Customer Reviews

Turbulent Sea

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This one has it all. Great action, great romance, and great mystery. The action is fast and full of zest. The romance is hot and sweaty, and the mystery, which is one of Feehan's lesser abilities, is really good. I really enjoyed the book and I was glad it focused on two people and one good mystery. It did not jump around too much.

Joley is back on tour. She is still a bit worried about the reverend, RJ, but all in all the tour is going well. She is receiving hate mail and worries about a stalker. When the incidents start, Nikitin offers the services of Ilya Prakenskii. Joley is leery of her responses to Ilya and tries to keep him at a distance. But when real danger arrives she is glad to have him near.

Ilya is not what he seems. She already knows he has the gifts her family has and he has all of the gifts. He is not ready or willing to open his chamber of secrets to anyone. His life has been a very lonely one and he doesn't really know how to be with anyone. Never in his life has he even thought about a relationship. But Joley takes him apart, bit by bit, and he has found what completes him, he is not willing to let it go.

Someone seems to have it in for Joley, she can't figure why and can only think of a stalker. She has one man murdered, and he is the one she confronted about the underage girls, esspecially the one who is missing. Without her family she is closest to her band and instinctively turns to them for support during this period. However, when Ilya arrives, it is only in his presence she feels completely safe. Why, she can't figure out because she knows he is a cold blooded killer. But still he gives her a sense of safty she has only felt with her family.

I loved this book and I hope the next one will be as good.

The sixth of seven magical sisters, Joley Drake has the gift of spell-singing, a talent that has helped her skyrocket to fame and fortune. For the beautiful rock star, life on tour can be crazy, hectic, and fraught with peril. The paparazzi hounds her, and the trappings of success have brought down some of her band members, bringing the Russian mob to her doorstep, and with them, the one man she cannot resist.

Ilya Prakenskii has lived his life in isolation, cultivating his reputation as a ruthless hit man and bodyguard as he works to bring down his current employer. His existence had been cold, emotionless, until the first moment he heard Joley's voice. And after meeting Joley in person, he knows she is the one woman fated to be his. For Joley isn't the only one with magic in her blood, and Ilya is prepared to use every seductive trick he can to keep the songstress into his life, forever.

As danger explodes around the pair, Joley turns to one man she believes to keep her safe. But even as passion burns bright between the two, Joley has a decision to make. Should she play it safe or risk everything and give her heart to a man she isn't completely sure she can trust?

Prepare yourselves for a fiery, passionate romance which is, indeed, as turbulent as the sea. Christine Feehan has written yet another incredible installment in her Drake Sisters series. Ever since book three of the series, Oceans of Fire, I've waited for the dynamic pairing of Joley Drake and Ilya Prakenskii and Turbulent Sea lived up to my expectations. Ilya was dark, dominant, and completely endearing in his absolute certainty of his love for Joley and his determination to keep her safe. In Turbulent Sea, Ms. Feehan shows a more vulnerable side to Joley, who on the surface seems so strong and carefree, and the contrast only makes her more endearing. The desire brewing between Ilya and Joley was spellbinding and pulled me in from the start. The passionate draw between the two could have carried the story on its own. Yet Ms. Feehan drew me in further with the underlying tenderness between Joley and Ilya as I watched two souls learn to trust one another with their love.

So often I read books where the heroine, though likeable, is simply the mechanism for me to fall in love with the hero. Not so with the Drake sisters. Each sister is a fully-fleshed, realistic character I love for herself alone, and Joley is no exception. Where Ilya is dark and cold with hints of lightness in his soul, Joley is brilliant, vibrant, with just enough darkness to understand Ilya. The two compliment and complete one another, but even before I fell in love with their romance, I had connected to both Ilya and Joley for themselves alone.

If I could ask for one thing to be included in this book, it would be for Ilya to share more of his past with Joley. As it stands, however, the book was fantastic from beginning to end and both the characters and the story felt fully realized. Ms. Feehan does not disappoint - I Joyfully Recommend Turbulent Sea and cannot wait for the youngest Drake sister, Elle, to get her story. Simply fabulous!

