Water Viper

Okay, I'll grant ya that this is a huge book. 720 pages is a lot, but sometimes you want to dig into a book for a while. This book has some interesting world building. Meteorites landed on Earth and instead of just making a huge hole, they changed the nature of the world. <br /> It's an exciting idea and follows along the plot idea of 'What if' all good writers use. This book was a lot of fun to read. The plot is good, and the world building is, too. My only problem was with the character development. Our heroine seemed to only develop physically, and our main hero seemed to develop backwards. He dropped the ball to be a strong character. Also, there are parts where the plot jumped ahead haphazardly. <br /> Overall, it was a good book and I plan to read the next in the series, especially since I like this writer.

Starfall changed everything, leaving some cities in ruins while survivors in others developed magical abilities. Jesse Alexander, once the pride of her clan, ran away after accidentally choosing to become a woman and is now a respected bodyguard who moonlights as the infamous assassin, Water Viper. A fateful encounter in a sinking Miami leaves her with a pulsing Starfall stone that could burst at any moment and a high bounty on her head. With herself, her secrets, and her friends in danger, Jesse skips town and disappears, retiring to raise horses and work as a courier. A promise forces her to return to her erstwhile home in Charlotte and Jesse finds herself at the centre of a dangerous situation. This could be her chance to right all the wrongs of her past, if she survives. <br /><br />The post-Starfall world RJ Blain has created is realistic, exciting, and populated with memorable characters. It’s always refreshing to encounter a post-apocalyptic style setting where the government hasn’t fallen apart. The prose is direct and evokes vivid descriptions with a minimum of exposition. In general, I avoid books involving shifters, but Water Viper is one of the few that incorporates them while maintaining a balanced plot and allowing the characters to retain their higher thinking processes. There’s a trick to creating strong female characters and Blain has mastered it. Jesse strikes the perfect balance between physical strength, skill, and vulnerability. Water Viper is the most enjoyable book I’ve read this year, and the latest addition to my list of favourites. <br /><br />(Reviewed for Reader's Favorite)

3.5 stars Good story and characters but it was too long. The same story could still have been told without quite so many things happening. And whilst i enjoyed each of the events and interactions in their own right there were just too many of them for best readability and absolutely nothing would have been lost by substantially reducing them. Also given how freaking long the story was having no resolution or progression with the romance was frustrating in the extreme. Especially when it is clear they are into each other and there are no impediments to their relationship. That being said overall it was still a good fun UF read with a pretty kickass heroine.

I liked it. It was better than the witch and wolf books and slightly more serious than the romantic comedy series. The ending as always on these books is open and I’m looking forward to the next one. Jesse is strong but emotionally scarred finding her way through life as an assassin and finding where she belongs. Not much on the romance front, it’s subtle but falls along the lines of lifetime mates. I liked the troublesome trio.

I wasn't sure about this from the blurb .. but took a chance.<br /><br />Definitely worth it! Funny, action packed, slightly different take on a Magic Apocalypse and what would happen thereafter.<br /><br />Stayed up waaaay too late but enjoyed every minute. :)

2021 bk 366. I'm trying a number of R.J. Blain's books to see how they compare to her (Susan Copperfields) Royal States series. It took three tries - but I finally became engaged enough with the characters to read through most of the night and ditch what I was supposed to be doing this morning in favor of completing Water Viper. This is a complex, distopian world that that Blain introduces us to. It is a world of mystics and shapeshifters. A world where activated stones cause changes, communications are ify, guns rarely work, and a good swordsman or woman is honored. Into this world comes Jesse Alexander. A daughter of a back hills tribe known for its ability to make fine blades. Thrust into the rest of the world at age 11, with only fighting skills, Jess becomes first an assassin. It is her abililty to change her life focus and draw on her strengths to create change that intrigued me. I think if there is a novel where the character took over the author and forced her to write a specific way - this is one of those. I'm looking forward to #2, after I at least get some dishes washed!

I have to start with the fact that this book has vivid world building and characters that steal your heart from beginning to end. But I gave it 3 stars because although the setup was fantastic, the book was extremely repetitive and has a ton of information that felt too excessive and unnecessary to the story. They could have taken out half of the book with all the extra mumbo jumbo, and it would have been at least a 4 and a half star book, in my opinion.

3.9<br /><br />So, this book was good. I was a bit surprised how into the story I was, because quite frankly, I didn't think the plot arcs were all that brilliantly written, they were even confusing at some points. Regardless, the big bits of the story came through and left me intrigued. I listened to this story as an audiobook during a road trip, so mainly, I just ask that the book hold my interest enough to keep me awake. I must say it did so quite sufficiently, and I even wanted to keep listening after my road trip was over. So it gets big bonus points for that. I'll even admit some of my confusion may stem from the issue of listening whilst driving. It meant that I didn't rewind (similar to how I would re-read a page if I was struggling to understand), so I couldn't ascertain if the confusing parts of the story had to do with my mind wandering or an issue with the writing.<br /><br />This book did seem to have a slight issue with being a bit too long. To the author's credit nearly every, if not every scene was relevant to the plot, but I'm not so sure that every scene was absolutely necessary to plot, either. Just a touch of editing back the story may have made the story more streamlined. <br /><br />From my perspective and personal preferences, I felt some frustration towards the main character, Jesse, because she seemed awfully reactionary; more so that I typically love in a main character. She spent a lot of the story drugged from nefarious plots against her (here is where not all of the drugged scenes were strictly necessary). She rarely had her own initiative and usually only when other characters had backed her into a corner, and she was reacting to their decisions. She was a bad-ass and had plenty of talents, but she was also emotionally immature and and underestimated anyone who was close to her. <br /><br />I believe this story has a sequel, and I am interested in seeing what it is about, but I'm not quite jumping to go pick it up. I feel more casually interested in getting the next one.

Water Viper by R.J. Blain<br /><br />This is the toughest review I have had to write so far this year. It maybe should have been 3 stars because of what I don't like, but what I do like, I like strongly enough to add the extra star.<br />What I like: This is a long book, really long, but it stays consistent and it tugged me along for the ride. I love the plot and all of the characters. It created a new world and stayed true to it throughout. The descriptions were spot on every time and maintained vivid images for me. <br />What I didn't love: There are some pretty glaring editing errors, but given the overall size of this book, the ratio is pretty small. Mostly it was not too difficult to fill in the blanks. But what I really, really didn't love was the ending. And here is the spoiler, so stop reading now. I happily followed Jesse through this entire journey and stayed solidly behind her the entire way...until the end. As a book 1, I expected a cliff hanger. I did not get a cliff hanger. I don't fell like I received an ending at all. It feels like a "deadline reached, lets stop now" thing where every single one of the threads unraveled. There was zero sense of anything. Jesse melted at the end, but didn't follow any of the predetermined patterns. I get it, she is a new shifter so a lot changed in a hurry. But I didn't get a sense that any of the basic premise of the book had been met. A solid foundation appeared to have been built only to drop off drastically at the end.<br />Now, because I loved the things that I loved, I will probably attempt to read the next in the series if/when it becomes available, but I am definitely going to need more answers. I unfortunately have no real desire to read more from this author as I feel cheated by this book.

A peculiarly rambling book in a very peculiar setting. I didn't dislike it, per se, but I couldn't in all honesty recommend it to anyone. It's vaguely like Laurel K. Hamilton fanfic, with a protagonist who is saved from Mary-Sue-ness only by lacking violet eyes. She turns out to be advantageously special at every turn in a world where there are five or six ways to measure that. So... probably not one to chase down.