1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Nocturnal Readings Blog Review, February 3, 2011
This review is from: After the Kiss (Wicked Games) (Kindle Edition)
This paranormal romance novella is published with Nocturne Bites, a ebook line from Harlequin that publishes novellas (a novella is a piece of fiction that is longer than a short story, but not novel length) between 10,000-15,000 words (that's 40-60 pages). This line of novellas targets readers of Harlequin's category romance readers who enjoy their paranormal line, Silhouette Nocturne.
While I am normally not a reader of novella's, I've started reading a few books from this line. Over break I hope to write a short novella that I will be able to submit to Nocturne Bites.
Since this was my first time reading a novella that wasn't literary fiction, please take my critique with a grain of salt. I don't know how these sorts of novella's usually sound, so I can only judge based on my own opinion--I have no ability to compare this to other novella's.
To start, here is the novella's blurb:
"Belladonna Reynolds has just married a werewolf. Severo has given her nearly everything she could want--love, amazing sex, and the honor of choosing her as his mate for life. Yet there is one thing she craves that Severo will not give her: his blood. To a vampire, a couple's great bond is formed with the bite. But Severo will be shunned by his own kind once marked by a vampire. Even as they enjoy intense passion in their marriage bed, Bella and Severo have to wonder: Can a marriage between a werewolf and a vampire work?"
One of the things I enjoyed most about After the Kiss was that it was such a quick read. It only took me about an hour and a half to get through the story and it only took that long because I was frequently being interrupted lol.
While I found the story to be relatively enjoyable, the writing is what threw me off. The plot felt a little forced to me. The writing also wasn't my cup of tea. There was a lot of passive voice and it was definitely bogged down with back-story--in my opinion, in a short piece, you definitely don't want to have huge chunks of back-story, which can bore your reader and doesn't help the action move forward.
However, one compliment I can give Michele Hauf is that she knows how to turn up the heat in her characters' bedrooms. For such a short read, this story was full with lots of sexy times.
Though I didn't like the writing and the characters weren't really hitting home with me, overall it wasn't too bad and gave me some fair entertainment.
This certainly isn't a bad read, but it just wasn't my particular style. I wouldn't be completely opposed to reading something else by this author, but I wouldn't seek out another story either. However, remember that this is just my opinion and perhaps you would feel differently.
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