Shayna
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

I love this book! The chemistry between these two is at times difficult for them both to understand. They often end up hurting each other by doing or saying the wrong thing-how many times does that happen in real life? How can you trust each other if you feel you can't trust yourself? This is the fundamental question that both Ilya and Joley must answer before they can truly commit to each other; and then of course there are Joley's "dark desires". Many who have already have written reviews seem to have a hard time grasping where Christine Feehan was going, wondering if it was possibly a BSDM reference. I have a different idea on the statement she was trying to make. In our society women are, generally speaking, supposed to want a relationship where they take the lead just like the man and decisions are a 50/50 affair, especially if you're a superstar...But what if you had a dark desire for a man who would be dominating and who would take care of you? Who would tell you what to do? Who would cherish you; treat you the way you really want to be treated? Like Joley said to Hannah in "Turbulent Sea", "I despise men weaker than me and hate men who are stronger than me. That pretty much leaves me nowhere to go." I feel that deep inside some women want the man who will take control, be loving and gentle, yet ruthless and arrogant all at the same time; the problem is Joley likes things that she feels she's not supposed to like, she loves Ilya's dominating ways and that's what causes her a problem. Joley has to learn just like all her other sister's to accept herself for who she is. The truth of the matter finally comes to light and Joley learns -In order to truly belong to someone you have to love and accept yourself as you truly are. This was an amazing book! I can barley wait for Jackson and Elle's book! Keep up the good work!

Like the other reviewers, I am an avid Feehan fan and I especially like the Drake sisters series. I've been waiting for Joley and Ilya's story with much anticipation and for me it did not disappoint. The love scenes are smoking hot...hotter than any of the other Drake sisters, but I would have expected that for Joley and especially the dominant Ilya. And I never saw the "surprise" coming, but it added such a chuckle and a fun spark. I actually liked that the other sisters took a back role in this book...Joley has always been on the edges of the sisters because she was gone so much. And Ilya would never have permitted much input magically from them. He's the ALPHA and he would take care of his woman. And he did! In more ways than one! Love the book...and frankly, I would like to see a follow up...say about seven or eight years into their married life!

I've been waiting for this book for a long time. And while it was a fair-to-middling book, I'm sorry to say I don't feel it was worth the wait - or $7.99, for that matter. Many others have noted things about the book which I both enjoyed or found annoying or perplexing, so I'll focus on just a few that hop immediately to mind:

The book was perhaps well-researched in terms of the life of a touring musician, dealing with groupies, the tabloids, and so on, but in my opinion it never made that jump to convincing or authentic, maybe in part because we never saw Joley living that life. She lived alongside it. She held herself apart. Where was the carefree "wild child" we'd been led to expect in previous books? This wasn't her, and I'm not sure which impression is the accurate one, but they didn't integrate. There were some aspects of Joley's character that I just didn't get - what was this "dark need" that Joley had? If Feehan was trying to suggest that Joley was into BDSM, dominance play and the like, it was never made clear, and because of this Joley's character doesn't feel understandably conflicted or motivated to me, and I was left with the impression that Feehan backed off, chickened out, and left character development in the lurch. And at about the quarter-way point, I'd already had quite enough of the heavy-handed musical analogies and extended metaphors. A little goes a longway. Where's the deft touch we're used to seeing from vintage Feehan?

Ms. Feehan is a successful author and needs no advice, but if I could offer some, it would be SLOW DOWN. Publish fewer books per year, at a higher level of quality. We'll wait. ;-)

Unlike many other reviewers who are a big fan of this author I read a few of her books and only liked "Safe Harbor". But in that book I liked Ilya ane Joley and was waiting to see how this book would turn out.

Thankfully it was very good. I liked Ilya before but I fell in love with him here. He is passionate and exudes power but at the same time he has very soft spot for Joley. And I loved the way they could connect and tease each other without even touching one another.

