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In Fine Form (2014)

by Eressë(Favorite Author)

4.15 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1622101170 (ISBN13: 9781622101177)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Liquid Silver Books

series

Chronicles of Ylandre

review 1: Alas, I can only give this book two stars, and here is why...For me, the book was incredibly hard to read and get into. First of all, the plot and the pace weren't very engaging, I was tempted to just scroll past the large chunks of text describing the political intrigues because well, for one, they weren't that interesting and, secondly, I expected this to be a romance book so I was looking for said romance. There wasn't any. The characters instantly fall in love, then at some point, fall in bed but the romance? Nope. Not there. Then they get married and have a kid, but that's all behind the scenes, basically, instead of romance there's just sex and then, proclamations of eternal love, but there isn't any actual relationship development, not that I found anyway. If you do... moren't count their professional relationship. But even the transition between professional and personal wasn't very smooth and some of their interactions seemed forced, therefor losing believability. I have to say, the political parts of the book were so incredibly boring, mainly because of two reasons - no map and the language. Yes, the language, I might as well have read some university law and regulations of whatever, it would be just as dull and as difficult to follow. This monotone boring to death legalese like language is then mixed with paragraphs of purple prose, add to that the Thesaurus overload and it's just too much. Sometimes, less is more, and if you have an interesting, intriguing plot with charismatic characters and a good pace, then actually simpler language would be best, but this felt like the author focused so much on this flowery and intricate writing style that all of those aforementioned things like plot and pace, took a backseat. They were barely there, in other words. Add to that a great number of characters, all of which have rather dissonant, forgettable names, and well...Needless to say, this wasn't much of a pleasant read but more of a struggle to remember which continent and country lays where and who the leader is and who that or this character is and what he does, and how they all connect and why and etc etc. There is one other thing that I find annoying and not just in this book but rather, the series. It all seems repetitive. Book One - instant love for the submissive character, the same we can find here as well. Book One, the dominant character is a templar with superpowers, and in this book - the same. Book One, they soulbind after waiting for lifetimes, this book features the same thing. Comparing further, in the first and this book, we can see the characters are of different social statuses, the dominant ones are high up, and the submissive ones are from a much lower background. There is also a single male character (in both books) that briefly comes between the lovers and ruins their relationship leading to a short break off, but afterwards everything is good again and he is quickly removed having served his purpose. Then, there's the sex scenes, if you compare them, they're nearly the same too. Both submissive characters, from book one and from this one, even have the same stutter when feeling out of their depth/embarassed/etc, their use of exclamations and judging by their speech patterns, they are also very similar, the same can be said for the dominant characters. Basically what I'm getting at is, it seems as though the author has this one character template she tweaks slightly for each book, but for the most part, it's like I'm reading stories about the same characters just set in different time, and they have different names. And that is even more boring than flowery descriptions and very twisted political intrigues done in a monotone formal language. I would like to see this author work more on the characters, the romance and plot development, and the pace, in the next book. The world created in this series seems complex and interesting but the way it's presented in the books, well, despite all the thesaurus peppered prose and flowing descriptions, it's actually difficult to conjure up and really see it. Especially considering the lack of an actual map.I can sum this up in three words - less is more. Or, quality over quantity.
review 2: This review contains spoilers so be warned.The story is about Yandro and Jareth and I gotta admit I was really really curious about them ever since they made an appearance in Sacred Fate. Jareth or Jath is Tenryon's brother (you know, the only Templar the world knows about?). He is also a very important diplomat who likes to indulge in mind games with his prey and has trouble finding a good aide because all of them fall in his bed. So the Ardan comes up with the perfect solution: Yandro Vaidon, a Half Blood of dubious lineage whose status as a bastard makes his life really hard. Yandro is decided to succeed where other have failed and keep a platonic relationship with Jareth. But even Yandro can't keep Jath from his mind, heart and bed indefinitely.When I saw the new Eresse book I was soooo happy but then I read it... I was expecting more from this book, a lot more. So far, I rated every single one of Ylandre books with 5 stars cause they deserved it but for some reason this book felt... rushed, incomplete. The main focus is the diplomatic conflict between Teraz and Ylandre. We've seen a bit of this conflict in Keo and Naeth's book but this time the author takes us deeper in the intrigues. So deep I could hardly tell is this book's focus were the mind games or the romance. The world is veeery complicated and the only thing we can go about is the list of places. So I wonder: where is the damn map? How can I imagine those damn continents if I don't have the slightest idea of how they are supposed to be? This "The smallest continent, Arvalde lies to the south of Lydan and is connected to its northern neighbor by a narrow land bridge" doesn't work for me. It's just a constant jumble in a wolrd already complicated beyond belief. The wolrd building is incredible and I absolutely love it, don't get me wrong, but it's too complicated to understand without a bit of help and a map. Anyway, as I was saying... the main focus of the book are the diplomatic relationships and not the love story. Jath and Yan... they make a great couple, they had charisma but except the bed hopping, some jealousy scenes and a minor break up, I saw nothing else to remind me again that this is a book I bought so I can dream about the romantic and immortal love in a faraway land.And the end... REALLY? REALLY? You just skip the damn wedding, the kiddie making scene and you tell us: ok, here is it, your happy ending that you've been waiting the whole damn book is cut in half; I've made my quota of pages, I don't feel like writing more. They are happy, married, have a kid, end of story. I hope the next book will be better and I still mourn the potential this book had... 3 stars from me. less

Download links for: In Fine Form

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