Bounty Captured

<strong>helplessness trigger</strong><br /><br />Note: if you don’t mind watching heroines fall prey to bad guys and pretty much get turned into a toy, you’ll like this. <br /><br />If it weren’t for this little trigger of mine, the rating would be higher. As it stands, I hate having to go through chapters of the heroine being stuck and unable to fight back. Especially right now with my current mood. Just can’t. I don’t wanna read about her being literally controlled, degraded, visually assaulted, bitten (who wants an unwanted mouth on them!?). It’s borderline torture for me and this honestly felt like the whole book was about her torture and rescuing Corbin and then her torture again. After chapter three I skipped any pages that involved her listening to the bad guy prat on or the servant “righteously” control her into taking baths and eating.<br /><br />That aside, I like her and Corbin. I don’t, however, like that it took her to be tortured for her to realize that she just may want to be with Corbin. Before all this, she didn’t think he was worth it. But after having experienced the worse? Only then did she change tunes, and I usually enjoy watching people love others in SPITE of something. But that’s the story, so whatever…<br /><br />I think Devin did a great job at all these descriptions. It certainly bothered me enough, you know? Sometimes it felt like things dragged and lingered too long on them, and if you’re hoping for epic explicit sex, don’t hold your breath lol but it’s nice to finally see them get together. Again, I have to think hard about the how of it (spoiler) and I always personally question said spoiler as a main reason for doing something. But that’s me. <br /><br />Overall okay for me, probably better for someone who can mentally stomach being stuck and forced to endure under someone’s gross thumb. I like Tempie and her life and the near ending kinda made me bittersweet-sad. But still, kudos.

Lindsey Devin finally figures out how to start a book. We open to Tempie freaked out in lingerie and a magical shock collar. Well, I'm ALSO freaked out AND invested in what happens next. <br /><br />The major issue for this book was the plot hole of why they didn't just rat Daniel out to the queen immediately. Especially after the return from Hell. It makes no sense that she goes back to Faeirie or to him. The guys are like oh blah blah blah plot convenience reason- NO no there is no reason for her to go back to Daniel. And then they just leaves her there all stoned for weeks when he could be anything to her? Makes no sense.<br /><br />But the book was good when that wasn't happening. The romance between Tempie and Corbin is sweet enough to make the fated mates trope less of a dramatic eyeroll moment. Things wrapped up with a neat little bow when they returned Earthside. Though I was briefly panicked about her cat. Like fuck her apartment WHAT ABOUT THE CAT?!? Thank God Oscar was fine.<br /><br />The sex scene was sweet but meh. Not really worth the wait. More focused on the biting and blood stuff than the actual sex. The spice was you're enjoying a potato-filled soft taco from Taco Bell and you put the mild hot sauce from Taco Bell on it that is basically tomato sauce and then someone stabs you in the neck with a fork for some fucking reason.

So Tempie is stuck in Faery as Daniel's pet (great name for a Fae by the way ?), her magic totally locked down by his collar and she has no idea where Corbin ended up. Corbin is stuck in the Demon realm and the Unseelie Queen instructs Tempie to rescue him. She sets off with Maxwell who is Corbin's best friend to find and rescue Corbin.<br />I'm not saying anymore about what happens as I hate when people give the story away. The world building is everything you need and all of the characters are so well developed they come alive before your eyes, even the backing players. There is definitely plenty of action in this story, fighting, plotting and planning, romance, darkness and of course light, there's even a little humour. It's such a well written book and I didn't want to put it down, I hope this isn't the last we see of Tempie and Corbin.<br />I do have to say though some of the Fae names, Maxwell and come on Daniel, why not go the whole hog and call him Darren? I don't like these names you can't pronounce but please. Other than that I recommend this series but you need to have read the previous books.<br /><br />I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

3.5 stars - rounded up<br /><br />Very solid and enjoyable Urban Fantasy<br /><br />This is a review of the entire Solstice Huntress series rather than this book only, as I read these back to back and it's quite hard for me to distinguish between them (they're only roughly 240-260 pages each).<br /><br />Tempie is a standard, but nevertheless well-written, urban-fantasy heroine. Human with super-special and rare (of course) fae powers. She is cool, collected, says fuck a lot and doesn't do anything over-the-top stupid. I enjoyed having her as a narrator. Our MC Corbin is similarly well-written with his own brand of special and freaky and their chemistry and banter was enjoyable and believable. The storyline itself was mostly believable and sufficiently interesting to hold my attention.<br /><br />Why not 4 full stars? Well, there are the usual small mistakes a lot of the shorter urban fantasy series suffer from: continuity mistakes (MC is described as shirtless and pulls off his shirt roughly two pages later, same scene), world building is a little scarce (why does the fae realm feel like Bridgerton?!), side-characters not well fleshed-out (honestly I was asking myself why the queen was such a mean b**** for the entirety of the three books - a little back story would have been nice but in roughly 750 pages probably not possible; also would have enjoyed seeing more of Max before Book 3) etc. etc. etc.<br /><br />A note on the romance: In general, it's relatively tame so keep that in mind depending on what you're looking for.

