Grab The Isis Collar Presented By Cat Adams Viewable As Edition
spoilery
Plot holes
A really shitty love triangle where she dates both guys If a guy did this togirls, we'd have a riot
Almost interesting plot that could have been amazing
One of the "love interests" goes missing for a while and lovely Celia just sits on her ass
Celia kisses both guys multiple times to be "fair".
No honey, if you really wanted to be fair you'd go out with one or neither of the guys not both.
Why did I stick with this,
Nice mix of characters, vampire, werewolf, demons, mage, siren, all rolled into one series, I got the Arc of this book early thanks to a contest Tor books had, Great book! I love this series and this hook did not dissapoint, This book kept me interested and it was hard for me to put it down, I'm not going to go into specifics because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I believe this is the best book so far.
I'm curious to see what the next book has in store for us, Can't wait to continue this series! Before I go on to the review proper, let me just say that this novel has one of the worst covers I have ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes on.
Her costume, her pose and the colours they are all so tacky and such a far cry from the classy covers of the last three or so volumes that I wonder what major changes occurred in the Arts department to cause such a disparity in the continuity of the cover art.
Id replace the current art director with a new one, Or bring the old one back because wow, I wouldnt be caught dead reading this one in public.
Anyway, moving on to the meat of the matter, Im afraid that the cover was a very good indicator of the latest installment in the Blood Singer series.
The last book was strong, fascinating and addictive and I was eagerly waiting a return to the world of Celia Graves.
However, I was profoundly disappointed at what I found within the pages of The Isis Collar, Celia spends most of the book sick and being helped by various men to cure her illnesses.
People get sick, I get that but you know what It doesnt make for very interesting reading when the protagonist of a series that works because of the actions of the protagonist becomes a story about invalids.
And the times that Celia is not lying prone in pain, she is waffling between her two men.
Okay, I am sort of disgusted by Celias decision or rather confidence that she will get back with boyfriend one who used to be her fiance until he ended up throwing her to the dogs for a woman who was Celias nemesis and determined to end Celia in all the ways that mattered.
I dont like that and perhaps its just me but yeah,
Also, the intentional delaying of a very crucial plot element never fails to drive me crazy as it did in this novel.
One of the main characters goes missing and no one seems to be paying much attention to it and him for a very long while.
I knew that whatever had happened to him was pivotal to the novel but no one except me screaming outside the world of the novel seemed to be caring all that much until, you know, the end when voila, everyones like WHERE IS HE
So yeah, I didnt enjoy this novel as much as I had wanted to.
In fact, my enjoyment was probably very faint, I still am going to try reading the next installment whenever it comes out but with a whole lot less anticipation than before.
The romantic entanglements are getting old as is the never ending love triangle or um whatever polyrelationship they have going on.
.stars. This book is really just more of the same, I still like Celia quite a bit, And for the first half of the book I had my hopes up that the authors had improved their writing a bit, because I hadn't rolled my eyes at all at any silly coincidences like I was so irritated by during the first three books.
But it was all downhill from there,
Rizzoli's gift being intuition smacks of lazy storytelling to me, not a cute plot idea.
It's too much like Dottie's clairvoyance, Both end up being excuses for the authors to get the characters in the right places at the right times with a handy voilà instead of just writing a tight story.
And then there were the coincidences, Everyone in the book turned out to be related to someone from a previous book, even the minor characters.
The doctor was Chris Gaetano's dad, the mage is was Jones's daughter, the kid that gets sick is Julie, and on and on.
It's kind of cute once, but after a while it's just annoying, how many people that Celia has met can possibly keep coming back into her life in different ways There wasn't any big, fated reason reason for it, it was just supposed to be cute, so it got really irritating.
And then the plot just deteriorated, It went from four in the middle, to three as it got pretty mixed up with just too many elements going on, to just a total mess in the end.
