Customer Reviews

Water Bound (A Sea Haven Novel)

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4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Water Bound (A Sea Haven Novel) by Christine Feehan
Paranormal Romance- July 27, 2010
5 stars

Water Bound is a spellbinding romance that will sweep you away and never let you go! I was mesmerized by the beauty and moving romance in this new paranormal series set in the same world as the Drake sisters' series.

Rikki has a talent for water. It soothes and comforts her and she is able to manipulate it. But Rikki is troubled. Her parents were murdered and disaster after disaster has followed her since their death. She has finally found a small place where she can find peace with a band of adopted sisters who have their own special brand of magic. When she decides to go out to a dangerous part of the ocean to hunt for the precious sea urchins that support her living a freak disaster causes the water to nearly kill her. But in the water she finds another human set adrift, a man who draws her. She saves him and instantly regrets it. Although he is handsome and magnetic she realizes he carries secrets and they will disrupt the hard earned serenity she has finally found. But for some reason she is unable to abandon him.

Lev Prakenskii is a man without a past or an identity. He has killed, lied and seduced for his country. A country that feels he is expendable. But since he was violently taken from his family and indoctrinated by the Soviet government he has no other purpose. That is until he meets the courageous and eccentric Rikki. She draws him and only with her does he feel human. Lev knows Rikki is his only chance at humanity and he wants to stay and love her. But his government is set to exterminate him and an evil from Rikki's past threatens to tear them apart.

This was a highly emotional and poignant story. This book was unusual in that while Rikki was attracted to Lev she really did want to get rid of him since his presence disrupted her own mental health. He is a complication she doesn't need or want. But Lev immediately realizes a good thing when he sees it and although Rikki has many quirks only he sees the true woman who can accept him when he cannot. Rikki is his salvation. Reading how such a fierce alpha male is determined to be gentle and strong enough to fight for their relationship was very moving. As Christine Feehan explores their love I really felt I knew each of these individuals and I became so invested in each of them that I craved for them to be together. These characters were intensely 3 dimensional. I really got the feeling that they were the only ones who could truly understand each other.

In addition, the author seamlessly adds touches of her Drake series by introducing beloved characters which adds a feeling of coming home that devoted readers will be sure to embrace.

This is a book to cherish. I loved this story and only regret I read it so fast that I didn't get to savor it more! I only hope her future books will have more mesmerizing Prakenskii brothers featured!

Reviewed by Steph from the Bookaholics Romance Book Club

Rikki has felt isolated from the rest of humanity since she was young. Bound to the element of water, she has unique gifts that allow her to control it in whatever form it takes. But in Rikki's case, having fantastic, mystical abilities doesn't translate well towards being a "normal" member of society. At a loss to really fit in except with her family of adopted "sisters", she turns to her best source of comfort: the sea, where she makes a living diving for urchins. Then one day, she rescues a man from drowning in the ocean, and nothing can be the same again.

Lev is a damaged hero with emotional pain to rival Rikki's. His memories are broken, but he knows that he is an assassin. His mission and how he ended up being cared for by the element-tied woman remain a mystery to him, but he does know that he has never before experienced a connection like he has with Rikki; able to read her thoughts and communicate with her telepathically, he is perhaps the only man truly able to understand her as she needs to be understood.

These are both very unique characters; I know the idea of characters having special, element-associated abilities has been played with before, and an assassin-hero is nothing new, but Feehan has given a lot of depth to the concepts. Rikki is far from perfect, but so is Lev, in a different way - together they complement and strengthen one another, understanding and reassuring each other in spite of their own failings.

Though a little slow to start moving, plot-wise, the book takes a lot of time to introduce the characters and the dynamics between them, and it really helps to develop the romantic aspects of the story. This is bolstered by excellent descriptions, especially of the settings, which really color this book and give it life; it's easy to get caught up in her world and picture it, which adds so much to the story.

Set alongside Feehan's "Drake Sisters" books but still standalone, "Water Bound" should be picked up by anyone looking for a romance well-based in emotion and interaction between the characters -- this isn't just for paranormal fans. I really like this start to her new series and I look forward to seeing more of these books.

