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jonetta's review against another edition
3.0
Kerrick is a vampire Warrior of Blood and is assigned to protect a powerful mortal, Alison Wells, as she goes through the rite of ascension, or transformation into a vampire. She is one of the most powerful mortals to be encountered in centuries and an evil faction led by The Commander, Darian Greaves, is out to see she doesn’t complete her ascension. To complicate matters even more, Kerrick is fiercely attracted to her and she him because it turns out they are “breh hedden,” or destined to be mated. But, Kerrick vowed to never mate again after his wife and child were murdered.
I had some difficulty getting started and staying with this story, primarily because of the emphasis on the breh hedden. While I understood the theory behind the phenomena, it got tiresome after awhile when every other page seemed to focus on Kerrick and Alison resisting their attraction or being in constant heat. I like steamy but this couple went from zero to instant “gotta have you” from the onset.
About halfway through the book, it became pretty exciting because of the clashes between the Guardians and Darian’s villains. There is a scene referred to as the “spectacle” that I found extraordinary and shows promise of things to come further in the series. The created world still has some rough edges but was interesting and complicated. There are some continuing character issues, mainly with the leader of the Guardians of the region, Endell, who wouldn’t know a leadership quality if it bit her. She’s crass and not very inspiring. Also, there’s a governing committee to mediate between the two factions (COPASS) whose decisions defy believability.
I plan to continue the series and hope that some of these issues are resolved.
I had some difficulty getting started and staying with this story, primarily because of the emphasis on the breh hedden. While I understood the theory behind the phenomena, it got tiresome after awhile when every other page seemed to focus on Kerrick and Alison resisting their attraction or being in constant heat. I like steamy but this couple went from zero to instant “gotta have you” from the onset.
About halfway through the book, it became pretty exciting because of the clashes between the Guardians and Darian’s villains. There is a scene referred to as the “spectacle” that I found extraordinary and shows promise of things to come further in the series. The created world still has some rough edges but was interesting and complicated. There are some continuing character issues, mainly with the leader of the Guardians of the region, Endell, who wouldn’t know a leadership quality if it bit her. She’s crass and not very inspiring. Also, there’s a governing committee to mediate between the two factions (COPASS) whose decisions defy believability.
I plan to continue the series and hope that some of these issues are resolved.
reader44ever's review
4.0
3.5 stars
I ended up liking this book, but the beginning left me in doubt and by the end, though I enjoyed it, I wasn't as in love with it as I had hoped I would be before starting it.
My problems with the beginning were twofold: first was the swearing, which I later-in-the-story learned was part of "warrior-speak." It seemed jarring for some reason, perhaps because the characters doing most of it were angels of a sort? I don't know, as swearing doesn't usually bother me, but at the start of this story it just seemed wrong and out of place.
The other thing I didn't care for was the violence done by the evil vampires. I know they're evil, but did they really have tokill a mother and her child, and rape/kill a teenage girl? That seemed a bit over the top to me. :(
My above complaints both surfaced in the very first chapter, hence my doubts about how well I would end up liking the book as a whole. But thankfully by the time I finished reading another 50+ pages, I was liking the story more. I adjusted to the writing style and language and the swearing became "natural" rather than jarring as it had been earlier.
By the end, I was actually eager to continue and was sad when the book was finished, especially since there were a couple threads left open (grrr!). Thankfully, I cared enough about Kerrick and Alison and their world that I'm definitely interested in continuing the series. I am especially interested since it looks like each book will feature a different one of the warriors as lead male, and I really liked them all and want to learn more about them. :)
I ended up liking this book, but the beginning left me in doubt and by the end, though I enjoyed it, I wasn't as in love with it as I had hoped I would be before starting it.
My problems with the beginning were twofold: first was the swearing, which I later-in-the-story learned was part of "warrior-speak." It seemed jarring for some reason, perhaps because the characters doing most of it were angels of a sort? I don't know, as swearing doesn't usually bother me, but at the start of this story it just seemed wrong and out of place.
The other thing I didn't care for was the violence done by the evil vampires. I know they're evil, but did they really have to
My above complaints both surfaced in the very first chapter, hence my doubts about how well I would end up liking the book as a whole. But thankfully by the time I finished reading another 50+ pages, I was liking the story more. I adjusted to the writing style and language and the swearing became "natural" rather than jarring as it had been earlier.
By the end, I was actually eager to continue and was sad when the book was finished, especially since there were a couple threads left open (grrr!). Thankfully, I cared enough about Kerrick and Alison and their world that I'm definitely interested in continuing the series. I am especially interested since it looks like each book will feature a different one of the warriors as lead male, and I really liked them all and want to learn more about them. :)
readingpenguin's review
1.0
The best way that I can explain Ascension by Caris Roane is this: Imagine that J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood books and Nalini Singh's Guild Hunter books had a baby, and that baby grew up into a troubled teenager. That's this book. But troubled teens aren't irredeemable, right? Sure, it's going to take some discipline on the part of the editor and a lot of patience on the part of the reader, but it could still turn out alright. At least, that's what I told myself as I powered through the first two thirds of this book. In the end though, it's just a bad seed, and not really one I cared to stick with.
