Women are better than that. I like to think that we have something more important to do with our lives than ogle every attractive man in our vicinity. The heroine's on a dangerous mission, sees a super-hot alpha-male and all she thinks about is "Oh I'm lonely, I want sex, I haven't gotten laid in a while, he's so hot". Jezuz. it happens so often in this genre, and I'm fed up with it. Are you a deadly assassin, Sabina Kane, or a sexually frustrated housewife? I truly don't know how I finished this book. Or why.Red-Headed Stepchild started out okay. The first sentence was intriguingly funny but things went steadily downhill from there. First off, I checked no less than three times to make sure I hadn't picked up a second book instead of the first in the series because certain events made little to no sense or else were tossed off in a careless "this is information you should already know" kind of way. For example, the assassination of David. Okay, it sets up the plot but I felt absolutely nothing about this event and it really seemed like Sabina was equally unconcerned. Just oops, we've apparently been friends for decades but whatever. The birthmark was another thing. Everyone has very specific tattoo-like birthmarks. Oh and Sabina has one that's special, did we forget to mention this very important detail? Having a picture of it on the cover is not a substitute for mentioning it in the text.Speaking of the text, the prose is frequently choppy and the dialogue is repetitive and unrealistic. At least Sabina has a pretty decent vocabulary for someone with the maturity of a 13 year old. Most of her conversations go a little something like this:Character A: Do this thing because you don't have a choice.Sabina: Fine. Whatever.I'm fine with swearing and whatnot but her pithy one liners are not terribly funny. She just comes off as abrasive since she's incapable of having an adult conversation without flying into a rage/tantrum.Sabina does not come across as a hard ass 53 year old vampire assassin. She reads like a moody high school girl and she's stupidly trusting even in the face of OVERWHELMING evidence that she's been lied to. I wanted to smack her upside the head. After the 3rd or 4th revelation that her grandmother has been less than honest, does she finally question her orders? Nope. Let's just go ahead with those same orders I've been following all along. It means betraying friends and maybe getting killed but fine, whatever.Clovis though... I'm assuming he was supposed to come across as darkly seductive. He wasn't. He was sleazy and Sabina's "uncontrollable" reaction to him was off putting. I got so tired of hearing about her arousal around him. Adam the supposedly hot mage was not really much better. We're told he's hot but I never felt it with him either. I couldn't even enjoy the demon/cat sidekick Giguhl. He was written like her token gay best friend not like a demon who has never even been to this realm.Maybe some people would enjoy this book but I'm clearly not one of them.
What do You think about Red-Headed Stepchild (2009)?
awesome book. can't wait to finish this series
—biskwit
