Shelley

Sitting down with a KA novel you know what you are going to get, it’s agreed.
For loyal fans everywhere KA books are a blanket of love, hope, optimism and (let’s be honest) wishful thinking. These books are for the girl in all of us who want to be wrapped up in the arms of a big strong handsome hunky hero (anti or not), finding, conquering and fixing the man, who is your soul mate who will love and adore YOU above all others no matter how fat your arse is.

This is the perfect formula for romance novels, and it works. Ms Ashley is the queen of the alpha man romance, giving her readers the confidence to believe in themselves as real woman and not feel the need to be skinny -minny plastic fantastic. Her message is we are woman, we work it and we rock what we got!

In this I applaud you Kristen Ashley always and forever.

So it is with a heavy heart that I fail to find the love for this book. As a loyal fan and consummate devourer of her books I can honestly say that her stories are beginning to fall flat.

I have ignored all editorial issues, long running sentences, first person POV (a personal pet hate) monosyllabic dialogs, the over use of “and then… “ and “I know this because…” in the past purely because Ms Ashley can tell a tale so riveting and compelling with fabulous characters, action packed plots, heartfelt romance, steamy sex, humour and drop dead gorgeous alpha hero’s. I simply don’t care when the story is that great! But this is not that great, not at all.

Raid offers only a sniff of what her other books have to offer. The relationship building is non-existent; it’s rushed and lacks any tension in anticipation.
The plot is vague in its direction and then the culmination is glossed over with a, it’s done comment which gives the reader no real insight as to what happened at all. I was bored, it has to be said.

It is hard not to compare Raid to her previous books At Peace, Sweet Dreams, Motorcycle Man, Mystery Man (I could go on) where her plots are filled with anticipation and suspense, they are well rounded, fleshed out and provocative, sexy, fast paced and totally enthralling. Raid is none of these things. Nope, not even the sexy part.

I feel it’s come to a point where her alpha males are all meshed into one. Raid could quite easily be Tack, Ty, Creed or any of the others in fact. Their dialog is the exactly same in every book, the way they think, the way they move, their rambling alpha speeches have the same tone and message, their seductions with words like “eyes on me”, “give me your mouth”
I have read it all before, they all say it, again and again. It’s all becoming just a little bit too familiar, which is okay (I guess, kind of… no not really) if the plot was something I could sink my teeth into and just get on with it.

I really do hope to see a return of the KA magic in her next books with a bit more originality, the same recipe of course but just more glimmer, and shine with some angst and suspense and a plot that has me guessing all the way through. This is easy stuff for her, she’s done it before;)

They say great books ruin us for mediocre books. This is true.

PS: The stars are for Grammy and Spot.