Memento Mori

Originally I was planning on giving this book a pass. I use to wait with baited breath for every book this author released, but her latest ones just haven't been that great. Or maybe my tastes have changed, I don't know, but like a bad drug habit I was jonesing for a fix, so I dove in and hoped for the best.



And...I enjoyed it. Was it as good as the early M&M books (that I still reread often), honestly? Not really, but it was undoubtedly one of the better ones she has written of late. Still, there were a few issues with it. It was super slow to get started. Snails move faster than the pace of the first 100 pages of this thing. Lucky for us the book is like 1000 pages long (I exaggerate, it was only 452 pages) and the pace does eventually pick up.



One of the other issues I had was with a secondary character. In previous books, I LOVED the character of Ezra Fain, and couldn't wait to read more about him. In this book, Miz Blake pretty much turned him into a mean, whiny, short-sighted asshole. There is just no way the author can get me to root for a happily ever after for him and a certain other person. Not after his reaction, or should I say the total nonreaction to something that happens to said person near the end. On top of that, the set up for his story seems to be a rehash of the same plot used for Alex and Eve's book.



On the more positive side, I LOVED Jax. He wasn't an over the top manwhore. In fact, he hadn't had sex since he was saved 18 months ago. He wasn't an over the top asshole


I even liked River. Oh, she was still annoying here and there, but I liked her for the most part. Which is saying something since I have very hard on my heroines. I also found parts laugh out loud funny. I cried in parts. I loved seeing cameos of former characters. My heart broke for Nell. I really hope her and Henry are getting a conclusion to their story soon.

Which brings me to my conclusion and a little “side note.” First I will say this wasn't an issue for me since I have read pretty much every book Lexi Blake has written and didn't affect my rating in the least, but I felt I should bring this up for potential readers. In my opinion, there is NO way someone who hasn't at the very least read this authors Masters & Mercenaries series, and to the lesser extent, her Bliss series could read this book without being completely confused about what was going on. This cannot be read as a standalone, and as much as “I” enjoy all the interconnecting of characters, books, series, I am starting to feel like this author is painting herself into a very tight corner where only her most loyal fans will be able to pick these books up and enjoy them thoroughly.

Anyway, just MY two cents on the matter. As I said, I enjoyed it. I am not sure if I will read Owen's book or not (he is one of the lovely manwhore boys), but we'll see.