Customer Reviews

Divine Fire

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

 

 

I've added Ms. Jackson to my over-hyped writers list. I read her previous series and liked only the first book with Jack Frost. The rest were confusing and badly written. This book falls into that category. It started off with a huge bang, and was very engrossing, it then descended into stupid drivel. By the end of the book I was hoping they were going to get killed. She doesn't spend enough time developing characters and relies on back story explanations. I felt no empathy or interest for their situation. I failed to understand why the heroine was even at his townhouse (oh wait the so convienent snowstorm). she was blocks away from her hotel, this is New York take a train! No instead she shacks up with someone she believes might be crazy and he then does crazy things. She of course takes at first glance his explanation because her husband died and she is still in pain! The reader is in pain after fifty pages because of her stupid decisions. The overly gory ending is not for the faint of heart and seems like it was tacked on to add suspense to a dead plot. Avoid this one. I threw this away. I was too embarrased to even pass it on to a friend.

Melanie Jackson is simply a beautiful writer. I could sit and read her prose without worrying where the words would carry me, just enjoying the beauty of her craft. This gift is coupled with a second talent - a vivid imagination. Jackson has taken us to Scotland where seven tears summons a Selkie and a ghost of a lonely piper still haunts and ancient castle. She lured us down moonlit moors where smugglers still plied their trade. More recently she has been taking us on one wild ride as the host of Fae fight the encroaching menace of the Goblin Horde as they peddle their dangerous Goblin fruit (and by the way, they were likely responsible for the mess in several cities of late!). These tales mark Jackson as one of the most original writers in Paranormal Romance. Often in Romance, you see books being similar. No one touches Jackson. She boldly blazes forth to write highly fresh tales, and Divine Fire is yet again one of these brilliant gems.

This time Jackson pokes her finger at Lord Byron and Frankenstein. What really happened that weekend when they Shelleys, Byron and John Polidori wrote their tales of vampires and monsters? Well, to learn the answer, you must approach Damien Ruthven. A man with dark secrets and long memories of that night over a hundred years ago.

Brice Ashton has written a biography about Lord Byron. She is surprised to get a message from Ruthven telling her she made three mistakes. Three mistakes only he holds the knowledge to correct. Intrigued, Brice accepts the invitation with the belief Ruthven has in his possession documents about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. Only the knowledge is not on paper, it's locked inside Damien's head.

In 1816, Dr. Johann Dippel invites Lord Byron to his chateau with the offer of curing his epilepsy. He did. But it had side effects that have caused ripples through the centuries. Ruthven's summoning of Brice now puts her in danger as there are those who want Ruthven to atone for that long ago night when vampires and monsters were born.

To say any more than that, would take the edge off this highly charged romance tale that delivers on so many levels. Once again, Jackson weaves her magic as few can do!

Damien Ruthven was prepared to despise the latest Lord Byron biography to come across his desk. To his surprise, it was the most accurate one he'd ever read, despite a few errors. The authoress, Brice Ashton, knew things about Byron no other biographer ever had written- and Ruthven should know, since he was once Byron. In a case of the cure being possibly as bad as the disease, he'd long ago sought a cure for his epilepsy, with the result that he was now virtually immortal. Being so set apart from the rest of the world turned him into a very lonely man, nothing thrilled him and he didn't expect it to, until in answer to his summons, Brice walks into his life. Once more, he feels alive, yet he has made his angel a target. The creature who made him what he is wanted to kill him and thus find atonement before its own death. If Brice interferes, she is fair game as well.

***** Vibrant originality makes this what can best be described as a fast paced modern gothic novel It is the kind of book you don't want to end, but still want to see how it ends. Though I adore Ms Jackson's goblin novels- this surpasses them in excellence. *****

I've been reading and enjoying vampire romances, so I took the plunge and tried this one -- and it blew me away. Wow! There's lots of everything here -- love, romance, blood, gore, horror, evil zombies, even humor. It does well in the romance category and l look forward to the sequel (hinted at in this one). After reading this, I was a bit wrung out so I am now reading a very light historical novel to calm down. Ha!

Book critic Damien Ruthven is shocked with how accurate the eighteen hundred page manuscript written by author Brice Ashton is. However, he also feels that two points in the biography needs correcting as she is slightly in error on his affair with Lady Caroline Lamb and on a poem he wrote to her. Out of character and shocking his assistant Karen Anderson, he invites author Brice Ashton to America to discuss her first of three overpriced tomes on the life of Lord Byron. Excited, Brice accepts the invitation believing that her host has access to documents she has not seen.

The bad news is that Damien has no documents. The good news is that he knew Byron intimately because in 1816, Dr. Johann Dippel "cured" the aristocratic poet of epilepsy; Damien was Byron back in the early nineteenth century. As the critic and the writer feel a growing attraction to one another, his invitation inadvertently also brings danger to his guest as killers want Byron dead with collateral damage acceptable.

DIVINE FIRE is a fantastic suspenseful romantic fantasy starring two wonderful protagonists even if a book reviewer and an author make strange bedfellows. Especially interesting is Damien's look back to his past that comes alive in such a manner that the audience will believe that Dr. Dippel cured his patient. This in turn leads readers to expect Melanie Jackson to provide sequels starring other patients of Dr. Dippel.

Harriet Klausner

It's strange, but I've been noticing more and more in very different books that I have the same problem with them: abrupt switches in the very basics of how the story develops, which means I get two distinct halves, one of which works much better than the other one.

This is exactly what happened with Divine Fire. While the first half is a wonderful gothic character-driven romance, the entire second half is basically a bloody, gory non-stop, break-neck action scene. I loved the first part, but the second one, not so much. My final grade would be a B-... the average between a much higher grade for the first part and a much lower one for the rest.

