The Bargainer Series Book 2
I’m back with Callie and Des and we join them where we left off at the end of Book 1.
Des is as mysterious and secretive as he was in the first book, despite acknowledging that Callie is his mate. Callie still suffers from low self-esteem, especially regarding her new appearance, but she comes to accept herself more as the story progresses. Other than that, all they do is lust after each other. Callie manages to get herself in some sort of fix every five minutes and Des rescues her or threatens/fights/kills someone on her behalf.
I found this book very difficult to follow. The narrative was chaotic and I tried to work out if it was deliberate because it’s set in the Fairy realm and things don’t always make sense, or if the story’s structure was confusing. In the end, I went with the latter.
I was pleased that we didn’t have the same time jumps as in the first book, but it did not necessarily make this one any easier to follow. The first twenty pages jumped between Callie still trying to work sporadically on the mystery of the disappearing Fae and their strange offspring, but the investigation never really got going. It always stopped just when things were getting interesting. I’ll allow, this may be deliberate to help build suspense, but I got frustrated.
Instead, Des took Callie on a flying tour of his lands and to a giant party in the Flora realm. He did do something useful in teaching her to fight and to fly, both of which could have been portrayed in a lot more detail. In both instances it was portrayed as, “you’ve had a couple of lessons, you can do it now”. Plus, Callie complained about it all the time when I presumed, being in constant danger, she would want to learn how to protect herself. Maybe it’s just me.
This book jumps between giving clues that should have been followed up and investigated but weren’t, and details that were repeated unnecessarily. I lost count of how many times Callie mentioned her magic doesn’t work on fairies and how humans are branded as a symbol of slavery. Yes, we know – get back to solving the mystery!
In terms of heat, there are plenty of steamy scenes (but they’re on the short side). However, they don’t add anything to the progression of their relationship. It’s just dull and repetitive.
To sum up, this book has a drawn-out, meandering plot and characters that don’t do much. Stuff seems to go over Callie’s head most of the time (even though she’s supposed to be a private investigator) or she walks into trouble (again, for all her sass, Callie seems quite happy to sit on the sidelines and lets everyone else fight for her ninety percent of the time). Des only seems to get mad and protective, or lusty.
The writing style is jarring and combined with my other concerns I nearly didn’t finish many times but forced myself to trudge through to the end.
Plot: ⭐️⭐️
Feels: ⭐️⭐️
Heat: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall: ⭐️⭐️
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