Too much magic, everything and anybody was magical. ...
357172
Too much magic, everything and anybody was magical. Which in this case means ANYTHING GOES, even dead "people" will come back to life.
3289820
This book was too confusing for me. It was a very creative story, no doubt but I just couldn't keep up with this fantasy realm. Not for me
3071687
Until The Einstein Prophecy I didn't care for magical drama and it's still not my preference.  Masello's skillful mixture of the two, however, trapped my interest, so much so that I could hardly put my Kendall down before finding out how things were going to come out.  In spit of his engeneus induction of the magical with this historical fiction, I wish the author had found a way to tell his story without it.  Still, the novel is worth a read and I recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction as well those tuned on by fanciful magic.
548493
The book is tooo descriptive.. Reading everything in extreme detail was almost tiring.. I realize she studied medieval history and that makes the book what it is, but I feel it was over done...
As for being a romance, that's a little strange considering there is a molestation.. Not too romantic to me.
Also, all the endless talk of the wedding is also a little annoying, so you'd better be huge into weddings... I realize this book is kind of old, but it is still well written for it's time.. I am thinking of reading The Dog Wizard for the magic/fantasy aspect..
And as for reading this book over and over like the previous reviewer, I couldn't imagine..
The story drags on a bit, ultimately not being my kind of book!
1622398
I loved the story, the developed history and myths. I reread some of the amazingly beautiful descriptive scenes, they awed and left me breathless. The action was nail bitting worthy. The book was an epic movie in written on pages. This epic-ness made it hard to read at times.
There was so much information dumped, so many extremely detailed details, written with such artistic flourish  that the book felt heavy. I could only read for short amounts of time, my brain needed  time to rest after struggling to unwind the woven words into meaning. This was not an easy book to read, it had to be savored slowly taking time to contemplate the events both past and present.
Ben the man who is not a man but a red dragon from lore lost with time, was trapped in a web. He had lived centuries hidden, long lonely centuries with humans never knowing his secret. He has a woman, Rose, that he cares for but knows it can not last, and he doesn't have the nerve to be honest with her. Her safety, his secrets and the world will all be trapped in a tornado of ancient myth come to the present. His secrets are held in check by a pact.
It is a pact him and others not human made after years of slaughter and near extinction threatened them when the Fae left this world. This world full of suppressed magic and lore is ruled by humans with a hope that the Fae will return and the magic will once again be free. Witches, Egyptian gods, spirits, Fae and more. When the pact is broken everything bleeds and worlds collide .
I don't think I'll continue with the series. It was a story I loved but was so difficult to read it took some of the pleasure out of reading. I would go see the movie !
3.5 stars
3052445
... with magic, and enchantresses, and steadfast heroes, and royal heroines. I think that if they hadn't borrowed so heavily (or perhaps there's no way to avoid that borrowing) from Pirates of the Caribbean and Circe, it would have felt more novel and I would have had that heady feeling of discovery that the best writing grants you. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ride and if there was dues ex machina, at least it worked within the context of the world. I would recommend that you read this book from a library. It may be worth buying, but this one falls into your mileage may vary category.
915700
Seems like it's stereotypical most fictional witches to run wiccan or magic shops in either New Orleans or Salem (and the ones that aren't usually are private investigators centered in New Orleans or Salem). Though this is right in line with my favorite genre (paranormal and thankfully not focusing on vampires of werewolves), I found myself skimming rather than engaged reading. I bored quickly wading through the endless world building. There are times when world building is good to enrich the story. Here it feels weighed down by it, endlessly trudging through facts about the witch hierarchy, endless details on the types of creatures and types of magic within Samanthas magical world. Another problem of this was that Samantha has so much back story, it feels like weve been dumped into the middle of a series of books rather than at the start. (How did she get Medbh head? How did her guardian first come into her life? How did her guardian train her? What happened to her father? How did she first meet Crwys and react to him being not human? How did she first find out she was a witch? Theres an entire back story missing about her rivalry with Sidhe ruler Brendi with only vague references about it. How did she first find Grey? -Looking at the descriptions of some of the other books, I probably should have read both Dance by Midnight and Dragon Fire before this book.) Samantha herself felt rather devoid of personality, just plain reacting except when she was being bossy and ordering everyone around. But there were other fascinating characters, like Crwys who is wonderfully warm, loyal, determined, caring, totally hot and mysterious (so ideal the audience starts to question why she is even with boyfriend Robin whos barely a cameo and doesnt seem to understand her or her world), the china doll head of Medbh who is delightfully wicked, even Ivan and Kyle are more fascinating than the main heroine. Though I adored Crwys and all the imaginative magic (loved the zombie-like changelings!), the technically detailed story and bland heroine didn't entice me enough to continue on with the series.
