logic, she has no faith in the supernatural, despite the visions and dreams suggesting otherwise. When she has to travel to Egypt to find her estranged mother after she goes missing, however, the situations—and people—she encounters question and rock her beliefs in everything she thought she knew. She also meets 18-year-old Ramsey, a Lebanese boy with a few dark secrets and on a quest of his own. As the two reluctantly join forces to find Elan’s mother, they come into a few realizations about each other…and themselves…in the process. If gore isn’t for you, then neither is this book. You definitely shouldn’t eat while reading this one.

That was the closest to a synopsis that I could get without spoiling a lot of major things. I’m still tweaking how I do my book reviews, so bear with me. Anyway, this book was very fast-paced. Lots of action and intrigue, so if that’s your kind of book then Soul Cutter won’t disappoint. You think that Elan has to be in her mid-twenties or something at first because of how much mature she acts in comparison to her peers, then you find out that she’s only 17 herself. Because of the dark secret in Elan’s past, she had to grow up very quickly and this shows in the story because she’s very intelligent and unfortunately very jaded about the world and the people in it. *Brief spoiler alert*  I liked that the real feelings and fears that follow a rape victim were explored here. I hate when I read a book and even though a character is raped, she still carries on as if nothing happened, with none of the fears, thoughts or feelings that most real-life victims are unfortunately left with afterward. I also really liked that as the story progressed, Elan came into some healthy realizations about herself and despite the ever-present sense of danger lurking, she still somehow came out of the situation healed. She wasn’t a weeping willow and I appreciated that about her character, even though it clashed, as it often does, with the Middle Eastern mentality of what women should be like. 

I liked the array of characters that were in this story, although I wish they could have been explored a bit further. I think Miss Cain did a great job of employing an urban Egyptian myth and bringing it to the forefront of the story without making it overly campy. There was the normal skepticism, the normal “that’s the old folks tale” present, but over the course of the story it became larger than life as the reality that it was true came about. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the urban myth that haunted much of the book ended up falling prey to false impressions and assumptions. It goes to show that nothing’s safe from an assumption. I enjoyed that this story was as much Ramsey’s as it was Elan’s, as they both had some things to learn and accept along the way. They’re both more mature than their years and have had to learn more than a couple of ugly truths. I also liked how everything ultimately served to drive the larger plot of the story, from Ramsey’s dark secret to the disappearance of Elan’s mother, two things that would not normally have a connecting link. Yet they were both integral to the progression of the story and helped to push it along.

However, a bit of the action was so fast, it took on a bit of a frenetic pace and was a bit of everywhere. My mind would be racing to try and picture everything as I was reading it, but it had a very fast, jittery sort of energy about it. It was kind of hard to figure out exactly how much was going on at once towards the end of the book, because so much was happening all at the same time. I’d slow down just a touch in certain parts and make sure the reader’s still with the story. The story wasn’t able to progress as fluidly as it should have because it kind of jumped from place to place quite quickly. I also didn’t like the 180 flip that Elan did concerning Ramsey about halfway through the book; she went from fighting a simple attraction to him to feeling like he was her entire reason for surviving. It was a bit sudden to me. I was left with a lot of unanswered questions, so I was relieved to hear that a sequel to Soul Cutter is on the way. The battle between Ali and Ramsey felt unfinished, and I hope that’s explored further in the next book. There were a few holes in what the Soul Cutter turned out to be and the limits of his powers, something else I hope is fully resolved in the next novel. There were a few grammatical errors here and there, but they weren’t so bad that they took away from what was happening in the story. All in all, I enjoyed it and found it to be a great debut for Lexa Cain. Once I was pulled in, I was intrigued to see how everything would resolve itself. YA and horror aren't the genre I usually read, but I didn’t walk away disappointed. I look forward to the sequel of Soul Cutter. This would be safe for older teens to read as I think some of the more gory parts would be too much for tweens and younger teens. There's some cursing, but nothing sexual beyond one kiss and a bit of tension.

If you're interested in picking up this book, here's where you can get it:

Smashwords/Kindle

Rating:

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