Customer Reviews

Beneath the Skin: Book Three of The Maker's Song

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let me start of by saying that you will have a rather hard time reading this book if you haven't read the first two in the series before. As I have read the first two, and loved them both I was excited to start reading this book. I was pretty disappointed. At over 400 pages I didn't think that the book got good until the last forty. I think that there were too many secondary characters in the book, and there is not enough of Dante, Heather and Von. The groups that are after Dante, the SB, the FBI, all of the individual agents, the cercle and the fallen, are overwhelming to the reader. It wasn't uncommon to start off a new chapter reading from the perspective of a person other than the ones you know well. This became difficult to remember exactly who the person was and what they were doing leading up to the chapter. I also found it difficult to read the book smoothly not only because of all the extra characters, but because of all of the made up names. I enjoy the French/Cajun influence on the characters, but I feel that even with the pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book, I spent a lot of time trying how to figure out the pronunciation of the names each time I read them. All in all I'm excited to see what happens to Dante next, and what happens to Dante's relationship with Heather. I was greatly disappointed in how little the book talks about D&H or involved them, but here's hoping that the next one involves more of them, and less secondary charcters.

Book 3 of the Maker's Song series by Adrian Phoenix picks very quickly after where book 2 left off. In fact the entire events of Beneath the Skin take place over just about a week. So much is going on in these few days that several times I wondered if time just ran differently in their world. Ok not really, but seriously if I could get as much done in a day as these guys I would be superwoman!

In Beneath the Skin Heather and Dante find themselves stuck trying to deal with the aftermath of all the events that take place at the end of In the Blood. Dante is lost within himself, buried in flashbacks and memories of his past. Heather is now on the run from the agencies she used to work for. Lucien is still being held by the Fallen and suspected of being dead. Book 3 explores the question.... can Dante keep his sanity or is he destined to be just a weapon who has lost control?

One of the things I love about this series are the characters. Heather kicks ass and I was glad to see her finally slip on some leather pants. For once I think the book cover actually portrays a look the characters pulls off in the story! I love Heather because she is smart, determined, dedicated, and simply will not take no for an answer. Not even from the bad boy vamp in PVC mesh and leather. There is never even a question that she is strong enough to stand beside Dante and fight with him.

Equally lovable is Dante, a True Blood (born) vampire and Fallen Angel "maker". He is like an M&M, hard shell.... sweet chocolatey goodness in side. His foul mouth and flippant attitude make him a fun character to read about. I just can't help but love a guy who is so fond of flipping people off and tossing out the F#&! word. As if his oddly charming personality isn't enough, Dante is man enough to not push Heather behind him at the first sign of trouble. He doesn't go all alpha crazy and lock her in a closet when things start falling apart, in fact he admits to needing her. But make no mistake, you will get your sexy man beast fix with this book as he has no problem putting Heather up against a wall if ya know what I mean *wink wink nudge nudge*.

Something else to look forward to from Beneath the Skin is an extended glimpse at Von, the sexy biker nomad. He plays a heavy part in the book. His dedication and love for Dante and all the things he considers "his" is touching.

Now for my complaints... *sigh*. I hate to do it, but I have some. This installment has just too much going on. Halfway through the book I was seriously considering whipping out some graph paper and making a flow chart so I could remember who was who and what agency they worked for. The way the author draws us into Dante's head and his struggle to not lose it was flawless. I ate up those chapters like freshly baked cookies. But I found myself growling and sighing when we got pulled out of those scenes only to be stuck in the middle of Shadow Branch/FBI/Whatever other Agency crap. There were just too many agents with too many agendas and in the end there was nothing done with those plot points. They are just left dangling in the wind. On top of that the ending seemed abrupt... I didn't expect it to be so sudden and got the feeling that because of all the plot lines the book was originally longer but they needed a stopping point.

Now that I complained, I will admit, that field agents (don't ask me which agency they were from) Emmet and Merri interest me. I do look forward to seeing what part they will play in the wind and I liked the relationship between them. However, everything else relating to the Shadow Branch and the plot to capture/release Dante just went over my head and left me feeling confused.

Even with my gripes, Beneath the Skin, is a great read. So much of the action of the book comes from within Dante's mind and I found myself really enjoying the experience. Often a good internal struggle is so more engaging than the external dangers. This book was definitely better than the last and I look forward to the next one. It will be interesting to see how and if resolution comes about in book 4.

I absolutely love the first 2 books, but was somewhat disappointed in this one. The book switched back and forth from different perspectives of way too many people, including new characters. Alot of it was not needed. You already knew that different factions of the government was interested in Dante, but the back and forth that was shown between different directors and agents, got very old, very quick.

