"Off to a good start"
first i'd like to say I love Gaelen Foley. One of my favorite authors. However this story had to be a rush job. It was off for a ggod start but the middle and ending was terrible. First all I became pissed off when and gotten all the way to page 300 and still no sex scene yet. The hero's (Rackford) character starts out as brave, courageous, rougish and progressivley turns into this sappy weakling. I mean Lady Jacinda was a aristocratic Bitch throughout the entire story. SHe treated him like pure dirt for no reason. I hate that kind of heroine and hero. I found it surprising that GF would even write such a story.
Billy saved this book from Jacinda's attempt to murder it...
...Although it was on life-support for a LOOOONG time.
Jacinda is, as others have mentioned, an immature, whiny, spoiled, selfish, and inconsiderate brat. Lord only knows why Billy likes her at all, let alone looooves her.
We all know the basic plot. Even HK got that correct. Billy Blade is a do-gooder thief who helps others by using his brains and education to make life in the slums better. Jacinda is a person who spends all her time doing frivolous things and paying no attention to how her behavior effects other people. At all. She's not just young, but completely unworldly; forget experience, she doesn't even use common sense.
Up until about halfway through the book, I had hope that it would get better. But as more and more time went by and there weren't even some hot sex scenes to break up the monotony, I lost a lot of faith. I hated that Billy/William kept laying his heart out for her, and Jacinda would not just ignore it, but stomp on it in her haste to get whatever she wanted. This is a girl who thought nothing of using someone for her own benefit, who thought nothing of taking Billy's kindness and generosity and throwing it back in his face.
If the sex scenes were better, maybe then I wouldn't have minded waiting 3/4s of the book to get there. Instead, Billy had to throw himself at her, be generous and loving in his lovemaking, and maybe get some pleasure out of the deal. Sort of. As it was, we waited forever and we got almost nothing out of the deal.
If the book were just Billy, I'd give it a 4. Even with the ending, which I won't give away but was schmaltzy and trite, he was sympathetic, hot, and kind. I wish he had better taste in women, though. I do wish he weren't so much of a pushover with her. I like men who aren't afraid to acknowledge their feelings, but he just kept handing his heart to Jacinda to be chewed up and spit out. As prideful as he seemed to be, he didn't deserve to have to have his pride trampled constantly. Bad enough that it happened with his dad, but she should have been the one to back him up, to support him, not to force him to be further abused.
This author seems to have a lot of problems with heroines. The women never seem to be deserving enough of the heroes. I enjoy her stories for the most part, I like her writing, but I so wish someone would help her with the women. Maybe she could do a joint writing project. She writes the heroes (and maybe the sex scenes, depending on who the co-author is), and someone else creates heroines worthy of them.
Things I liked: That Jacinda got to save him -- I know this was a complaint with some people, but I like a strong heroine. That Billy didn't just stay and put up with the abuse. That Billy was willing to pursue her (but only to an extent -- the repeated attempts to win her just ticked me off after a while). That Billy wasn't willing to give up on his quest to defeat O'Dell even after he left the rookery.
Things I disliked: Jacinda -- ugh. The ending. I can't say too much, but Billy shouldn't have had to do that. The lack of sex scenes (no reason to have waited SO long!). The... reconciliation. The lack of resolution regarding Billy's friends and cohorts. What happened to Nate?
Overall, this isn't the worst book I've read, not by far. It's not fantastic, but if you're reading the series, you might as well. If too much of this puts you off, you're not missing much by skipping it. The set-up for Devil Takes a Bride and One Night of Sin are explained well enough without this one. Heck, you find out more about what happens after the story by reading His Wicked Kiss than you do at the end of this.
I know that this author can do better. I hope she finds a way to "fix" these faults and write with the skills that I see she possesses. I hate to see talent go to waste.
could have been really good but....
the characters, like the plot,tend to fizzle early on, causing this book to be a boring read after the initial promise of star crossed love. instead we get a conflicting strong alpha male hero who, by the end of the book, degenerates into tears quite a lot and mostly over nothing.
our heroine, on the other hand, who is portrayed as having virtually no experience dealing with emotional issues, forces a pseudo-reconciliation
between the hero and his father. i wanted so much for this book to be stronger as i think the character of billy blade could have been a great
fully fleshed out person. if that had happened i probably could have put up with jacinda and her blonde corkscrew curls falling all over the place. as one reviewer said,if you must read this, get it from the library and save your money for a better buy.
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