Review: Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 05) by Chloe Neill

Book info:
Format: e-book, Kindle edition
Genre: urban fantasy (I would add PNR but I am not sure)
Target audience: those unfortunate creatures who have read previous parts and got addictes e.g. me (adults)


Synopsis:


Drink Deep catches up two months after Hard Bitten ends. Malik Washington is now in charge of Cadogan House and, surprise, surprise, he faces many problems. Well, a problem-free life for a vampire Master in Chicago? You must be kidding, right?

So, firstly the new mayor believes vampires have received special treatment so far and has decided to put a stop to it; she is strongly influenced by a man with an unreasonable hatred for vampires, believing they must be evil. Next the water in Lake Michigan and the Chicago river has turned black and stopped moving. The public is quick to blame the vampires, but they have had nothing to do with it. Still their task is to get to the bottom of this mystery before lynches start. Merit, as Sentinel, turns to Jonah, the captain of the guards for Grey House, for help. Jonah is also secretly a member of the Red Guard - he has tried to persuade Merit to join them. With the offer still standing he agrees to help investigate this weird disturbance.

Meanwhile Franklin Cabot has been appointed receiver of Cadogan House. The GP has decided they didn't like the way the House was run by Ethan, so he was sent in to evaluate the damage and improve things. Frank is clearly a power-obsessed bureaucrat and soon he becomes a complete pain in the ass for everyone that lives at Cadogan House, limiting their blood consumption and making free speech illegal. Merit knows it can’t last long, especially as she is having vivid dreams or rather nightmares of Ethan. When the sky suddenly turns red, all supernatural creatures and humans realize they must solve this riddle before their city is destroyed by some evil forces.

What I liked:

The book was short. I didn't waste a lot of time.

What I didn’t like (highlight to read the spoilers):

It will be one of sadder reviews. It proves me wrong - sometimes I am simply too optimistic when it comes to such novels, hoping for the best, expecting some logic and reason...

In my very humble opinion the whole series lost all steam and sparkle. To me it felt like Ms. Neill had just a deadline to meet and a book to write – a task, not creative pleasure. She did what she was supposed to do and what she was paid for but, apparently, she lacked skills and/or courage to continue the series in a logical way. Basically her story seems more or less like a dull repetition of old tricks, known from previous parts. I am sure any fanfic writer could have written such a book – perhaps actually some of them would have done  a better job.

First of all Merit doesn’t seem to be developing as a character. It is a huge drawback in a character-driven plot. For example she doesn’t seem to be mourning for her ex-lover and master. Not really. Although she is sad, basically  she gets back to work and fighting. I think I expected to see her undergoing some intense depression, to be lost in a staggering state of grief; well, maybe vampires are more resilient than humans but she is more or less ok, continuously making the same decisions and having the same inner turmoil, just with different man. It seemed strange. True, she has those Ethan-themed nightmares but who doesn’t have nightmares from time to time…

The book narration circles around a mystery which was quite obvious to me even at the very beginning. Repeatedly throughout the book there are references made to sorcerers being the only ones who could have initiated the elemental magic yet Merit and Jonah, her heavily educated partner with four doctorates, need the entire book to reach that conclusion, ultimately discovering it was Mallory. Merit claims repeatedly Mallory is like a close sister to her but still she doesn't manage to put two and two together. It seems that Ethan took  a big chunk of of her intelligence to his urn.


By the way I would have liked to have seen at least some build up indicating Mallory had a dark side. From the beginning of the series, Mallory was always like a  level-headed and kind sidekick. Out of the blue, she is embracing evil ,becoming a power-crazy bitch and nearly destroying the city – why?

In the end a blow that left a really bad taste in my mouth. Ethan rises from the ashes. Like a phoenix. Just my luck – I never liked the guy and he is back. Honestly, I have read a lot of paranormal novels and I do understand that ordinary rules do not apply in that crazy world but this one seemed to be really too clumsily done and too far fetched, even for this genre. To be back, with the full sense of yourself from a pile of dust two months old? Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever…just why nobody had thought about it before? Mind you the spell that resurrected Ethan was interrupted, yet still he is here, fully formed with no apparent consequences…it was so sloppy, wrong and preposterous that almost anticlimactic. The deus ex machina gone way too far. Bad literature. Yawn.

