Good, but left my head melted.
921441
I finished Broken Harbor two days ago and I'm still trying to formulate words that will adequately describe how I feel about this book. As with French's other novels, the writing is amazing - descriptive and impactful - with dialog that is realistic but still advances both characterization and the plot. That's no small feat.

I gave this book 4 stars for that reason. However, the story itself left my "head melted," as French's characters are fond of saying. And it wasn't so much the gruesome crime scene or autopsies described by the protagonist, Scorcher Kennedy, that did this: It was the trip into the dark corners of his mind - and those of the people he's investigating - that left me feeling edgy and restless.

I read an interview with French in which she said that while she knew this was going to be Scorcher's book, she didn't initially like him because he's someone who sees things as very black and white, and he always plays by the rules. For the first 30 or so pages I found him supremely irritating: brash, arrogant and obnoxious. I'm a rule-follower and he seemed tightly-wound even to me! But as I read on and his character developed, he began to jump off the page and I rooted for him every step of the way, even though I knew he would be totally shattered by the book's end. It was almost as if in exploring this persona that French didn't particularly like, she decided that he had to be even more screwed up than any of her previous characters, including Rob Ryan from In the Woods. Again, that's no small feat.

Overall, Broken Harbor is a good, solid read but it didn't come close to my favorite of French's four books, Faithful Place. I've re-read her earlier books several times each, and one thing I've come to realize is that her characters are so nuanced that my opinions of, and feelings for, them change based on my state of mind. To me, is the mark of a masterful storyteller, and I will continue to read and re-read her books as long as she keeps publishing them.  I wouldn't be surprised if this book grows on me as time goes on, but for now it's left me feeling torn open and raw.
480864
I really enjoy the writing in this book, but there were some things that drove me nuts. The authors story telling flows well and immerses you into the scenery and setting with ease. That being said, I wasn't even aware that this was connected to her other book Taste whatsoever until I was about 40% through. Its never mentioned anywhere and unfortunately, that left me with more questions than answers because I felt Id missed reading a book in between that book and this one. Did I? I read Taste and still feel that Im still not sure, but it feels like theres a huge chunk of story missing about Luka and the other band members of Vicious, like about Phoenix & Demetri, who were the MCs in Taste. Like, a HUGE chunk. I was left scratching my head and hunting to see if I left out a book from this series. I get that it is its own series, but so many things were left hanging, I was utterly kind of lost, besides the fact that they were connected. I didn't like that. Though I really liked this story, it kind of ruined it for me.

Talking about the story, I loved the main character, photographer Dakota. She was a strong willed photographer who apparently is beautiful in every way, though her missing eye gives her a lot of insecurities. She gets the job to live with Vicious for a month and photograph them for her final Introspective project. She gets a lot more out of this than she ever expected. She also holds a lot of secrets, which seems to be a characteristic of all the band members, so she fits right in. Its never explained how she came about her eye patch and scars in this book, but her dreams give us a tiny peek into her vague  past, a past never explained in the entire book. Still, I wish thered been more information about her instead of being left hanging the entire book for nothing.

Luka and his cousins Demetri and Dray were just hot and perfect in every way. I loved Drays character the most because he was the least obvious rock star of the trio. He loved his mad scientist ways and seemed to be the smartest out of the three. I wished there had been more about him. Heck, Id prefer if Dakota had ended up with Dray, but thats just me. Luka came off as a spoiled rotten, brat rock star and threw tantrums with the best of him. Very stereo typed broken star. Made me want to slap him at times, and yet, sometimes he seemed pretty cool and patient. How he went from hot to cold so fast left me with my mouth hanging and thrown for a curve ball.

Last of all, if you hate cliffhangers, this might bite you in the arse. Serious one here of the worst kind leaving nothing resolved except one thing about Luka. I usually don't mind some cliffhangers, but this one I was seriously left steaming raging mad that it made me feel that the hours Id spent reading it were wasted. Not many books get a rise out of me, and this one did, I almost flung the kindle across the room with that ending. So disappointed that I have to wait for the next book now because there were almost no answers. Youre just dropped holding the ends of all these threads and no ending. And this was no short read either, it was so very long and somewhat repetitive, I was left utterly flabbergasted, but the writing is that good you probably won't mind reading such a long story. Oh, and what happened with the entire theme of Taste being about Zhamvys? You won't find a lick of it here, which I wanted to see oh so very badly.

