Book 1:
The Trouble With Fate: Hedi Peacock and Robson Trowbridge
Release Date: December 24th 2012
Purchase on Amazon: Leigh Evans - The Trouble with Fate: A Mystwalker Novel
Summary:
From Goodreads.com
My name is Hedi Peacock and I have a secret. I’m not human, and I have the pointy Fae ears and Were inner-bitch to prove it. As fairy tales go, my childhood was damn near perfect, all fur and magic until a werewolf killed my father and the Fae executed my mother. I’ve never forgiven either side. Especially Robson Trowbridge. He was a part-time werewolf, a full-time bastard, and the first and only boy I ever loved. That is, until he became the prime suspect in my father’s death…
Today I’m a half-breed barista working at a fancy coffee house, living with my loopy Aunt Lou and a temperamental amulet named Merry, and wondering where in the world I’m going in life. A pretty normal existence, considering. But when a pack of Weres decides to kidnap my aunt and force me to steal another amulet, the only one who can help me is the last person I ever thought I’d turn to: Robson Trowbridge. And he’s as annoyingly beautiful as I remember. That’s the trouble with fate: Sometimes it barks. Other times it bites. And the rest of the time it just breaks your heart. Again…
Review:
So I grabbed this book on NetGalley because of the blurb. I like the Fae, I love Were’s and I adore Snarky humor so I thought this book would be a good match for me. What I actually was below expectations. So, just a warning I don’t have a lot of good to say about this book.
First, I was expecting to laugh and enjoy a snarky sense of humor, I don’t think I laughed a single time through the entire book. That was such a letdown for me as the blurb seemed so promising.
Second, I didn’t find the characters in this book all that likeable. Hedi, is our voice in this book. I didn’t find much going for her, she was self depreciating, a liar, a thief and not all that loyal. At the end she came around a bit, and I liked her a little better but the rest of the book she was just kind of eh for me. Towbridge was basically know nothing about. His character is not very well developed, what we do know, is again not very redeemable, he is pretty good at running away and avoiding further conflict. He also starts coming around in the last 15% or so, but it doesn’t really make up for the other 85% of the book. My favorite character in the book is actually Merry, Hedi’s necklace that cannot talk and whose only communication is through turning colors, heating up and cooling down and moving her “limbs” around. The necklace may have been the best developed character of the book, maybe because she couldn’t talk so the author had to find other ways to have her communicate.
The romance is not very believable and felt forced to me. The chemistry was basically non-existent. I was not buying this mating situation and usually matings are pretty easy to pull off. Through the two together pump up the heat and watch them simmer. The heat in this case was lukewarm. The characters first time together was incredibly awkward and very unsexy, which could have been overcome if there were other scenes that the heat was pumped up, but any other encounters were glossed over so you are only left with the awkward scene which is the one that sticks out for the duration. Then Hedi keeps losing herself in her magic and forgetting about Bridge and that he’s supposed to be her mate. All these things are not a convincing argument that they are supposed to be together.
Torture: now usually I can handle some torture, I am not squimish. I have read a lot of books that include torture in them, I can think of Larissa Ione, Jeaniene Frost as well as Kresley Cole that have included torture in their books and I had no problems with it. Yet in this book when it came to the torture scenes it kind of made me uncomfortable; which was surprising to me because I have never gotten that way before. I am not entirely sure why it was different this time, maybe more graphic or maybe it dragged it out too long, I don’t know but it made me squirm a little and want to skip past it.
This book had so many holes in the plot that it was starting to resemble Swiss cheese. I have more questions than I have answers for. The Myst walking at this point seems unnecessary, but as this is a series maybe it will come into play later but by the end of this book you wonder what was the point of Hedi going to Threall at all, it was a chunk of the book that seemingly has no point to it at this stage in the book and just added more confusion to an already confusing plot. At the end the Aunt is standing in the portal reopening it to travel through and then she is left alone and she’s what, just standing there in the portal with a thumb up her … and not travelling through, as far as I could tell she wasn’t being held back by anyone; just standing there doing nothing. There was also why were Hedi’s parents killed if the Fae knew who really opened the portal that night. Later the wolf in question say the Fae had come upon them and knew who was responsible for his getting in, yet Hedi’s parents were killed for opening it? Why does the bad guy think Hedi has the amulet, there was no reason to think that she might, it wasn’t hers? The explanation on how they were found is lose and convenient to say the least. How did the amulet go from dead to alive? There are so many just conveniences and gaps in the story, it started to irritate me. Usually if the story is good enough I can easily look past these things but in case it was really hard.
What I can say about this book is although it wasn’t the best book in the world, it did have some potential. If the author could clean up the story and flesh out the characters she could have a winner here. The world is interesting, and can be worked with. Whereas there were some plot issues, this book was definitely not boring, the pages moved quickly. Even as I was perplexed I kept on reading, I kept with the story even as I was scratching my head wondering where in the hell the author was taking us. The possibilities are there, I just think that the author has some work to do to bring everything together if there is going to be a second book. As it stands now, will I read the second book when it comes out? Eh, the probability of that is low, but I might give it a whirl in the hopes that there is some sort of conclusion, because as it stands now, the story line is left open for the next book. It’s not a cliffhanger per say but it is not a closed resolved ending.
*This book was provided through NetGalley for an honest review. No other compensation was provided.
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