Review: FERAL SINS

Feral Sins by Suzanne Wright
Book 1 of the The Phoenix Pack series
Read by Jill Redfield
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Feral Sins:

Taryn Warner is a wolf shifter with extraordinary healing skills - and serious problems. First, her father is determined that she mate for life with a wolf shifter named Roscoe Weston, whom the feisty Taryn can't stand. To make matters worse, she's also been kidnapped by Trey Coleman, a dangerous alpha male from another pack. And as much as she wants to resist Trey, Taryn is incredibly, maddeningly attracted to him. When he makes her a tempting proposal that will benefit both of them, the strong-willed healer has to decide whether escaping an unwelcomed bond with Roscoe is worth the risks of mating with Trey, no matter how temporary their allegiance is intended to be.

Source: Info in the About Feral Sins was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15949671-feral-sins on 01/07/2013.

Review:

I bought this audiobook because I liked the sound of the sample that I heard at audible. But me being me, have to buy the paperback to go with the audiobook. And this book got read/listened to. The narration is about the best feature of this book. The plot is a bit thin on the ground. Straightforward escape from under dad's thumb and into prince charming's arms and they lived happily ever after. And that's it. I believe that the plot is not there for the story per sey but as a framework to the sex. So that the sex wouldn't be just wham bam thank you ma'am, but has a story to go with it as well. As such it worked well. But nothing more. So this book could almost be classified as an erotica. In other words, paranormal porn. The story telling quality wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that riveting either. It was so, so. But what really brought the rating for this book down is the ambiguity of the world building. I'm not sure whether the world of shapeshifters is a common knowledge in the general population or whether it is only known to select human authorities. That hasn't been made clear. Now, I am an urban fantasy geek so I love vampires, shapeshifters and all manners of paranormal elements. So automatically this book ought to be a good one for me. But despite the paranormal elements in the book, it felt a bit lackluster for me. And then the author showed a lack of understanding about canines. If you are writing about wolves, the least you can do is research wolf behaviour. Their ears flatten with tips pointing back, not straight up, when they growl aggression. This brought the suspension of disbelief considerably down. But like I said, the story telling quality wasn't that bad and the narration was good, so can't give this book a less than three.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3
Character development = 3
Story itself = 3
Ending = 4
World building = 2
Cover art = 4
Pace = 3
Plot = 2.5
Narration = 4.5
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Phoenix Pack Series: