Emy's Book Blog

Helios has his kingdom back, but his people are struggling to survive. In order to give them any chance to prosper, they must join forces with other peoples. But in doing so, they must come once again face to face with the people who destroyed them.

When I Fall was not as good as An Uncommon Whore for a number of reasons. For starters, the first person narrative I enjoyed so much in the first book was not great here. The point of view character has switched from Helios to Griffin, and I just could not connect with his voice like I did with Helios's. I didn't feel anything. It was worst during the sex scenes, I found, as half the time I just wanted to skip them and get on with the story. Not a great trait for an erotic novel to have, really. Don't get me wrong. There were a couple of great sex scenes. The rest were just kind of mediocre.

Another problem I found was that a lot of the information was repeated from the first book, and this annoyed me. It might not have been a problem if I had read them further apart, but having read them so close together, it was very irritating.

Much more irritating were the inconsistencies between the two books. For example, Griffin's daughters swapped names with each other between the two, and ID space has suddenly become AD space. Little things, but things you expect an author to keep track of.

The other major problem came at the end of the book. There was a lot of secrecy surrounding the character of Caius. Griffin works out who he is at the end of the book, but does not tell the reader, and does not describe what we all want to know. This is a very irritating thing to do with a first person narrative. It is frustrating and unsatisfying. Do not keep secrets from the reader, authors!! On a similar note, the character of Raven was sprung very suddenly on me and I didn't like that. He should have been at least mentioned before he appeared. Gah.

The plot itself was great. I really enjoyed it, especially towards the end. The only problem was that it took quite a long time to get going, which is quite strange considering how short the book is.

I also really loved the description of the battle at the end. This was something Belinda McBride did particularly well. It was chaotic without being confusing. I especially loved the bit with the Somian twins. If you read the book, you'll see what I mean. :)

Finally, I really loved the new alien cultures. If there's one thing Belinda McBride is good at, it's characters. I particularly loved the shifter culture, but the Somian and Vash cultures were brilliant as well. I really hope to see more of them in other books. :)

I really hope there is another book about what happened to Markus, and to tie off that plot thread. Where it's left hanging is really awful. You can't do this to me, Belinda!!

All in all, an all right sequel to the first book. Worth a read if you enjoyed An Uncommon Whore. :)