Devyn Dawson

Warning, slight spoiler...just slight.

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Okay, much better than the first book. With two hundred pages shaved off it didn't drag like book one. The errors were not quite as bad, but noticeable (switching tense within the same sentence was the most painful and obvious to me). And, the characters were more developed and endearing. She also laid off the "cool kid talk" that was a little grating in book one.

I will read the next book in the series, she's got me wanting answers to so many questions!

How/where is little Storm?
What's the deal with Parker; good or evil?
What's up with Parker and Sapphire?
Who keeps randomly biting people and why?
Will Chrissy come back?
Does Abel end up with Pru after all?
Is Oakley all he seems?

See, I need resolution, and I'm prepared to pay both money and time to get it. Good on ya with that, Dawson! Clear up that editing stuff and book three will get five stars.

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Reread. I can't imagine the writing will improve enough for a 5 star rating on book three, but I suppose anything is possible. I'm only rereading to set myself up to read book three, so hopefully it's worth the effort. Gah!

i.e. "That was my queue to leave." Huh? A "queue" is a line. Like you're waiting in the queue at the coffee shop. "Cue" is the word you're looking for Dawson! Cue. *sigh*. Also, please, for the love of all that is good and right LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEN AND THAN!!!

Also, wolves & dogs have HACKLES, not "shackles"...unless they've been chained up with manacles on their ankles...… (mehr)

Well, this three star thing is so subjective. Because I made it through the whole 700-odd pages and went on to read the next book I have to at least give it enough stars to be in the "like" category, but if I were rating it purely on writing/editing/errors etc...it would be tough to give it two.

Look, no offense, Dawson, I got attached to your characters and interested in the story. But, you did drag this one out a bit. Seriously, 700 pages just to get him to shift? I was 250 pages in when it dawned on me that nothing had actually happened yet. *sigh* Then there were the errors. The editing was terrible, but the real errors were the awful habits:

-Constantly switching tense within the same sentence (let alone paragraph or page). You REALLY need to work on that (it was a problem in book two as well and got to the point of distracting from the story). For example, page 259 of the ebook.
-Editing (word) errors. Just because you run a spell check does not mean you are catching word errors. The fact that the word that is there and the word you wanted are both two letter words does not make them interchangeable. You may have edited this yourself; never a good idea. You know the story too well, your brain skips things. You have to find a third party who is decent with grammar and punctuation to give it a read!
-Repetitive words and phrases. If you use the same word twice in one paragraph that is bad...in the same sentence it is unforgivable. It is easy to do when you are in the "zone", but that is what drafts are for! Seriously, you need to watch the repeated words and phrases.

I wanted to love this book, I wanted to rave about it, I can't. It was too long for what it was, it was riddled with mind-numbing errors. But, she has some good characters there, it was worth it when I got to book two.

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Results of the reread. Ugh! The writing was worse than I remembered. But, I found that since it was a reread for the purposes of remembering the story in order to gear up for book three that I could just read it really really fast, and that helped. Have you ever seen those tests where you're a a sentence with all of the vowels removed, but your brain fills in the gaps? It's like that. If I read fast enough I didn't notice most of it.

However...dogs/wolves have HACKLES not SHACKLES. Someone really needs to let her know this. *cringes*

If I didn't already know that book two is better I would not have gone on to book three, and so not have down the reread. Ever.… (mehr)

This book starts off with a sweet and down to earth young teen and her quick witted and quirky grandma that you like instantly. A really interesting concept of light and dark dating back to greek mythology gives a great backbone to the story while you discover alongside the characters the significance of this and their bonds to other of the same abilities. A refrshingly different idea for a paranormal/fantasy young adult book that I look forward to the next in the series. 3.5 stars.

I was provided a review copy courtesy of promotional Book tours in exchange for an honest review.… (mehr)