I suppose I know what happened. I bet the author got cold feet about killing off one of her main characters. She must have spooked that so many fans were complaining and she took the most opportunistic decision - ok, here you have your Ethan back, enjoy, be happy and please, keep ordering the next installment. As if happiness was so easy to achieve…I suppose even the author herself doesn’t believe in the success of such a strategy – she has already started another series…guess why.

Final verdict:

Unfortunately for me, this book fell very flat, ruining what appeared to be a very promising series. Pity. Chicagoland Vampries – farewell! Flames to dust...I think I need a hug. Perhaps I don't deserve one for starting the series in the first place but if we got only what we deserve...

Summer review: Hard Bitten (Chicagoland vampires 04) by Chloe Neill

The third installment of my Summer Chicklit Reviews and things already are becoming a bit darker : Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires 04) by Chloe Neill is definitely not all sunshine and sweetness. Well, it is never so when vampires in leather pants, wielding katanas, are involved. As the opportunity presented itself I decided to check whether Merit can go any better. Here are the results.


Book info:


Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: New American Library; 1 edition (May 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0451233328
ISBN-13: 978-0451233325
Genre: Paranormal romance

Target audience: Adults (sometimes more sometimes less)


Synopsis:

Caroline Merit, aka Merit the Cadogan House vampire and Sentinel, faces another crisis connected with her nemesis, Celina Desaulniers or Marie Collette Navarre. This time her house is blamed for every vampire-related disturbance in the beautiful but windy city of Chicago. It’s clear that somebody wants to create these disturbances only too often – vampires are secretly given a certain drug, white pills with a V pressed in them, and then they are invited to raves with humans. The drug makes them very volatile and aggressive- small wonder most of these raves end up in bloodshed and the help of the police is required. The problem is that more and more humans are rallying against supernaturals and especially against vampires – some of them picket the Cadogan House day and night with protest signs letting the vamps know that they are not welcome (to say the least of it).

Merit’s private life has improved but just slightly so. Ethan does what he can to make her trust him again but Merit is very wary and very bitter, unable to forget the way he backed out of a serious relationship last time (if you didn’t read the previous parts then fyi: he behaved like a total ass, showing that he cares more about politics and power than about her). Some new facts will emerge concerning Merit’s turning into a vampire without her consent and they will leave her dear Liege in even worse light. Not to mention the fact that Mayor Tate, a classic politician, practically blackmails Ethan with an arrest warrant from the CPD if he can’t keep vampires in line, knowing fully well that some vampires simply can’t be kept in line no matter what you do. As the book ends with a cliffhanger of a rather shocking kind I decided to include a spoiler for those who, like me, don’t mind being informed about such occurrences.


Spoiler section plus some of my rabid theories – highlight to read at your own risk.


The final is very dramatic, almost Shakespearean (I think here about those classic Hamlet performances with plenty of rapiers or foils swinging around): Celina all of a sudden stakes Ethan who shields Merit with his own well-muscled body, and Merit stakes Celina because now she lost any chance to reconcile with her beloved ex-lover (and she was definitely on her way to do so). With the death of Ethan the Cadogan House faces a bleak future – now it will be governed by a Receiver from the Greenwich Presidium, the body responsible for vampires around the world. I bet, though, that the new Receiver might be just the right person for some of the Cadogan vampires to make a new start. It's pure speculation but I suppose Merit deserves to have a top-gun guy by her side and she can get him now, when Ethan is no longer the most serious obstacle. I never liked him but in this part he improved beyond belief – small wonder he had to die. Never believe a man when he says he will improve. ;p He is most probably lying and if he isn’t then he won’t live long anyway. The sheer effort might do him in.


