An okay audio book. It was a lot more salacious than I thought it was going to be from the description on the back. I'm not familiar with the author so that could have been part of it. I think Jackson's writing is a little too involved for my taste, like overly descriptive scenes with the characters that ended up being tedious. I would normally skip that kind of boring stuff if I was reading it, but with an audio book it's not easy to do. My mind wandered a lot more than it should have while listening to this.

I gotta say, Kristi Benz has to be the stupidest protagonist ever. She's been attacked and kidnapped twice before this and been tortured near death, so she said, and then jumps right into poking her nose around a blood thirsty cult with a very selfish attitude. I did not like her character very much, but I was fond of Jay, Mai Kwan and Rick Benz. Liking Rick Benz is the only reason I may read the previous books in this series. I hope he's smarter than his daughter. She makes Nancy Drew seem like a genius.

There were a lot of errors that were kind of noticeable in the audio that an editor should have noticed, like the consistency of one name. I heard Riley Ames and Riley Addams as if they were two different characters. I first thought it was the voice actor flubbing but then it happened a couple times so I knew it was an error on the author's part. At least get your character's names right!

The villains were a bit over the top, unrealistic and at times kind of corny. Some of the language was redundant, and as one of my pet peeves...the author would write "Stroke" or "Slash" instead of actually describing the event. That is so irritating. It's just lazy writing.

I gave it two stars for the characters' appeal (not Kristi) and because I'm a glutton for punishment I'm going to check out Hot Blooded, the first book in this series. I probably wouldn't recommend this author to my friends though.

interesting, but not one of my favorites from her

A good fast paced British thriller, with the regional and couple elements. Exploring the dark underbelly of a small town in Lancashire.
Easy read, and I would be tempted to read more by the author.

The atmosphere of Lost Souls is probably some of Jackson's best work (that I've read thus far). Maybe it's because I read the book while attending college during a particularly wet and misty autumn semester, but he descriptions of the All Saints campus made me shiver, and I still catch myself remembering how tense I felt while curling up with this one. The story is pretty good, though I was rather put off by the ending - Jackson has a tendency to throw out a random person for the big killer reveal at the end of her books, which serves its purpose in ensuring the reader won't be able to properly figure the mystery out, but also annoys some of us to no end because of how completely impossible it would have been to finger the perp. Still, overall one of her better efforts and well worth the read.

Would have liked this one better if Kristi and her stupidity weren't the main characters. Also could have done without all the class/classroom descriptions.

In spite her being a multiple NY bestselling author, this is the first time I’ve read her work that I know of. The library has multiple books by her and after this, I will not be racing to get them. It starts out interesting enough. Kristi Bentz is going back to school to be a crime writer. Her dad is New Orleans Super Cop. Kristi ignores his concerns about All Souls College where four women have gone missing. When she gets there, as an English major, taking one forensic class being taught by Jay McKnight, her former high school sweetheart (gee wonder where THIS is going to go). Naturally Kristi has to look into the case to get her first big true crime story.

This thing hinges on coincidence, way too much really. I did try to see if Kristi was in other books by Jackson (goodreads has this as book #6 in the New Orleans series but the names weren’t the same in 4 or 5…) because she’s been the target of a serial killer not once but twice already and she’s only 27. Setting her up as a waitress and taking vampire in literature classes with a vampire cult on campus that all four girls belonged to, just telegraphs ‘hey Kristi will be caught by the vampire dude by the end.’ Three times a victim? The coincidences get worse, she ends up renting one of the missing girl’s apartment. The apt manager, a young man, Hiram, knew Tara the missing girl and is in all Tara and now Kristi’s classes. Next coincidence, naturally is Jay taking a night job at the college while working days in the crime lab in N.O. Next coincidence, Kristi’s former college roommate is now teaching at the college and warns her about the cult and the list goes on.

