Chronicles of a Reluctant Reviewer, Part 2.

Once upon a time, there was a reviewer. One who'd had to bite the bullet and review things he never would have considered even reading. Here is Part 1. This is a continuation of his story.

We meet up again with our reviewer as he is given another assignment, the soon-to-be-released supernatural romance book Stone Cold Seduction. And this time his editor did not even try to hide the sinister laughter and glee that accompanied the assignment. After reading the book (during which the exclamation "Why?!" was heard being said quite often toward the heavens), two things have become even more apparent than they had in the past for your intrepid reviewer. One, he is convinced that his editor likes to torture him. And two, he really doesn't understand women.

Our reviewer, with much trepidation -- though attempting to keep an open mind -- read of the escapades of one Elleodora Fredericks, who makes perfume by day and by night does her best Anne Hathaway impression by being a cat burglar (can that be an impression to be made when the reference is to a movie that has yet to come out, our reviewer wonders?) who exclusively robs her father. Elleodora, it seems, has daddy issues. Our reviewer realized that the previous sentence is much too long and thus must figure out how to summarize the rest of the plot. He takes a breath. After one such burglary, complete with tight black leather, Elle learns that a) there is a supernatural world, b) her father is the king of the shadow elves, c) her best friend, Teryl, is an oracle, d) she herself is of the lineage of a demigod who e) has a bunch of powers that are just now awakening, but f) had her memory messed with so that she knows nothing about how g) she used to be engaged to a Phoenix named Maclean and that h) her hot employee Jax is a gargoyle.

Our reviewer slapped his forehead upon noticing how he actually used the term "hot" in describing Jax. He then realized that he doesn't know how else to do so, because every other page had Elle mooning over how hot or how sculpted Jax is (he's sculpted, and he's a gargoyle! Brilliant!). She would even comment on his body despite her world being turned completely upside down. Our reviewer would have thought this would make a character focus on apparently more important issues, but apparently he would be wrong.

Our reviewer also slapped his forehead over the annoying tendency for characters, while attempting to explain this entire sordid tale, to make claims of "we need to talk" followed immediately by only giving generalities, or claiming "we need to talk", followed by immediately changing the subject away from the important details at hand, or claiming "we need to talk" followed by getting annoyed or frustrated and just walking away instead of staying to get the information that they wanted/needed the page before.

Our reviewer's forehead hurt quite a lot by the end of this book.

Heaving a huge sigh, the reviewer realized that the pain will continue until he finishes writing the review he was tasked to write.

Considering a supernatural romance can be broken into two pieces, the courageous reviewer made the decision to tackle each independently. For the romance, our reviewer was confused. Greatly. He failed to see why Elle had a thing for Jax. Jax was hot, as Elle would remind readers every other page. But he had really no redeeming qualities about him other than he has an amazing body and all he wants to do is protect Elle. That was it. No real personality of any sort. And he would also say phrases like "you are my life" and "you are perfect" in between standing all stoic-like and apparently being hot. Our reviewer has the impression that if a guy were to do that in real life, he would come across as incredibly creepy. Our reviewer really doesn't understand women.

Our reviewer also doesn't understand where the "seduction" from the title came from. She mooned over Jax. He said "you're mine". She said "okay" (while thinking "you're hot"). And that was that.

With a flash of insight, the reviewer perceived an aspect that was missing from this romance. There was a lack of innocence that he had found in past romances that he had been forced to read. He misses the innocence factor.

When it came to the supernatural aspect for the book, our reviewer had high hopes. Hopes that there would be some reason that he should be reading this book other than the sadism of his editor. Learning about the light elves vs. shadow elves, the gargoyles vs. phoenixes (phoeni?), where the gods and demigods fit in, and all the various powers thereof all had potential. Potential that was not fully realized. Our reviewer sighed. He felt that the entire book was just set up, without giving any real answers at all. Throughout the book, the "heroine" learns of a variety of powers she apparently has, more so than anyone expected of her. The powers were rather haphazardly defined, being pulled out of nowhere. Our reviewer was annoyed at that. Elle doesn't, however, really ever use these powers, even in situations where some/all were obviously called for. Our reviewer was annoyed at that as well.

The gallant reviewer thought he might just be applying male-type logic to the book when such logic was not warranted. He doesn't understand women.

The reviewer did admit that the writing of the book was fine. He had no issues with the flow or the language, beyond the lack of comprehensible logic used as he had previously discussed. The book didn't work for him. At all. But after he skimmed other reviews, all of which were rather positive, he was forced to admit that perhaps it wasn't the book that was the problem, but just that he was as far away from the audience for this book as one could possibly get. Or perhaps it was the book. Our reviewer decided to let his readership decide for themselves, with the hope that doing so makes him seem open-minded while knowing inside the real reason is that thinking about it more just makes his forehead hurt yet again.

The reviewer then goes in search of a dictionary to figure out the definition of "Seduction".

   -- K. Burtt