Eventide: The Dark Ink Chronicles [Kindle Edition]

I am generally a Riley Poe fan. I enjoyed the first 2 books in this series, where tattoo artist Riley Poe becomes entangled in the world of vampires. In book 3, Riley is still dealing with the aftermath of having 2 vampire bites. Victorian warns that Riley needs help, but of course neither Riley or Eli, or any of Eli's family listen. So, Riley begins changing and not in a good way. To bring Riley back, drastic measures will have to be taken, the question is whether it will be too late.

The overall storyline in Eventide is good. Riley is slowly turning evil, Valerian's blood is affecting her and continuing to change her. However, I felt that the execution and evolution of the story was lacking. The story felt disjointed. Early on, I was wondering why Riley wouldn't admit she was having troubles. Also, despite being constantly watched, no one stepped in to help Riley. Everyone expressed their concerns about her state, but no one did ANYTHING to change it. It didn't make sense to me. Eli is professed to be so overprotective, but then he doesn't do anything but watch over Riley.

When it is finally time to step in and help Riley, Eli and his family must seek help from Victorian's father, so they travel to Romania. This is about where the story takes a leap in a whole different direction. New characters are introduced, and a whole new plot line is started. The timing seemed very odd, and it didn't fit the story. One minute, the plot was on Riley changing, and the new consequences of keeping her sane and human, and the next, a supernatural police group is randomly involved. This felt very off to me, and the abrupt change in the story didn't sit well, the new character's side stories felt drawn out, and they took away from the focus of the book.

Riley's relationship with Eli was also fairly frustrating to me. One minute, Riley is absolutely in love with Eli, and the next she is so angry that he's overprotective and overbearing. The on and off, back and forth gets old. Eli is who he is, and we get it, Riley likes to be the tough girl. It doesn't need to constantly be expressed.

By the end, Riley has even more vampiric changes to deal with, and her future is going a whole new direction. The story came together pretty good in the end, and future story lines are set up. I will say this for Eventide, the action and powers are intriguing and diverse. The series is about to change, and go in a new direction, which holds promise. However, I am not sure if I will continue with the series, there is a lot of repetition about Riley being tough, Eli being overbearing, and Victorian pining over Riley. After 3 books in the series, I am fairly invested in the characters, but book 4 will not be on priority to-read list.

Review Courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Wild ride.

Opening Sentence: I can still hear the human screams inside my head.

The Review:

I guess it could be said that I did like this book. Jasper's imagery and settings are well written, and she does have an innate ability to put your mind right where she wants it, geographically. Her characters are sexy, their thoughts and actions exactly what you would expect of them, and you can practically hear their voices, with those awesome accents, right in your head. But as for the rest...well let's just say I found it lacking.

I spent a bunch of my time reading this book and scratching my head, going "I don't get it" (insert head tilt and gum smacking here) and I still kind of don't. I felt like I was being tossed all over the place, the story going here, doing this, then going there, doing that. I admit to being somewhat lost. Ok, so don't get me wrong. The story line itself is fine, but it almost seems like the individual elements could have been drawn out longer, into more descriptive segments, or at least somewhat more cohesively run together. I understand the main character is experiencing life in this sort of jumbled mess at this point, but I don't know that reading it that way is conducive to the readers understanding of the where's, when's, how's or why's. In fact, I reread a crap load of passages assuming I missed something. Nope, still confused, still not getting it.

Riley continues progressing into the madness that is Valerian, even losing large chunks of time and possibly attacking people, even her neighbor. Eli, his father, another local vamp and an agent all escort Riley to the home of the crazy vamp's father, in the hopes to defeat the bond that has its hold on Riley. Riley, now sporting two more sets of vampy DNA, is an extraordinary mostly human, who now understands new foreign languages, can see your life events by merely touching you, and has strange feelings for even more men. Eli is still her one and only, Seth is still her baby brother with tendencies. The crazy person ruling Riley's innermost nightmares is then captured and returned to his homeland to receive his punishment. A paranormal CIA-type agent wants Riley, her brother and Eli to join his mixed species group of associates to fight supernaturally criminal bad guys, and they agree. I think that sort of sums it up.

Though none of this should stop you guys from reading it, especially if you liked the previous books, like I did.

The Dark Ink Chronicles Series:

1. Afterlight

2. Everdark

3. Eventide

4. Black Fallen

FTC Advisory: Penguin/Signet provided me with a copy of Eventide. No goody bags, sponsorships, "material connections," or bribes were exchanged for my review.

The beginning of this book was great. The author really draws you into the changes that Riley is going through. The end of the story was okay. There was good action, and a decent story line. What made me give this book 3 stars was the middle. I understand what the author was trying to do by bringing in new characters, and a whole new story line, but she does not pull it off. I found myself double checking that my Kindle did not switch books on me when we were thrown in to 2 completely different stories that had nothing to do with Eventide. In my opinion, it would have been better to bring in the new characters to help out with Valerian & then have them ask Riley for help.