Give me ‘Viscounts Addiction’ any day. Obviously. I’m through with the series too. Very disappointing. I think you were too generous with your grade.

Mild Spoiler –

The capture (of the heroine by the hero — or the reverse) is a plot device I don’t often like. But in this case it worked for me — I think there is a hint that there is an element of physical chemistry (or predestination) involved in these relationships. Also, before the attraction took place, it was clear to her and to the reader that the last thing he was going to do was hurt her. To me this was very well established in the first scene — and defined much more strongly later on. And she has a habit of taking care of the people around her so I bought that very early on, she started to try to take care of him, too. I bought that his attraction to her negated his death wish (actually I bought this a little more that I bought the reasons for his death wish — especially after he made it clear that his relationship with his wife had not been ideal.)

I was happy that her “forgetting” to tell Rio that her mother’s friend knew about the vampires wasn’t used to forward the plot — however that made it feel out of place.

Had this been an urban fantasy (or a book by Anne Stuart, whom I adore) I would have been much more critical of the start of their relationship. But in a romance there are certain assumptions made. One of the classic assumptions is “of course he would never hurt her” no matter how dangerous/violent he is and she can tell this by looking in his eyes. Very romantic and perfectly acceptable as long as the reader recognizes that this in only true in the world of books. Hopefully all of us know that in the real world (or in one of Anne Stuarts dark romances) that is a very dangerous assumption to make. But we’re reading a romance.

I still don’t like it when the heroine is too dumb about trusting the hero, but in this book, I bought the attraction and the growth of their relationship. This story worked for me.

But I scanned down to the bottom and, what? Captivity narrative? I didn’t realize. And a grade of C? Now I am SO curious!

I think the key to a successful captivity story — for me, anyway — is having the captive become acculturated into her “new” society before she falls in love with the hero. Had Dylan become more integrated into the daily life at the compound, become friends with the other women, and acclimated herself to the Order, I think I could have easily bought her relationship with Rio, because it would be subsequent to a cultural shift for her. But not only was that missing, but her transition from hostile hostage to love slave was hardly explained. And since she spent only a few days with Rio, much of them tranced into sleep, in the company of a completely muddy and bloody and smelly captor, her attraction to him had me at first wondering if there were pages missing from my book.

Although I give Adrian points for not making a big deal of the setting in which Dylan and Rio finally slake their lust. There was potential there for all sorts of over the top symbolism, and I was grateful that Adrian didn’t exploit that.

I’ll definitely be reading the next one, even though ITA with Jane on the grade for this one.

Keishon –
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It is the alien. I thought the scenes in which it/he is treated were written in such as way that I felt at turns sorry for the Alien and disgusted by him.

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There was another villian who was presented to the readers in a sympathetic light

Who was that? I read this book maybe a little over a week ago and honestly can’t recall. [g] Edited to add: never mind, I know.

I agree with everything you stated about Eva’s character. The problem for me was that I was never privy to what she did; only that she betrayed Rio with no backstory as to how this happened. My loss since I never read the first two books in the series. I think I will continue to read this series but it is one that I am not all the excited about, if you know what I mean. I had graded this book a B- when it probably should have been a C+ as well.