Dianne Duvall

4.5
Book source ~ Purchased at Audible

Alyssa’s grandmother is a wisewoman to Lord Dillon, and before him, his father. But as she has aged Alyssa takes over for her with no one the wiser since they are covered from head to toe in umbral robes. But one day, the jig, as they say, is up and she has some ‘splaining to do. And fast.

Ok, so I listened to this back in July of 2023. It was right after my mom died and I was so busy helping my brothers with her estate and the traveling back and forth from NC to OH took its toll. It’s now eight months later and I can’t really remember all the details. However, I do remember I was entranced and listening to the book made the drive fly by. I remember excitement, tension, danger, romance, steaminess, excellent dialogue, and ass kicking. Everything I expect from a Dianne Duvall book. And as a first listener of Kirsten Potter, I have to say bravo! All-in-all a great way to pass the time. Highly recommend.… (plus d'informations)

Book source ~ ARC. My review is voluntary and honest.

Rachel is an Immortal Guardian who volunteered to go into space with four others of her kind and 10 gifted ones. They were heading to Lasara to see if they could help the Lasarans with a fertility problem. Ok, it’s much more involved than that, but I’m keeping this short. Anyway, they were happily traveling along when their ship was attacked and escape pods were scattered across the galaxy. Rachel finally comes across a planet she hopes will suffice until she can be rescued, but it’s already occupied by people who are in hiding. And she just brought a mortal enemy right to their door. Uh, oh. Now what? A lot of ass kicking, that’s what. Woot!

Hellz to the Yeah times infinity! What a ride! I am loving this series so much! Each book follows what happened to the survivors after the Lasaran warship Kandovar was attacked by the Gathendians. They can all be read as stand alones, but seriously, why would you want to do that? Go back and start at the beginning. You really won’t regret it.

Rachel and Wonick are great characters with tons of personality. The writing flows fast with lots of action and humor. Secondary characters shine and the romance between Rachel and Wonick builds up steam until it explodes into yummy goodness. Wait. That sounds especially naughty. Because it is! Nom nom! I devoured this across three days only because I was in the process of my office renovation. Otherwise it would have been done in one day. I look forward to every single book Dianne Duvall produces. Her Book Release Days are a holiday for me. Or I try to make it so. This year was the exception that I’ll try not to duplicate. If you like your books filled with awesome characters, action, humor, danger, romance, and ass kicking then do not pass this up. Long live Dianne Duvall!… (plus d'informations)

I feel like I've read this book before... a very long time ago, or else, a book rather similar.
Very annoying, but as I've not marked it as already read, maybe it's all in my head :)

World-building was good, all scenes and environments were sufficiently described.

Character development was good, we follow Sarah and Roland through their meeting, fighting and romance. Romance levels were good, not too much, right till the end where it got seriously overkill and mushy. The rest of the cast was active and we learned a lot about their history, opinions and feelings. Loved how Bastien was portrayed!

Pacing and flow were good, good amount of action and enough downtime in between for the story to evolve. Of course as this is a series, ends were left open for the continuation.

The book itself was well written and I found no (noticeable) errors. There is sex described in this book.

All in all an entertaining start to a series. Look forward to reading more in this world and kinda hoping there is more than just Immortal Guardians and vampires :)… (plus d'informations)

Holy hell is the romance mushy. It's so cheesy I wanted to cringe sometimes.
It's cute, don't get me wrong, but it's just too much in places.
It's a bit like if something is way too sweet and it's hurting your teeth and shrivels up your mouth.
Oh, and the dirty talk in this book was among the weirdest I've ever read.

It very much feels like the entire plot and worldbuilding just exists to give the romance a place to play out which is weird because this world has kind of everything. (This is a pure worldbuilding spoiler and shouldn't affect the plot.) Evil aliens, galactic alliances, rabid vampires, good vampires, espers of all kinds with extremely powerful superpowers, evil secret government and many more. If a fiction-genre clichée or stereotype exists it's probably in this series.

The entire world is naive for lack of a better word. Everything is two-dimensional and simplistic. I don't mean this in the usual sense (though it somewhat applies that way too) but in a way, the author doesn't refine anything. I have a hard time putting this into words without a spoilery list of examples but that is the fault of my insufficient English skill.
Lots of very complicated problems are just brushed off without a good explanation. There is just no depth anywhere. Everything is equally shallow I guess. It's just so much stuff in this world that I doubt the series can even come close to get through and address all the things it touched upon.

Oh, and there are quite a lot of mistakes. The author just assumes and extrapolates a lot of things she just doesn't know and didn't research either. One harmless example is exposure to the vacuum of space. You could recover from very brief (up to 10-15 seconds) exposure without any protection without even suffering adverse effects and you wouldn't pass out either. (We don't know about longer exposure but apart from passing out the assumption is that you might be able to recover from exposure as long as 45 seconds.)
This is something educated members of an advanced alien civilization should know.
This is just one example that doesn't really spoil anything but there are a lot of these kinds of usually rather insignificant mistakes that nag on me especially because most of them could've been prevented by a quick google search.

All in all I enjoyed it somewhat but not enough to continue the series.
Objectively this is closer to 2 stars than 3 but oh well. It was sweet and I was in the mood to read something sweet. What is objectivity anyway...… (plus d'informations)