Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Dream Chaser by Sherilyn Kenyon

From the Back Cover:
Hades doesn’t often give second chances…Xypher has one month on Earth to redeem himself through one good deed or be condemned to eternal torture in Tarturus. But redemption means little to a demigod who only wants vengeance on the one who caused his downfall.Until one day in a cemetery…Simone Dubois is a medical examiner with a real knack for the job. Those who are wrongfully killed appear to her and help her find the evidence the police need to convict their killers. But when a man appears and tells her that she’s more than just a psychic, she’s convinced he’s insane.Now the fate of the world hangs in her hands…It was bad enough when just the dead relied on her. Now’s there’s the seductive Dream-Hunter Xypher who needs Simone’s help in opening a portal to the Atlantean hell realm to fight insatiable demons. The future of mankind is at stake-and so is her life. The only question now is: Who is the bigger threat: the demons out to kill her, or the man who has left her forever changed?


I can sum my feelings about this book up in one word: Blah. Maybe my view is skewed since I wasn't inducted into the Dream Hunter world at it's inception, and everything since has been done again and again and again. Or maybe it's something specific about Ms. Kenyon's writing. I can't be sure until I read something else from the series. Which, I will. Obviously, she's doing something right. But on this one . . . blah. I didn't hate it. I didn't love it. A year from now I won't remember it.

First off - it was sparse. I read it in two hours. Usually, that means one of two things - it's either very short for a novel (which it was) or I didn't have to think very hard (which I didn't). In fact, I would venture to say that Ms. Kenyon didn't have to think very hard while writing it either. The vocabulary was exceedingly simple, the themes repeated into monotony, and the characters (yes, all the characters) felt like stock to me. The plot and all the mechanisms used were entirely predictable.

I'll give this series another shot, but with reservations already firmly planted. If you have a recommendation for which book might change my mind, please let me know. 1 Bleeding Heart, because I did finish it.

6 comments:

SciFiGuy said...

I have read Dark Side of the Moon and Dream Hunter in her Dark Hunters series and Knight of Darkness in her Lords of Avalon series writing as Kinley MacGregor. The first two I found at best passable and was unable to finish the MacGregor title.

Unfortunately I think she is the example that breaks the rule, given her popularity, that indeed you can fool some of the people all of the time . I find her writing to be superficial and in fact hack. She would have fit in well with the penny dreadful pulp writers of the 30’s and 40’s. I have given her 3 chances and as they say – three strikes and you’re out.

She does however have fabulous marketing as this factoid from her website suggests – “The Dark-Hunter series was one of the most eagerly awaited series in publishing history. Thousands of fans from more then 28 countries were desperate to lay hands on the books a year before any of them were published (the anticipation was so great that Sherrilyn was mentioned in the Idiot's Guide to Vampires before ANY of the books had been published). DH fans threatened to storm the Flat Iron building in NY in order to gain the first glimpse of it.”

Anonymous said...

I agree she is (or pays) an amazing marketing mind. I really do not understand all the hype. As a newbie to the genre, perhaps I'm just more choosy than all the loyal readers who have loved her from the early days when paranormal romances were harder to come by.

Consequently, since I wrote this I have also read Dream Hunter and I thought I was reading the same book. Again. (I skimmed the first half and then cast it aside, so I will not be reviewing it.) All the way down to the hero and heroine being magically handcuffed together.

I don't think I'll give her a third strike. *sigh*

Eaton Bennett aka Berenice Albrecht said...

A couple of her books I enjoyed, but on the whole I found it difficult to get into her books. If an author can't grab me in the first chapter, then it's goodnight!

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed your review! More than I'd enjoy the book, I have no doubt.

Anonymous said...

I fall on the Kenyon fangirl side of the line, but all of the Dream Hunter books have fallen flat for me, and I about blew a gasket over Upon the Midnight Clear---$7, less than 250 pages of the actual story, and those were practically double spaced. Definitely NOT the one to choose if you did decide to try a third.

Now that she's dealt with Acheron, she's starting a different arc. She's an autobuy for me (in paperback, anyway), so I reckon I'll see how that goes...

Jean said...

How disappointing! I actually have 3 or 4 books from the Dark-Hunter series that I purchased and just haven't read yet, and now I'm totally not looking forward to it. Bummer.