Their also was not alot of pages in Dante's perspective. I did think that the author did a good job of showing Dante's trouble with keeping track of the past and present.

Another issue I had was you would read about something that happened from Heather's view and in the next chapter would back track to before the previous chapter in someone else's view, and then progress into the incident from the previous chapter. Pretty much you would go thru the same thing twice.

Towards the end, it got a little better.

I think my biggest disappointment was that I had read that this was a Trilogy and the book ends in a cliff hanger, which drives me nuts. Now I am waiting to see if there is a next book and when it comes out, to see what happens with Dante.

At the ending of the last book, Dante had done some incredibly powerful and scary "magic" against the Fallen who were trying to claim. This book picks up right away, with Dante, Heather, Von, and Annie on the run from both the FBI and other agencies as well as any more Fallen who could be hunting Dante. Unfortunately, Dante's nasty past has caught up with him and threatens to consume his mind. With everyone gunning for both her lover and herself, Heather knows she must continue to protect Dante, as she is the only thing that can help him keep his thin hold on sanity. What she doesn't know is just how important him keeping his sanity is, for he has the power to make or unmake anything, and it is his destiny to change the world.


In my review of the last book I expressed some frustration with the amount of perspective changes and the difficultly in keeping track of everyone's agenda. I was hoping that this book would be a little better aspect, but it was actually much worse. There were just too many side characters all with their own plans, some hidden, some not. It was impossible to keep track of it all, and I felt that really detracted from the story. I would have preferred a whole lot more Dante/Heather time, at least I know what their agenda is.


In the little amount of time the book spend on the main characters, there was one thing that stood out to me, whenever the perspective got sucked into Dante's head. Through these glimpses we got to see just how torments and tortured he is by the unspeakable horrors of his past that the despicable people put him through. It is almost amusing that they were trying to mold him into a sociopath so they could study him, when all they had to do was turn the "camera" around on themselves. Then they would have seen the true sociopaths.


I really love the concept of this series and the main characters are great, but I'm really having a hard time getting through the books, and each one is harder than the last. I plan to stick it out because like I said, the main characters are great, and I want to know what happens to them, but I am almost to the point where I want to skip any scene that isn't about Dante, Heather, Von, or Lucien. I'm still holding out hope for things to get better as there is such potential in this series, but I won't hold my breath. I'm rating this a 3 based on the main characters alone, otherwise it would be lower.

I enjoyed the first book of the series, the second was okay, but I figured the third will bring it all together and close it out. I was very disappointed. Spending half the book in the mind of someone who is losing his mind and drugged on morphine isn't exactly good story-telling. From the end of book 2 to the end of book 3, I don't see that we learnt anything new about the characters but the author just put them in situations where they did the same things repeatedly. Good thing this is the end of the series.

I was fully expecting to love this book. I loved Rush of Wings and In the Blood. Unfortunately I didn't love Beneath the Skin. In fact, it was a struggle for me to finish it. I know that Adrian Phoenix is a kick-ass writer, so I'm not sure what happened with this one. I also question the skill of her editing team. Frankly, I expect more from Simon and Schuster.

Beneath the Skin basically recaps In the Blood from the point of view of many characters that I don't care about. I know at least two government agencies want to find Dante. I know that the Elohim Cercle and the vampire conclave (or what have you) want to find Dante. And I know that Heather and Von want to get Dante somewhere safe so he can regroup and get strong again. I desperately want Dante to get strong agian. He is an amazing character. I'm anxious for Heather and Dante to explore their bond, and anxious for Dante to reconcile what's past and what's present. We know all about Chloe and Dante's difficult past - we accept this as shaping Dante and, yes, we still love him. We don't need to relive the same past events in every book.

It felt like 100 pages of government agency POV characters could easily have been cut from this book, because they were just filler. These characters didn't appear to have any sub-plot important to this story, although to be honest, I couldn't tell you exactly what *this* story was attempting to accomplish, which is what makes me question Adrian's editorial team.

So. Here's hoping the next installment is better. I'm not ready to give up on Adrian Phoenix yet.

~SM Johnson

This whole book takes place in about two days. The previous two books were very good and I became a fan fast however you cannot read this one without reading the first two or you will be LOST. I also agree with most reviews here that there just are to many FBI agents to keep track of to many heads of this and that organization legal or otherworld that I did not really care about and kept wondering who the heck they were . Dante does not even
wake up until about 150 pages into this book and then he is so out of it that I had trouble myself thinking about what was really happening . Both main characters are reduced to secondary parts pretty much sleeping throughout this book or in flashback dream
sequences . I also felt myself getting angry at Dante and thinking to myself GET OVER IT already with Chloe and that stuffed orca ! I have had enough of Dante Angel for awhile . After having such high expectations I was very disapointed I did not get Heather, Dante , Lucien or much of anyone
else I cared about but a whole bunch of nothing . Adrian Phoenix is a good writer but she is off track with this book it became
a stuggle for me to finish it but I finally made myself do it and that is not what I expect from her I wanted to
LOVE it I wanted it to be a page turner that I could not put down sadly this is not the case with Beneath the Skin . I will hope
the next one is better...

