Unspoken (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3) by C. C. Hunter

Overall Rating: 3 Stars

Date Finished: November 5 2016

As the Della part of this series closes up there is a lot of things to resolves and lots of questions to answer and Della is receiving pressure from her aunt the ghost to find those answers fast.

Chase is back. He is determined to do things right this time and he will willing to give up everything to do it. He is working hard to earn Della's trust again and has promised not to lie to her ever again (I'll believe that when I see it). And while the new Chase is very sincere and open about his feelings, he is also super frustrating because he just keeps saying, were meant to be together, and trying to force things. 

Steve is back too, and while things with Steve are awkward there is satisfying resolution of their relationship in the end. 

There is the usual mystery and searches while they try to find the murderer of their aunt in time to get Della's father removed as a suspect. And it doesn't help that Della's father is an idiot and turns Della into the police as a suspect for murder herself!

Della finally meets her uncle, lots of things are answered and everything is wrapped up in a nice little bow. And that was actually what I really hated about this book. I can live with Chase. I can live with some of the other changes and info reveals. What I can't live with is the magical, Disneyesc resolution with Della's father. 

I get it, he finally realizes that his daughter is not a monster. He cries and he feels so bad, blah, blah blah. And then she forgives him and somehow they automatically go back to having that amazing relationship that they had before. 

I don't care how great your relationship with your dad is, after years of being treated like crap by him, after being kicked out of your house and accused murder, there is no way that relationship is fixed in 5 minutes. Even if you still love him, even if you forgive him and do it sincerely, that relationship is never going to be the same. There is will always be drama, and hurt, and it is going to take them years to really resolve everything that happened. And I hate that she tried to just erase all of that in order to give Della her perfect, happy ending. You can still have a happy ending without it being perfect, that's called real life

So, overall it was good but I had some major issues with the ending. 

Eternal (Shadow Falls After Dark #2) by C.C. Hunter

Overall Rating: 3 Stars

Date Finished: October 31, 2016

So, let's all start by being honest and just admit that whether we love or hate these books, we are still going to keep on reading them because we loved Shadow Falls and we just have to see how it all ends!

Now, coming back to this series, as I mentioned in my review of the previous book, I am reminded how much drama there is in these books. There is of course the continuation of the love triangle from the previous book. I wasn't a fan of Chase in the previous book. And while I liked him more in this book than I did the previous one, like Della, I find myself wondering how much of that has to do with the bond and the shared visions. 

There is are still some unanswered questions and Chase still is not very forthcoming with information, which again continues to cause issues on the relationship front. And yet, there are also issues going on with Steve. Add into that Miranda's issues with Perry and there is lots of romance drama going around everywhere. 

The part that I do enjoy about these series is the murder mystery. You have these murder mysteries that also seem to tie into the history of Della's family and that leads to Della running out trying to solve it all before it's too late. 

At the end there are still lots of questions left unanswered and there is a big cliff hanger at the end that leaves Chase in the hot seat. 

I will say that it is getting harder to like a love interest who is constantly being an idiot, or lying. And yet, despite it all, I still enjoyed the book and I still look forward to the next book in the series, 

Magic Binds (Kate Daniels #9) by Ilona Andrews

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Date Finished: October 18, 2016

I originally came into the Kate Daniels series very reluctantly and was skeptical that I would enjoy it. And yet, despite the romance section which I tend to avoid, I found myself really drawn in by the characters. There are very few series that I will keep reading this long (or at least keep enjoying). If I don't give up by book 2 or 3, I will sometimes continue but not enjoy the books as much. This series, on the other hand, has always done a good job of maintaining.

Now, after everything that has happened in this book comes the inevitable show down with her father. And while this is just one battle it what will most likely prove to be a long war, if they lose this battle it's game over. 

It all starts when Kate it showed a vision of the two possibilities for the war. In one version Curran dies, and in another, their son dies. And so Kate is desperate to make sure that neither one of those happen. 

For the most part Kate continues to be her same old self but the people she care about begin to doubt her. Mostly her ability to control her powers rather than letting them control her. And so, in order to learn to control her powers she does a crazy thing and resurrects her aunt. Granted, her aunt is only resurrected in spirit form but let's be honest, no one is overly happy to see her again. But she is able to convince her aunt to help and begins training to control her powers.

Now, I will say that there is a lot more planning and talking in this book than actual fighting so it can get a bit slow at times. And my only other complaint is that the ending of the battle seemed to be a little too easy. Now, I will admit that there was lots of planning that went into it and they had allies that her father couldn't have planned for, but her father is so much stronger than her and in the end he could have used his power to just flatten all of them instead of fleeing. Again, I understand the factors that affected that decision and I understand that this was just one battle of a long war but I just expected a little bit more from her father.