<strong>Fine, but so many continuity errors</strong><br /><br />The story itself is fine, I guess, but there are so many continuity errors that it really pulls you out of it. <br /><br /><br />Possible tiny spoilers ahead.<br /><br /><br />The beast she rides is faster than any horse she's ever ridden? She's only ridden one horse! I was pretty sure the queen was Corbin as mother in the last book, but now she's his old girlfriend? What happened to Corbin's half brother? The queen and court literally MET Tempie as Corbin's toy a short while before and now no one recognizes her, and yet they all know about Tempie the bounty hunter that worked with Corbin? She works as a bounty hunter in a semi major metro area, but she apparently sets up camp all the time? There are just so many little things, that it is almost like all the books were written, but then the first two were edited and this one wasn't. Barely seems connected to the first two. Was everything done just to get Tempie into the far realm? Nothing else about the crazy weird magic from the first two? Not enough world building in the series, I really don't know any thing about how magic works in the world. Wish I could rate it higher as the first two were interesting and seemed like they were going somewhere.

<strong>Sloppy world building &amp; characters. action is what kept me reading. </strong><br /><br />This book was better. A few loose ends are tied up @ the end. But not enough to make me enough the series. Tempie doesn’t mature but is grounded with Corbin. We’re introduced to what they are to each other but without backstory we don’t know HOW important that is. It’s like it was thrown in there and the reader is supposed to assume it makes sense. It’s not coherent. Things are added without much context or details. We know what certain things are because of other books (fae, realms, hybrids, etc) but this series is DIFFERENT. So the cookie cutter definitions dont apply because the author changed them …. Yet didn’t bother telling the reader how / why she changed them. THAT information would have added to the world building and made this series BETTER.

Disappointing change in mood and slow to get going<br /><br />I really enjoyed the first 2 books. There was mystery, a bit of chemistry and the heroine had some sass. Instead, book 3 opens with our heroine trapped, unable to use her magic and at points, fully controlled by her captives physically. This narrative continues for too long and didn't really add anything to the character development later in the book. As soon as she is free, it's all back to the task and much more the book I was expecting; however due to the time dedicated to previous chapters, there just wasn't enough meat on the bones. Perfunctory as another reviewer put it.<br /><br />Overall, I felt it was half a good book and would deserve 50% of a mark that I would have given books 1 and 2.

<strong>writing was a struggle to get through</strong><br /><br />I finished this book only because I wanted to finish the storyline. But the writing was juvenile and boring. The author would tell you exactly what’s happening rather than leading you as the reader through it. It made the whole story feel a bit dry and unrelatable. I liked the storyline and what the characters had the potential to be. But there were gaps and things didn’t always line up with previous information in the story. And the characters were inconsistent. But overall, it definitely wasn’t the worst thing I’d read. I just felt like this was more of an outline or a rough draft rather than a final product. I can see the potential in the author, but she’s just not there yet.

<strong>stephanie plum in Faerie</strong><br /><br />I consumed the whole series but by book 2 I started skimming.<br />it just wasn't enough to spread across 3.<br />if author had contained the story to one rocking awesome book would have loved it.<br />the series had a definate Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter (by Janet Evanovich) feel. <br />loved that they took that idea and ran it thru the fantasy genre.<br />I really enjoyed book 1 but it just got a bit repetitive over 2 n 3 without Plums spicy ridiculous situations and funny one liners... ooo and the sexual tension between the leads.<br />would love to see future but funnier stuff.

<strong>To be continued I hope! </strong><br /><br />This book was a page turner right from the opening chapter. Daniel was such a sleaze…even for an Unseelie. <br />Thankfully Corbin has such a good friend in Maxwell. He accompanies Tempie to the Demon realm with the approval of the Queen to find Corbin and bring him back to Faerie. There are some epic battles while they are there, especially after finding Corbin. <br />Upon their return, Daniel does his best to drain Tempie or her blood…coming very close to ending her. <br />I won’t give away the ending…it’s satisfying is all I’ll say. I look forward to reading about more escapades with Corbin and Tempie.