The level of coincidences were staggering, The woman who was kidnapped was explaining one aspect of the story about the collar to Celia couldn't even believe the story herself, even she knew it sounded ridiculous.
That whole plot turned out to be so absurd, The stuff with the collar felt tacked on and like a real let down,
And then there's just the love triangle, No real effort was put into it this time, I don't think it works anyway because John has been developed as sexy and mature and just cool and Bruno hasn't been developed as anything other than a powerful mage who keeps leaving her.
Just because she keeps saying that she thinks she'll end up with him doesn't mean that I see what his appeal is at all, they have to show me.
Celia's just a bodyguard, a regular person that this extraordinary stuff happened too, That's what makes me relate to her, So when they make her life seem even more ridiculous than necessary it alienates me, I liked the stuff with her mom, with Dawna, and with her dealing with the changes in her life.
I wish they'd try to keep things a bit more grounded, And I wish they'd stop relying so much on easy outs when it comes to storytelling, They sell a lot of books so it's obviously working for them, but I'd never pay for one of their books.
Really enjoying this series now, except for the romance, There's a love triangle and I obviously have my favourite, but she's kissing both of them within minutes of each other at times, and they both know!! I honestly can't see two grown men being ok with that.
If this was young adult, I might be able to come to terms with it better, . I was lucky enough to win an ARC from the Authorsvery generous ladies indeed, It was an excellent addition to the series, Now I just have to wait twice as long for the next one in the series, Although according to the author's newsletterThe Eldritch Legacy will be released in November ofI believe.
Isis Collar by Cat Adams
Holy MolyI have been following this fantastic series since the start and these books just keep getting better and more exciting with every new addition.
Leave it to these women to come up with a heck of a combination of plots to keep us enthralled! Hey! Could they be weaving some kind of magic spell into the book
Well no matter how they do it, this one was a doozy! This book opens with Celia storming up the steps of a school to be in time to rescue all the children inside from what seems to b e a magical series of bombs.
Soon Celia is in horrible pain with a bruise that hurts like knives being stuck into her and headache from Hades that will not go away.
Add to that that she seems to be forgetting a lot of things and her vampyness seems to be more sensitive than usual and you have a recipe for disaster a At least for Celia.
Until we realize that this is happening to more people than just her and a lot worse.
Her life is complicated enough but dont worry they actually get worse since John Creede a levelormage who is helping her goes missing, Zombies seem to be springing up, and a persistent client is bugging her.
Her Mother is missing from the island, her sisters ghost tries to take over the body of another child and things just go downhill from there! Oh, and people keep trying to kill her too.
When all is said and done we are left with a tiny bit of a cliff hanger and a lovely new relationship with TWO of her men.
It seems that both John Creede and Bruno want to court her,
The actual Isis collar doesnt show up until almost the end of the book, but I loved how “Cat” has managed to incorporate it.
The characters are as usual, richly drawn leaving very little for you to have to wonder about, the story is complex without turning into “War and Peace”, there is enough evil and horror happening to keep even jaded readers happy.
The mystery aspect is well done and had me looking in the wrong direction, so I was happily surprised when all of the machinations came to light.
This is truly a heck of a ride, and I didnt want to get off.
Another great Celia Graves book, This poor woman gets pulled through the wringer every time, This book her mom and grandma really made me mad though, She really needs a vacation, I had to think about this one for a bit before I could write a review,
Im going to say this is more a/star book, I definitely didnt like it as much as the first, but Im going to read the next one so
I have to say that the love triangle thing just doesnt work for me.
How Bruno can still even be in the running is beyond me, Beyond that, its a plot device that I really dislike,
Celia seems to just careen wildly from disaster to disaster, but without adequate learning and growth to go along with it.
As a reader, this is getting frustrating,
Finally, this is a book filled with dysfunctional relationships that are either presented as being unhealthy but thats okay, or as if they arent unhealthy.
