Review - Dark Lover

Title: Dark Lover
Author: Brenda Joyce
Publishing Date: October 2009
Genre: Time Travel
Rating: D
Sensuality: Warm
Book Disclosure: Rented from Paperspine

Dark Lover is the fifth book in Brenda Joyce's Masters of Time series. Ian Maclean spent 66 years imprisoned by a powerful demon suffering from unspeakable torture as a nine year old boy. His father eventually freed him from this demon, but Ian carries horrible emotional scars. He has spent the last twenty five years building up his wealth and power in the hopes that nothing like that will ever happen to him again. Samantha Rose works for a secret government agency which keeps track of demonic activity. They hear that Ian Maclean has acquired a page from an ancient text, one that has a very powerful spell attached to it. Sam is assigned to get the page back from Ian before it falls into enemy hands.

Dark Lover is one of those books that I should have just given up on and stopped reading after I realized it wasn't for me. Instead, I managed to keep reading (after all I am a fan of Brenda Joyce's work) but it just never got any better. It seemed like there were many things about this book that hit my hot buttons. I am going to focus on the two main issues.

First, I didn't like the characters. Ian had two personalities, neither of which were appealing a.) he would act like an arrogant jerk or b.) a scared little boy. I understand that he was tortured, but Ian's behavior just didn't sit right with me. Sam's personality wasn't all that great either. She keeps herself at an emotional distance from everyone. She likes meaningless sex and will have it with anyone. She starts to feel, *gasp* compassion for Ian when she learns what he went through. But there is a lot of mental head hopping which explains the emotions of these characters, but not enough action with them working through these issues and they are very heavy issues. They are not something that can be glossed over, which is what I felt happened.

The second major complaint I had with the story was the plot/world building. First of all, the evil bad guy from a previous book comes back to play in this story. I'm sorry, but if the characters already took the time to battle with him in the last book you can't just resurrect him and have him show up again. I mean, who's to say the guy doesn't just keep showing up again and again. Enough is enough. The author does take the time to explain it, but seriously it all just seemed way to flimsy to me. There are still a few characters who could get their stories, but at this point I have no desire to read them. This series is on the outs with me.

This book can be purchased in print or kindle format from Amazon.

Review - Dark Victory

Title: Dark Victory
Author: Brenda Joyce
Publishing Date: March 2009
Genre: Time-Travel
Rating: B+
Sensuality: Hot

Dark Victory is the fourth book in Brenda Joyce's Masters of Time series. Tabby Rose is a white witch living in modern day New York City. She comes from a long line of magical women. It is their destiny to fight evil. Tabby has always been connected to a sad grieving boy. It turns out this boy is now a man and not just any man, but a medieval highland warrior. As she is viewing an exhibit in a Manhattan museum she has a vision of him and he his burnt and bleeding. Wanting so badly to help this man that she is drawn to, she casts a spell to send him through time to her. Tabby has never been as powerful a witch as her grandmother, but her spell works and Black Macleod is sent across centuries to New York.

So far this series has been hit or miss for me. The first one I liked okay, the second one I really enjoyed and then the third one fell flat. If Dark Victory follows the pattern, then it should be another book that I liked. Well, guess what? I did! Tabby and Macleod have a lot of issues to work through in this book, but I enjoyed their struggles over evil and(the best part)their smouldering sexual tension. There is lots of angst in this book, so look out!

Both Tabby and Macleod are very stubborn people, who strongly believe in their convictions. Unfortunately, for Tabby and Macleod they both have different views on how to handle their problems. The only thing that they do seem to agree on is their sexual attraction to one another. At one point after Tabby and Macleod refuse to budge in their beliefs, Macleod says to Tabby, "If ye insist on war, we'll war in the day. But not in the night." He puts the kibosh on any more of her protests and they form a sort of truce. Le Sigh. I just love a man who knows what he wants and goes after it.

I will admit that Black Macleod was a little more black than I generally like my heroes to be. He walked a fine line at certain times between being a "bad boy" and just down right cruel. He fully redeems himself in the end, though and that made it all the better. The time travel aspect of the story is very convoluted and definitely got confusing. I am certain I still don't have a full grasp on how it works. I just go with the flow and try not to think to hard about it or pick it apart. If this is one of your pet peeves, then you might have a problem with this aspect of the book. Other than that, it's a promising read.

Series Sunday - Masters of Time

Brenda Joyce has a time-travel series called the Masters of Time. I am a huge sucker for time-travel novels. There is just something about an old-fashioned, controlling hero paired up with a modern woman. There is a lot of time jumping in the books and parts of the books take place in the past and then other parts take place in the present. The heroes are warriors sworn to protect innocence and were gifted with all kinds of powers. One of them being time-travel. My personal favorite so far in the series is book two, Dark Rival. Although, not all these books have lived up to my expectations, it is still a series I've enjoyed and am following closely.

Brenda Joyce has a website specifically for her Masters of Time series. If this series sounds like something you are interested in, then definitely check out this website. You can read chapters from all the books and see if her writing style appeals to you. I personally think that you can read the books in any order. Each book stands alone, it's just that some of the characters appear in multiple books.

Series Reading Order:

1. Dark Seduction (Malcolm and Claire)
2. Dark Rival (Royce and Allie)
3. Dark Embrace (Aidan and Brie)
4. Dark Victory (Black and Tabitha)
5. Dark Lover (Ian and Samantha) Releases September 2009

Review - Dark Embrace

Title: Dark Embrace
Author: Brenda Joyce
Publishing Date: August 2008
Genre: Time-Travel
Rating: C
Sensuality: Warm

Dark Embrace is Brenda Joyce’s third novel in her Masters of Time series. It is also the start of the Rose Trilogy within the series. Brianna Rose is from long line of Rose women. These women have all had special powers passed down to them through the generations. Brianna’s special power is empathy. She can sense other peoples’ emotions. Brie has had a crush on Aiden since she the time she briefly meets him in Dark Rival.

Aiden is a Master and can time travel. After hearing Brianna scream for help, he leaps through time to find and protect her. She was being attacked by a group of boys who had been consumed by evil. Aiden saves her. A conflict happens between Brianna’s boss and Aiden. Aiden leaps time and takes Brianna with him back to Scotland in the year 1508.

I hate to say this but I was really disappointed with this story. Aiden appeared in the first two books as a happy-go-lucky, ladies man. Now he is consumed by hatred and revenge. He does such a complete one-eighty that I hardly recognized him as the same man. Aiden was pretty nasty to Brie most of the time and just an all around unpleasant man.

I also think Aiden’s personality and problems overshadowed Brie in this book. Aiden was too mean and Brie was too mousy. His struggles and problems were the focus and therefore the books seemed unbalanced. For example, I don’t even really understand Brie’s powers and how she came to have them. Nor is there much written about her family or background. Aiden was too changed for me to really like him and it is such a shame because he really could have been a magnetic character. Brie and Aiden’s sudden happy ending was not very believable.

One other thing that bothered me was Brie’s boss Nick, who has some very, unexpected capabilities in the book. This just leads to more questions that were left unanswered. It is possible that they will be addressed in future books in the series, but again, it left me confused and unsatisfied with this book.

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