Customer Reviews

Edge of Desire (Primal Instinct)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hi! Are you in a good mood and wish you weren't? Or better yet, is someone you hate in a good mood and you wish you could ruin their day? Then look no further than The Primal Instinct series by Rhyannon Byrd as a surefire method of sending someone into a deep depression and looking for the nearest supplier of Prozac.

Riley Buchanan was left in a difficult position when his older brother left home, leaving him with his obsessed mother and younger sister. His mother's fanatical belief in their family's lore eventually led to him agreeing to her impassioned pleas to volunteer for a spiritual journey that would help show him what the future held. What he saw that night when he was seventeen frightened him so badly that it shattered his soul and caused him to turn from the only girl he ever loved.

Now over a decade later Riley is led to the one place he hoped never to find. The current home of the woman whose loss has haunted him nearly every day of his frozen existence. Hope Summers has been trying to keep her life on track since the end of her mockery of a marriage and the last thing she was prepared to see was Riley Buchanan walking through her door. Needless to say, she's not excited to see him but what she can't deny is that her body has come to life for the first time in over a decade. She's determined to sample what she missed out on all those years ago but only this time she will not hold out hope for a happily ever after.

While Hope may have decided to pursue Riley with her eyes wide open, she could never have imagined the horrors that followed him to her town of Purity, Washington. Nor could she have imagined that one of the Markers was buried on her land, making her a target long before Riley ever showed up at her door. Riley is determined to protect Hope, just as he's always done, be it from the psychotic fiend from hell or the flesh hungry Casus who have been greedily awaiting the moment he sinks his fangs into her body and awakens the Merrick within. Despite all his many, many attempts to be honorable and leave Hope untouched, he can't resist her and chooses her to awaken his Merrick for the first time. Their passion is exquisite, but in the morning the knowledge of what the future holds is enough to force him from her arms and into the fight alongside his brother. With unlikely allies by his side, and with his brother's help, Riley searches for the strength to take control of his destiny and choose his own future, hopefully with the woman he's always loved by his side.

While I thought the first book in this series, Edge of Hunger started off great, this series has steadily deteriorated before my eyes as I dragged myself through the following books. These characters take fighting the inevitable to new heights. The word stubborn does not do justice to their thick skulls.

The level of insecurity in these books was astronomical. These siblings really, REALLY hated themselves and only by the grace of God did they manage to find someone worthy enough (or someone with enough free time on their hands) to cajole, whine, badger, hound, nag, and and or threaten them into loving relationships. I know these siblings wish their one-in-a-billion "chosen one" status had been a MegaBucks lottery win instead but suck it up, get over it and move on, people! They could have given any morose vampire a run for their money in the doom and gloom department.

I liked how the first book, Edge of Hunger started. Oh my God was it hot. It was rough, with some cervix pounding imagery I could have done without, but it was seriously smoking hot. Since in the beginning Ian and Molly were only connected during dreamscapes, Ian was able to enjoy himself without the weight of the world on his shoulders, instead of staring at himself with self loathing - as he does throughout the rest of the book. All the characters from these books like their sex dirty and rough and since these desires make them unnatural in their eyes, we are subjected to Catholic sized guilt trips that really killed any enjoyment I might have gotten because right after coitus they are aghast and run away as if the hounds of hell are after them.

The worldbuilding that started off in Edge of Hunger really got the ball rolling and this series is a prime example of an author building up an incredible world then killing it off with obnoxious attitudes. My favorite of the three books is definitely Ian and Molly's book (Book 1), mostly for the worldbuilding and incredible chemistry between them. Because Rhyannon Byrd was able to start off with two smoking hot sex scenes and then fill the rest of the book with some fabulous storytelling, I wasn't (too) bothered when Ian began moaning that he was not worthy and wanted to end it all. I thought the Merrick creature (picture what Michael from the movie Underworld becomes) lying dormant inside Ian was a very interesting premise and a welcome change of pace from all the other beings littering the paranormal market out there today. I just wish someone could have tied Ian to a bed and let Molly have her way with him.

While Ian may have started this pity train, Saige and Michael from Edge of Danger, Book 2 in the Primal Instinct series, kicked it into high gear. While it too had a very interesting story, by the end of it all I wanted to do was curl up on a couch and eat bonbons while looking at pictures of dead family pets. Originally I had blamed my depression on a premenstrual influx of emotion but now I know better. I blame these books.

Saige believes since her brothers all turned away from her and her mother that she is unworthy and brings only pain and danger to those she loves. So she is definitely not worthy of Michael Quinn, the handsome Raptor shapeshifter who comes to her aid. So of course she escapes him in order to protect him and gets herself caught by the Casus who have been hunting her down, both for the power charge she will provide when she is consumed by one of them, and for her knowledge of the Markers that have been hidden around the world. Of course Quinn is severely butthurt by this and thinks back to when he lost the love of his life and can't help comparing the two of them. Quinn has loved and lost and has decided he never again wants to know the pain love brings. Because of his unnatural sexual urges and possessiveness that is inherent in Raptor shapeshifters, he knows he is definitely not worthy of someone as beautiful as Saige Buchanan, so he tries to hold out against her to the BITTER end.

