Anna S. (annapi) reviewed on 6/15/2010 + 334 more book reviews

Ugh. This book was HORRIBLE. Now before I started my review I wondered how much the hullabaloo on Amazon about the very public tantrum Victoria Laurie pulled when she got a bad review on one of her books would color my opinion of the book. I tried very hard not to let it, but when you know that the author deliberately models a bad character after someone who gave her an honest but bad review just to spite them, then the whole tone of the book becomes one bitch-fest. And boy, is MJ Halliday channeling Victoria Laurie! I don't know which character, but I think it was this book. Regardless, from the very beginning I could not stand MJ. She had suddenly become a prima donna, complaining, demanding and outraged for most of the plot, and for the smallest reasons. Gilley was more annoying and exaggeratedly gay than usual. The plot itself was eye-rollingly unbelievable, even for a fantasy. Worst of all was the cheesy dialogue and dramatic prose. I felt like I was watching a bad play where the actors make an entrance with fanfare, sweep up to center stage and strike a dramatic pose, then proceed to flounce their way through the script with many dramatic pauses for applause, and finally go through a prolonged cringe-worthy dying scene. I just wish this did end with a dying scene for our protagonists so the readers would be put out of their misery. The attempt at inserting romantic tension was laughable, and I felt sorry for the way the author treated MJ's current and absent lover Stephen, because it seems like she's toying with discarding him. I only got through the book because I had spent a precious PBS credit on it and was determined not to waste it, but I wasted my time instead even if I skimmed much of it. It seems to me that as a professional psychic Laurie has just given skeptics a reason to be suspicious about her psychic abilities with this story. She seems to think she ramped up her style to a higher level with a more dramatic plot, but it fails miserably. I don't think I'll bother with the rest of the series.

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