Friday, July 26, 2013

85:120 Kiss of Venom by Jennifer Estep

A novella set in the Elemental Assassin world, told from Owen's POV and taking place between Deadly Sting and Heart of Venom.  Owen is out with Phillip trying to reconnect after years of fueding caused by Salina's lies.  While they are out, Owen stumbles across a pair of thugs gunning for Gin and he's determined to take them out quietly and give her a night's peace which is a rare gift for her indeed.  Can he and Phillip actually pull that off is the question.

It was nice to get a look inside Owen's head and this does make it seem like there is a future for him and Gin but OMG with the repetitive writing!!!!  This had as much repetitious drivel as her full-length novels while being 1/4 the length.  I generally like Owen's character but just wanted to slap the crap out of him with every other page being "Oh pity me, I screwed up my life so bad by listening to Salina and being her little boy toy and now all these people are dead, Eva got hurt, I didn't trust Phillip, and my relationship with Gin is in the trash".   I get that it will leave emotional scars.  I got that.  However, one of the amazing things about writing is that you don't have to sound like a broken freaking record hammering this crap into our faces.  Once or twice to make sure we get that's important to the character and then drop it!!!  What's worse is that Ms. Estep's editor continues to let this crap slide!  I like the world which is interesting and I do like Gin and Owen and the other characters but the constant repeating of the backstory in every single book drives me nuts.

Page count: 73p/21,534p ytd/165,934p lifetime

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