Im hoping things get better in the next book, I have been slacking off with my review writing, I read this book almostweeks ago and Im finally sitting down now to write my thoughts on it.
I feel as though I have already forgotten some stuff about it,
Damn. I shouldnt do this anymore!!! Focus, focus!!
All right, where should I start
Overall speaking, the Blood Singer series as well as its female protagonist, Celia, have been growing on me.
I would openly admit that I didnt care much for the first instalment, However, I was glad that I stuck it out and continued on, It got better each time,
This particular instalment started off with a mysterious, unknown threat that Celias parttime secretary a powerful Clairvoyant foresaw at a local school, to which Celia went to conduct her investigation.
She happened to be at the right place at the right time and she saved a lot of people.
However, nothing seemed right thereafter, Celia apparently suffered from some unknown illness/pain that would be considered unusual for someone with vampiric abilities and attributes.
At the same time, she was approached by the FBI, Rizzoli, for assistance, on attacks across different states which were similar to what she experienced at the school.
As a result, she embarked on a journey to discover the sources of the attacks, as well as to seek help in curing her illness/pain.
The storyline was pretty rich and actionpacked, The magical attacks targeting schools, with the intent to was pretty intriguing.
I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, and sometimes I even felt like yelling at Celia for being so stupid with not taking better care of herself in seeking medical attention sooner!!!!
Anyway, towards the latter half of the book, the culprit behind the magical shenanigans started to shape up and it slowly became obvious who it could be.
However, I thought the author didnt do a good job in tying up loose ends in her storyline.
As an example, Furthermore, the whole premise of the Isis Collar came out of nowhere, which was a bit surprising.
I knew this was relevant well duh, that was the title of the book but who would have guessed! It just didnt seem realistic to me that a magical artefact like the Isis Collar would remain hidden and unused until now!
As mentioned in my previous reviews, Celia didnt pose well as a bodyguard at all.
For some reason I could think of her in any other profession, may be even a private investigator, but not a bodyguard.
She just didnt have the sleekness and badassness that Id expect from a bodyguard at all, and this perception has not changed.
From a story/plot perspective, there wasnt much content on Celias siren side of heritage, which was a bit disappointing.
Also, the guys didnt quite seem to be as enthralled by Celia as in previous books, I couldnt figure out the whys, It seemed a little odd that in the previous book, there was a lot of focus in discussing Celias innate ability in drawing the attention of the opposite sex due to her siren blood.
In this book, however, this aspect was not further explored, which seemed a bit disconnected to me.
Oh, and the mysterious ghostlike entity assisting Celia That came out of nowhere and who knew what that was.
I supposed it was thread for the next novel,
As for love interests, Celia continued to be undecided between John or Bruno, which drove me
nuts to no ends.
Its been four novels by now and she still couldnt make up her mind!!!! It appeared as though she was stringing them along.
What baffled me was the fact that two amazingly skilled and hot mages like John Creede and Bruno De Luca would actually stick around and put up with this crap.
Any guy with a hint of alphamale character wouldnt take this from a woman, but I supposed this didnt apply to these guys since they werent really alphamales.
I really wish that this will get resolved in the next book,
Damn it!! Just pick a guy already!!!
If you ask me, Id choose John over Bruno any day anytime.
After Brunos previous “betrayals” in their relationship, I couldnt understand why Celia would still consider him in the running.
Perhaps it was old habits die hard he was that one guy whom she couldnt seem to have a happilyeverafter with.
So she always reserved a corner of heart for him, On the other hand, she couldnt deny the chemistry between John and her, She was slowly starting to acknowledge her developing feelings for John, which made me really happy!! Lets wait and see if this progresses further.
Itd be entirely frustrating for fans following this series that this love triangle takes forever to settle.
A girl can only hope,
I give this bookoverall, It probably was just worthy of,stars, but I am giving itfor its sheer entertainment value, It was a quick read and I found myself looking forward to the next instalment, Cant wait!! :
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