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Pandora's Ring
Cinereal, #1
The Damned found something too precious to destroy.
Harvesting the soul of a first-born should be an easy mission for Eli Tawson, Scavenger of the Damned. But when he meets Samantha Parker, he finds there is more to his mission than meets the eye. Samantha can see through his illusions and, after some instruction, creates the most powerful binding spell he's ever experienced. Eli is intrigued and makes it his mission to find out why she was not collected by the demon who should own her soul.
Samantha wants nothing more than a normal life and to be left alone. She is both leery of and attracted to the strange Eli. The young woman finds herself thrust into a world she never knew existed of magic, angels and demons and nothing is what it seems. Pursued by another powerful demon and discovering her own hidden abilities, Samantha must discover the truth of her mother's "death." Her mother's ring proves to be the key to her past and her future, leaving her straddling two worlds.
Eager to protect his newfound love, Eli soon finds Samantha might be the one who has to protect him.
CONTENT Molestation, rape triggers, insanity
17,00 Words
The Damned found something too precious to destroy.
Harvesting the soul of a first-born should be an easy mission for Eli Tawson, Scavenger of the Damned. But when he meets Samantha Parker, he finds there is more to his mission than meets the eye. Samantha can see through his illusions and, after some instruction, creates the most powerful binding spell he's ever experienced. Eli is intrigued and makes it his mission to find out why she was not collected by the demon who should own her soul.
Samantha wants nothing more than a normal life and to be left alone. She is both leery of and attracted to the strange Eli. The young woman finds herself thrust into a world she never knew existed of magic, angels and demons and nothing is what it seems. Pursued by another powerful demon and discovering her own hidden abilities, Samantha must discover the truth of her mother's "death." Her mother's ring proves to be the key to her past and her future, leaving her straddling two worlds.
Eager to protect his newfound love, Eli soon finds Samantha might be the one who has to protect him.
CONTENT Molestation, rape triggers, insanity
17,00 Words
105 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 2008
1 person is currently reading
5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 11, 2013
Actual rating: 2.5
Erk.... I really wanted to love this book for Kaitlin (remember, I know her ;) haha). I liked the synopsis of the book, and it would bring me great pleasure to give her a glowing review for her work. But...because I'm honest, and I especially want to be honest for her, I will be honest about the things I liked and disliked about this book.
The things I liked:
*I like the premise of the storyline. I always enjoy when people take "traditional" things like demons and angels and such religious figures and tweak them a bit (after all, my own book I started working on years ago is about angels and the devil).
*Francis and Hammy - while they're very small supporting characters, I really enjoyed them!
*Diego - yeah... he was pretty bad ass and for some reason I was getting a very Pitch vibe from him (you know, the awesome bad guy from Rise of the Guardians)
The things I didn't like:
*As much as it pains me to say this because I want to praise Kaitlin so much, the writing. Now, this isn't to say her writing is bad. In fact, it isn't. However, the writing of this book, to me, felt very amateur. I notice Kaitlin writes a lot like me... she is dialogue and action heavy. By that, I mean she writes a lot about what the characters are doing "She snarled." "She looked up and smiled." "He looked at his hands." etc. Those types of things. I write with a lot of dialogue and a lot of action description as well. The thing I lack and that Kaitlin lacks is regular description. I was wanting more details about how characters were feeling and what was happening. And like her previous book Valeria, there was a bit of repetition, particularly with the phrase "snarled." "He snarled/She snarled" was used quite a bit.
*Samantha - I really really liked Samantha at first. She was sort of this hard ass, not gonna take crap from no one sort of girl and those are the types of leading ladies I love. But when it comes to characters like that, I have really high standards for how I believe they should handle certain situations, and when they don't comply with those standards, I get angry ;-) Now, that is a personal preference and not a bad thing reflective of the writer, obviously. But I was super disappointed and angry when Samantha got super emotional and lost her sh*t. Now, trust me, I do understand. In that situation, it would be completely normal. But I was wanting her to be like "F this! I'm Samantha bitch!" and handle it like the bad ass she was. But she didn't, and I was bummed.
*Eli - So Eli is a Damned who goes to collect Samantha's soul...and then something like two days later he's in love with her? I was left wondering why. How did it happen so quickly? What was it about Samantha that was worthy of falling in love with? This is where some character development would have helped, but for me, it just left me with my eyebrow raised, going "Really? You just met her and you suddenly love her? Right."
