No plot, little substance
595991
I hate to say, but this was the worst of all the Clan Novels so far.  When  I bought this book, on the heels of the Bujah Clan Novel, I was eager to  see the continuation of the Camarilla seige of New York.  What I got was a  book that was even more confusing than the Malkavian book.  Although the  Malkavian book had a number of overtones, that seemed to do nothing but  confuse the reader at points, the end of the book, all the pieces came  together to form a picture that made reading the 190 pages before  it.
Tremere fell very short of that goal.  All this was was a mixture of  dialouge, and mysterious annalogies that served to confoud the reader,  forcing them to hurry to get to the end to hopefully find a meaning for all  of it, which they dissapointingly left out, leaving the reader feeling  cheated out of their money.  All in all, I'd say that you could skip this  book and move right on to Noseferatu, but I'm saving that opinion until I  actually read it.  I'm just hoping that they don't take the overall plot  and drop it, leaving everyone to wonder if and how the Camarilla takes New  York out from under the Sabbat.
2274665
The characters are lifeless. When you are done with this book, you feel like you've read a plot outline, not a novel. It's dull, the ending is totally pointless and leaves you wondering why you wasted a couple of your hours with this paperback, when you could have been spent those same hours drinking prune juice laced with metamucil. At least your time then would have been productive.
I see no point in reading anything else by this author unless I get it in a library. I completely wasted my money on the purchase.
3300693
Not a bad plot line, but terribly written. The villians are typical caricatures. Dialogue is hokey, and riddled with cliches. Water is never just "water", it's "cool water" or "refreshing water". All coffee is not just hot but "piping hot". No suspense at all, you can see how this is going to go from the first 10 pages: the dastardly villains foiled, the wise-cracking hero of the invincible team gets the girl, and they all ride off into the sunset.

Save yourself the purchase price and the time and read almost anything from one o the many other talented writers in this genre.
438644
Here's the thing:  this story didn't say anything.  It had a dozen possible plotlines, none were followed.  Seriously.  None.  Wolf shifters from oil-encroaching tundra - goes nowhere.  Billionaire and the school teacher - goes nowhere.  Homeless being fed in Central Park - goes nowhere.  Beautiful assistant who is nasty to the heroine, shifter pack and family somewhere in the countryside, charter school in NYC, students who could have issues and needs, the homeless dude ... and all of this just goes nowhere.  There's not even a big I Love You scene because the characters don't know each other.  The hero who is supposedly a billionaire Alpha has no substance, no balls, and apparently has never seen a woman he likes.  The heroine appears from nowhere, goes nowhere, and seems to be made from cardboard.  Honestly, this ebook was such a disappointment.  Two thumbs down.
4594309
Boring, boring, boring.  There is very little conflict in this book, and what little is there is resolved quickly and easily.  The characters don't develop at all.
998874
Not much of a plot.  You never find out why what happens happens.  No ending.  A terrible read.  I very rarely say anything bad about a book, but here I can't find anything good to say.
4904308
This book does have a lot of action, but that is all it has.  There is no character development, no backstory, and very little logic behind the actions of any of the characters.  Near the end of the book you find out that the protagonist trusts a major villain because his father served with the villain.  Just that, no information about the father, no information about relationship other than there was one.  This is the book that if Michael Bay were trying to make this into a movie, he would ask for some character development and exposition.
I also tire of girlfriends who are too stupid to listen to someone in dangerous situations.  If anyone shoots at me and there are armed  soldiers with me who clearly know more than I do, I would cooperate or ask questions in private.  Being loud and drawing attention to us would be the last thing I would want to do.
Even as a free book, this was sadly a waste of my time and energy
2917936
Great literature this is not. This suspense-thriller/murder mystery is built solely on plot, and even that is quite thin as I figured out the gist of it about a quarter of the way in (although I give author Nancy Pickard credit for a surprise twist at the end). The characters are one-dimensional and don't ring true to life. The writing is stilted, and the characters' conversations feel contrived. Several of the key plot points on which everything else depends are completely implausible. Worst of all, it reads like a poorly-written soap opera. That said, if you enjoy the genre of suspense, you may enjoy this book. Otherwise, skip it.
4517820
I read this as a book club choice of another member's and found it to be a waste of my time. It is totally plot driven which isn't necessarily a negative, but there was little else going for it. The characters were all superficially developed and I found that I didn't care about any of them. The author missed every opportunity, even with considerable potential to develop his readers' empathy for the protagonist's young daughter, to give us any but the most perfunctory insights into his characters.  They were all simply tools, it seemed, to move the plot along.

To be fair, this isn't really the stuff of a typical book club discussion and this book may be satisfactory for some people on a long and boring flight when you're not already into something and don't want to invest in starting a thought provoking read. It may also work as another formulaic Hollywood screenplay adaptation which could make the author a lot of money but, even in its genre, there are far more satisfying plot driven stories with more originality and characters that one can actually feel something for.
967612
Not a whole lot of substance. Mainly a lot of fluff.
2488005
I can not believe how many 5 star reviews this book has gotten.  Not much substance, and a good deal of filler.
1918329
Minimal story. No character development. Perhaps I missed something in its promotion. Was this just a sample of the full book?
4826628
Reads like an outline for an O'Brien novel, or perhaps a report to the Admiralty.. No character development, no detail, and no emotion. It is a bland, rapid read.
377291
What a disappointment. The lackluster plot is all over the place, the narrative is frustratingly unfocused, the police-procedural details boring, the story is just plain mediocre, and I deduced who the chief villain was during is very first scene. Worse, Rhyme and Amelia basically play supporting roles here. This long-winded, suspense-free book plays out as if its author were running on autopilot throughout.
2932826
This book is marketed as a mystery, yet the author spends more time focusing on elements unimportant to the actual plot line. What should have been the climax of the story we wrapped up in a few paragraphs and then - shift to random obsession with her sisters messy house and the fact that her sister mixes biscuit types in the same tin.  Um...you character confronts the murderer and then what. No description of the murder being taken into custody or fighting. No dialogue between the detective (who told the main character to stay out of police business and leave mystery to pros) and the main character when she shows him and the police force up...nadda...nothing. The plot logic jumps left me feeling dissatisfied. If you want to market this as angst field chick lit - then its fine. But PLEASE don't call this a mystery.
2080311
This was not a meaningful summary, or even 3-minutes worth of information.

Selling such little substance as you've done here for a buck will ensure it is my last thimblesofplenty purchase.

If the book goes for $12 on Kindle, I'd expect to get at least an outline and some bullet points equal to 8% of the book's highlights, but there is no substance in this summary.
3094916
The plot is practically linear, no great turns. The fights seemed to be written for some hopeful movie with slow motion action schemes. (May happen, unfortunately) Few new characters, and even those are without even minimum background. No character development. At least 4 missed great opportunities: significant event not introduced in advance, two potentially great characters dying before we get to know them, a potential emotional conflict solved in few pages without any consequences, a fantastic opportunity to describe a drastic change in the vampire society entirely missed Is  the author  afraid of his own ideas, be afraid to go deeper? But the fans will probably get what they wanted/expected.