Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Harmony's Way, pt. 2


by Lora Leigh
pgs. 200-End

It took me forever to get through the last forty pages of this book, mainly because I needed a break from Harmony and Jonas for a while. Though they are less annoying and more interesting than Megan and Braden in Megan's Mark, Harmony and Jonas also became a little boring towards the end. Harmony was beginning to harp on her confused feelings a little too often and Jonas was beginning to turn into that typical Breed male stereotype. I dislike it when authors repeat themselves, which I understand is fraught with complication since every Breed novel is essentially the same. Have I mentioned that's why I don't read Christine Feehan's Dark series anymore? I'm willing to pay $6.99 for a novel about a tortured Carpathien and his angelic mate but so many times.

Reading should always be a progression and great, even good, writing is never stagnant. Why then do I feel I've read the tortured and confused scene with the heroine sitting around with a frown on her face, wondering how she is ever going to make it through the emotions she's never felt before pulling her apart? In yet another scene of Harmony standing around contemplating her feelings, Leigh writes, "She shook her head unconsciously, frowing as she tried to make sense of herself." Sigh. Again? Earlier, Leigh wrote, "Emotions rose, twisting, churning inside her chest until she wondered at the fact that she could breathe for them." Sigh. Again? Apparently, along with the heightened hearing, strength, and agility of Breed genetics, Harmony also inherited - along with Megan - an exhausting enlarged capacity for emotion. Is there anything more stereotypically female than a woman stading around analyzing her feelings every second? Is there any wonder that I skip these two page passages?

I hate that I get so annoyed with these novels yet I still return for more hoping for an improvement. As I've said before, Harmony and Jonas are an improvement over Megan and Braden but, after having gone back and re-read the other Breed novels published on the Ellora's Cave website, I've realized that that doesn't really say much. Sheera and Kane from Kiss of Heat, Amanda and Kiowa from Soul Deep, Merinus and Callan from Tempting the Beast, and Roni and Taber from The Man Within are all, by far, better characters than Harmony and Jonas could ever hope to be. If Leigh really hopes to gain a new following of readers through her mass market paperbacks, I would suggest printing the early Lion Breed e-books. I'd buy those anyday.