If you love books about insanely rich Rock stars with a tortured Goth flavor and a nice long read to burn some hours away, then this ones for you.

I was given an ARC of this book from the author for an honest review.
2064848
I loved this book.  The author has created an awesome world that really gets you dreaming about the possibilities.

Cent is my favorite character and I hope the author can think of a way to carry on with the Jumper universe somehow, but the end of this one seemed kind of final (if you ask me).

The only problem I have with this book (and it's still bothers me a year later whenever I think back on it) is that throughout the book it talks about people breathing 100% oxygen...  That would kill you, not to mention be extremely flammable.  Man! That bothers me!
4326703
I loved Cuffed and I love all 3 of the Malone Brothers so I had high hopes for Combust, Grady and Dylans book. Especially because Grady is another hot uniformed guy.

Grady is a firefighter where an event in the past is preventing him from developing relationships and from doing his job effectively, that is until Dylan walks into his life.

Now all the makings were here for a really sexy book, but I found it just too sickly sweet for my tastes on occasion. A lot of the sex scenes were brushed over, which for all intents and purposes isn't an issue, but when an author gives us a hot fireman and the heroine describes to us, the reader, how hot he is, I expected things to get very hot under the collar. Which is where the first book succeeded for me.

That being said, I did enjoy the story overall and if I had to change one thing it would be to not have given the Malone boys names all beginning with Gr. Grant, Grady & Grayson I often had trouble distinguishing between them and only because they each have their own unique personalities was I able to eventually establish who was who.

Overall, not a bad little read but had hopes for a lot lot more.
4869878
So, I liked this story, but I thought it dragged things out longer than necessary.  I thought the author should have made it more fast paced and less hemming and hawing on the hot sexy pairing of Gretchen and Rick.

When she finally did get around to finally committing them to the sheets, it felt rushed and I wanted more of the interaction between the two. Those two together nearly melted the pages.  Why can't it always be the way it is in the beginning of a hot sex relationship.

I can't say as I much cared for Brett, Rick's sleazy supposedly hunky hot brother.  He made me want to just slap him silly.  What a pig.  They should have left him in jail. Or, for that matter, Gretchen's boss Susanna, what a needy, conniving creature she was.  Both were totally narcissistic people.

I was surprised at the ending and who the actual bad guy was.  Never saw it coming.

My Advise, read it, enjoy it but don't expect it go quickly.  The author encourages patience in the story and she exercises it in getting on with the plot.
795132
Mercury's War started out strong, but the second half was not as good. I liked the chemistry between the hero and heroine. It was very intense, but they started to lose me when they brought back an old love from the hero's past. It started to go down from there and everything felt very rushed. The first part of the book seemed to build up slowly (which I liked) and the second half went by in a blur. I think also that Lora Leigh used the term mating heat way too much. It started to get on my nerves. Overall though, I give it 4 stars!!!!
3118894
The story is hot but it felt chaotic because of how it was sequenced. Scenes were not fluid. One thing was happening and the very next minute something entirely different would be. And the ending SMH. I'll think about whether I want to read any more parts.
3325087
Sadly, all of the glue in Groot's head melted out while he was on my dashboard and his head bent permanently to the side.  My children were scared of him after that so I had to toss him. :(
1798874
This book gave me a huge headache. I cried, I hoped, I empathized and I loved every moment. The emotions caused my head to spin in the way only good stories can.
3287250
For the first time I don't really know how to rate a book...
I was so disturbed but engrossed in this story at the same time.
I liked it but I didn't. So how do I rate it?
3 stars it means it was ok. But many things about this book weren't ok.
The sex scenes were hot, that's for sure, although the pool scene had a sentence there that I felt it was cheesy. But overall they were hot!
I did get the fear thing and making her stronger, but there's limits and these guys went way over it. Just not ok! WTF?
Anyway, for the hot sex scenes (even if one in particular did not make sense at all) and because it was really well written (although I didn't like all of it) I'll give 2 stars I guess. So confused!
2950196
Overall this was a good book. The story wasn't anything that hasn't been done, but it was a good steamy read that kept my mind from everyday life. The only real negative was the sex scenes were overdone.  I love some good steamy scenes, but there were way too many in this book. It got to the point that I just skipped over pages.
4831259
There were things I liked about this book and things I was left scratching my head over. While the good definitely outweighed the head scratching moments,they were present and they took me out of the story a bit.

