mass market paperback, 352 pages
Published March 3, 2009 by Roc.
In a nightmarish new york city, life is there for the taking...Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother Niko are hired by the vampire Seamus to find out who has been following him-until Seamus turns up dead (or un-undead). Worse still is the return of Cal's nightmarish family, the Auphe. The last time Cal and Niko faced them, they were almost wiped out. Now, the Auphe want revenge. But first, they'll destroy everything Cal holds dear...
OK, that restores some faith in the series. A grim but fun run with character development.
This book was saved for me by two things:
1) The tattoo Cal got in book 1 was finally addressed. (That was a particular almost-What Happened To The Mouse? scenario that's been bugging me forever. XD)
2) A chapter close to the end where Niko goes out-of-his-mind-homicidal-crazy on our sub-villain of the novel. Yay Yandere, co-dependent, brother relations!
Overall though, it wasn't until the end that I started enjoying the novel as much as the others. At this point in the series, the novels have gotten a tad repetitive. Introduce villain of the book, introduce sub-plot or twist, hunt him down, Auphe get in the way & have to be dealt with in a huge fight/event. This time around though, it felt really busy. There was a lot going on in this one from running to place to place, and a stream of new characters mixed with the old. …
This book was saved for me by two things:
1) The tattoo Cal got in book 1 was finally addressed. (That was a particular almost-What Happened To The Mouse? scenario that's been bugging me forever. XD)
2) A chapter close to the end where Niko goes out-of-his-mind-homicidal-crazy on our sub-villain of the novel. Yay Yandere, co-dependent, brother relations!
Overall though, it wasn't until the end that I started enjoying the novel as much as the others. At this point in the series, the novels have gotten a tad repetitive. Introduce villain of the book, introduce sub-plot or twist, hunt him down, Auphe get in the way & have to be dealt with in a huge fight/event. This time around though, it felt really busy. There was a lot going on in this one from running to place to place, and a stream of new characters mixed with the old. It just felt like a lot to take in, even though if I wrote out the plot it wouldn't actually be that much.
While we're sticking with stuff I didn't enjoy--relationships. The Promise & Georgina romances have always felt forced since the beginning. There's more chemistry between Cal and Niko (or even Cal & Robin if you squint...well, When Ishiah's not around, anyway.) than there is between them and their respective story-asigned romantic partners. I can tell the novel is trying, but it just seems sort of empty.
Delilah gives me hope, though. So I'll be looking forward to more of her relationship with Cal. The little snips of the relationship leave more to the imagination to fill in the details. (And she's you know, awesome.)
But, the novel wasn't completely unenjoyable--there were quite a few redeeming moments as well. The POV this time around switched first person between Niko and Cal per chapter, so we got to explore a bit more than Cal's head--so that was fun. The Niko chapters were odd at first, but as he started getting more unhinged (Niko has fun in this one XD), they get more fun to read. By the end I was enjoy the story quite a bit, it just took some time to get there.
And of course Robin is always entertaining, that wonderful Puck.
The Cherish storyline that took up the second half was probably the most interesting part of the novel in the long run. The Auphe storyline read similarly to the other encounters we've read before, so it was nice to see a new storyline with a great twist. The reveal that showed in the Auphe storyline turned out to be less of one when I wasn't surprised at all it showed up.
I can't say the same for the Cherish storyline. The final twist in that art was a punch in the gut that had me going "OH RIGHT! I totally knew that about PLOT DEVICE but forgot! I knew something was up with PLOT DEVICE Just didn't know what! XD That's awesome!" almost line for line. It was a great twist, that led to an even greater pay off surrounding Niko, and for that--the book was worth it.
So, good job last two or three chapters. If not for you, I might have given up on the series, but I'll probably grab the next book after I take a break for two or three novels to shake things up. :3