1022293
An interesting story, but so many characters with detailed magical realism backgrounds, I found it hard to remember which character was which.
998740
I liked the story and the characters but there was so much of everything.... so many of the events could have been stand alone books.  I'm glad I read this book but perhaps I was at a disadvantage for not realizing it was second in a series.  Family stories with lots of issues and reactions to those issues.
1180884
Sorcerer to the Crown melds Jane Austen with magic--it's set in an alternative 1800s England, where the top sorcerer in the land is a freed black slave, and a spunky magical girl is determined to overcome society's prejudices against women performing magic. My big issue with this book is the beginning. I started the novel a few times and didn't read on. The main character, Zacharias, spends the first few chapters facing horrible prejudice and attacks against him without being able to do much about it. I wanted very much to like his character, but I couldn't, and the book's omniscient point of view didn't help. But then help arrives, in the form of the irrepressible Prunella, a magical girl stuck in a Cinderella-like role in a school for gentlewitches that tries to squash all the magic out of girls. The interplay between the two characters is fun and exciting, and the plot takes off, pulling in South East Asian mythology and European beliefs about the Fae. I started with the audiobook, and had to buy the Kindle version as well, to finish it quicker. A wonderful, fun read, but don't give up at the beginning. There's a charming little romantic subplot, no sex to speak of, and standard fantasy violence. An excellent choice for adult fantasy readers, especially those who like alt-historicals, but some older teen readers might enjoy it. Highly recommended, but hang in there after the beginning.
1488646
This book kept me interested, but the short paragraphs drove me a bit nuts, as did the sheer ordinariness of the magic.  Perhaps I am too used to action in a book, bit while compelled to finish it to find out what happened to the characters, I cannot say I truly enjoyed it.
2468927
Im torn about Ever the Hunted. I tore through the story quickly. The magic was fascinating. I adored the supporting characters. I also liked Britta and Cohen. I was totally engaged with the story throughout. So whats the problem? Good question.

I felt it focused too much on the romantic plot points and not enough on building the kind of rich world you would expect in a fantasy novel like this. It had a blurb from Sarah J. Maas, so I had high expectations in that regard. It feels like a YA contemporary romance disguised as a fantasy novel. The political conflict certainly suffered because of this. Too much was glossed over to be the kind of epic fantasy that it wants to be. Britta is also the kind of character I love to hate. Shes talented in an unconventional way, and she has this annoying habit of thinking that shes unattractive when its pretty clear she isnt. Theyre over-played tropes.

The novel itself was formulaic. Nothing was a surprise, except for the end, which did surprise me a little. Im still not sure what to think of it other than it sets up the next book pretty well.
1340240
I loved the world of this book -- it had so much potential for a great story with magic, intrigue, and romance.  Unfortunately, the connection between the male and female main felt like an afterthought and the central conflict was resolved way too easily.
1850245
I was hooked on the first book, but lost interest as the story progressed. Two things bothered me about the subsequent books: 1) bouncing around between actors in the same story, and 2) what I call magic. For me bouncing around between the different actors is very jarring - its kind of like reading a chapter a week. I would rather see the story through one Peronist eyes instead of fifteen or twenty different sets of eyes. While I enjoy the entrance of new actors, they always seemed to bring new or better technology to the heroes. Or the heroes were like Scotty in Star Trek - always able to cross connect items to get new performance. It just got to be too much.
4754391
A story about witches with spells and such - not what I wanted and there was no indication of that in the descriptions. :(
3950449
Too many different directions of intrigue, jumping from different people and different history.
4264842
There was so much going on in this recent installment. Good story, certainly not formulaic like recent paranormal books I've read, but the narration is just so overwhelming. I missed the first 3-4 books. I hope the next book is more like the first 2 or 3.