Rikki Sitmore is not your average female. She has strange reactions to things people may consider normal. She only likes to eat peanut butter and broccoli and likes everything to be pristine and untouched. She might also be a sociopath because her parents, foster families, and fiancé's houses all burned down and many of them died. But being a possible serial arsonist is not even the oddest thing about her. The winner is that she has the ability to control water (think water-bending in "Avatar: The Last Airbender" style). Rikki is therefore surprised that she didn't sense the giant tidal wave until it was literally crashing down upon her. The tidal wave doesn't just bring water, however, but also the most dangerous-looking and handsome man Rikki has ever seen. Against her better instinct, she decides to save him. During the rescue, she shares a moment with this dangerous man that is sure to shake her world.

Lev Prakenskii is a very dangerous, deadly, and handsome man. This is the one thing he knows as he finds himself slammed against the rocks after falling into the ocean. The next thing he knows, he is saved by a beautiful woman whom he can't help thinking must be a mermaid. She pulls Lev out of the ocean and the dizziness and uncertainly causes him to react in a way that would have King Triton stabbing him with his triton. Rather than throwing him back into the ocean, the strange woman responds angrily to his actions. This rather sobers Lev up to the fact that Ariel did not save him, since she is yelling and not singing to him. Despite his dangerous behavior, the woman takes him home. Lev soon realizes he can't remember anything except that he has killed a lot of people. The one thing he does know is that he wants to spend his life with this mermaid-like woman.

I'm the first to admit that I'm no literary expert, but my biggest problem with this book was what I found to be poor writing. The author overuses adjectives and has the tendency to be repetitive and redundant. I did not need to be reminded on every page that Rikki is a strange woman. I also got the point after the first fifty times that Lev is a deadly and dangerous man who has killed a lot of people. I was tempted to start a drinking game every time I came across the words strange, deadly, dangerous, handsome, and a quite a few others. Needless to say, I would have been very drunk by the time I came to page two hundred, and the book is near five hundred pages long. Also, do we need a twenty page sex scene? A paragraph about walking into a grocery store? This book really could have benefitted from a strong editorial hand. The weak editing really ruined the story for me. I could not concentrate or care about the story because I kept trying to edit it in my mind.

Setting aside the editing issue, the story was rather weak as well. I really felt no connection to either Lev or Rikki. None. I've never read a book where I've never even felt a small connection. Because I felt no connection to either of the characters, I could not care less about what happened to them. There were exciting scenes here and there, but they are quickly overridden with the overuse of repeating themes and thoughts. I really thought when Lev's past was revealed, the story would take an interesting turn. It didn't. The major plot points are who is starting the fires and trying to kill Rikki and whether Lev can escape from his dangerous and deadly past. Both are resolved in the most lackluster way possible.

Oh yeah, Rikki and Lev got together at the end and I was relieved that the book was over. Those who don't mind a lot of adjectives and repetitiveness will probably like this book better than I did. As it is, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

This was a really weird story...and unbelievably boring.

I expected to really enjoy this book. I know Christine Feehan is sort of a joke we love anyway, but this one was just boring. I'm not kidding when I say I actually fell asleep more than once while reading this. That's how bad it is.

Water Bound is the beginning of a spin off series from the extremely enjoyable Drake Sisters series. DO NOT read this before you read the Drake Sisters books. I don't even think this was written with a new audience in mind. I love Hannah and Jonas and the gang. Their stories weren't always perfect but I cared about them. This lot are just nothing. It's like the cheap, black-market rip-off of a designer brand. It's second-rate and you can tell the difference even if you don't want to admit it.
It didn't help that the hero had amnesia for most of the book. So if you're expecting more Prakenskii brothers love you won't find it here. You can't be a sexy secret agent hero guy when you don't even know who you are.

Because I'm about to get snarky, here's what I liked about this book.

#1 Ignore the awful cover and turn to the insert. That's a really nice picture of a really nice-looking man!

#2 Uh, see #1. That's about it.

On a side note, I suspect Feehan has picked up on the fact she's a little repetitive. For the first time ever, her heroine doesn't have a `velvet sheath'. Nope, no siree. Rikki has a `velvet, scorching-hot sheath'. Way to go Rikki! You've upgraded your privates!

Usually everybody can appreciate Christine Feehan's - uh - unique writing style. She is her own drinking game. Here, well, I've already said she was boring. But it can't be said enough times.

This book starts on the same day the final Drake Sisters book finished. The wave that wiped out the man trying to kill Elle Drake also nearly kills sea-urchin diver Rikki, and Lev Prakenskii - who was undercover on the bad guy's boat. Then Rikki takes Lev home. And they sit around. And sit around. And we learn Rikki has had a hard life and maybe she's autistic. And we sit around. Nothing happens.

