justjeanettelee_reads's reviews
606 reviews

It wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but it certainly wasn't the greatest.

I liked that Finley and her father were the inspiration for Jekyll/Hyde. I liked how Cross intertwined Victorian England and the steampunk elements in this novel.

The story telling left a little to be desired, and the two separate love triangles became a bit tiresome. Really? Are poorly done love triangles the sole crutch of books these days? If you're going to do it, at least make it original, not as obvious and entertaining.

Didn't overly enjoy this one. Gas much the same faults as the first book. Slow, boring storytelling, then rapid storytelling.

It just didn't work for me.

Dalton and Wildcat were perhaps the best part. They were interesting characters.

Debating on whether to finish the series or not. Does it get better?

Reading things for university is always good when it's a subject that fascinates you. Also helps you write a better quality paper.

While I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dalby, there aren't that many points that he makes that I can use in regards to my thesis.

Written in a way that makes it easy and effortless to read - just the way I like my non-fiction.

Nevertheless, I pretty good read if you're interested in Homer, the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Rounding up from a 3.5 as it was on the better side of it

I have such mixed feelings about this one.

On the one hand, what an amazing world, premise and character rich novel.

On the other hand, slow-amazing-amazing-slow-slow-slow-AMAZING. That's the pace of the book and it was soooooooo frustrating at times.

Will I read the rest of the series? Yes.

Will the series ever be a re-read? Probably not.

3.5/5

I've only given 3 stars because it's on the lacking side of 3.5.

While this is a significant improvement on the first one, there were still some minor issues.

I enjoyed how the plot moved beyond sex. It felt like the sex and romance was secondary, more prominently once Murray was kidnapped. While I enjoy novels of this nature, I still have the basic desire to have substance in the story as well. Once more, Donovan writes a mixture of both well-written and poorly-written intimate scenes. I'm sure as the novels progress, Donovan will develop a better way to write these scenes.

I really enjoyed the character of Finlay. I hope one of the future books centres on him, possibly with Arabella.

I'm intrigued by the plot concerning the dragon hunters. Will be reading the rest of this series to find out more about the plot based side of this series, once I can afford to buy the remainder of the series off of iBooks.

2.5/5

Ok, so this book wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly great either.

First off, I really don't like the term sacrifice for the women who agree to bear children for dragon-shifters. It just has weird connotations floating around it.

Secondly, Donovan's story was pretty interesting. I thought that it was a decent plot. However, I wish that there was more action, more drama than just convincing Tristan's sister to like Mel, Mel and Tristan overcoming their issues, and Tristan nearly dying - the action around that situation, I would've loved to have read, more than Tristan simply saying "oh yeah this happened."

Thirdly, some of the sordid scenes were very well written, while others were reminiscent of fan-fiction type sex scenes. Also, if I had a shot for every time "fuck" "curves" "stubborn" "beast" and plenty of other words were used, I would've been drunk at least a quarter of the way into this read.

Lastly, I felt the epilogue was kind of cheating. I get not showing the full term of the pregnancy, but come on. There could've been some interesting tales going on there. Maybe Mel and the *SPOILER* children could've been put in a dangerous situation, maybe there could've been an interesting meeting with Tristan's dad. Not much is said about daddy MacLeod (in fact I don't think he was even mentioned. Was Mumma MacLeod the Virgin Mary, dragon-shifter edition?). Either way, I would've loved to explore more of Tristan and Mel's relationship instead of skipping straight to "Hey, here's our kids!" Also, I felt twins was a bit of a copout as well. A race that has more male births than females, is trying to repopulate and expand the gene pool, trying not to go extinct, and then all of a sudden a RARE compatible female just happens to SUCCESSFULLY birth twins, after so many mothers die from birthing ONE?! Yeah a little too perfect really.

Overall, it was a decent effort and I'm invested enough to read the next one. Maybe it will be an improvement. Who knows? I will soon enough.

For what it's worth, Euripides could've been a lot nicer to my gal pal Helen. I mean, what is up with that?

I suppose that's nothing short of ordinary given the times. Even if Euripides is argued to be a pioneer, a forefront to the defence of women.

But damn. Hecuba and Andromache though. I knew they had it rough, but damn. I can understand why a tyrant might weep at their sorrows.

It's been a pleasure Euripides. Let's not meet again for a while ok? We've had a good run over my three years at university. Let's leave it on a good note.

This is not the first time reading "Erak's Ransom", but it is the first time that I wasn't completely bored by the beginning of the book. I was completely immersed into the book, unlike previous reads and appreciated the world and character development found in the seventh (although technically fifth) instalment of the Ranger's Apprentice. Useful tip (which I once more forgot to do): read this book BEFORE "The Sorcerer in the North", as the finale of this book holds next to no suspense, seeing as we already know the outcome of Will and Co. from the fifth (technically sixth) book in the series.