The basic premise of Divine Fire is that due to what was supposed to be a revolutionary treatment for epilepsy involving electricity and a Dr. Frankenstein-like physician, Lord Byron became an immortal being. His demise in Greece was only the first of a series of simulated deaths, and he's spent his existence ever since living 20 years here, 30 years there, moving as soon as people start thinking: hmm, it's weird this man is not looking any older!

In his current incarnation Byron is Damien Ruthven, a filthy-rich book reviewer living in an old gothic building he owns in New York City. One day he receives a huge biography of Lord Byron and is shocked at the way this unknown writer has managed to "get" him. Against all his rules, he writes this woman a letter mentioning there are a couple of errors there, and hinting he might have some papers which could throw some light on these areas.

When Brice Ashton receives Damien's letter, her first thought is that he might have a copy of Byron's famous autobiography, the one that was destroyed by his editors at his widow's request. So she impulsively flies into NYC (a couple of days before Christmas, no less!), and barges into Ruthven's office.

This first half that I liked so much gives us nothing more than Brice and Ruthven getting to know each other and working together. They click the minute they meet, and given that the weather is just filthy and there's a huge electrical storm coming in, and that he has plenty of space in the penthouse Damien offers Brice to stay there (and, he adds, there's no way he can allow her to remove the very rare, valuable and irreplaceable papers he shows her from his building, so if she stays, she'll be able to work on them as long as she wants).

These first sections are all very quiet and low-key, and involve many long conversations, including some fascinating ones about authors like Lord Byron (Damien is again struck by how well Brice understands who he was) and Ninon de Lenclos, about whom Brice is writing her next book. But most of all, they talk about themselves and each begins to explore the other's bagagges.

I liked the way Jackson dealt with Brice discovering Damien's secret. It could easily have become a tedious issue, but just as she so easily sees the motivations of the original Lord Byron, Brice instictively latches on to the things that don't jive and leaps to some interesting (and correct) conclusions. This would have ordinarily felt like a bit too much, but the way Jackson had set up the almost mystical understanding between Damien and Brice, it worked.

Damian was an interesting, very engaging character. I'm not usually fond of having real historical personages show up in my romance novels, and that goes double if they are one of the protagonists! I guess I was ok with it here because it was just so out there (a plot line in which, say, the heroine is a Regency Miss who falls in love with Byron wouldn't have worked nearly as well) Plus, fortunately I don't know much about Byron's private life, so I wasn't distracted by any preconceived notions.

Brice was a pretty cool character as well. She's a woman marked by a certain horrific tragedy in her past (and it really was horrific), but while this does make her a bit skittish with men and Damien has to work to reach her, she isn't tediously stubborn about it.

I also loved the ambience in this part of the book. As I said, Damien owns this fascinating gothic building in NYC, and though he doesn't occupy all of it, the other tenants are all companies, so the building pretty much empties by evening. The setting, combined with the freakish electrical storm circling around the city like a bird of prey (which has some, ah, interesting physical effects on Damien), makes for some wonderful atmosphere.

So, what happens to almost ruin what was going so well? Simple: around the half-way mark, the physician who performed those experiments on Lord Byron shows up, an army of zombies in tow, determined to destroy his "creation". And so, from a lush, intense and romantic story, this turns into a campy bloodbath of a zombie movie. Not that I have anything about campy zombie movies (in fact, I actually quite like them!), but it just didn't go at all with the first part of the book, and it went on for much too long. After the nice, romantic first half, to have our hero and heroine dealing with being sprayed with brains and assorted body parts was a bit disconcerting.

Still, even this huge action scene was a bit better than the usual action scene, which basically puts me to sleep. I would have prefered that the story continue in the vein it had started, but I'd still recommend the book.

I did not enjoy this particular novel. I felt it was slow and uneventful. The plot was too long and drawn out for me. There wasn't enough action or plot. Melanine Jackson can do so much better.

Melanie Jackson proves the imagination has no boundaries in this superbly written novel that combines the paranormal with intrigue and romance in a story line that is absolutely electrifying!

or, "How To Make Lord Byron boring". What started out interesting in the prologue quickly turned BORING when the heroine is introduced.

What I find is becoming a constant problem in modern paranormal romance is the author fleshs out these complex alpha male heroes to only shackle them with the "super intelligent heroine who turns ditzy as soon as she meets the hero".

For example-in this book-the heroine writes a 1800+ page mega book on Byron but can't get to a meeting on time and arrives at meeting with her "pink and purple houndstooth suitcase" in hand? UGH! Paranormal writers PLEASE note: readers want strong, capable heroines!

I couldn't even finish this one-not recommended.
1 star.

This poorly written, clumsily crafted, paranormal romance lacked both the believability in the plot and the romance. I actually finished the book, against my better judgment, because I kept thinking it would certainly draw me in at some point. It didn't. The premise.... Lord Byron being nearly immortal through a medical experiment gone awry could have been a compelling story. The idea holds a creative possibility. His attachment to Brice Ashton was poorly written at best. No sizzle. No plausible romance. I have read books that lacked the character development, but held it together with the plot and the forward movement of action. I've read books that have been a little clumsy with the plot development, but you felt drawn to the characters so it was ok. This is the first book so lacking in both that I didn't care if the main characters survived their Christmas or not. At one point, I was weighing in and hoping the ghouls would put me out of my misery by doing away with the two main characters. If you are looking for something out of the ordinary and a good read... keep looking. This book is the worst I've read this year.