What I liked:

The book was action-packed as I like and better paced than previous parts. The political intrigue was presented in a sensible way – neat, slick and horrible. I had absolutely no idea who was really pulling the strings. I also never saw the final showdown coming.

Merit is the main character, but unlike almost every other female protagonist in this genre, she has meaningful, strong relationships with other women. I really start to enjoy that aspect of the series. I think Merit is growing on me, maybe partially because she and Ethan were definitely behaving in a more mature way. Maybe her emotions haven’t been described very clearly but at least there was some ‘adult’ reasoning behind her actions.

Finally the cliffhanger…no matter whether you liked it or not you must admit the author was rather brave to end her fourth book the way it was ended. The move might kill the series in the long term. I never was a fan of a certain vampire and, reading so many emotional, even downright angry opinions, directed towards Ms. Neil, I was surprised a bit. Although I understand I cannot relate. Not really. Of course I can’t assess this plot development properly right now because I don’t know what will happen next but in my view it was the equivalent of killing off that old, wise, white-bearded protector of the main lead so he/she can progress and grow up. A stuff which you can come across in every fantasy book and/or movie. I hope for the best and I praise the author for risking the fact that some readers, so drawn to the character in question, might not want to read the series any longer. You've got to be talented to kill off a popular hero, one of the main characters to boot, and redeem yourself as a writer in the next part. Just think about the pressure to write the next part so well to woo at least some of the fans back. My best wishes Ms. Neill (but I don't envy you)!

Titillating factor:

No explicit sex scenes in this one but plenty of erotic tension which worked for me even better. Really sometimes less is more. Well done!

What I didn’t like:

The baddie, Celina…in my humble opinion she should have been presented in a different, far more exposed way. I mean she was one of the crucial characters and I found her rather underdeveloped. I like well fleshed-out baddies, with internal turmoil and all that jazz. Apart from that vampires in this series are supposed to be heavily political and tactical creatures. They're supposed to think two steps ahead, have a back up plan and be able to defeat their enemies without doing anything more than playing out their hand to its inevitable conclusion and here we don’t see any planning – we are shown a woman who just snaps at everybody or features in some blurry photos as a shadowy figure meeting with another shadowy figure– in other words we are left without one single juicier scene. Other characters have to fill in that void, discussing Celina’s motivations and aims. Lame.

What’s more…some plot lines were left hanging but hey, it’s not the ending of the series so not really a fault unless…the author forgets about them further on. We’ll see.

Finally the narration occasionally turned into a journal-like account of Merit’s most trivial actions like “I showered, I combed my long hair, I dressed, I went to visit a friend, I had an ice-cream or a deep-fry in such and such restaurant on the corner…” but it wasn’t as frequent and annoying as in the previous parts. However, I would like to read even less of it.

Final verdict:

A book definitely more emotional than a standard position of this genre - no HEA and no fluffy sense of physical well-being guaranteed. It is getting better but do you feel the same? :p I am inclined to give the author one more chance– I am very curious what will she do in the next part to atone for her 'sin'. In other words: I will be reading book 5 but whether I read book 6 is a completely different question.

Review: Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill ( first three installments: 01 Some Girls Bite, 02 Friday Night Bites, 03 Twice Bitten)

Genre: urban fantasy, paranormal romance
Target audience: YA/adult (?) Well, more adult I suppose, there are some sex scenes...


Jen from In the Closet with a Bibliophile (her writing style is fantastic, do visit her!) wrote a very personal review concerning the fourth part of this series and she got me curious. As curious as a cat. A friend of mine (thanks Kasiul again!) sent me appropriate e-books and here I go again, playing with vampires and werewolves!

