13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The description doesn't match the story!, May 25, 2010
This review is from: Daemon's Mark (Nocturne City, Book 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
I actually purchased Daemon's Mark from a local bookstore, read it, and enjoyed it. It was fast-paced and featured plenty of Luna's trademark kick-ass attitude. However, I wanted to warn other readers that the description posted above and on the back cover of the book do not match the actual story AT ALL. There has to have been a serious mix up somewhere. Without giving too much away, the story, as written, was about human trafficking and the sex trade...and much of it takes place in Eastern Europe, not in Nocturne City. There are NO fires and we don't find out any of Will's deep dark secrets. So confused...
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
My brain started screaming at me halfway through. . ., May 28, 2010
This review is from: Daemon's Mark (Nocturne City, Book 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
While I liked the other novels in this series this one drove me nuts. I'm not usually a total stickler about consistency and sense, but there's a point.
First there was some kind of a major screw-up in that the descriptions on the back of the book and in the initial reviews had not one thing to do with the novel itself. No fires, no selkies. Actually Luna is kidnapped by Russian mobsters and taken with other women, who are also fairly prominent enemies of the ruskie hoods (first big flag), and taken to the Ukraine in a shipping crate. Huh? No food no water for a week? What? There she's placed in a brothel in some town, escapes rather easily really because she runs into her ex Dimitri in the brothel. Again what? So. A women with no papers or ID is running loose crossing borders on a train, going into restricted areas in the land of the petty bureaucrat. Never sees a cop or border cop or anything pesky like that.
The whole thing is jumping around like a bad acid trip at this point. AHHHH. Where the heck is her editor? How could they let all this get by?
At this point my brain was screaming and I had to put it down.
A sore disappointment. I know she can do better.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 Stars, June 3, 2010
This review is from: Daemon's Mark (Nocturne City, Book 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
In my opinion, the Nocturne City series is the pick of the litter when it comes to genre series with a standard-issue supernatural tough chick/badass heroine like Mercy Thompson, Rachel Morgan or Harper Blaine. What has set this series apart from the others is that the stories have been well organized and executed, moving at a steady pace with consistent character development synchronizing with plot points.
As will earlier installments in the series, the action in Daemon's Mark is fast paced and there are some very clever twists. Without giving any spoilers, my biggest disappointment in this book is that one of the themes is Luna coming to terms with is her history of making promises to victims that she has not always been able to keep. This theme is a driving force for Luna and it isn't really followed through on as well as it should have been, it's as if there is a scene missing from the book that would have settled Luna's thoughts on the matter and we didn't get it. This sort of disconnect is not consistent with the author's writing or earlier books in the series.
As with her other works, Kittredge's use of adjectives and analogies continues to be artful and gives her work layers that connect with the reader's senses. A good example is this passage: "You," the woman sitting in the chair said, taking a drag on a black cigarette that smelled like the morning breath of Satan. "I said, are you insane?" She enunciated each word like I might be stupid as well as mental." A clear picture immediately entered my mind and I could hear the disdain in the woman's voice as well as smell the foul, cheap cigarette smoke -- as far as I'm concerned being able to do such a thing is a rare talent that Kittredge possesses in spades.
Addressing some of the criticism in other reviews, it's 100% true that the description on the back cover of Daemon's Mark is really the summary to the previous novel, Witch Craft and is not the story the reader will follow in Daemon's Mark. Likewise, the criticism of Luna being able to cross borders later in the story without papers or some other sort of government clearance is a hole that could have and should have been filled. However, the criticism that the characters weren't fed while being held in a shipping container is not accurate, they did receive expired MRE's and they were provided with water. As I mentioned earlier, my biggest complaint is that I felt at least one scene was missing from the book that would have provided some closure on Luna's feelings about her failings to the victims she fights for and a couple of well-placed sentences in conversations with Will could have also filled-in the gaps on the technicalities of how Luna was able later in the story to cross borders and gain access to restricted areas.
Overall, I continue to be impressed with Kittredge's style and her ability to spin a yarn. I rounded-up my rating of this book to 4-stars out of respect for the author's skill with prose, it's one thing to write a technically accurate book (text books achieve this regularly) but it's quite another to engage a reader's senses and imagination.
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