I have to say it: this book was a yawnfest! The story bored me. The characters in it didn't really have depths or layers...they were flat and dull. And none of them had a sense of humour. I felt no empathy for any of them, so whenever they were in peril I just didn't care if they made it through or not. (Of course they always did survive...the hero always saved the heroine in a predictable manner just in time.) Hexy, the heroine, was as dreary as a rainy day, and Ruairidh, the hero, might have come from the ocean, but he didn't rock my boat at all, if you know what I mean. And the passion between them was barely lukewarm at best. The love scenes were about as exciting as watching toast burn, but with much less heat. And worse, those scenes were obscure to the point where I sometimes wondered if they were love scenes at all. Actually, if you're the kind of prude who doesn't like rude words or anotomical descriptions in love scenes then this book is for you. The most provocative word used in it is probably 'skin'. This is so tame, it could almost be made into a Disney family movie.
There were a lot of flaws with the continuity of the story too. The author had problems with consistency. For instance, her Scottish characters slipped in and out of their Scottish brogue like I would slip shoes on and off in a shoestore...one minute they'd be using Scottish words like hae, maun, or tae, then the next they'd be using the English versions: have, must and to, only to slip back to the Scottish words a moment after that. It was totally annoying. And there's another bit, towards the end of the book, that's flawed, where the heroine complains that selkies don't seem to know the meaning of the word 'love'. Yet her selkie lover had talked about love before that...he mentions it twice just on page 149, in fact. Another problem is when the 'sin eater' tells Hexy she is carrying twins. But then, shortly after that, he says "before the babe sickens" as if Hexy is carrying only one child. Is he senile or something? Or is the author? There are a lot more continuity errors, but I won't bore you by going through them all here. Needless to say, the author should have paid more attention and taken more care.
I will say, too, that I got annoyed with the way the author seemed to be showing off by using big words. It is all very well to portray yourself as the type of person who eats dictionaries for breakfast, but it's really stupid throwing lots of big words that most readers won't understand into fast moving parts of the story line. It impedes the flow of the story, and ruins the reader's rollercoaster ride if they suddenly have to stop completely and try to work out what sentences like 'then the sepulchral threnody subsided' actually mean! (For the record, 'sepulchral threnody' means a song of lamentation that sounds as if it comes from the grave...like this author, I like to show off the big words too. But I do think there's a time and a place for them, and if you don't know when the best time is to use them then don't use them at all.)
This could have been a magical story, but the way it was written sucked most of the magic out of it, and just left a hollow, empty void where a good story could have been. Even the front cover was wrong. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous cover, and whoever the girl on it is, she's a stunner. But the heroine of the story has red hair, which makes me wonder who the hell the brunette covergirl is.
I definitely agree with R. Kelley's negative review of this book...R. Kelley, if you're reading this, you're not the odd one out for not liking it any more. And I'm sure there are others of discernment and taste who would agree with our judgement.
There are plenty more fish in the sea, and plenty more books on the shelves...read them instead of this one, and you'll be much happier.