I don't know what went wrong here. In the past people have criticised Feehan for various things - such as too dominant men and too brutal assaults on the women. Here there's none of that. The thing is, there's not actually a story. Nothing happens for the first two-hundred and eighty pages. Then they have twenty-two pages of sex. I don't know about anyone else, but after TWO-HUNDRED AND EIGHTY pages of NOTHING I don't think any kind of sex can redeem a book. And it's not a short book either. This is a CHRISTINE FEEHAN book. She IS sex! But there wasn't even any of that to break up the monotony. My God this one went on and on with a whole lot of nothing.

I have never felt this way about a Christine Feehan book before. Yes, you either love her or you hate her. Yes, she's often predictable in her writing. But never before has she bored me to sleep and tears. I don't know what she was thinking.

Feehan's really getting into the research these days. Her last Ghostwalkers book was full to the brim with computer stuff, and she's started using a made up new language (think Klingon for vampires) in her Carpathians series. The heroine of this book is a sea-urchin diver, and in the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book Feehan thanks a real life diver for helping her out. The thing is, I'm not at all interested in having every piece of diving equipment explained to me in great detail, and having every dive Rikki goes on being described step by step. It's boring. I actually got through the first few hundred pages thinking, "This is Christine Feehan - shouldn't somebody be having sex?!"

Christine Feehan's speciality is the paranormal - no matter what she writes - be it military romance or a small town contemporary, there's always a paranormal element to it. The problem with this new series is that the paranormal aspect is so vague I never knew what was happening. If you haven't read book six in the Drake series you won't have the faintest idea what's going on, or what it means when Lev `marks' Rikki's hand.

Speaking of the Drake series, I expected this would have something to do with it. I wanted the story where Lev feels terrible guilt about what he let happen to Elle Drake, and where there is some resolution to that. Is he not the older brother Ilya saw when Elle was being rescued? What happened to that? But it was not part of the story. It was like Lev was wiped clean to begin again as a brand new character.

The whole thing was so contrived. I mean, the Drake books tended to be a little on the sweet side (when someone wasn't being stabbed or raped!), but there were sisters and they had a real connection and a fantastic house full of secrets. In this one the women own a farm and each of them has their own farmhouse. It was such a silly concept.

Weird thing #1. No matter who Feehan's heroes are - millennia-old Carpathians from Eastern Europe or Russian hit men - all the men end up speaking the same way. They all use modern-day American English and terms of endearment. In this one Lev is so Americanised he even knows how to prepare American meals and knows what products are going to be on the shelves of the supermarket. It's not good enough to simply give your character a Russian name. You either make them Russian through and through, or you don't bother creating heroes from other countries.

Weird thing #2. Feehan introduces a forty-two year old woman a few pages in, and the first thing we learn about her is that she hasn't gone grey despite her age. Uh...excuse me? What dimension does this author live in that forty-two is old age?! That was very strange.

The story does arrive about three-hundred and fifty pages in, but that just isn't good enough. There's no way I can rate a book above one star when it took so long for the story to arrive that more than once I considered quitting.

I think this is the best thing I can say about the book. I read the entire thing. No... I also think that it was great to have Jonas and Hannah in the book. If it weren't for these two items I would have given it a 1* review.

I just felt bad after reading it. I understand the OCD, and the autism issues. It just felt wrong. A person who has never met this girl, and he falls immediately and irrevocably in love with her, despite her problems. They never talked (that I can remember - although maybe I have put some of it out of my mind)of his having relatives, friends, etc.. .with any of these issues. He just knew how to deal with them all - no problem. None. There was no building up to it, no explanation. It did not make sense.

That doesn't even address his presence in the previous book and who he meets in this one. Out of all the family he meets Jonas and Hannah. Really? REALLY? Not Ilya or seeing Elle. That just was wrong. No explanation about why he didn't help Elle, how he knew what was happening, and did nothing. Jonas chatted about it briefly, but it was not very good, and really didn't address anything.

I have read books where people have emotional issues / disabilities. I have read books where the main character / hero was a previous villain. That wasn't the issue. In this book - it just didn't work for me.

This was a very good read. I am always looking for something different. The heroine here is a very high functioning autistic. Plus she has a magical power. The hero was briefly in the book about Elle in the Drake sisters series. He is the brother of Ilya who is married to Joley. He is one of seven brothers who all also have some sort of powers.

He seemed to be more damaged than Ilya. But once he discovers Rikki he leaves his old life behind and never looks back. He does a very good job coping with someone who is different. You know that he will continue to do everything he can to make her life easy. I loved the way he loved her.