Of course it depends on what you like in a character but I like a strong woman and a stronger man. In spite of his childhood or training that taught him to be detached and unemotional, he started opening up and showing beautifull, romantic side of himself. True there were extended love scenes but those scenes were merger of guarded love of two people, even though they were not ready to admit it even to themselves.

In short it was very romantic. There have been times that I read really good reviews for really bad books and there times that I read really bad reviews but I was glad that I read them anyway.

If you are a fan then you need to purchase the book and see it for yourself. Now I can't wait for the last book of this series but if the author writes like this in the future I would definitly want to read them.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)

Reviewed for [...]


If it was up to the hero, I'd give this book one star. He made me furious.


Firstly, I do really like this series. The relationships are always full of powerful attraction and strong emotion, and the hero and heroine of this book were no different. In many ways this was one of Christine Feehan's most engrossing books, as Ilya has a strong presence, and he truly does seem to care deeply for Joley. So it was very disappointing that some of his actions were despicable.


I'm a little perplexed why Ilya Prakenskii has such a fan following. Sure, he's all sexy and stuff, but I could never overlook his lies and deception.


Anybody who knows about the Drake sisters knows that there are seven in every generation. The poor seventh daughter is fated to have seven daughters; she has to take sex very seriously because birth control will not work for her. More than once in this series the seventh sister - Elle - has expressed her unhappiness at her situation. Thoughtlessly, other characters have implied she would be doing the wrong thing by not having the babies. It seemed to matter little to anybody that Elle had a great career and her own dreams. I think that's a horrible expectation to place on someone.


The heroine of this book, Joley, is the sixth sister, and has no intention of settling down and having children. She's quite unique for a Christine Feehan character, and one of those rare romance novel heroines who resists the relationship. I enjoy Feehan's books, even though there are many similarities between them. All her female characters, from the `vampires' to the shapeshifters to the enhanced soldiers, to the magical sisters in this series, are fated to be with one man, and they almost always give in without much of a fight. I admire Joley for wanting to maintain her independence, and disliked the hero immensely for finding ways to force her hand.


So how does this seven babies business relate to the hero? Well, Ilya is from a family of magical sons. He's the seventh son of a seventh son, and birth control won't work with him. In the third book of the series, he `marks' Joley's hand, binding her to him. She has no say in this matter. He then proceeds to begin a sexual relationship with her - not telling her about the fact he's trapped her into his fate and made her pregnant.


I don't know about anyone else, but if some guy made me pregnant I'd kinda like to know about it!


Essentially their magical connection means Joley cannot live without Ilya. It also means she has no choice but to spend the rest of her life as his broodmare. Independent, world-travelling, rich and famous singer Joley has everything swept out from under her and the hero doesn't even bother to tell her.


Call me crazy, but I don't find a man who forces seven pregnancies on an unwilling woman to be a particularly appealing hero.


When Joley finds out the truth, it's because her sisters bring it up in a conversation with Ilya, not because he makes the decision to come clean with her. At Joley's stunned reaction, Ilya simply kisses her and says,


"I told you not to rely so much on your birth control."


When she replies that she doesn't want children, and that she doesn't want to go through seven pregnancies and labours, all Ilya says in his defence is, "We'll be fine."


Uh, no Ilya. YOU might be fine. You've got a famous, multi-millionaire wife to pay the bills, lots of sex and a big family on the way. Too bad Joley wants other things from life, because now you've trapped her. What's worse is Joley never gets an opportunity to show her uncertainty or - more importantly - her anger at being lied to by omission and caged into a life she's said all along she does not want.


Big families are a big favourite with Christine Feehan; so many of her books focus on the theme. In this book she does not show any real understanding of women with different ideas of what makes a good life. I honestly don't think she comprehended the mindset of a woman who REALLY DOESN'T WANT CHILDREN. She won't simply capitulate when she finds the `right' man to knock her up, any more than a woman desperate for babies will happily let go of that dream at the drop of a hat.


