Customer Reviews

Bound to Shadows (Riley Jenson Guardian Series #8)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've enjoyed the Riley Jensen/Guardian series ever since getting a Kindle freebie of the first book a couple of months ago. I zipped through all of them, liking some better than others, but all have been enjoyable and worth the read. Bound to Shadows is no exception, but it had a couple of problems.

In this book, Riley tries to uncover who is beheading local vampires and killing women who are addicted to being bitten by vampires. The plot is fast-paced, but it seems to take a backseat to the dilemma between Riley, Quinn, and Kye. Usually I'm all for this kind of dilemma, loving the interaction and drama between the characters as much as an exciting plot. In this case, however, the drama and tension wasn't as intense as it could've been, or should've been based on previous books in this series.

I'm trying not to post major spoilers but this may contain mild ones, so please be aware of that before continuing.

Riley and Quinn's relationship has matured since the last book, and although Riley still feels the pull of her werewolf nature, she's committed to the love she feels for Quinn. That commitment should've been enough to make her resist accepting Kye as her soulmate - creating tension for the reader. The author didn't rely on that, though, and instead decided to villainize Kye too much. In previous books, he wasn't the epitome of warmth and kindness, but he wasn't quite the cold-hearted killer he was in this book. He didn't have many, if any, redeeming qualities in this book, so Riley's dilemma was too simplistic.

Although I've always pulled for Quinn, I wouldn't have minded seeing glimpses of what a relationship with a not-so-villainous Kye could have been. It would've made Riley's struggle to hold on to Quinn even more worthwhile and satisfying for the reader. The author usually does a better job with this emotional complexity and tension.

All that said, I did enjoy the book, just not as much as I hoped to. It just didn't quite reach its potential.

There was so much potential with the storyline of having Riely's actual soul mate in the running for her heart. I found Kye to be the dangerous man Riely needs in her life to counter the tameness of Quinn. Arthur took Kye's posessive behavior and turned it into that of a psychotic and at the same time she turned Quinn into a very uninteresting character. Without the intrigue of who Riely will spend her life with, the series has lost something for me and I most likely will not be continuing with the series.

I have been reading the Riley Jensen series since they first came out years ago. I enjoy the series immensely and this was the worst book to date.

The dialogue between Riley and Kye was amateurish and stilted. Her reactions to him were not believable. I also agree with a previous reviewer that Riley and family have no business bringing a child into this mess of a world they live in.

The ending did redeem the book, so I gave it three stars. I had trouble working my way through it and skipped ahead a lot. I hope that that in the next book we are back with Riley we've all come to know.

What a mess of a book! I hated this heroine. Really. She was so......immature. "Ehhhh I'm a werewolf, I need sex, blah blah blah, he feels soooooo good inside, I like rough with him, blah blah, I'm horny so it's fine, blah blah blah blah..."

I wanted to strangle her! She was so stupid, it was like listening to a teenager who just discovered sex. And the plot was hard to understand because apparently no one's feelings matter to her, so she didn't talk about any of it, so it was basically just sex, then talk about the murders, more sex with Kye, then more talk with Kade about the case, sex, her flirting with everybody, case, lust, murder....

Yawn.

I have read the whole series and enjoy Riley very much. I like her humor, love of her pack and her relationship with Quinn,who I think is very hot and her kick-ass attude, which also wasn't present. Quinn wasn't in this book very much which was dissappointing.Kye was a waste in this book I was hopeing for some real struggles with-in Riley between her Vampire love and her wolf soul mate. It would have made great tension for a couple books. Instead Riely was winny ,not much action compared to the other books. I want the old Riley back.

This book is unsatisfactory. I like the Riley Jensen series, but this book is awful. There is just no "there" there. It makes no sense for Riley to ignore the sudden appearance of a sex dreamer after she meets an owner of a bar who puts out series sex vibes. It makes no sense for her to ignore these dreams and NEVER mention it to anyone, especially after she realizes she is after someone who can sex drain someone through mirrors. How stupid is that?

