Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
In the world of the future, humans uneasily walk side by side with "Kin" ~ humanoids with animal mutations. TASK was formed to help ease the way for human and Kin to exist together. The program also deals with the problems those differences cause.

Leander Kale and his partner, Epsilon Maddox, are one of TASK's top teams with a special bond all their own. Praised for their abilities and cursed for their existence, Leander and Epsilon struggle to do what they do best: hunt the Hunters, a breed of Kin that lives only to infect others and kill. But now there's a leak inside TASK, an informant telling the Hunters when a team is closing in, giving them a critical advantage and a chance to escape.

That leaves Leander, Epsilon, and the other TASK members fighting blind ~ fighting for their lives and the lives of all of humanity. All they need is one lead, one clue to help them find the traitor, and they have to find it before the Hunters invade TASK itself and destroy them all.

BOOK REVIEW:
I must first comment on the absolutely stunning cover art. Artist Anne Cain has created a lovely and beautiful cover that will undoubtedly attract fans. Unfortunately the content of the book doesn’t live up to the gorgeous cover art. For a book that is about 300 pages long, the author tries to cram in enough action, characters, plot twists, evil doing, and world building that would otherwise fill out an entire series. Unfortunately due to the fact that this story is told in a manner that is very disjointed, confusing, and hops around more than a rabbit on crack will cause a lot of confusion and dissatisfaction for readers. The prose is tight and clean although there is a lack of creativity to the world and the point of view and scene changes are blurring with their incredible speed. This is an action story with gay characters and very little romance. Due to the complete lack of cohesive story, I wouldn’t recommend this as it’s written.

If the author had spread out the various storylines into a series it might have read easier and been more streamlined. As it is the plot revolves around a secret government agency called TASK, no reason for the acronym, an organization that deals with supernatural/paranormal beings. The organization was formed when paranormal beings became widely known. Supposedly this happened a decade ago when a child was born with the ears and tail of a cat and was sent to a lab for study rather than being killed. This detail in the beginning threw the book off considering these deformities are actually seen in present day and the children are not killed or sent to labs to be studied. So the fact that the alternate world is based on that outrageous detail lends an unfortunate start which isn’t helped by the further world building of kits, bearrs, wylfs, and equess. This lack of originality hurts the unique futuristic setting the author is attempting to create.

The plot continues with a loose thread that deals with Hunters chasing various paranormal beings and an unknown source leaking information from TASK to these Hunters. Thus dealing with the Hunters and discovering the mole within TASK leads to numerous action scenes that take up the majority of the book but are awkward and disjointed. The prose is basic, reading like an instruction manual and gives no energy or vitality to the supposedly adrenaline filled fight scenes. For example:

"He stopped, whirled, went for the throat again, scrambled against coarse fur for purchase, dodged the animal’s huge paws. Fell off, got smacked, screamed, came up fighting. Grabbed an ear, cried out as his own was torn near to halfway off. Blood ran down his face, into his eyes. Coughed, took another blow. Sank tiny teeth into a massive paw. Got shaken off and throw halfway across the sidewalk. Came back, less steady, teeth into the Bearr’s muzzle."

This is typical of the many, many fight and actions scenes included in the book which run together after a while and only change the names of the participants. The characters would also mentally wander off during these scenes to provide more information about the various world-building facts and the characters themselves in unmitigated information dumps.

Although there were many characters, none seemed to be the focus except perhaps Leander and Epsilon, but even then there were too many scenes revolving around every other character to strongly say any particular couple was the focus. Leander and Epsilon are partners who supposedly have an intense and strong bond. This bond is not exactly sexual as nothing romantic ever occurs between the two men and both men try to deny the bond even while acknowledging its strength. For example as Leander lay dying Epsilon is off trying to kill the Hunter since that is the priority over his partner writhing in painful agony dying by the second. But after a prolonged series of details about Leander’s agony, the scenes abruptly jump forward weeks later when everyone is healed and fine again.

This is a classic example of the details left out or not addressed which combine to make this an awkward and disconnected telling, such as the fact that anytime a person shifts from their animal form back to human, they are completely clothed down to weapons, cell phones, and house keys. Additionally conversations have a lot of non-sequiturs as well as the author summarizing the point of the conversation in later commentary. Numerous clues and bits of important information are dropped and offered within the story yet none of the characters ever pick up on those clues nor even address them.

Due to the many problems with the plot and writing, the characters have almost no chance to actually develop. There are hints of personality to all characters but the non-stop action, growling, yelling, arguing, disagreements, stupid actions, repercussions and so on prevent any real in depth examination. Any information about the characters is stated by one of them rather than allowing the writing to show their personality and complexity. Mercedes and Wolf have an on-again, off-again relationship with most happening off page yet are given the most progression as they have a happy ending while Alex and Madison (two women) apparently are developing a relationship. Additional characters such as Liaison and Montgomery are important to the plot but easily forgettable within the similar names and jumping scenes until the end when Liaison becomes rather unbelievable as a character.

There is a hint at the ending for additional books which there is clearly enough information and ideas to continue with the world, however confusing and ill-crafted it is. The author has hints of interest with the yaoi sensibilities to the characters and most readers will be surprised that Epsilon and Leander never are romantically involved, yet perhaps the author will address those and so many more concerns in a sequel. However to get to that sequel this particular offering was not enjoyable to read with the sheer amount of random and disordered scenes the author threw in with no end in sight. Even the ending could have stopped eighty pages before it did. While I can’t recommend this book at all, hopefully the author will offer something more polished and streamlined in the future as I did like the characters.

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