While Book 2 still had a lot of worldbuilding to offer, it wasn't able to fill up the book as good as it did in the first book, so the mindnumbing inner fights and delusions Saige and Quinn suffer through stand out much more prominently in this book. Though this book gets a serious thumbs up from me for the descriptions of Micheal's wings. I heart wings.

Though I was dreading it, I picked up the 3rd book, Edge of Desire. Why, you ask? Because after reading the previous books I felt it was all I deserved.

Riley Buchanan was the absolute worst. He made me want to drop myself off a cliff just to end the pain. Riley was a boring, sad, morose fruitcake and I wanted to pass him a couple of white pills and tell him to call me when he runs out. Because of his vision quest he thinks he's going to become a monster who will hurt those he loves so he holds out As. Long. As. Possible. Even after he finally takes blood from Hope and awakens his Merrick, he still holds out when confronted by a horde of hungry Casus and tries to hold them off with a gun, his fist, heck, I think he would have tried throwing his shoes at them before he would have allowed the Merrick to overtake him.

Hope was a nice woman but I found her constant attempts to get Riley into the sack pathetic. I wanted to rent her the movie, "He's Just Not That Into You." The thing with her ex husband, while sad, was a useless attempt to fill up the book, IMHO. Edge of Desire was almost constant back and forth conversations between Hope and Riley about why they could never be, and Riley and Kellan's riveting (sarcasm) conversations while digging for the third Marker. The worldbuilding was pretty much already set in place and I felt like the chemistry between the hero/heroine was absent. We get more introductions to some more ambiguous bad guys turned good guys and poor Kellan gets used and abused.

I had a big problem with bringing some of the bad guys over to the good side. In Book 2, Quinn is severely tortured by this group called the Collective and one of their leaders is a self righteous *expletive deleted* named McConnell. He allows his men to rape and torture women to death and I didn't want him around. I didn't want him helping. And I will never trust him.

And then I come to the women of this series. Ugh. No pride, whatsoever. They throw themselves at the men as if they were The Beatles during the height of Beatlemania. I felt like bring them in for big group hug, and then gathering them into a Kumbaya circle and having them say, "I'm worth it" over and over.

Now, is this series really all that bad? Well, everything is subjective but for me I hate whiney characters. If there had been one with a more positive outlook I would have been so much happier. But instead these are really dark and violent books that have equally dark and violent protagonists, while the antagonists are all torture happy and appropriately scary. On the plus side there was a lot of fascinating worldbuilding that I enjoyed and I felt the chemistry between Ian and Molly was really good. I liked Molly before she made the decision to follow Ian to the ends of the earth and I really liked Ian before he went all gung ho for death. And I must not forget to mention Quinn's hot Raptor wings. Despite all my complaints, I will read the next batch of books and even though I hope they won't be as morose as the previous books, I know they probably will be. But I know I will be reading them when they come out because I'm a sucker who likes to read. I'll give (Book 3) Edge of Desire 2 stars, (Book 2) Edge of Danger 3 stars, and (Book 1) Edge of Hunger 4 stars.

Edge of Desire closes out Rhyannon Byrd's trilogy with final Buchanan sibling, Riley's story. Unlike younger brother Ian (Edge of Hunger), Riley hasn't been in denial of his fate - Riley has seen visions and knows that he will lose himself to the Merrick (the beast that lurks within Riley) - so Riley has lived his life on the straight and narrow and has sacrificed happiness and love with the one woman he can never forget. But as the Merrick awakens, fate of course steps in and throws that woman, Hope, in Riley's path. Now that she's near, Riley is trying hard to fight his intense need for Hope and to hold on to his noble intentions, because succumbing to his dark desire will only put Hope in the dangerous path of his sadistic enemies, the evil Casus, and the monster within Riley as well.

Though there were some interesting variations in the formula of the previous stories, Edge of Desire was my least favorite of the books in this series (Edge Of Danger was the best):

The good: For the first time in the series we discover that there are also female Casus and also a first, the good guys gain an ally on an unexpected front - from the bloodline of the Casus themselves. Another plus, we didn't get as much of the first hand sadistic violence of the bad guys. I was happy the Byrd realized that by the third book, readers `get' that the bad guys are really bad and didn't feel the need to bludgeon us with more `in the moment' torture of the Casus' nasty `feeding' habits.

