Got halfway through, put it aside for a week, and realized I didn't miss it at all. I was interested in several aspects of it, but they just didn't speak to me. Fair enough - not every book is for everyone. ( )

2.5/5 stars

I have to be honest. This book was a big disappointment for me. Maybe I was expecting too much from it, but it fell short in multiple places for me. I read [b:Caught Forever Between|13431124|Caught Forever Between|Adrian Phoenix|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327779514s/13431124.jpg|18922942] before I read this book and it was great! I loved the author's voice, the characters, the world. Admittedly that story was written farther along then this book, so maybe this series matures to that, but I'm really not interested in pursuing that hope after this book.

Kallie wakes up in a hotel bathroom after a night of partying. When she goes to join her paramour of the night in bed she finds him dead, murdered and his Clan brother knocking on the door demanding to see him. The spell was meant for Kallie and not only is she trying to find the killer gunning after her cousin, herself, and her childhood friend, she has to deal with her one night stand's clan, and the HA police force breathing down her neck. It's a great start. Unfortunately it flounders from here as the MC proves she's really not that bright.

My issues:
1. The italics. Oh for the love of god. There's a flag on the field for excessive use of italics. There must be a penalty box here somewhere. These useless, annoying, repetitive italics are used to peer into the past, from years, to moments ago. Unfortunately the interesting past parts are repeated ad nauseum (I get it, her mama tried to shoot her!) and the more recent italics memories are repeats of previous parts, word for word, paragraph for paragraph at times, or simply could have been added to the normal text, considering they happened 30 seconds ago.

2. The punching. Kallie, get some anger management! She punches undeserving people repeatedly, and I mean to the point of broken noses, for things like following her to protect her. She punches the equivalent of a police officer, and nobody even blinks. That's what tasers and flexicuffs are for. This does not make her bad ass any more than the fact that other characters are amazed when she says "please" and "thank you". It just makes her a bad person who doesn't seem to deserve these friends of hers.

3. Superficial as hell. There's a dead guy in your bed and you're thinking his friend is hot? I'm sure he is, but let's have a little shock, a little tortured reality beyond "aww, all my fault, so sad, man he's hot...". They're all this superficial, and it's in beyond silly ways. I mean it's nearing the end, the bad guy is out there, they can't get up with loved ones to have things confirmed or denied and they go to judge and compete in a wet boxer contest? Idiots that deserve to die for 1,000 please. This entire scene was so silly I was just in shock. I wanted to personally hex all of them. Preferrably with VD's.

4. Layne and Augustine. Seriously, you're using a guy's body and doing that to him? If it had been a man in a woman's body there would have been screaming and ranting from readers. I don't see how this is any better with man on man. That's seriously not hot to me.

5. The end mystery wrap-up is ridiculous. She almost dies because of a case of mistaken identity? WTF. Absolutely useless. It just killed all the suspense. Bad guy! Oh wait, still bad guy, but nothing to do with you.

There's more even beyond this, but these were literally so eye rolling for me that I wrote them down to remember for later. There's promise here. The idea is good at least, even if I hate all the characters. (Soo annoying. If anyone ever mutters "Hellfire" around me I will pull a Kallie and break their nose). It's just superficial all over, from characters, to place, to magic evaluation. It should have been dark, gut wrenching, magical, scary, any of the above and overall it was yawnable, boring and made me just hope for the end to get there. Maybe she'll publish another novella for me to enjoy. Preferably one where the author is not trying to set up an annoying, superficial relationship/triangle. ( )

Sadly this book was a DNF for me, the story progressed too slowly to keep my attention until I just didn't care what happened to the characters. I won't be reading any more of this series. ( )

2.5-3 I love Adrian Phoenix's Maker Song series but this was nothing like it. Kallie the heroine- she brash, rude, makes stupid choices and punches her friends in the face for trying to protect her. Her friend Belladonna is almost exactly the same. I was so taken aback by their weak choices, unbelievable actions and misplaced distrust I could not enjoy the story. I just did not like either one of them. They treated their male friends with such disrespect...Well I just couldn't get past them.
The story was slow paced and dragged. I found myself confused several times when POV's changed, trying to figure out who was who ? The second 1/2 of the story moved at a quicker pace and was easier to follow but I still did not connect to the characters. I finished the story and was left hanging- a cliffhanger ending ARGUH ! I am very sorry to say this series is a complete miss for my taste. ( )

Not too bad a book. I'm looking forward to the sequel and seeing where the Author takes the characters in the series. It fast paced so hold onto your shorts when you read this book ( )