Customer Reviews

Dante's Girl (A Kayla Steele Novel, Book 1)

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

 

 

I can hardly believe some of the five star reviews. This writer must have some loyal friends.

The narrative bounces around among too many characters, the great majority of whom suffer from cardboard characterization, to say the least.

The writing starts out OK, more or less average or slightly below, for this type of book. The narrative carried me along all right for a while, but then the action scenes start coming fast and furious... and the real problems kick in. Her incredibly strong, fast, dangerous, invincible vampire and werewolf types are just that...except when it's convenient for them to be slow, stupid and easily distracted; then that's what they are.

There's little consistency, and the characters seem to love to stop in the heat of battle and have long involved conversations about the nature of their relationships with each other or someone else who's not there.

I totally lost it for this book during a pre-climactic battle scene on a stage where a vampire rock band was performing. Two of the 'Hunters' are engaged in a heated swordfight with the vicious female vampire, Cyan. The two Hunters, Ninette and Phil, are a couple, and Cyan is at first, as much as the two of them can handle together.

Suddenly, our protagonist, Kayla, is menaced by a vampire/bandmember and Phil finds time to break off from the sword battle to wander over and defend her by way of distracting the attacking vampire with a flattering conversation about his beautiful guitar.

Puh-LEEZE! I felt like I had suddenly jumped from an adult book to reading a script for a saturday morning episode of Scooby-Doo.

This is an obvious attempt at starting a Franchise character, and it comes to a relatively half-hearted conclusion with "To Be Continued..." written all over it. The challenge of starting a franchise is to make the first book interesting enough that you want to find out what's going to happen to the protagonist next. This didn't even come close for me.

I will say that the author shows some potential, but perhaps needs a better editor or at least more self-discipline. She is at least, a better writer than the atrociously bad Lauren Hamilton.

If you are a regular reader/fan of Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, Carrie Vaughn, Patricia Briggs, Simon R. Green, Jim Butcher, etc., then this book is a 'must-not' read, as your standards are probably already to high for this to be anything but a disappointment.

I was very excited to find a new vampire series to read, but found myself very disappointed instead. I found the book to be very confusing with way too much going on at the same time. It was very hard to keep up with all the characters and who was who. Instead of introducing the characters gradually, she pretty much threw them all in at once, as if this was a sequal rather than the first book in a series. Although the premise was good, the character development was poor and I did not get a chance to really care about any of them. Ms. Rhodes should read the J.R. Ward - Black Dagger series and get a few ideas of how its done.

Kayla Steele has lived in California for a year. She works at a cosmetic counter with a horrible boss and a snobby co-worker. All Kayla wants is for her boss to leave her alone and for her boyfriend, Karrel Dante, to ask for her to marry him. Karrel's job with the American Humane Society often takes him away from her. But tonight Kayla is positive that Karrel is going to pop the question to her. So when Kayla's world crumbles from beneath her feet, she is totally unprepared.

Karrel Dante has a secret life. Working for the AHS is only a cover story. In truth, he is one of a ultra-secret government team that hunts down werewolves. The Hunters, as they are called, keep the werewolf numbers down and stops the cops from getting any bodies. So far they have been successful. On the night Karrel plans to propose to Kayla, he is betrayed by one of his own and murdered. Rightfully fearing that the werewolves or vampires would go after Kayla, Karrel makes a bargain with The Other Side.

Kayla finds herself attacked by, if she can bring herself to believe it, werewolves. She is rescued and taken to a secret underground base by a group of people who say they were friends of Karrel's. Kayla has been marked for death. If she has any hope of survival, Kayla will have to take a crash course in the Dark Arts and learn fast!