The not so good: Byrd sets up some background conflicts that had interesting potential (the wolf shifter watchman in peril, Hope's wacko ex husband) but resolves them without taking advantage of that potential. But my biggest problem with Edge of Danger was that I really didn't like the starring pair. Riley was just too self-flagellating to allow me to get attached to him, which was a bit disappointing because through the series we have been told that Riley is the saint, an honorable protector - the Riley we see here doesn't fit that image at all, even when taking into account Riley's emerging beast. I also found the attraction/rejection polka between Riley and Hope to be a bit tiresome. Though I am sure that it was intended to build the sensual tension between the pair, it just didn't work for me and I also found myself getting mad at Hope for repeatedly giving Riley the power to keep hurting her.

Edge of Desire wraps up the trilogy with the Buchanon siblings but leaves the background story open with the possiblity of more books. Hopefully, if the series continues, Byrd will leave the Merricks in the background and move on to the Watchmen, Sean and the Casus trying to avoid his evil fate, because they were far more interesting than the leads.

I love reading Rhyannon Byrd, so I picked up all three Edge books at once and thought I could settle in for a nice thriller along with some hot sex scenes. Gah, what a letdown Edge of Desire was.

To be fair, I messed up and started reading the series in the wrong order, so there was a lot of world and creature building that I missed, although I'm fairly sure that reading the books in any order gives you enough information that they can be read as stand-alones. The Casus and the Merrick were explained well enough to figure out what in heck Riley's problem was.

And there's the crux of the matter. Riley has issues - big whopping, irritating, want-to-smack him issues. He is one of the whiniest heroes I've read in ages and not one I'd expect from Byrd. As if that wasn't bad enough, we're subjected to his mate, Hope, who has buckets of her own issues. Picture the story: angst, violent fight, angst, violent fight, angst, finally hero figuring out he's not as bad as he thinks he is. Good grief, I lost count of the many times Riley tucked tail and ran away from Hope because he was scared. The final fight scene lacks something; sure, there's the whole, "will Riley's Merrick come out in time, can he find the cross in time to win the battle." But the Casus seemed beatable without all that. Not a lot of tension.

So what's good about Edge of Desire? Well, even with their angsty-ness, Hope and Riley are definitively drawn characters. You may not like them, but Byrd still manages to make them believable, which I think could only happen in the fantasy genre. The sex scenes are okay; some are sort of ooky but really, I got tired of hearing how big Riley's equipment was.

There really wasn't much to recommend about Edge of Desire; I was more interested in the good guy Casus than I was in seeing Hope and Riley get together. While I usually enjoy this kind of story, this book just seems flat and like Byrd just wanted to get Riley's story out so she could get to one of the more interesting characters' stories. If you're a Byrd fan who has to try the Edge books, I recommend one of the other books first. This one is just not up to her usual standards, in my opinion.

This is part of a three part book. All the books seem to follow the same story line. I hate books where the female is so weak and pathetic and can't live without their "man". This is that kind of book. Very clingy females who can't seem to much for themselves

The only reason I bought this book is because I bought the first one. If I would have know that every book was going to be like this I would never have picked up the first one. Riley was just plain annoying. The storyline was unique but the sex scenes left a lot to be desired. The Touch books are better because the men are not annoying. I am stuck reading this series but I am glad that it will be ending soon. I may sell these books after I read the last one. Definitely not a keeper. Going to the Goodwill pile or on half.com.

Love this book. Great characters. I read this series out of order and it was still good.

This was a great read by this author. I loved the previous two in this series and am looking forward to the books to come. With that said this one didn't strike the same chords that the other two did. I didn't understand Riley as well as I did Quinn and Ian, other than stubborn male...He was a tormented hero, different to Quinn's tortured hero. I loved the end and what he does for the heroine... it almost makes up for his attitude. I still wobble on the line of giving this a four star, but in all the end more than makes up for whatever the hero lacks. It makes the man seem more human and more believable... maybe like we could meet our own Saint Riley right off the streets hhmmm....Hope was a wonderful heroine to his hero. She had that tough inner strength that allowed her to more than handle his gruff exterior as well as his attitude. My one complaint would be that maybe Hope had too many short ends of the deal. Her life history maybe too many bad things? At the same time thats what makes the story's end so great you just know that the lucky little lady is going to have her happy ending and with the man she loved after all.

Very pleased with my book purchase. Book described well and in good condition when it arrived. Will do more business with this seller.

I have read all 3 books and look forward to more. Easy read .
Love the flow and sarcasam.

In this third book of the Primal Instinct Series, Rhyannon Byrd offers another deeply romantic tale. Riley is a delicious, dark hero determined to protect the woman he loves. Hope has been through a lot in her lifetime but it hasn't broken her spirit. The pacing is sensual, the world building is superb and the plotting is amazing.

In addition to creating the hottest men alive, Ms. Byrd also writes the best damn dialogue! I adore her rough, sexy males and their wonderful, dark sense of humor. At this point, I'm dying to read more about the other characters like Kierland, Aiden and Kellan. And Noah!