Synopsis:

Merit, a thirtyish Medieval Literature PhD student from an influential Chicago family, is attacked at night on the campus. A pair of vampires finds her dying and one of them, Ethan Sullivan, the head of one of most prominent vampire Houses in Chicago, turns her into a vampire to save her life. Without her consent -there was no time for that. Merit’s life changes a lot – she must leave the Uni because now she belongs to the Cadogan House and must call Ethan her Liege and be obedient. Being a very modern, kick-ass girl, she hardly finds it acceptable. Things become even more tense when Ethan, smitten by her good looks, asks her to become his Consort. Merit finds such a suggestion very insulting and says ‘no’ although she finds Ethan incredibly appealing. In fact every single vampire in the book is devastatingly handsome or beautiful but somehow, in Merit’s eyes, Ethan manages to surpass them all. On the other hand how to flirt with a man who constantly cocks his eyebrow and can be as stiff as a curtain rod? It also doesn’t help that Merit must deal with him on a daily basis – as she didn’t want to be his official lover  she was given the position of Sentinel of her House. Now she is being trained as a warrior by Ethan himself. A very fitting career for a Medieval Lit student, isn’t it? Her weapon of choice is a samurai sword called katana.

All the rest is about a difficult cooperation between the magical community, including vampires, shifters, witches and humans. It seems a nasty war is brewing because some humans don’t like the fact that the vampires came out of their coffins and are not only immortal and organized but also influential, powerful and rich. And handsome. Do not forget about handsome.  On the other hand some vampires still hold grudges as they remember how they have been treated in previous centuries. It doesn’t help that shifters despise and distrust the vampires (and vice versa - no surprises here) and the Houses rivalry can weaken vampires themselves. Will Merit find her place among supernaturals? Will her private life become less rocky and unstable? It seems it is a series in progress (the fourth installment was released in May) so I doubt there will be any answers offered soon.

What I liked:

Despite the oh-so-not-original-any-longer magical community of Chicago the books are highly readable. Some moments were good indeed – for example when Ethan gave Merit a gift consisting of…an entire library! It was really a nice touch! The narration flows easily and is fast-paced. Although not especially profound, the plot makes you curious about what happens next. The author knows how to write a story although it is a pity we see things only from Merit’s point of view.

What I didn’t like:

Psychological profiles of the main characters. In other words Merit and her vampire paramour irritated me a lot. Let me explain why.

Merit is near thirty, Ethan is a 400-year-old vampire but they both act as if they were a pair of high school teens. Not especially bright teens I must add. Perhaps it is the way the authoress chose in order to connect to her audience and keep all these teen girls interested but it really got on my nerves. Merit and Ethan’s relationship, very tense and erotic from the beginning, was presented as a sinusoidal graph – after a peak, lasting usually not more than several days, always comes a deep, long depression, mostly because neither Merit nor Ethan are able to answer honestly some basic questions about themselves and their expectations. They quarrel a lot and they go to bed but still with different ideas in their mind. The authoress must be a bit sadistic, treating her readers like that and, after reading the review of the fourth part, written by Jen and linked in the intro, I suppose it won’t change any time soon. I quite agree that readers can’t be given every solution immediately on a silver platter but trials and tribulations of a main character are one thing and such an irritating emotional swing is quite another. It doesn’t keep me interested, it keeps me annoyed and I am not sure I would like to continue this series. Not until it is finished anyway.

Apart from that I really was bored by the universal handsomeness of practically all supernatural characters. After a while even descriptions of Ethan’s incredible six-pack abs stopped to sound exciting; if every other male around is equally well-muscled, what’s the deal? If every other vampire girl is a long-legged, slim bimbo, why Merit is considered such a hottie? Because she is stubborn? Or maybe because she wields a katana and wears leather pants? ;)

The last thing: Merit, a two-month-old vampire, after some superficial martial arts training managed to kick Ethan’s ass. Huh? The guy was supposed to be invincible, right? Is Merit a super-vamp-ninja girl? No, she isn’t. Something doesn’t click here. Perhaps the author thought that any incongruities might be overshadowed by the bedroom tug-of war…

Final verdict:

If you are a sworn fan of vampire and werewolf stories this series, although unfinished, might be your summer treat. If you are a bit bored by the supernatural creatures, you might find it tiring. As I wrote above I might continue reading it (or not) but only when it is finished. In other words I can wait - I am definitely not hooked.