It makes no sense for her to ignore the emotional aspect of her soul male Kye. She dislikes him because he kills. But everyone she knows is a killer. She is a killer. Her lover Quinn is a killer. Her brother is a killer. All her friends are killers. Thus, Kye should be her perfect match. The lack of explanation makes this book useless.

And the end is shockingly inane. Everyone she cares about warns her to shoot without hesitation, but what does she do? Hesitate continuously.

Unlike other heroines in action, paranormal romance, fantasy novels, Riley seems just inane. She never THINKS. She never grows. She shows no maturity or growth despite all the things that have happened to her and the ones she loves. She seems amazingly dumb over and over again. It is as if she has some weird amnesia and that nothing she experiences ever makes an impression on her. She gets people killed and that never seems to have any resonance.

Very, very unsatisfying. I got the book at Wal-Mart and saved some money, but I wish I had not wasted the time in reading it. Maybe this (my 1st review of a book EVER) will spare someone else the money and time.

Even worse than the character issues are the obvious holes in writing. We learn that the sex dreamer can only enter someone's home AFTER he has accessed it. But without such access to Riley's home, he is suddenly in her dreams. Ugh.

I have to agree with the other reviewers. Gone is the kickass heroine with a warm sense of humor. In this installment of the series, we have a sex addicted whiny werewolf whose constant reasoning is, "I'm a werewolf. You wouldn't understand." She puts people in danger because of her inability to make decisions, withholds vital information because she "didn't want to alarm anybody unnecessarily", yet in other books she emphasizes that every little clue is important. Riley's character in this book is alarmingly annoying. The mystery plot does take a backseat to the Riley-Quinn-Kye triangle. Like others have said, the author makes Kye to be a cold-blooded killer, which should have made Riley's decision all too easy, yet there wasn't any justification as to why it was so hard other than they were soul mates. If the author had made Kye out to be a little warmer, the indecisiveness would have been more understandable. She knew killing a soulmate was survivable because of her friend Ben, yet she didn't want to face this fate, even when she knew lives would be saved. Riley was just depicted as cowardly in this book and even she admitted that. I really hope the final book in the series makes up for this one.

All I have to say is unbelievable...I loved this entire series with it's humor and Riley's attitude. All the characters were written very well I couldn't get enough of them until this book came out and I was reading through it waiting for any kind of humor or something interesting to happen...it never came. This book was a total disappointment to me I'm in shock

This was not the book I expected.

~~~~~~SPOILERS~~~~~~~







First, what the heck was with making Kye into a POS? I felt utterly lost reading page after page of how selfish and creepy he was. In the last book he did not come off that way AT ALL. (Sure, there was the killer for hire thing, but a man can change can't he?) In the beginning, I thought Kerri was building up to some sort of revelation wherein Kye would snap out of it, and Riley would consider falling for him, but nop. He was straight, hard core A-hole right up until the end. I mean, okay, yes having two soul mates would be a bit difficult to write around, but did he have to be so dark? I thought it cheapened everything they had in the previous book and made what they were doing in this one completely absurd. Now, let's talk about the ending. OMG! I honest to goodness didn't see it coming. I was so shocked it almost made me laugh out loud. Authors rarely surprise me these days, and the ones that do usualy provide crappy bits anyway, but him getting wasted was a rush I won't soon forget. Over all I thought the book was sort of boring. It didn't capture my interest nearly as well as the last, however, it's still worth the read, and I'll continue on with Riley's journey because she is one of the most mucked up characters I've ever NOT hated reading. (Plus, the vamps are hot.)

God this series is killing me. Another fantastic read that really upsets me at the end. Not very often a book does that to me. Kind of knew it was going to happen about midway through but had to suck it up because this fantastic series has total realism to it.
Riley is on another case of vampires being killed and Kye once again shows up. He may be her soul mate but they hate each other. This isn't enough to keep the creep from trying to control that which is his. Amazing but Quinn is handling the situation rather well, Riley is not.
This book has so many things happening in it that will hopefully get wrapped up in Moon Sworn. Will get to it within the next week or so.