What do You think about Pandora's Daughter (2007)?
Pandora's Daughter by Iris Johansen was my February commute audiobook. Megan Blair is a doctor who hears voices. These voices are actually part of a psychic power that she only just learned she has. This comes at a time that someone is trying to kill her, and she must learn to accept and prevail, or risk losing her life.The premise of the book sounds exciting and interesting, but it fell flat. The plot progresses really slowly, and the characters are just annoying.Megan is supposed to be a doctor in her late twenties. But she alternates being seeming like a child and a middle-aged woman. I had to keep reminding myself of who she was supposed to be. The further into the story I got, the less I could stand her.The other characters are very cut and dry, with a huge dose of annoying. There is a very evil villian, and a not-so-nice good guy. Everyone is just simply unbelievable. The only exception being Harley, who provides comic relief while actually coming across as real.Overall, I couldn't wait for the story to end. Several times, I debated just stopping. I didn't really care to find out how it ended.A word of advice, there is a lot of profanity and sex. Neither element added anything to the story, and it is really distracting.The narration was very well done. Each character had a slightly different voice, and they were easily distinguishable. Conversations on the phone had an element that sounded like they were actually conducted through a phone, and were great additions. I was impressed with the narration, just not the actual story.
—Sarah (Workaday Reads)
I have never read anything by this author, and the only reason I picked this one up was because it was a group read. I didn't even read the book description so it was a big surprise to me that it was paranormal! I wasn't sure what bookshelf to put this one, because it had elements from both romantic suspense and paranormal romance. The basic premise of the story is that there are people in the world who have other abilities that are not "normal". Some are empathic, can read minds, some can hear echos of things that happened etc...Megan grew up hearing voices, and one night she is with her mom (who told her she might have a mental disorder) and her mom is murdered. A man named Grady did something to her so she could forget. The book fast forwards to the present, Megan is now an adult and a doctor in a hospital. She seems to react more emotionally than the other docs do, and she's not sure why. Then someone tries to kill her, and her past comes back to haunt her with Grady at the forefront. She begins to unravel the secrets of what she is, and what her population of people hide from the world.The book was very fast paced, by the time I went to put it down the first time I was already half-way through. I liked Grady, he was an interesting mix of bad guy/good guy. Megan was a very strong female lead who I liked from the beginning of the book.I am interested in reading more books by this author.
—Jess
The title intrigued me - Pandora's Daughter; I thought it would be about a woman with ties to the Greek myth. Then I read the back cover and there was danger and mystery. I had to read it. It turned out to be one of the slowest reads I've had done. It took me weeks to plow through the story. A woman, Megan, sees her mother killed when she is a teenager. Years later she is nearly run off the road in an attempt to kill her. Her past is revealed to her and she and Neal Grady go on a quest to find the Ledger which has the names of all the family members who have psychic abilities, while she is hunting Molino, the man who had her mother killed.The mystery would have been good if there was a definite through-line, but with the secondary mystery of the Ledger it mudded the story. Then the author introduces a third and fourth character that I felt further water down the story. Stick with one strong story line with a second sub-plot and it would've made a better read. If that wasn't bad enough, the author throws in a sexual element that I thought could've been left out all together. If the author is going to say Megan has highly sensual characteristics -then exploit this facet or leave it out. They fell to the floor and then the next thing we read is that they are talking about how spent they are. I don't think it was necessary for the overall story. I finished the book because, well, I bought it. But I was disappointed.
—Tabi34
