(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I read the blurb of this book originally, I found the idea quite intriguing… even though I haven’t actually read the first book in the series. I did find this book fairly easy to read (it took me a while to finish due to a lot of things going on this week), but I did find a lot of it quite confusing.

I did find Dandalus a character who was difficult to relate to emotionally. There were a lot of interesting aspects to him, but the fact that he had no emotional attachment to his wife and daughter didn’t make him a very sympathetic character. I felt like there was a lot of telling rather than showing going on.

I thought that the idea about the column and column children was intriguing, though I was quite confused by the explanation. The idea about the incarnations was quite a good one… even though it seemed to render the whole trial as not necessary.

I found the sons of thunder to be really intriguing characters, but I would have liked to see a bit more of their individual personalities. It was good to see Mischief interacting with Dandalus, even though I felt there was a bit too much glossed over and the bond between them wasn’t allowed to develop in a natural way.

There were some good elements of foreshadowing in this book and some of the secondary characters were interesting. I did like the whole idea of the robots and how they were revealed… but there were a lot of things that were left by the wayside, such as the scenes leading up to the electricity being turned off.

The Creditor’s interactions with Dandalus were interesting, but I really didn’t like how things turned out with him. Wolfrun was an interesting character and I would have liked to see more of him.

There were some good action scenes in this book and some tense moments that did manage to keep me reading. I did think that some parts of the book could have been expanded upon, though, and I’m not sure I’ll be reading the other books in this series any time soon.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thought this book was quite an intriguing one. The hints of time travel were quite good to read about and I did actually like Jace as a character… even though I found it quite confusing when she was experiencing so much deja vu. I did feel, at times, that there were some elements of repetition through the book.

I found both Corey and Damien hard to understand at times. While I think a lot of the confusion made sense for Jace, I found myself constantly having to adjust to the fact that both of Jace’s potential romance interests seemed to come across as bad guys.

I thought the idea of the tablet was a really cool one, though I didn’t really understand how it got to Jace even by the end of the book. There were a few things I didn’t really understand even by the end of the book… and I really didn’t like the love triangle that developed. I didn’t really feel that Jace had real feelings towards either of them.

I did feel that the world of the book was very self-contained. I didn’t see too many characters outside of the main ones. I would have liked to see more of Jace’s relationship with her father. His behaviour later on seemed very much at odds with how he was with Jace beforehand. While there were certain things that did make sense later on, I didn’t feel that a lot of those issues were resolved satisfactorily by the end of the book.

There was quite a good thread of mystery through this book, but I felt that Jace didn’t make a lot of connections that were obvious to me. I also wasn’t quite sure what Jace’s job at Omnibus was… there was reference made to how skilled she was, but I didn’t see much evidence of that.

I felt the book picked up a bit more towards the end and it was good to see that Jace did start acting on her own, rather than passively allowing the men around her to take charge and make the decisions for her.

The ending was intriguing enough to pique my interest in reading another book in this series, especially since this book ended on something of a cliffhanger.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. I thought the idea, while not on a whole a unique one, had a very different twist. While Senza was a very young character, I actually felt the fact she was obsessed with the thought of dying made a lot of sense, considering the time period she was in.

My biggest issue with this book, I found, was the fact that there was little else to Senza’s character. Just beauty and the obsession with death. (And I felt the fact that she was beautiful was repeated so many times… I was sitting there thinking, ‘What else?’)

If I had to pick another word for Senza than beautiful, it would be shallow. For a lot of the book, she thinks only of herself. While she does have an evolution towards the end, that didn’t fit naturally with the journey of her character. Part of it might have been because I didn’t get the impression that Senza really connected with anyone. Many conversations and interactions with people were glossed over, to the point I couldn’t remember a lot of the minor characters.

I thought it was interesting to see how Senza’s locket played a big part in keeping her alive. It was interesting to see how more heartbeats were needed at certain times and less at others. I would have liked to see Senza’s thoughts on the changing world around her… but it seemed to me that she was only wrapped up in her own reality for most of the book.

I had mixed feelings about Knell. While the ending cleared some up in the way of confusion, I still didn’t really like him as a character. And the ending was… unsatisfying.

I thought it was interesting to see Senza involved in the Jack the Ripper murders, though I completely lost who it actually was and got quite confused when Senza had her confrontation with him. (Though I’m fairly sure that Senza had a flash of intuition about the murderer when she met him).

There were some good aspects to this book, but I struggled a lot to connect to Senza especially. It wouldn’t stop me reading other books by this author, but I won’t be reading this one again.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Again, I’d probably give this book 2.5 stars. While the book was fairly easy to read, there was a lot of character development that I felt fell by the wayside. There were a lot of conversations mentioned in the narration that I knew hadn’t actually appeared in the previous book… one of the biggest examples of telling rather than showing.

I did find Olee to be a really interesting character and it would have been good to see more of him outside of Aimee. I found it really disappointing that Aimee basically became a lust object… and didn’t seem to have any holdovers from apparently being monogamous in her life. (Plus, her attitude in this book made how she treated Marc completely hypocritical… much worse than it had been to him and Naomi in book two).

It took me about 30% of the book to remember that Damian was technically a bad guy… but Aimee seemed to have completely forgotten her past with him. She didn’t have much of a character in book one… but book two, I felt she was becoming too much like Damian.

I would have liked to see more action in this book… or at least more in the sense of Aimee building up allies and contacts. Having finished this book, I actually can’t say that I know what it was really about… There was a tiny amount about vampire children being targeted… but even though there was a brief conversation, it seemed to be far from the priority that both Damian and Aimee claimed it was.

I felt that, in this book, Aimee was the centre of attention. I found it really hard to imagine any of the characters having lives outside of when she wanted to talk to them. I had the feeling the secondary characters didn’t exist outside of Aimee being there.

I was a bit disappointed not to see anything more of Tierney in this book, after what had happened to her in the previous book. And there were a lot of characters I didn’t know very well and found hard to picture who they were in my head.

I won’t be reading book four in this series… and will not be seeking out any more books by this author right now.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 2.5 stars out of 5. I couldn’t honestly say that it was better than the first book. It wasn’t exactly worse… but I took off half a star due to Aimee toeing the line of a Mary Sue-like character.

I did think it was interesting to see that Damian was shown to be more of a grey character, but I felt especially disappointed in Aimee. While I could understand why she was reluctant to take that step into darkness by taking Damian’s life… I did feel that she didn’t exactly fight against the vampire who’d basically stolen her first life and caused her absolute misery.

While I did find many of the other characters interesting, I couldn’t see a reason for Marc to suddenly decide to betray Aimee. While there were hints of foreshadowing, his actions were completely out of character… and I strongly disliked Aimee’s reactions to him and Naomi, since I didn’t feel those were the actions of a strong character.

I did like the fact that there were other supernatural creatures in the book, but I was disappointed not to have the opportunity to learn more about them. I would have thought Aimee would be a good way of allowing readers to learn more about the world… but she seemed to be far too self-absorbed to want to know more about the world she’d been dragged further into.

While there were some small elements of tension in the book, I felt a lot of those weren’t really allowed to come to fruition, given the amount of telling rather than showing that went on. I also found myself hit over the head with some really obvious foreshadowing.

Because the POV kept switching (even though it was in third person), I felt there was little in the way of mystery. I would have preferred to be allowed to form my own opinions of the characters and situations, rather than being told by the main characters.

I have begun reading book three, but so far, the series hasn’t met my expectations.