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The Fey (2009)

by Claudia Hall Christian(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0982274610 (ISBN13: 9780982274613)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Cook Street Publishing

series

Alex The Fey

review 1: For some reason, I expected this book to have some sort of fantasy element. While other readers were annoyed by plot holes and missing information, I enjoyed the suspense after several well outlined cozies. Intelligence is very cloak and dagger so it only made sense to me that there'd be missing pieces. The plot itself, while suspenseful is nothing terribly special and I was disappointed we never learn why Alex is the Fey. Overall The Fey is a decent summer fluff book for a free iBook.
review 2: I really wanted to like this book. I really liked the idea of the Fey character, and the basic premise and overall story arc are good, but it really feels like a mish-mash of over-the-top, under-developed ideas. I would have much rather read a 2 or 3 book series with mo... morere story and character development, and better pacing and rhythm. I think the author was trying too hard to be all things to all readers and trying to cram every possible plot twist and motivation she could think of into one story. It is overkill—there were moments I wondered whether the author was doing it on purpose to help the reader empathize with the protagonist, because I felt reading it was a form of psychological torture. There were a few major plot points that did not serve the overall story and should have been cut; the crisis with her husband's identity being the main one. Absolutely unbelievable that an intelligence officer of The Fey's caliber would have been completely oblivious to her husband's secret identity, especially since her boss and other people around her knew and he was still in contact with people from his old life (at their home, no less). Absolutely unbelievable how quickly and neatly the couple went from major meltdown crisis to everything being hunky dory.While we're on the husband subject, I like that the husband and wife are very (very, very) attracted to each other (no, really. VERY.) after 13 years of marriage, but I found it wearying that they cannot seem to be in a room together without becoming aroused and they cannot be in a room ALONE together without getting it on. Whether the sex scene is intended as deeply tender love making or a stolen-moment quickie, the author approaches them the same and writes fairly bland, procedural sex scenes—he touched her, she touched him, they touch each other, and they're both satisfied. It was so rote and boring, I found myself skipping to the end of the section every time a pulse quickened. If you're going to include sex/love scenes, put in the effort to craft meaningful scenes. As it is, the sex element ends up as a bunch of throw-away moments in the book that disrupt the story.I thought there were just too many prominent supporting characters, and too many of them were too similar. (Having multiple names and nicknames for supporting characters did not do anything toward helping to keep the cast of characters straight.) Eliminating the husband identity crisis would have removed the PIRA story line and characters, which would have helped immensely with story pacing and cleaning up the cast. Cian and Eoin do not serve the plot at all, Néall and Eimilie serve no purpose other than to drive the identity crisis. And the PIRA role in resolving the hostage situation could easily have been filled any number of other ways.As other reviews have mentioned, Alex "The Fey" is a strong female lead. She doesn't just hold her own with the Special Forces guys; she leads them. Unfortunately, Alex seems to have two speeds—kick-ass and insecure/needy. I would have liked to have more character and personality development.The story is action-packed but I found several of the action sequences too fast-paced—dialogue was choppy or repetitive and it was difficult to keep track of what was happening. Another reviewer expressed the opinion that the military action scenes were close enough to reality to not be fantastical, but too unrealistic to be believable. I would have to agree with this assessment and wish the author had taken the time to make it more believable.I had several moments where I just debated putting the book down, but I was actually interested in what would happen and how the story line would resolve. I want to give the author credit for capturing my interest enough that I finished the story, but I was left wholly unsatisfied with the telling of the story.And after going through all of that to get to the end, how the hell did this story end without us ever discovering what was motivating the antagonist or what "property" he was trying to recover?This book needed a heavy developmental edit to help the author separate the wheat from the chaff. A developmental editor could have helped the author (1) identify the plot points and characters that do not serve the story and needed to be dropped, (2) identify the areas that needed more detail and finesse, and (3) improve the pacing of the storytelling. All things that this story desperately needed.The book also needed a copyeditor; a single pass to flag basic spelling, grammar, and consistency issues would have gone a long way toward making this a better reading experience, though it would have done nothing to help the storytelling.I see now, looking at the author's list, that she has endeavored to develop the character into a series, "Alex the Fey," but I don't think I will read any of them—I certainly won't pay to read them. As much as I liked the premise and the idea behind the main character, the storytelling was lacking. It's not that the storytelling is bad, it just needed more effort put into crafting and polishing the story—as it is, it feels like a second or third draft. And I'm actually a little pissed about that, because with a little more effort and care it could have been a truly good story! It's like having a kid who studied hard and did all the homework for class and got a "C" grade because they didn't turn in any homework, but would have earned an "A" had they turned in the assignments. less

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