Slinking back to my hole now!

Jane A.: I’m glad that review of If You Desire (as well as the book) worked for you. I am also surprised at how much the Cole books work for me, but that’s part of their charm, I guess. I see them as sort of feminist-retro Romance, with the almost barbaric heroes and super-strong, super-sassy heroines. No TSTL females in these books, thank goodness! I also think that her writing has improved immensely over the course of her books, which is something I always love to see in the genre.

I enjoy your reviews and, really, you can’t please all the people all the time.

Jane A.: I was actually thinking that very thing about not having read too many paranormals before I hit the wall with this one, so I guess we all have our breaking point. IMO Cole is too strong of a storyteller to have to rely on the fated to mate concept in the place of real character development, so it was kind of a double disappointment to me.

Devon: I am not a fan of the covers, either, although I like the No Rest for the Wicked cover the best. Although in part that’s because of Jane and Ned’s video review, lol. A big part of my problem with this one is that 1) Bowen looks more like a vamp than a werewolf and 2) Bowen is described as ENORMOUS, and the guy on this cover looks neither tall enough (especially in comparison to the “wee” Mari) nor broad enough to be a Lykae.

Meriam: The only part I hate about reviewing is having people hate a book they read on the basis of my review. It actually took me a couple of Cole books to be seduced, so perhaps I’ve entered soul mate territory, too, since I definitely forgive more with her than I would with some other authors, even when she crosses the line (which she has, for me, on more than one occasion).

M: I find the excesses in her heroes much harder to take in her historicals than in her paranormal books. But since I read her work primarily for the heroines, it’s rarely a make or break thing for me.

I love this series, so of course, had to go get the electronic version as soon as I read this entry (didn’t know it was available already!) … I kept having all sorts of problems with the downloads (I am used to epublishers so I was more than just merely aggravated by the experience, as most epublishers have relatively painless checkouts). Finally was able to get it to work in one of my least favored formats (Microsoft’s ereader … yech).

Anyway, the first two chapters have me hooked, so that bids well, I am the sort that knows almost off the bat if I am going to like a book or not depending on how I like the characters and I am liking the characters.

As to her historicals, they are hit or miss with me.

M.

Re: “soul mates.” I remember the first time I came across this concept (L J Smith’s Night World series, eons ago) I was utterly enthralled. Now it just seems a soul mate can excuse any number of sins, not least inconsistent characterisation and some otherwise really disturbing behaviour.

P.S. What is with these covers? The guy looks rather goony. I enlarged the image to see if it made him look any better. And doesn’t it look vampire-y?

anu, the first book in the series is A Hunger Like No Other, and though the books probably stand alone just fine there is reference to incidents in other books you can pick up if you read them in order.

The shorthand of all shorthands – the mated pair.

Re: mated pairs. This is one of my biggest peeves in romance. I used to love this type of story until paranormals took it out behind the shed and mauled it to death. I just read JRW’s Lover Unbound, in which Vishous repetition of “Mine” replaces most (not all) of the development of the romance.