Koren

I don't think that I was expecting this book to be quite as intense as it turned out to be. Intense in a good way, mind you, but unexpected. Lena was my favorite of the girls, though in some ways Carmen's story caught my attention more. I didn't particularly like Tibby's story, but I thought she did a fantastic job on Bee. (I do, however, wish she'd been a little bit less vague about what happened between Bee and Eric. Not graphic details or anything, but I was never quite clear if they just made out or actually had sex. On the other hand, if she's not setting Bee up to be manic depressive, I'll be incredibly shocked. Seriously.) Overall it was an awesome book, and now I need to get my hands on the other three. :)

I liked the book quite a bit... right up until the last two or three chapters. In part, I wasn't entirely happy with the ending (I hated the way it worked out)... but I think that the bigger issue that I had was the abruptness of the ending, and the fact that we didn't see anything beyond that point. I was honestly reminded in the last few paragraphs of Harlan Ellison's “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”... for a book that had up until that point balanced it's lessons of consequences for one's actions with love and hope, it seemed to abandon all of those things at the most important moment.

I really enjoyed Lila, although some of her resistance felt a little forced, but it felt a little like it fell flat in places, and Ash was a little pushier than I like. And Jai didn't feel like a well enough developed villain for me.

It probably won't go on my [a:Nora Roberts 625 Nora Roberts http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198342300p2/625.jpg] favorites shelf, but it was pretty good. The opening chapter or so actually put me off this book when it initially came out - something about Reece was very off-putting to me. Once I got into the story, though, I liked her quite a bit better. I would have liked Joanie more than I did if it hadn't been emphasized so heavily that she was a smoker (I personally have a very low squick threshold when it comes to smoking, so the frequent references and descriptions of it put me completely off.) I wish I could say that I liked Brody (I certainly didn't dislike him) but there seemed to be very little character development for him, and virtually none to their relationship other than getting them hooked up as soon as possible and then on with the main plot-line. ([b:Blue Smoke 114184 Blue Smoke Nora Roberts http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217909729s/114184.jpg 1553106] suffered from this same issue in my opinion.) The main plot-line was handled very well, and I wasn't sure who the villain was until right at the reveal, and had quite a few concerns about who it would be. But I really, really would have liked more of an epilogue. The end was far too abrupt and had me literally looking for the other pages of the book.

The basic premise was great, but the characters seemed sort of flat, and the relationship too quick and easy, without enough emotional depth for my tastes, or enough of a drawn out seduction (either of the characters or of the reader.)