The Vampire Queen's Servant

I won't be doing a full review because this book just sort of lost me somewhere. Maybe it's because I spent a week and a half to read it, stopping to glom the entire Girl Genius archives in the middle of it, but I don't think so.

The book shares three things in common with literary fiction: a trade paperback price, a love of figurative language and a lack of emphasis on plot.

Now, the reverse snob in me hates literary fiction, so anytime things start to resemble it, I get cranky. Not only that, but it lacked something in the execution. The language veered over from subtly poetic to laughably florid at times. Anytime you compare a vagina to a flower or petals, you lose me. Yes, I know flowers are effectively plant genitalia, but it's like motion and ocean, hero and zero. It's overdone in fiction writing. I also didn't think there was enough character development or change to support the lack of plot. By the end, I was a bit bored. I was skimming the sex scenes, desperately searching for character growth, story, something. My reward? No HEA. FFS.

I have book two, so I'll read the next one, where this story finishes. I'm looking forward to continuing the story, but I hope that either Lyssa and Jacob are more interesting or there's more story going on. If it's another 300 pages of charged looks, awkward power battle sex and flowery similes, I'm done with the series. ( )

WOW! Very emotional, touching, erotic, unique story. I don't like crying during a book but this one was worth it. ( )

WOW! Very emotional, touching, erotic, unique story. I don't like crying during a book but this one was worth it. ( )

Hard to get through, took me awhile ( )

It's Joey Hill, so it's well written. But it's a hard read. I didn't like it and in the end, skimmed and even then, didn't care for it. I found the heroine, Lyssa, too alien, and detached, and Jacob, too uncomfortable with the submissive role. What I loved about Nature of Desire was that it could take me into a very alien world (for me) and make me understand the relationships. Here, I just didn't get Lyssa. She's 1000 years old and enjoys torturing people. Well, good for her, do I have to spend time with her? And Jacob, so longing for a cause that he would give himself up for her? There was some reincarnation/ true love/soul mate/destiny crap going on, but I really didn't care for the central relationship and didn't like Lyssa at all. So this is a rare pass for me. There's something about Hill's supernatural motifs that just don't work for me, which saddens me because her latest books have all had it... Sigh... ( )