Overall I was pleased with this book, but I found the first two books were better. I actually skipped a few redundant parts. I was disappointed in the ending but it left me looking forward to the next book and thinking about the book several days after.

I strongly recommend you read the previous books in this series (Rush of Wings and In the Blood) before reading this book. This installment picks up exactly where In the Blood leaves-off.

Dante, Heather, Annie and Von are now on the lamb. Dante's true blood vampire and the "creawdwr" Maker identities have been unveiled to some of the most crooked souls on earth and in Gehenna (land where the fallen angels dwell). He is relentlessly and violently pursued by all, including the government's non-existent Shadow Branch division, for their own nefarious reasons. There simply is no hiding place on earth or in Gehenna for Dante.

In the previous novel, Dante was kidnapped and had the mental shields that protected him from his past forcibly shattered. With no mental safeguards in place, the guilt from his involuntary hideous deeds of the past is unraveling his mind. Heather has been the one constant sanctuary for Dante, an anchor to help keep him in the present, instead of reliving nightmares of his past.

From Dante's birth, he has drifted from one foul slave owner to the next. His existence is full of tragedy and pain. Even in the face of rape and violence, Dante still has a heart of gold and never mutates into the sociopath everyone was anticipating.

I really enjoyed this installment. My only complaint is at times it was a little confusing to differentiate between all the secondary characters and keep track of the present and past. Besides that issue, this installment was a hit! The dark, fast-paced, thrilling-action and suspense kept me riveted to each page. There were some parts that were so violent and bleak; it was almost too painful to read. The story absorbed my attention so deeply, I was actually sad when the book ended. This latest installment left me with an insatiable craving for more; it's hard to believe I have to wait a whole year for the next installment.

For those wondering what genre this series falls under, I categorize it as a dark urban fantasy romance. I highly recommend this book to fellow dark urban fantasy readers and look forward to the next book Etched In Bone due out 12/2010.

I also recommend:
Sins & Shadows
Cursed to Death (Crimson Moon, Book 4)
Soul Catcher (The Outsider Series)
Scorched: The Dark Forgotten
Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, Book 1)

In this third installation of the Maker's Song series, the reader picks up where the second novel leaves off, at the edge of a pit in Oregon where a house used to stand. Stone statues of the Fallen are strategically placed around the `sinkhole' leaving federal agents scratching their heads wondering who or what these stone beings are. True Blood vampire rock star Dante has experienced his worst seizure yet, a seizure that just might have sent him over the edge. And those closest to Dante - including his lover, FBI agent Heather Wallace and his close friend and protector, Llygad Von ¬- are on a race against time to keep human and otherworldly malevolent forces at bay.

As Dante's fragile sanity hangs precariously in the balance, his psyche vacillates between present day and his nightmarish past. He's also beginning to manifest abilities never seen before in the nightkind world. While it's known that he's a True Blood, rumors abound that he's also the Creadwr, or Maker, the Fallen have been seeking for millennia to help them rejuvenate the dying Gehenna. Dante only wants to live in peace, but his past keeps rearing its ugly head, and the details of his destiny prove it will no longer be denied.

Author Adrian Phoenix continues her saga of the beautiful and broodingly mysterious Dante Baptiste. Current fans of the Maker's Song series should have no trouble keeping up with the current events in Beneath The Skin, although it's highly encouraged that readers new to this series start at the beginning with A Rush of Wings.

Unlike the previous two novels, this book is more involved with secondary characters with Dante making appearances in the story mostly during his hallucinations/dreams during Sleeping or of his tenuous hold on reality when he's awake. So if the reader is hoping to find a fast-moving page-turner with Dante at its center, they're bound to be disappointed. However, His Maker's abilities are rather fascinating; especially since his creations don't come from his conscious mind. Fans who were hoping that the romance between Heather and Dante would be a little more pronounced in this story will also be disappointed as there is very little interaction between the pair.

Incredibly well written, nonetheless this story seems to only foster a feeling of impatience once the end of the book has been reached. Understandably, this novel is part of a series and back story and peripheral characters need to develop and be explained. But, with her books published so far apart at approximately one per year, the fourth book in the series will need to deliver something closer to the resolution of the story or readers will lose interest.

Reviewed for fallenangelreviews.com