Either way in the end they are able to save the city and Kate and Curran finally get married. There are definitely some interesting things coming up for the next book and I must say I am interested to see a pregnant Kate because for some reason I don't see her being the glowing, cheerful type of pregnant woman. And I'm sure Curran's protective side with definitely cause some interesting relationship issues. 

And on a bit of a side note, can I just say that I am really excited about Christopher! He was always kind of a fun, quirky side character but now that he is whole again, I just can't wait to see that all play out!!!

Witchling (Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon #1) by Yasmine Galenorn

Overall Rating: 1 star

Date Finished: October 5, 2016

This book was a disappointment. I picked it up because it was on my Top 25 list of books that take place in Wa and I was curious. The idea could have been good but the execution just wasn't there. 

One of my biggest complaints is that the world building was sporadic and unclear. I mean, just the premise itself, three sisters with three very different powers. They describe weres as a separate race from the sidhe and yet their father is sidhe and her sister is a were. So is it another race or a manifestation of sidhe power, because you can't have it both ways. They also mention witches as being different from sidhe and one character's powers is being a witch. And while the third is now a vampire, the only comment on her beforehand is that her power was climbing walls. So just in that back story alone there's a lot of contradiction. All the characters are pretty stereotypical and uninteresting. 

And all the romance is lame. The main love interests in an arrogant, self-obsessed jerk and she sleeps with him despite the fact that she doesn't even like him. And while she does actually like the other guy, she still maintains an ongoing relationship with both. And both guys spend most of the book talking about how good they are in bed. It was just all so overdone and unrealistic. All the conversations seemed forced and none of it seemed like real people interacting but just shells of a character.

I also hated all the assumptions and random conclusions. They get a vague description from a drunk guy in the alley and yet she knows who he is immediately. Of course, it must be him! Then they go to Tom's and come across a female fey and she all of the sudden knows who it is, this must be Wisteria who was mentioned in one sentence in a diary even though I have no idea what she looks like but I just know it's her. And the whole book goes like that, from random conclusion to random conclusion with no leg work, no real investigation and not much of a fight anywhere. Camille cares more about her designer clothes and having sex and was just not a likable character.

Unfortunately, this was a big miss for me.

House of the Rising Sun (Crescent City #1) by Kristen Painter

Overall Rating: 3 Stars

Date Finished: September 16, 2016

This book left me a bit torn. There were things that I liked and things that I didn’t like, which made it very hard to rate.

Based on the blurb you expect a book all about Augustine, but there are actually two main characters and alternating POV’s between the two of them. The second character is Olivia’s daughter, Harlow. And this is where things get complicated.

See, Harlow is pretty hard to like in the beginning. She’s closed off, selfish, and afraid of just about everything except for computers and online gaming. She is even afraid of her own Fae heritage and closes herself and pretends to be human. The good thing is that it gets better. Harlow grows throughout the book and is more enjoyable towards the end of the book, but the first part of this book it’s still hard to deal with her. And while the character POV gives you some understanding as to why she acts the way she does she just keeps going back to that “void” in her life all because she doesn’t know her Dad is. I understand the frustration, but you don’t just cut yourself off from the world because you don’t know who your dad is.

On the other hand, Augustine was a very likable character. Just enough rogue and darkness to be interesting and his interactions with Harlow are quite enjoyable.

There is some action and intrigue and mystery and it all seems to be building up to something big, and that is where I got really disappointed. See, there is this big fight going on with the vampires and yet every fight feels summarized. There’s no suspense, no tense moments, and it was all usually over in one page or less. And so I kept thinking, well, she’s building up to the big fight at the end.

And then the vampire boss kidnaps Harlow, and when Augustine comes home the fight is literally over in 1 minute or less. So I think, now it’s all going to come to a head, or some new information will be revealed or there will be some sort of cliffhanger, and yet, it just ends. In fact, I found myself paging back and forth and the end of the book wondering if my copy was somehow missing the last chapter!

The beginning was slow, the middle got better, and there was lots of buildup and yet that was the worst ending ever. All the exciting parts of the book felt brushed over and not well developed and I found that very unsatisfying, and anticlimactic.

And yet, despite all of my frustrations, by the end I really liked the characters. That alone will probably be enough for me to read the next book but I really hope things pick up because this was frustrating.

And I should note that I did not read the House of Comarre series (I guess this is a spinoff of that series).