Rio (of varying last names) is an inhabitant of the
Bordertown, that section of New York that is the doorway to the other lands, to
faerie and the demon realm. A part of town where nearly everyone has a quirk of
some kind, a part of town where the fae and the demons and who knows what else
walk around freely
And a part of town with little in the way of laws, since it’s largely free of mortal authority and no-one has stepped forward to replace the last sheriff. And Luke Oliver won’t accept the role. A powerful wizard and the cursed immortal son of Lucrezia Borgia, he isn’t willing to get dragged into it.
But nor did he wanted to be dragged into loving Rio,
especially not with his curse. And there’s a lot to be dragged into as Rio
approaches her 25th birthday and suddenly all the movers and shakers
of Bordertown are after her. Whatever’s going to happen is going to be big –
and everyone’s determined to have Rio in their hands before it does.
There’s a lot I loved about this book – world,
characterisation, world, the story, world, the different side plots and, did I
mention the world? Because I really liked the world.
The writing, while generally good, can get severely
derailed in places with description. Particularly of each other – which can go
on and on and on and on. And you get a scene where they’re doing something else
then it’s back to describing how very luscious the other is and how things are
becoming wet/turgid and omnomnomnom. It’s distracting and pretty unnecessary
and drags out the plot
In fact, the whole book would be so much better if the
romance were curtailed, reduced or at least rendered less dramatic. We don’t
have a love at first sight – because they already saw each other before the
book started and they fell madly in obsession with each other for no apparent reason. He cut her off
and drove her away because he has a Curse (*sigh*
get me
a bottle) which he thinks could hurt her and destroy him so he has to Drive
Her Away For Her Own Good. Which is even more odd because when they finally get
round to revealing the curse it doesn’t seem to be all that relationship or
love interest destroy-y. It's annoying because he decides, after centuries of flings, that She Could Be the One based on... based on? I mean it's not like he gets to know her before making his decision - so based entirely on his lust he decides he'll fall madly in lover with her so must avoid her? As for her, she has a sad past that has left her with
abandonment issues which causes her to flounce out in tears at one point –
seriously I had to re-read the page 4 or 5 times before I could figure out WHY
she was so upset and decided the whole thing was over. And that's asideHe is extremely
protective to the point of actually blowing shit up because he’s so angry and
frustrated with his need to protect her (of course, he randomly blows stuff up
for funsies when he’s in a bad mood anyway, but we most commonly saw it when
protecting Rio or being frustrated in his urge to protect her). Then there’s
her deciding she needs to leave him for his own good because… REASONS.
When they were actually together and not tripping over
convoluted conflict, they actually bounced off each other well. But that
conflict was annoying.
It’s a shame because, once you put that bit aside, the
book is extremely good. Not perfect by any means – I think Rio makes a lot of
dubious decisions (instantly accepting Kitsune for one, when it looked so much
like a trap. Trusting the man who appears later claiming to be family is
another major one) that only didn’t blow up in her face due to pure luck. I
also thinks there are moments in the book which are a bit too… convenient. The
Oblong of goblins supporting her, the troll – it seems she does very very
little to get such sudden, instant friends. And I’m still unclear at the end
exactly what Dalriata wanted and what he hoped to achieve.