**** I have read at least one other book by the author, Natasha Rhodes, and believe this tale has more potential for her to explore her talents. When writing a book within a series, such as "The Nightmare on Elm Street", an author must deal with writing within boundaries which already exists. This is the first book in the "Kayla Steele" series, so Natasha Rhodes has the opportunity to think outside-the-box. I believe this book sets a solid foundation on which the author can build and expand upon. As the reader, I could watch as Kayla's super natural blinders are pulled from her eyes and she deals with the unbelievable. I learned about the non-human creatures as Kayla did.

My biggest problem is that even though the foundation is set and humanity is saved by the ending, the author closes the book with five or six MAJOR plot threads dangling. Readers are left wondering, and more than a bit frustrated, until the next book is published. ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I have to agree with another reviewer, the main reason I got this book was the cover. I had never read anything by Natasha Rhodes, and didn't even realize she wrote Blade and Final Destination, etc. I was pleasantly surprised with the story. Yes, there was a lot to keep up with, but all in all, I thought it was very good. Lot's of action, a little romance, some paranormal activity, werewolves and vampires and ghost's...oh my! And really, who cares if there is some proof reading mistakes??? Didn't take away from the book. And I like my series books to leave me hanging! That's part of the charm, you can't wait until the next in the series come out! Which I have been doing, waiting not so patiently for Last Angel, and it's finally here! Yay!

Should have been a comic book - you could almost see the bubbles with dialogue and the reckless woman in really short shirts and high, high heels running through the alleyways of LA. And someone really needs to buy this author a map of Santa Monica, Hollywood & LA. Boy does she have her distances screwed up - as a native I never knew where I was from one minute to the next. Totally absurd in so many instances (ie the attack on the bunker that couldn't be breached). I had to stop reading three-quarters of the way through - it just wasn't worth wading through.

I didnt even get halfway through this book because it was too confusing. There are too many plots going on at once, and I couldnt find out who was a "good" guy and was a "bad" guy. Plus her boyfriend is now a ghost, or at least he was when I stopped reading it. And can there be that much romance with a ghost? Well I didnt have the patience to find out.

To me this book was not a well written one at all. Of course that is my own opinion, but it is true for me.

Too much going on to keep track of; character development jumps around as if the author is not sure which direction to move (does Kayla have supernatural powers? how do the Hunters manage to go toe-to-toe with everything and not come out as worm-food?)

Also, some basic proofing mistakes (punctuation misplaced; tenses switched in mid sentence; there/their/they're mistakes).

I actually liked the writing style when the scene was running, but I kept getting bumped from the story by confusing events. I would be interested in seeing a second effort.

I bought this book with high hopes- I like a little vampire-mystery-romance novel now and again. Unfortunately, this book left me with a sour taste in my mouth before I even got through the first 50 pages of the book!

I couldn't bring myself to finish it! Flat prose, unlikeable characters, and a ridiculous excuse for a plot are this book's downfall. Do yourself a favor, and spend your money elsewhere.

From the back cover of the book, I thought this would be a fun read. I also wanted to support a not-so-famous author. Well, this was extremely disappointing. Firstly, there were wayyyy too many characters. I could barely keep up with which werewolf was in which gang, and which vampire was working with which werewolf (yes, I'm being sarcastic).

The book was poorly edited as well. There were so many spelling and grammar mistakes, it took me out of the book. I also thought all the characters had similar personalities based on whether they were human, a werewolf, or a vampire. There was no depth to this book - the plot, the characters, the writing were all wooden.

I wouldn't recommend this book.

Ok, so the title was misleading. Karrel's girl perhaps would have been more logical but it probably wouldn't sell as many books. I liked most of the characters and that dang Mutt has me guessing at his true intentions. However, don't buy the book in the hopes that it is jam-packed with the content promised on the back cover. I suspect that with the progression of the series those promises will eventually be fulfilled but I just kept thinking of all the stuff that should be coming up in the next chapter as I approached the end of the book. Which is kind of a buzzkill that keeps you from delving all the way in. This installment didn't leave me desperately wanting more but maybe in the future I will pick up the second book and it will peak more interest.