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Jul282011
GUEST REVIEW: ‘Touch If You Dare’ by Stephanie Rowe
by Carolyn • Posted in 2.5 Star Reviews, Authors Q-T, Book Reviews, Guest Review, Paranormal Romance, Sourcebooks
Title: Touch if You Dare (Soulfire #2)
Author: Stephanie Rowe
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: July 2011
ARC: 383 pages
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Source: Review copy from publisher
Guest Review by Andrea
RATING: 5/10
SUMMARY:
He’s just about the hottest warrior she’s ever seen…
Reina Fleming really appreciates a man who’s on a mission-especially when he’s a badass warrior doing his best to impress her. And Jarvis is charmed by the way Reina’s magic touch can soothe his dark side.
But when Jarvis’s attention puts her job, her home, and her family in danger, Reina has to decide whether love is worth the price…
Enter the nonstop, action-packed world of Stephanie Rowe’s love stories-you’ll never think of the manly arts in the same way again.
REVIEW:
“Touch if You Dare” is the second in Rowe’s ‘Soulfire‘ series. Jarvis is a bad-ass warrior and the guardian of hate. He’s spent over 100 years as a prisoner in the clutches of Death’s evil grandma, and finally he and some of his warrior friends have managed to escape.
But it’s not all hugs and puppies now he’s free. He is the guardian of hate and anyone who touches him starts to feel it. It makes him a lethal warrior, but emotionally stunted. The hate is growing rapidly inside him and it’s only a matter of time before he can’t contain it anymore and it spreads throughout the world. He needs to find his brother, the guardian of love, to help stop it spreading, but the guardian of love is on a suicidal mission and Death is not going to give him up.
Reina works for Death as a reaper, in the hopes of harvesting enough souls to be promoted, thus finding a cure to save her only surviving sister. She’s supposed to kill an immortal assassin, if she wants the promotion. Bring in Jarvis. He needs to speak to death, and she needs to kill an immortal warrior.
I’m really unsure if I actually liked this book or not. The premise is definitely interesting, and reminds me a little of Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld, but with a little more humour. And I think that is where it fails in my opinion.
I love a bit of humour with my bad-ass warrior types, but for me, “Touch if You Dare” took it too far; far enough that it pulled me out of the story and I couldn’t suspend my disbelief any longer.
The opening paragraph is definitely unique and had me grinning and wanting to read more. I knew it wasn’t going to be a serious novel from the opening, and I was looking forward to something a bit lighter.
Sometimes rescuing a bunch of almost-dead warriors form black magicked pit vipers was just the kind of thing a man needed to help him forget the fact that he could not, for the life of him, figure out how to knit.
An awesome opener don’t you think? Warriors who want to show their softer side! Jarvis and his inability to knit sucked me straight in.
I haven’t read the first novel in the series, ‘Kiss at Your Own Risk‘, and felt a little lost in this at first. It wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, and on large I was enjoying this, but humour has a way of dampening my emotions to what is happening to the characters. Something really important can happen but because it’s written in such a humorous way I don’t worry and don’t feel a connection.
I think the first tendrils of doubt started to filter in, when, in passing Jarvis’ torture and rape (though it’s never really stated so blatantly) by Death’s dear grandma was written in a blasé, humorous way. Maybe I’m being too sensitive about this, or not reading it the right way, but the way his torture is made light of had me cringing.
He hadn’t had the upper hand with a female in, oh, about a hundred and fifty years. His quality time with chicks usually ended with him skewered, stuffed, skinned, trying to remember why he bothered to keep reviving each time Death offered him an invite to a happier place.
There is also a passing reference to being trained like Pavlov’s dogs towards women that had me frowning, and maybe I really am taking it too seriously; it’s from Jarvis’ POV after all, and it could be his way with dealing with what happened to him; to pass it off as a joke.
But this wasn’t really the issue I had with this book, I could explain it away by telling myself it was Jarvis’ way of coping with being tortured for 150 years.
The part that had me rolling my eyes, humour now gone overboard, skip 3 paragraphs if you don’t want to be spoiled…
… was the guardian of love trying to slit his throat using the strings on his harp (while they’re still attached) and Death stopping him.
It just went too far me. I like my paranormal romances angst-filled, but with a happy ending, and if it’s a series, then some in jokes and banter.
I just couldn’t take it seriously after this, even with all the action, drama, worry, and love flying around, I couldn’t stop picturing Cupid with a beer belly trying to slit his throat on harp strings. OK, it’s funny, but it just stopped the rest of the story being credible for me. I wanted Cupid to succeed!
I loved the character of Jarvis and the idea of a warrior as the guardian of hate, Reina’s love for her family driving her to do whatever she can to save them is heartfelt, and together they are the perfect match. You can’t help but want them to succeed and get together because each of them seem so starved of affection in their own way. I really had no problem with the overall plot or characters; I think I just didn’t mesh with the style of the writing at the end of the day.
VERDICT:
Maybe it’s just me. I like more angst and less humour, it’s why I’ve never been able to get into Terry Pratchett, but the overload of humour, especially at what I considered inappropriate at times made what was a fantastic basis for a new and fun paranormal romance series into something less enjoyable. I can’t say I didn’t like reading it, I liked the characters, and the idea, I just thought it needed more angst and less of the funny. If you enjoy a lot of laughs in your paranormal romance, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this more than I did!
Books in Series Order:
2. Touch If You Dare
3. Hold Me If You Can
4 Comments
Definitely sounds like it's trying to be too funny for my tastes! (I prefer angst to humor in these types of books – and definitely would not be expecting the opener about knitting!)
Thanks for the review
Reply
It very much sounds like Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld which I really enjoy. Interesting your comments on humour as I enjoy books with humour, but I like my angst too! But I consider them different genres or writing styles, not sure they mix.But I have read another of Stephanie Rowe's series and it did make me chuckle away. Good review
Reply
Thanks for your honest and really useful review
Doesn't sound like it is for me and sometimes it is great to get a "warning" so that you don't get disappointed.
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don't get me wrong, it was ok, and if i'd just read it for the sake of reading and not reviewed it i wouldn't have thought about it quite so deeply. i found the more i thought about it the more things i found that bothered me.
i suppose i've been spoiled with at least 3 previous books i've read that have been brilliant. it had a lot to live up to!
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