Thursday, February 21, 2008

"Ashes to Ashes" by Jennifer Armintrout


Well, I'm finally done with this third entry in the author's "Blood Ties" series. Yeah, that statement right there should give you a good indication of how I feel about the book. It's not as bad as the second book, but again, not nearly as good as the first book. Enough that when I saw there's a fourth installment planned (peeking on Amazon!), I did not add it to my Wishlist. I think I'm done with this series, probably even this author, unless she's going to go in a different direction.

Suffice to say that Carrie Ames, former doctor, now vampire newbie, is still waffling between Nathan, her current sire, and Cyrus, her former sire (who was killed in book one and brought back as a human in book two, when he became much more interesting). Nathan and Carrie's friend Max is still in the picture, much more so than in the previous books, as is the werewolf of his dreams, Bella. If the author chooses to write primarily Max and Bella's story in book four, I'll read it. If not, forget it. Carrie has become predictable and quite frankly, a very whiney character. I didn't sympathize with her at all, not a good thing when you're talking about your protagonist! It's been long enough since I read the first book that I found myself wondering if she was always like this, or if I just hadn't noticed it back then (sort of like when you first fall in love - you can overlook a lot of faults!)

Another problem is the author's lack of backbone. If you're familiar with another certain author who shall remain nameless but goes by the initials LKH, you know what I'm talking about - the inability to kill off any of your characters. Armintrout has killed a few in these three books, but just like a bad soap opera, they keep coming back. Where's the drama in that? Why should I feel like there's danger when I know this person will be back at some point? It just doesn't work for me.

I'm not going into the plot here because there really wasn't much of one. It read pretty much the same as the last one, which may be why I found myself taking quite a while to finish the book. There are other authors out there writing in the same genre and, quite frankly, doing a much better job.

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