Melina MorelReseñas

Review Courtesy of AllThingsUrbanFantasy.blogspot.com

Review: *Smolder will be released on January 5, 2010*
I’ll admit that I struggled to get through the first half dozen chapters of Smolder. Things did pick up after that, but not nearly enough. If you read Melina’s earlier Devour and Prey, then you’ve already met some of the many, many characters in Smolder, but its not necessary to have read it, and if its anything like Smolder, I can’t recommend it.

Countess Catherine Marais is part of an elite werewolf hunting society in France known as the Institute (get used to that word, you are going to be reading it a lot if you pick up Smolder). When a wounded werewolf gets away and identifies her to the werewolf community she becomes #1 on their most wanted list. This new threat prompts her 200+ year old vampire lover Ian to start pressuring her to join the ranks of the undead. Meanwhile Catherine’s partner Paul and his now wife Julie want to have a baby, but only if they can be sure it won’t be a werewolf. Throw in an unresolved side plot about cloning, an anxious werewolf leader with a nefarious past and a son with an aversion to joining the pack, and there is more then enough story going on here. The real problem is with the writing.

There is a lot of dialogue in Smolder. Maybe as much as 75/80% dialogue verses 25/30% description. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if the dialogue is good. But I would venture to say that the dialogue is arguable the weakest part of Smolder. I found it unnatural, tedious, and cheesy in many places.

Then there are the characters. I never felt any connection with Catherine partially because the novel is told from shifting 3rd person perspective, but more so because despite copious amounts of dialogue, very little is revealed about her as a character (except that she really likes vampire sex). Some of the secondary characters have depth (Luc for example as the unwilling teenage werewolf), but there are way too many to keep straight especially with so many foreign names.

I did enjoy the Romeo & Juliet-esque subplot featuring Catherine’s human niece Solange and Luc the werewolf son of the Lupas Minor, and even the scenes where Ian verbally attempts to convince Catherine to become a vampire (95% of the time, however, he tries a more carnal persuasion with lots and lots of repetitively described sex). The main plot of the werewolves trying to kill Catherine was significantly less interesting.

Personal Pet Peeve: While the cover art for Smolder (and Melina’s two other paranormal romances) is gorgeous, apart from the wolf, it in no way reflects the actual book. Catherine looks nothing like the model, she favors guns not swords, and she is never described wearing anything close to the leather ensemble featured on the cover.

To be clear, I didn’t hate this book. I didn’t feel strong emotions about it at all. And having taken a few days to consider Smolder before finishing this review, I’m having a hard time remembering anything about the book that impacted me. So in a sense, Smolder does live up to its title if you consider that it is defined as: to burn slowly and without a flame. But that’s the problem: not one page has any fire.*Smolder will be released on January 5, 2010*

Sexual Content:
Lots and lots of fairly graphic sex scenes (nearly every other chapter).½

A follow on from Devour. You would do well to read Devour before starting on Prey, though they both stand alone. Still a great read!½

A plesant read, I had heard a fair few bad reviews for this book, so was impressed when it read well, the plot was good and the finale too. PIck up Prey the second book in the series.½

First things first, the blurb here I think is a little misleading. First of all, the hunter and Catherine at the end are the same person. But although Catherine is a big player in this story, so is Paul, her partner, and Julie, Paul's lover and a direct decendant of the Montfort werewolf. So I really didn't care for this blurb. I think it could have been put differently.

Anyway, the book started off in France, where Julie meets Paul while she is traveling and when she gets back home to NYC, he asks her to be his translater for the book he wrote about the Montfort werewolf. So she accepts and as the story moves on in time, which is supposed to be over a period of two years, their relationship grows and blooms. Now Catherine is with Ian, although she is not supposed to be, but indulges herself with her love for him. All the while refusing to be changed to a vampire.

The killings start happening and Catherine and Paul and the rest of the Institut start monitoring Pierre. The story does have quite a few surprises, but the plot never changes. They are after this wolf and won't stop till he's captured.

Okay, it was kind of slow and at the end, I really think the sexual happenings between Catherine and Ian didn't have to be there (and she even decided to give in to Ian!). Even throughout the whole story, I knew who was sleeping with who without having to read about it. But maybe that's just me. I did enjoy the book, but I thought it was kind of dry. As I was reading, I kind of knew what was going to happen next. I would figure out that Pierre was going to run. And the rest of the characters were pretty much telling us what was going to happen.

It took me a while to get through this book, but I did finish it and I am giving it an honest review. Maybe it just wasn't for me. I like werewolves and all, but this one I just wasn't feeling. But don't take my word for it, I'd suggest reading it for yourselves! :)

Reviewed for queuemyreview.com; book release Sep08

My, my, my. How to describe “Prey” by Melina Morel? It’s NOT a romance, although there certainly is a smidge of animalistic, scratching, biting sex (well, it’s about shapeshifters!) included. It’s NOT just a mystery. It’s not just urban fantasy. It’s NOT horror. It’s a very interesting mix of all the above. But I would have to say is more of an urban fantasy suspense mystery. How’s that for a new category?

She’s the closest thing to royalty in her clan and he’s an immigrant security expert. Their paths were unlikely to cross. Then her Russian antique store is broken into and someone tries to kidnap her…and she has no idea why. From the moment they meet, they’re drawn to each other. But whoever is looking for whatever they think she has may not give them time to find out if they’re what the other is looking for.

I must admit that it was hard for me to follow all the characters for the first few chapters just because there were so many different ones mentioned. And I still had to do a little backtracking every so often to keep the different clans and characters separated in my mind. But once the story picked up speed, I wanted to know who did what and how the bad guys were gonna ‘get it’. It was gritty. It was suspenseful. There were quite a few subplots going on throughout the story which sometimes made it difficult for me to keep up, but I still wanted to keep reading! And although SIGNET is stamping this with a paranormal romance tag, I didn’t get that ‘vibe’ from the book. There was a bit of sex, but nothing I would rate more than PG-13 as most of it was left to the reader’s imagination. And the subplot of forbidden love due to clan differences wasn’t the main thrust of the story. This is more about good versus evil and bad guys versus good guys. Oh, and a missing icon and a dead guy.

I must confess that I didn’t read Ms Morel’s first book “Devour”, but a few characters from that book DO show up in “Prey”. While I couldn’t find any information about any upcoming releases, she does have a pretty slick website at http://www.melinamorel.com. Very worth a visit as you can ‘tour’ one of the main settings of “Prey” and/or find out more about characters from both her books. Since I’m a fan of urban fantasy, suspense, mystery, and romance, this book was an easy way to feed all those hungers. If you’re a cross-genre reader too, pick up a copy and see what YOU think.½