Here is my list of issues with this book:
1. This is a fated mates book. Hero and heroine are destined to be together because the author says so. Their sexual chemistry is instantaneous and irrationally overblown. The initial stages of getting to know one another involve smelling each other, gazing longingly into each others eyes, and dreaming of each other. I'm not against fated mates as a rule, but there is a right and a wrong way to do it. The wrong way is taking away all of your character's choices and forcing them on one another, and using the mate bond as a stand in (or even total replacement) for growing affection. For the most part this book does it the wrong way.
2. The groups of hulk-like warrior men battling evil? It's been done before. Many times. And done better than this. This book is just generally unoriginal, kind of like fan fiction where all the names have been changed.
3. Roane's writing style is horrible. Typos, awkward wording, abrupt and frequent shifts in POV, one and two word sentences, needless repetition. The dialogue is the worst, with lots of phony sounding tough talk. One glaring example was when in detailing a character's thoughts Roane used "helluvan" instead of "hell of an". Now, I was willing to chalk up a lot of these issues to Roane being a new author, but upon flipping to her bio I saw that she has published many books under the name Valerie King. I couldn't believe that an experienced author would write like this.
4. Silly half baked world building. For one thing, the heroine is given an incomprehensible number of super powers. And the hero and his band of brothers are vampires...with wings. I started calling them wampires. There are good wampires and bad wampires, and the bad ones are blue for some reason. There are multiple dimensions including Mortal Earth and Earth Two. So there are all kinds of rules about where the wampires can fight and how they can fight. And there's vocabulary to learn as well. My favorite was the power of making objects disappear and appear, which is called "folding". Whenever it set "folding his sword into his hand" I could not stop picturing him folding a sword in half. Bottom line, all of the concepts are B-movie quality at best.
5. And finally, the sequel baiting. You want to buy the next book, right? That's going to be Marcus' story. He sounds cool right? Buy his book. Buy it! Ugh. I just want to enjoy the novel I'm reading and get a complete story without having to spend another $8 to complete the tale.
What can I say that's positive? When the heroine, Alison, is first introduced I thought she might be interesting. She has a lot of emotional issues and identity issues that I wanted to see her work through. But when it became clear that her powers and her relationship with Kerrick were going to be her new identity I lost interest in her. Kerrick bored me with his angst, self pity, and stubbornness. He did sound physically attractive though. Many of the secondary characters, like Endelle the military leader, were intriguing. This was ruined the second they spoke a word of dialogue.
So if you really like fated mates, haven't had your fill of vampire gang wars, and don't mind sloppy writing, go ahead and try this book. 1 star.
Here is my list of issues with this book:
1. This is a fated mates book. Hero and heroine are destined to be together because the author says so. Their sexual chemistry is instantaneous and irrationally overblown. The initial stages of getting to know one another involve smelling each other, gazing longingly into each others eyes, and dreaming of each other. I'm not against fated mates as a rule, but there is a right and a wrong way to do it. The wrong way is taking away all of your character's choices and forcing them on one another, and using the mate bond as a stand in (or even total replacement) for growing affection. For the most part this book does it the wrong way.
2. The groups of hulk-like warrior men battling evil? It's been done before. Many times. And done better than this. This book is just generally unoriginal, kind of like fan fiction where all the names have been changed.
3. Roane's writing style is horrible. Typos, awkward wording, abrupt and frequent shifts in POV, one and two word sentences, needless repetition. The dialogue is the worst, with lots of phony sounding tough talk. One glaring example was when in detailing a character's thoughts Roane used "helluvan" instead of "hell of an". Now, I was willing to chalk up a lot of these issues to Roane being a new author, but upon flipping to her bio I saw that she has published many books under the name Valerie King. I couldn't believe that an experienced author would write like this.
4. Silly half baked world building. For one thing, the heroine is given an incomprehensible number of super powers. And the hero and his band of brothers are vampires...with wings. I started calling them wampires. There are good wampires and bad wampires, and the bad ones are blue for some reason. There are multiple dimensions including Mortal Earth and Earth Two. So there are all kinds of rules about where the wampires can fight and how they can fight. And there's vocabulary to learn as well. My favorite was the power of making objects disappear and appear, which is called "folding". Whenever it set "folding his sword into his hand" I could not stop picturing him folding a sword in half. Bottom line, all of the concepts are B-movie quality at best.
5. And finally, the sequel baiting. You want to buy the next book, right? That's going to be Marcus' story. He sounds cool right? Buy his book. Buy it! Ugh. I just want to enjoy the novel I'm reading and get a complete story without having to spend another $8 to complete the tale.
What can I say that's positive? When the heroine, Alison, is first introduced I thought she might be interesting. She has a lot of emotional issues and identity issues that I wanted to see her work through. But when it became clear that her powers and her relationship with Kerrick were going to be her new identity I lost interest in her. Kerrick bored me with his angst, self pity, and stubbornness. He did sound physically attractive though. Many of the secondary characters, like Endelle the military leader, were intriguing. This was ruined the second they spoke a word of dialogue.
So if you really like fated mates, haven't had your fill of vampire gang wars, and don't mind sloppy writing, go ahead and try this book. 1 star.
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