Monday, September 24, 2012

Review: Amber Sweetapple - Djinn and Tonic

The Houri Legends Series:


Book 2:

Djinn and Tonic: Detective Carson Hale and Leila Najafi


Djinn and Tonic (The Houri Legends, #2)

Summary:
From Goodreads.com
A strange and inexplicable attack in his favorite watering hole leaves Detective Carson Hale with stitches, bruised ribs, and a concussion but yet Leila, the bartender, is mysteriously uninjured. While her lies and evasions set off Hale's instincts, her body sets off other alarms.

Dangerous secrets and a complicated past drove Leila Najafi to Detroit, where she hoped to escape her family. Now, she's been discovered by the one man who could destroy her. At the worst possible time, sexy Detective Hale blows into her life and forces her to make a decision that could cause both heartbreak and war.

Review:

This book picks up pretty much right where the previous book lets off. Carson is in the bar where Leila bartends and the next thing Carson knows he’s in the hospital where the building had basically fell on top of him yet he managed to survive and Leila has not a scratch on her. Despite the fact things are not adding up with Leila, Carson decides to pursue her anyway.

So the book starts off promising, you have a fight within the first couple of chapters. However, the book for me quickly derailed. So in the first scenes Carson can barely remember Leila’s name, but after one kiss all of the sudden he can’t live without her. Eh, I wasn’t buying it. I think I liked Carson better in the first book, he got every other chapter and he seemed to have more depth to him then. Not that I disliked him in this book, but something seemed to be off from the first. We find out more of Carson’s past which is truly heartbreaking and you can see why he took up law enforcement. You completely understand why he took up law enforcement. I did think that he would get to there being something special and accept it sooner when it came to Leila since he had just come off Miriam’s case and he knows there are just some things you can’t explain, but alas it took a huge gesture for it to really sink in. Although it still kind of bugs me that no one else noticed that huge gesture considering it was basically a tornado, but I guess you just have to kind of go with it.

Leila, I was pretty much eh with from the beginning. I never connected with her and I found her “woow is me” attitude somewhat off putting. She really did sounds a lot like a spoiled little rich girl that she accused herself of and she just kept pushing Carson away and getting mad when he took a step back. Girl you pushed him away! What do you want from the man!? Tho, I don’t blame her for running from her betrothed he truly was a complete dickwad.

This book somewhat lacked the substance first book had. With the first book we had some serious subject matter and you were truly rooting for Miriam and Jack. This one it was all about Carson getting his head out of his ass and Leila trying to decide how to get out of her betrothal.  It was quite the come down from the previous book. The book lost momentum after the first attack and didn’t quite pick up again until the end. I found myself bored a few times, not enough to put the book down and not pick it back up again but enough to produce a few sighs. Now the ending was great! I really enjoyed the ending, finally it picked up and we got what we were looking for from the rest of the story. Leila’s dad surprises you and Carson steps up in a big way! I’m still a bit confused on how the whole binding works but whatev’s the end is still great! Oh and you may remember Nadira from the 1st book, well she makes an appearance and kicks total a$$! We also have cameos from Jack and his grandfather Shawn, who I quite enjoyed. Jack is really coming into his powers. Overall, it was a decent story, it lacked some momentum but the ending made up for a lot of it.

*This book was provided to me by the author for an honest review

Rating:
Amanda P ratings 3 half moons

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