Whoo, my second book review! Unfortunately it isn’t a very positive one.
This review is on the first book of Caitlin Kittredge’s Nocturne City series, Night Life. Here’s a quick summary from Goodreads.
The first book in a thrilling, addictive new series by a talented new voice in dark fantasy. Welcome to Nocturne City, where werewolves, black magicians, and witches prowl the streets at night…
Among them is Luna Wilder, a tough-as-nails police officer whose job is to keep the peace. As an Insoli werewolf, Luna travels without a pack and must rely on instinct alone. And she’s just been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murders—a killer with ties to an escaped demon found only in legend…until now.
But when she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, she can’t resist his wolfish charms. Pack leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks, Dmitri sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence. But Luna and Dmitri will need to rely on each other as they’re plunged into an ancient demon underworld and pitted against an expert black magician with the power to enslave them for eternity…
My Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Alrighty then, I first picked up this book because I read a short story by Kittredge based on the characters of her Black London series and enjoyed it. I have yet to read the Black London series because I was unsure if it is completed or not. I saw that this was Kittredge’s first series so I decided to go ahead and give it a try. Honestly, I hope the Black London series is a whole lot better.
From the summary I figured this book would be enjoyable. I tend to steer toward urban fantasy so if murder and werewolves are thrown in, it sounded good to me. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
I struggled through this book. By the end, I’m sad to say, I was skimming rather than reading. The plot was actually fairly decent. It was the characters that I didn’t care for.
Luna had her moments, but she was just too aggressive and ‘in everyone’s face’. I usually don’t mind a stubborn female lead, but she was just a bit too bitchy for me. Dmitri was just…eh. He wasn’t all that charming and for half of the book he was just sitting around wallowing in grief while chugging down beer. Plus, he is supposed to be an alpha but Kittredge doesn’t really have him actually do anything alpha-like throughout the entire book. He basically just follows Luna around. Their relationship doesn’t really go anywhere either. Half of the book Luna mentally scolds herself for finding a pimp/thug/biker/potential murderer sexy and Dmitri thinks she is just a bitchy police officer with no pack (which she is…). When they do start working together they get along a tad better but then it’s mostly him trying to get in her pants. Minor spoiler alert! HE DOES! And it’s at the most inconvenient time. Seriously. They’re in the middle of going to fight the bad guy and decide to just stop and go at each other. I’m not a prude, I don’t mind sex scenes in books, but this one was just so poorly placed. And the banter between them was also…ugh. Dmitri made dumb, flirty(?) one-liners while Luna tried to not flirt back (and failed).
None of the other characters are really even worth mentioning. If you’ve read some of my earlier posts I mention that I adore villains. There wasn’t even a good one of those in this book…(*cry*).
The overall humor throughout the book seemed somewhat forced as well. I love love love(!) me some humor but the comments that were meant to be humorous were just…(*face palm*).
Like I mentioned before, the plot wasn’t half bad but this book would have been a much better read if the character’s were simply better developed. I usually get easily attached to characters, especially main ones, but none of the ones in this book really stood out to me. No connection to any characters = not caring about the rest of the book. It would have gotten two stars but the plot managed to bump it up half a star. So yeah, I don’t plan on reading the other four books in the series. I would still like to give Kittredge’s Black London series a go eventually. But for now a need a break from her.
And done! Also, I know you tagged me in the ‘5 Books on a Deserted Island’ tag, Emmy, but I find that difficult to think about so I’ve been procrastinating…hehe xD
All 'Bout Them Books and Stuff 