I liked the overall story and the mythology of the Seers and Guardians. In fact, the mythology was very cool and kept the story moving. My biggest issue came from the idea that if someone was keeping an eye on Izzy the whole time and they knew who she was, why wasn't she exposed earlier? They knew what she was capable of, why not hand her over the first chance they got?

Frankly, I got tangled up thinking about that and about the betrayal/betrayer and got sucked out of the story.

I liked Kennan for the most part. I don't think he was particularly right in keeping the truth about Izzy's heritage from her, especially when he could see the signs coming, and he's not the best at explaining things until after the fact, but he was a good guy. I wasn't enamored of Ian when he first flailed his way on page. BUT... I can see how Izzy needed someone around who was a little less intense than Kennan.

As for Izzy, she doesn't always make the smartest choices, but she isn't willing to sit back and do nothing. And that matters.

Enjoyable for the most part, I just got hung up on betrayals and inept minions. Which could be an entirely me-thing, I'll admit.

-Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal
1339273
This may turn out to be a brilliant multi-volume story, but I'm not going to read past the first volume, because I found it too violent. I have a hard time relating to characters (like Dai) who treat the people they love like crap. And I have a hard time understanding how his man could fall for him, considering how badly Dai treated him. Just because he is good-looking, and leads a gang, that makes Dai hot somehow? It's just not working for me. I wanted more sweetness and light, less torture scenes.
3904672
I loved book one in this series so I was excited to read Luke's story. It was a good book and I liked it, but it frustrated me. I think my main issue is that there is way too much inner dialouge. With alternating POV's of the three main characters it got to be more than a little redundant. I found myself skimming over several paragraphs to get to the good parts. And there were a lot of good parts. There is no arguing that this book is HOT. Beyond hot, the sex scenes are amazingly written. I felt soooo bad for Cole. Luke just kept hurting him over and over again. Luke spends about 95% of the book being a complete a-hole. He makes up for it in the end though with both Cole and Sierra.
3752530
When they say this is the hottest hot sauce in the universe, I believe it.  I taste-tested this hot sauce when I was in the French Quarter.  There was a selection of hot sauces you could sample.  You were given popcorn to sample the hot sauce with.  I took a piece of popcorn and dipped it, ever so lightly, into the Dave's Insanity Sauce.  Then I popped the piece of popcorn in my mouth and...OH...MY...GOD...it felt like a choo-choo train drove out of each of my ears simultaneously.  I thought I was going to drop to the floor. Once I recovered (slightly), I searched desperately for something to drink.  I bought some Powerade and it helped, as long as I held the Powerade in my mouth; once I swallowed the burning pain started again in my mouth.  It took drinking a glass of milk and a margarita or 2 in order for me to feel remotely "sane" again.  If this is the experience you are looking for you've come to the right place.  PROCEED WITH CAUTION, indeed.
2928854
I'm struggling to write this review. Here's the thing. It's a good story, and it's well written. However there were just certain things that made me cringe and rather uncomfortable. Not because it was inappropriate. Well, technically, drinking and drugs and taking both till you don't know what you are doing, and the choice of Caroline's sister at the end of the book was inappropriate, but it wasn't written in an inappropriate way, if that makes any sense. I know these are real topics, real problems, but it just wasn't for me.  I'm glad that Caroline was super forgiving and a wonderful person, and I'm glad Ryan realizes that he has to fix things without relying on her, but much of the book I was just uncomfortable with one situation and then another.

This is the second book in the series, but it is a stand alone book. I haven't read the first one, and I wasn't lost and didn't feel like I was missing anything at all.

Overall I would recommend this author (I've enjoyed previous books of hers), but I can't say I'd recommend this book. I will keep trying more from her, however.

*I received a copy from Bethany House for an honest review
226513
I like the writing sexy as hell, but I am totally irritated at the characters.  There is just sooo much that rubbed me the wrong way...soooooooo much.

It ended with a cliff hanger so I have to read the next.