3.5 stars. Enjoyed the plot getting more complex and the dialogue/banter less predictable. I enjoyed more characters coming the fore. I was disappointed with how Leda and Nero came together. It felt like she sort of just decided to overcome her mental barrier (oh I’m an angel now) and then the “mischief” was managed. There was a more or less fade to black lovemaking session between her and Nero after that. I guess after 4 books I was expecting a little more description? More build up? Maybe that’s not the kind of book this is, but I find it hard not to find the same shortcoming with the overall scene setting and action scenes. For example, i find myself picturing the characters in a scene a certain way my head and then all a sudden the characters aren’t in the car at all, they are in the mouth of a big cave, fighting monsters that have suddenly emerged out of a mysterious hole the author never described was there to begin with.
I have never been this confused, constantly frustrated, as when I read these books. For example, in the opening scene of the books, I pictured Leda running to the magical wall after her Vampire (her mark named Mark). I pictured a barren wasteland, a string-western style town with tumble weeds—houses far apart and a large, imposing wall with guards atop it and nothing around it. Then all of a sudden the author describes Leda grabbing clothes off a clothes line and wrapping them around a rock to clobber the vamp. Then she grabs a shutter off a house (wtf?) and impales the vamp. It’s frustrating being mentally “in” scene and having to rearrange things to fit something the author dumps into the scene. It happens constantly with this book, not the least with when Leda and Nero finally get busy.
It’s a credit to the series that I want to persevere bc I understand it gets better (and it has so far, incrementally).