I've read about many readers becoming annoyed with Joley for not immediately giving in to Ilya's seduction. Here's the thing: Joley didn't get the memo Ilya was the hero of the book and she was the heroine. He should have to convince her he's worth being with. Why should Joley just drop at the feet of the man so determined to dominate her and dictate to her? I liked Joley all the more for behaving like a real and intelligent person rather than a silly romance novel heroine.


All that said, this is an emotional and engrossing romance, and though Christine Feehan's wordy writing style can take a little getting used to, I am a big fan. Feehan's heroes are always extremely alpha, and almost always very appealing; in principle Ilya fits nicely into that category. If situations had been different - if Ilya has been honest from the outset - I would really have liked him as a hero. He might have been one of Feehan's best. The story flowed nicely and I identified with Joley. I especially like the sense of family that runs throughout this series.


But how could any woman forgive what Ilya does to Joley in this book?


I certainly can't.


VERDICT:


This is another solid entry in the romantic and sometimes charming Drake Sisters series, however I cannot rate it as highly as I've rated the other books because I consider the hero's behaviour to be unforgivable. Even so, there is much to like about the second last Drake Sisters entry.

I found this story to be as fascinating as all of the others and just as exciting. I loved everything it had to offer and even what it did not. It missed that one star because I was hoping for Joley to user her powers more and for Ilya to let more be known about himself and his background. I do hope that in the other books that they can both be able to do this.

I've been a Christine Feehan fan for quite some time now. And I would have to agree with some of the reviews which note the last few Drake Sister novels have been fallen a little flat for me. I expected Hannah and Jonas to be a lot better than it was, and was let down. I was very mixed after that book. Jolie and Ellie's story from the beginning have been the ones I couldn't wait for.

This story was exactly what I was expecting. I think it was well written, I wasn't ever bored and the fire and passion were there. I loved finding out about the mark that Ilya put on Jolie. I kept waiting for Ilya to have the heart to heart with Jolie, the here's my life and what I've been through, you never really get that. Jolie is very tolerating of the fact she really doesn't know too much (which I thought was against her character). She also kept talking about dark desires and how she wasn't worthy, and didn't really see any of those either. I loved that my suspicions were proven about Ilya. I think that was a great way to continue the story for Christine Feehan after Ellie's book!

I would agree the secondary character chatter is quite involved, but I didn't feel it was trying to take over the story. There's alot of characters in this story. You meet the whole band and find out quite a bit about them. Turns out Jolie may be the most layed back of them all.

In one of the reviews someone said the "Mine" was reminiscent of the Carpathian series... you know.. I don't care what the book is, when a very alpha male says mine.. it doesn't get sexier than that!!

Overall loved the book. I think those who felt a little let down with Hannah's book will be fulfilled with this one. I really can't wait for Ellie's story now. I think Jackson will be quite the alpha male. YUM!!

OK, I have been so eager for this book I was counting down the seconds for a year to its release. On the one hand I loved it. The love scenes were smoking hot and exactly what I was hoping for for these two (hence the 4 stars). On the other hand--and this happened with Hannah in Safe Harbor as well--Joley's character development was somehow off. Suddenly the fun loving girl was not worthy and dark with her needs but it was a shallow portrayal of this emotion by Feehan. Furthermore, it never came to true satisfying resolution as it was never that well defined to start with. And Ilya who professed to not know anything about a relationship was the one that was having it fabulously! Something was very forced about Joley, even the first few pages sounded very cliche and incredibly cheesy until Ilya came into the book. So, while he was as hot as I hoped (the "mine" thing reminded me a bit of the Dark series), Joley was not at all as cool and interesting as she was in every other Drake book. Additionally, in other books the supporting sisters were more involved, in this one, and I was REALLY hoping for a great setup for Jackson and Elle, and I just didn't feel like I got it.