slyprentice

I won’t lie. In the past I’ve been fairly harsh on this author, especially in regards to her Brac Pack series (at least, for the first two). They didn’t really work for me, the writing was sloppy and the second one, ‘Hawk’s Pretty Baby’, really made me uncomfortable – the last thing any reader wants to be when reading an erotica.

That having been said, what a turn around this author has made in my eyes! I was really pleasantly surprised by this entire novel. The writing was tight with very few hiccups and the storytelling has improved by leaps and bounds from the early installments of the Brac Pack.

Dorian, one of the main characters in the story and a human, was a character I could really get behind. Though admittedly he was flawed (every good character is) and at first a bit wishy-washy about where he stood on the whole human-nonhuman issue, he actually had a backbone and stood up for himself! He wasn’t a push-over!

I can’t tell you how thrilled that made me. I know, I know, on the surface that seems a bit silly, but I cannot begin to count the number of times I’ve started reading a book – whether erotica or not – and just been bowled over by the fact that a supposedly strong character crumbled like a house of cards. That Dorian stood up for himself, both to Rick (an interesting character all by himself) and to others, really won me over.

The other thing that won me over was that the author didn’t rush through things. True, the pace of the story was faster after the ball got rolling (a good thing), Lynn Hagen took the time to set things up, and I love it when an author does that. I get that most erotica readers don’t but most of the enjoyment I get out of a story comes from getting to know the characters, investing in them, and enjoying the byplay between them so that when they finally are together, I’m grinning because – yay! They finally got their act together! All the buildup was worth it! Sexytimes! 

On a similar thread, I really enjoyed all the buildup in the plot. It rather reminded me of a snowball rolling down a mountain, it started slowly and small and then built up and up until it was huge and fast and kind of intense. Really well done, in my opinion, and intriguing enough that I’ve already bought the next book in the series.

In the end and even though I’m sure plenty of people will disagree, this was an excellent start to a new series and I truly hope that this author continues down this path of writing. If she does, I’ll probably be a fan from here on out.