She is very well written. I'm sure it might have been easy to make her a stereotype. You could see her OCD/autism but you could see how she learned to function around it. She was a flawed yet very strong character. I enjoyed reading about her.

Here and there the writing was a bit heavy handed when the author kept mentioning for example that she had no people skills. Once would have done it with some follow up showing scenes. But that is a pretty minor quibble. There were 3 rather lengthly love scenes that for me held up the action. They weren't bad or anything but I guess I was so interested in the story that they dragged the pace down.

This one avoided the overly sweet feeling that some of the Drake books gave me. I really enjoyed it.

I love Christine Feehan. I loved the Drake sisters books. I prordered Water Bound. I was dissappointed!

Water bound is a LONG novel and yet very very little ever happens. There is a lot of info given on sea urchin diving. But does anyone buy Christine Feehan for info on sea urchin diving? No sir.
And yet the main draw card, the romance, was really irritating. I commend Feehan for writing about an autisitc heroine, but I have to say, I honestly couldnt relate to Ricki at all. She has issues, especially intimacy issues and after two thirds of the book (boring and depressing) in which Feehan outlines a character who will never be able to have the kind of romance we come to expect from these books, Ricki does a total backflip and jumps into bed with Lev.

I kept reading in the hopes for a Prakenskii brothers show down, but it never happened. I found it really tough to finish this book and mostly felt like putting it down and re-reading the old drake sisters books. For someone who preordered this book, I found it an epic fail on most counts.

Very dissappointed.

I own every single Feehan book ever written. Some have been lackluster and some wonderful. This was lackluster, I'm afraid. Way too repetitive. The heroine was just not likeable to me. It had nothing to do with her autism or OCD...she just wasn't a nice person & came across as way too child-like to be considered sexy. Lev didn't do much throughout most of the book except try to get memory back. The fact that he never stopped Elle's rape (in final Drake Sisters book) was disturbing, and his lack of interaction with Ilya was disappointing too. And, as others have pointed out, too much info repeated regarding sea urchin diving, boating equiptment, etc. I hope the next in the series is better.

***SPOILERS*** I've enjoyed reading Feehan's other novels, especially the Drake Sisters. So I was very excited that she was starting a new series and that it was in Sea Haven. I was especially excited to see that Lev would be in it. Boy was I wrong. I had to force myself to finish this book. Normally I would finish off one of her books the same day but this one actually took me about 2 months. I just kept putting it down and forgetting I even had it and re-reading something else I had. Yes, it was that bad. Rikki is a very annoying character (tho when it came out she was autistic I backed off a little bit) but I just couldn't handle it. Everything she did was "meticulous this, meticulous that, meticulously..." She must have used the word meticulous or some variation of meticulous at least 47,000 times. And if you expect some showdown between Lev and Ilya or Lev and Jackson you can forget it. The only redeeming thing about this book is that Jonas and Hannah were in it but only for about 10 seconds. I'm debating whether I will get the next one in the series because I hated this one so much. I may just because I'm waiting for the showdown to happen between the Prakenskiis and Jackson and there was mention of another Prakenskii brother.

Mild Spoilers:

What I Loved: This book delivered with everything that I expected! Christine has a knack for writing about love between a man and woman (often how it is unexplainable) but also a love between families (born to or formed). This book is no exception! This book is not only the love story between Rikki and Lev but also the story of how she began to trust because of 5 other special women in her life. Her sisters, not by birth, but by heart!

What I Liked: I really liked how she wove in the past Sea Haven stories without making it about them. There is a point where you know later in the series, Lev is going to have to deal with something between him and Jackson (that is my mild spoiler) but I liked that she left that till later. I also love that Christine tend to write where the men need the women just as much(if not more) than the women need the men. I like how they just accept each other for who they are and work through it!

What I thought was So-So: Nothing

Why I gave it a 4: To be honest, I hovered between 4 and 5 while trying to decide. The only reason it ended up a 4 was because I felt it took a little to long in the middle to bring in the rest of the family. Other than that, it pretty much rocked!

Who I would recommend this too: I recommend this to PNR readers and even some romance readers. It is not about vampires, werewolves, ect but it is about "magic" for lack of a better term. Also, I have found that people either love Christine's writing or don't! This is a very typical (stellar) Christine Feehan book. I loved it but I love her writing so keep that in mind!

Received the book from: Bought on Amazon

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