*The abrupt ending - This was me as I clicked the next page button my Kindle to find a page listing Kaitlin's other work: "A-whu? It's over? What the hell?" Granted, yes, I knew there was going to be more books in this series as this is listed as book one, but I figured there would have been some sort of cohesive ending that would lead into the next book, like most books in a series. Not just "Yup let's go." END
The point of all this: I want to give some constructive criticism to Kaitlin as she continues her journey as a writer. I think she has amazing potential, and I want nothing more for her to become a best selling author. So, I give her my honest reviews in hopes that it helps her in some way. Of course, a lot of this was my own personal preference, but there are things I hope she can benefit from. I will continue to support her and read all the books she writes. And I do believe with each book, she will get better and better.
However, I will leave a recommendation... I hope this is not an insult to Kaitlin, because I'm really not meaning it to be, but I think fans of the Twilight series will LOVE LOVE LOVE this book and it's following series. So I will definitely be recommending it to my friends who I think will enjoy it :-) So, if you enjoyed the Twilight series, you should definitely check this out. I think you'd enjoy it!
Good luck Kaitlin! Please don't hate me too much for my words ;-) I love you and wish you the best! I am excited to see what happens next in this series :-)
Erk.... I really wanted to love this book for Kaitlin (remember, I know her ;) haha). I liked the synopsis of the book, and it would bring me great pleasure to give her a glowing review for her work. But...because I'm honest, and I especially want to be honest for her, I will be honest about the things I liked and disliked about this book.
The things I liked:
*I like the premise of the storyline. I always enjoy when people take "traditional" things like demons and angels and such religious figures and tweak them a bit (after all, my own book I started working on years ago is about angels and the devil).
*Francis and Hammy - while they're very small supporting characters, I really enjoyed them!
*Diego - yeah... he was pretty bad ass and for some reason I was getting a very Pitch vibe from him (you know, the awesome bad guy from Rise of the Guardians)
The things I didn't like:
*As much as it pains me to say this because I want to praise Kaitlin so much, the writing. Now, this isn't to say her writing is bad. In fact, it isn't. However, the writing of this book, to me, felt very amateur. I notice Kaitlin writes a lot like me... she is dialogue and action heavy. By that, I mean she writes a lot about what the characters are doing "She snarled." "She looked up and smiled." "He looked at his hands." etc. Those types of things. I write with a lot of dialogue and a lot of action description as well. The thing I lack and that Kaitlin lacks is regular description. I was wanting more details about how characters were feeling and what was happening. And like her previous book Valeria, there was a bit of repetition, particularly with the phrase "snarled." "He snarled/She snarled" was used quite a bit.
*Samantha - I really really liked Samantha at first. She was sort of this hard ass, not gonna take crap from no one sort of girl and those are the types of leading ladies I love. But when it comes to characters like that, I have really high standards for how I believe they should handle certain situations, and when they don't comply with those standards, I get angry ;-) Now, that is a personal preference and not a bad thing reflective of the writer, obviously. But I was super disappointed and angry when Samantha got super emotional and lost her sh*t. Now, trust me, I do understand. In that situation, it would be completely normal. But I was wanting her to be like "F this! I'm Samantha bitch!" and handle it like the bad ass she was. But she didn't, and I was bummed.
*Eli - So Eli is a Damned who goes to collect Samantha's soul...and then something like two days later he's in love with her? I was left wondering why. How did it happen so quickly? What was it about Samantha that was worthy of falling in love with? This is where some character development would have helped, but for me, it just left me with my eyebrow raised, going "Really? You just met her and you suddenly love her? Right."
*The abrupt ending - This was me as I clicked the next page button my Kindle to find a page listing Kaitlin's other work: "A-whu? It's over? What the hell?" Granted, yes, I knew there was going to be more books in this series as this is listed as book one, but I figured there would have been some sort of cohesive ending that would lead into the next book, like most books in a series. Not just "Yup let's go." END
The point of all this: I want to give some constructive criticism to Kaitlin as she continues her journey as a writer. I think she has amazing potential, and I want nothing more for her to become a best selling author. So, I give her my honest reviews in hopes that it helps her in some way. Of course, a lot of this was my own personal preference, but there are things I hope she can benefit from. I will continue to support her and read all the books she writes. And I do believe with each book, she will get better and better.
However, I will leave a recommendation... I hope this is not an insult to Kaitlin, because I'm really not meaning it to be, but I think fans of the Twilight series will LOVE LOVE LOVE this book and it's following series. So I will definitely be recommending it to my friends who I think will enjoy it :-) So, if you enjoyed the Twilight series, you should definitely check this out. I think you'd enjoy it!
Good luck Kaitlin! Please don't hate me too much for my words ;-) I love you and wish you the best! I am excited to see what happens next in this series :-)
Displaying 1 of 1 review