Light My Fire

At times during this book I experienced the "oh this feels like a light-hearted fluffy read" and I kind of grokked what I was supposed to get out of it. But the continued incongruity of Aisling as a character made it impossible for me to empathize with her and time and again kicked me out of the suspended disbelief and into raging-at-book territory.

Jim's recap of book 1 and 2 explains this pretty well:
“Ha! Relationship. Is that what you’re calling it now? You two get together; you break it off. You get together again; you agree to be his mate; you take an oath of fealty to the sept; you get pissy; you leave him. Doesn’t sound like much relationship is going on there.”

This time London. It's about as much London specific as the previous books were Budapest or Paris. The setting happens in the imagination of the reader. But at least Aisling gets to see the cities of Europe, and whine about her "thing" with Drake. A lot.

“You know, normally I just can’t get enough of you whining about Drake, or crying over Drake, or ranting about Drake, or any of the other gazillion ‘about Drake’ things you constantly do because you’re obsessed with the man but refuse to admit it, but since you insist on starving this fabulous form I’ve taken simply because I’m a few pounds over the standard Newfie weight, I just don’t have the strength for it today.”


But this wouldn't be Aisling Grey if the moment that Drake appears all of Aislings betrayed feelings and resolve not to be involved with him go ... out the window:

One minute [Drake] was standing several paces away; the next he was pushing me up against the open door, his body hard and aggressive, mine automatically answering by going all soft on him. “You cannot be under any delusion that you can simply walk away from me.”
“I know I pricked your pride by leaving you,” I said carefully, telling my body to stop mugging him and to behave itself so I could concentrate on reasoning with the most unreasonable dragon in human form that ever walked the planet. “But there is nothing more between us, Drake. It’s over.”
“It is not…over…” he growled, his lips so close to mine I could feel the heat of his mouth. The scent of him, spicy and masculine and uniquely Drake, went immediately to my head and made me giddy with want. [...]
“Oh, man. He’s going to pork you right here in front of me, isn’t he? Jeez, and they say dogs have no shame.”

This is what's wrong with the romance part of these books. One minute everything is broken off, and she feels betrayed and the next she is giddy with want.

Drake sat silent, his eyes on me as his fingers rubbed his chin. The gesture melted the stone wall I’d tried so hard to build around my heart. I loved the man; that was the bottom line. And since that didn’t seem likely to change, it would be better for everyone if I stopped fighting that fact and focused on making it work.

What I just don't get is what makes her love Drake? It seems for Aisling it's enough that he's hot and his dragon fire melts her ... into a gooey pile of brain-slush. As far as I can tell so far they've only ever been having make-up sex or something akin to assault... And talking about the sex in this book. It has turned from "off-putting" to schooling. She's now giving out grades and brownie points.

Aisling to Drake: “Deal. I have a couple of things I want to know, but first, you get a big gold star and an A for the semester for the ice cube idea, although the next time it’s my turn.” [...] “That would be nice. And just so you know, this falls under the sharing category, so you get bonus points for doing it.”

The romance plot reads like somebody took a bad relationship advice column and tried to force it into a plot where the bits of pieces of "how to make it work" could be inserted at fitting points to educate the clueless reader. I am so not the target audience for "how-to-relationship" thank you very much. The absolute highlight is when Aisling states her terms for having a relationship with Drake, to go with the click-baity headlines "the last one really got me":

“One last condition,” I said, taking a deep breath. I was honestly surprised that he’d agreed to my conditions thus far. Maybe he had changed? Maybe the separation had done what I’d hoped it would—made him see I was serious about being a Guardian? Maybe we could live happily ever after, after all? “I want you to tell me what you’re thinking.” He didn’t move. Not even an eyelash trembled. “Why?”

I read romance to escape into fantastic, exciting and fresh relationships overcoming obstacles and finding sweet moments... it can be over the top like [b: Burn for me|20705702|Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy, #1)|Ilona Andrews|http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1396368355s/20705702.jpg|40025563] and it doesn't have to be believable but the story has to have some consistent development not this eternal back-and-forth with sudden 180° turn-arounds. Even with Drake's ass-holiness much reduced in this book, Aisling parroting [insert random advice column] back at us... totally returns this to the realm eye-rolling-induced-migraines.

See I had to go through the book searching for "keywords" to find an example of what the sex scenes are like, because I skipped them all. They are long and ... weird. Example:

Heaven became nirvana when he lifted my legs onto his shoulders, his penis a burning brand that pushed its way into my chilled depths, the feel of both together pushing me over the edge and into a climax that triggered his.

But there's more to this book than the failed romance plot. There is still Aisling the trouble magnet... with a refrain of everyone continuously saying "Aisling, you do not understand..." - but also nobody ever bothers to explain anything. So chaos ensues and by the midpoint of the book there are about 10 different subplots going on


- Jim ate the king of the imps (“I’m very much afraid that your demon has eaten the reigning imp monarch. I shudder to think of what sort of retribution they will seek against you.”)
- The committee is going after Nora & Nora's house has burned down so they have to move in with Drake...
- The red dragons are at war, they are among several parties trying to assassinate Aisling
- Dimitri wants to be wyvern and reveals Drakelings convoluted family history ...
- Fiat and/or Gabriel tried to push Aisling in front of train
- Aisling runs around with a sword stuck through her like it's no big deal
- Drakeling‘s mother hates her (I kind of enjoyed her appearances.)
- Demon Prince Ariton wants her support for Chief Demon Prince (by the way it later turns out he's in the software business...)
- The Venediger position from book 1 is still open and the top-contender wants her support or else she will become it
- Aisling might be pregnant ("I would know, wouldn't I?" "You're not the most astute person...")
- The mystery of Rene has only ever deepened (and I am not happy with the "by the way" explanation we get in the end.)
- New mysteries about what kind of demon Jim actually is (also gets cleared up at the end)
- Suddenly there are black dragons - well there used to be. No mention in book 1 or 2 at all. More plot convenience...
- Dark powers are tempting Aisling - as if we didn't have enough trouble understanding her motivations


Another quite accurate recap from Jim:

“You know,” Jim said, following us up the curved staircase. Nora and Rene, both with faces filled with questions, trailed behind us. “My life used to be boring. A damnation here, a curse there, with an occasional blight or two to break routine. Now I have Aisling.” I glared over my shoulder at the demon. It grinned back. “She’s better than reality TV, Internet porn sites, and the trashloids all put together.”

Luckily the subplots do get cleared up somewhere in the latter half one after another although most have little to no impact on the main plot except serving to make Aisling go places where something else happens or be late to places or enable her to be kidnapped by someone ... speaking of which: what exactly drives Fiat to his masterplan is unclear and confusing. But as someone said in the BBB forum: Aisling's cluelessness is probably infectious.

I added a star after being reminded by another review that this book does indeed have a few moments that really made me laugh outloud ... I wish there were more of those, the comedic potential is good, it should be more prevalent.

There's a lot of setup for book 4 and I'll read it because after having read 1-3 I kind of want to know what the end is going to be.

And I am off to read the conclusion to the Hidden Legacy so I can get Aisling out of my system ;)