jordan's prydeRating: DNF
Buy Link:
Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book, and I’ll explain why. Here’s the blurb for the book:

All he did was apply for a job and then his world was turned upside down.

Thrust into the world he had no idea about, Jordan Sutton’s only goal was to get a job working for Duncan Pryde of Pryde Industries. He thought werewolves, vampires, and Fey’s belonged in fairy tales, not in the real world. What will he do when he finds out that there’s more than meets the eye to his boss and his family?

Duncan Pryde had too much going on in his life. He became the sole guardian of his twin niece and nephew along with the addition of his pack and company. He had no time to think about a mate when trouble comes to his front door. What happens when the man he hired for one job turns out to be his destined mate? Does he deny what he feels or embrace it?

The premise had me intrigued from the start and I was really looking forward to reading the book. But I only made it to 50% before I just had to put the book down, and it was a tedious struggle just to get that far. I tried to keep going, as this is a review book, but in the end, I had to put it aside and make the decision not to finish it. So what follows are my impressions of the book based only on the first half, which is all I read.

My biggest problem with this book was the writing. There were problems from page one. Basic grammar and sentence structure seems lost on this author. While the book started out okay in this regard, I quickly noticed incorrect words/phrasing that had me rereading sentences just to try to understand what the author was saying. There were missing words. Typos. A lack of commas where they should be, and overuse where they shouldn’t. Run on sentences. As the story went on, these things seemed to get worse. All this combined had me mentally correcting each incorrect sentence, and I couldn’t get into the story at all. I’m by no means an expert in this area, but I couldn’t help myself trying to make sense of the words on the page. Here are just a few examples:

Jordan knew that his friends had things to do owning a club and other business adventures. But to put things aside for a few hours and just be kids again helped Jordan get rid of any nervousness he had starting a new job.

Duncan mentally remarked how Jordan’s eyes sparked with mischief.

“Okay, calm down, dammit, Duncan, I’m just shocked, that’s all,” Ryland defended.

Adding to his worries was Jordan, his mate. Knowing that he would not be able to stay away from Jordan, he’d heard when Jordan returned home hours before and was waiting for the right time to talk to him.

On top of this, there were very long passages of exposition, just dumped on the page, still with grammar and sentence issues. Not to mention, the prose was overly purple at times, making it even harder to wade through.

The next issue was the world building. At first glance, it seemed creative, but then it got muddied and overly convoluted. It seemed as though the author was throwing in every trope she could think of, without explaining anything clearly. This is one of my sticking points, I’ll admit. In a paranormal especially, I need clear and concise world building in order to understand what is going on. But though there were a lot of paranormal creatures, half weren’t explained at all, and the other half had shifting rules that seemed to change to fit the story. So this didn’t work at all for me.

And then there were the characters. One dimensional, very stereotypical MCs. Look, I’d never expect paranormal characters to act wholly like real life, but both MCs seemed overly simplified tropes. Duncan is an alpha, he’s in charge, he’s a manly man. Jordan is soft and feminine, and he takes care of the kids and the house. Neither one of those things is bad on its own, but combined, it read like the author had a checklist of traits, and just used that to tell how the characters would act in any given situation. There was no depth, no layers, and I couldn’t engage with either one of them. And that left me completely apathetic to their relationship and to what would happen to them.

Not to mention, a completely ridiculous “gay for you” plot line in which Jordan is, in all seriousness, upset that he “turned” Duncan gay that left me uncomfortable.

“I can’t stay here,” Jordan said, walking over to his bed, stuffing more things inside. “Not after what I’ve done to you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I turned you gay!” Jordan yelled.

All in all, even though I only got through the first half of the story, I just couldn’t continue. This book had too much wrong going on with it, and based on the first 50%, I didn’t want to stay and read the rest.

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