Rate this book

Dark Hunter's Touch (2012)

by Jessa Slade(Favorite Author)

3.05 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Harlequin Nocturne Cravings

series

Steel Born

review 1: I'm continuing my Harlequin exploration which started a few months back, but after last month's reading of a title from the Intrigue series, I thought I might mix things up try some of the shorter books that are often offshoots of the different themed sets to see how they faired. I chose two titles from the Harlequin Nocturnal Cravings Dark Hunter's Touch by Jessa Slade and The Darkest Embrace by Megan Hart as well as Cake by Lauren Dane which is part of Cosmo Red-Hot Reads. I really thought I would be more like to enjoy the first two titles being part of the Harlequin Nocture, which is their paranormal line, but neither of the books really worked for me. I liked the world of Dark Hunter's Touch which involved phae, but I felt the focus was more on constructing the worl... mored and how it worked and very little time spend on the two people in the story.
review 2: Jessa Slade writes with a lovely, poetic style. The world is fascinating, conceived with a great deal of depth. Looking at the author's website, this is the first of a trilogy, though there is no sign of this in the book itself. I would read followup titles, as I'm interested in seeing how this world develops. That said, what's holding the book back from a higher rating? In some cases, I felt that the characters' magical powers seemed far too convenient, introduced when they needed to have them, with insufficient foreshadowing. It must have been challenging to convey details about a complex world in the short space of this book, but I still got lost sometimes. I had particular difficulty at the end of the story, when the resolution felt rushed and various items and characters turned out to have unexpected and unexplained magical properties. To read the book, I had to consciously decide to trust the author. For about the first half, several things seemed extremely improbable to me, and I nearly chalked them up to a poor premise. However, it turned out that a turn around the halfway mark explained many of the things I was struggling with. I was glad I had persevered through the beginning, however, I think the author achieved this effect by cheating the reader somewhat. I will explain what I mean, but I think this gets into spoilers, so be warned. Spoilers in this paragraph: The hero is not what he seems. I felt suspicious of him for the first half, but was thrown off the scent because the book included scenes written from his point of view that made him seem to be telling the truth. When his true nature was revealed halfway through, I felt both vindicated and cheated -- vindicated because it confirmed my sense that there must be an explanation for some of his odd behavior, but cheated because the limited view into his mind left me feeling misled. The reader would have been better served if the book had been told only from the heroine's perspective -- then the reader is lied to by the hero along with the heroine, rather than tricked by the author. I'm curious to see what Jessa Slade does with this series in the future. She creates rich and resonant mythology, with a satisfying blend of familiarity and originality. After Dark Hunter's Touch, I'm interested in reading a full-length work of hers to see if her style works better when she has more room to stretch. less

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