Still, it was interesting enough until about just past the halfway mark then it goes entirely off the rails. Everyone has to act like an unprofessional moron in order for this plot to work. (and since it’s such an obvious plot that makes it even worse). Jay doesn’t go to the cops with the stuff Kristi has found out, the cops never even bother to look into the disappearances etc. It hurts the story’s case as well that at this Catholic college, the priest has suddenly hired nothing but hunky men for the English department (has this ever happened on a campus anywhere and they might ALL be in on it??). Not to mention that this college doesn’t function like a real college at all in fundamental ways that like 10 minutes of research would have fixed. (as a professor myself, I’d like to see a school where the teachers have time enough to deck out the room in proto-vampire style or has a schedule that has NO professor names on it and you get whatever time slot the computer says you do. Stuff like that, annoying).

I started skimming when it was obvious the villains were recreating Elizabeth Barthoy’s Blood Countess stuff. Then they made eye-rollingly bad connections to the actual countess and I started skimming in earnest just to get to the end. Which was predictable, stupid and made worse by an epilogue that promises another book with these people. There were so many clichés and plotlines needing fools to push it forward that by the end it’s painful.

Not bad. Interesting plot, for the most part. Loved the scenes with her and Jay! The audiobook aspect was decent. Jay's voice was sexy...reminded me of Bill from True Blood! ;-)

I felt that there were a few inconsistencies though...like I swear that Riley's last name kept alternating between Ames and Adams. I was really confused for a second! Maybe I heard it wrong since I was driving while listening to it....

It was an entertaining enough story to keep me awake during my commute, so that was a plus!

I am always looking for a new snack-reading author. Someone who can write a genre series with interesting characters and snappy writing and perhaps a clever plot line. I had never read anything by Lisa Jackson, although my library has a whole shelf of her NY Times bestsellers. I picked this one at random, because the blurb--Four girls go missing from All Souls College in Baton Rouge!--tempted me.

But the book is disappointing on many levels, primarily the writing. Doesn't Lisa Jackson have an editor? The book reads like a first draft, after which the author will see--oh, oops, I used the word 'hastened' in two successive sentences, and the word 'sizzled' three times on one page. To refer to lightning. There are sentences and metaphors that sound like they were written by a lovelorn 15-year old. And the text is overwritten. Every little action is described--Kristi locks her bike. Kristi goes down the sidewalk. She goes up the stairs. She puts her hand on the doorknob. She turns the knob. She turns it the other way. It's locked! Oh no! It's no wonder the book is so long. I found I was rotating my hand---come on, come on, just tell us already.

It was clear from the outset that this is a series, and we're supposed to know things about annoyingly spunky Kristi Bentz (NOT Rick Bentz's biological daughter! Oh no!) and her past, wherein she attracts serial killers, but survives the ensuing comas to pursue her dream of returning to college at 27 and, as a sidelight, identifying people who are about to die.

Seriously--I was still on board after the first few chapters, despite all the expositive melodrama. But eventually, the lack of a coherent plot, the endless repetition and the genuinely awful writing made finishing the book a chore.

I gave one of Lisa Jackson's books a terrible review last year, and apparently had a mental blank on the name when I picked this up at the library. Truly dreadful thriller, featuring a villian who bathes herself in blood to keep herself young. A villian who thinks at one point something like this, "Academically speaking, I know that bathing in blood can't keep me young - but, oh well." How is that a believable character?

Our hero and heroine, who endure a cringeworthy love story together, sum it up for us at the end with a "wow, she sure was crazy" dialogue. Please god, let me never get sucked in by one of Jackson's blurbs again.

Oh, silly, silly book. I had to read this for my book club and I doubt I would have ever read it otherwise. Thankfully it was a quick read. I gave it two stars because I love detective stories and vampires and it had both, but it really wasn't great. The writing was pretty blah and I didn't care for any of the characters. Plus it's part of a series and I HATE reading books in a series without having read them all in order. I guess it would be OK if you were looking for something mindless to read on a break or vacation or something, but I would avoid this one.