LynneC’s review of Dark Future by KC Klein
Paranormal Romance published by Avon Impulse 8 Nov 11
There isn’t usually one reason to DNF a book, but more often than not it’s because the book doesn’t grab me. If I persevere and get to a third or more, then I could do a full DNF review, if I have something to say about it. Sometimes it’s just not there, but it might be for you. A DNF isn’t always because it’s a terrible book. This book didn’t do it for me, but it might well do it for you. There’s no deep flaws, and the plot is interesting, but the authorial voice or the premise just didn’t take me away. So I’d say try it, get a sample and see if you like it. I got both these books from NetGalley, and it occurred to me that if I could sample the books, that might be a useful thing. The first chapter would have been enough, but I actually persevered a little more to see if I could settle into the read. Sadly, I couldn’t.
This book is written in the first person, which can be a problematic way to write a book. It takes a particular skill to write a book solely from the viewpoint of one person, and it’s far more difficult than most beginning writers suppose. The narrator has to be good at describing things and be believable, too, so that a character like Paddy Clarke sees things in his own idiosyncratic way. Not in the way that the writer would. Which leads me to another problem. The Mary Sue quotient can be high. Or the reader can just take a dislike to the narrator, and since there’s no respite, that’s that.
It’s the last one that is my main problem with Dark Future. The book starts promisingly with the heroine waking up to the awareness that someone is in her house. But even on the first page, the quips that sound more like authorial inserts than a true voice started to irritate me. One minute she is thinking rationally about what she should do, the next she’s making a quip that doesn’t quite come off. There are quips scattered throughout the book and to me they read as if the author was inserting them, rather than the heroine thinking them up naturally. As if there are two voices in there fighting for control. And I want the quipping one to go away.
Her intruder turns out to be a future version of herself. A ripped, tough version. Shades of Sarah Connor without the effort in between to learn combat and get ripped. She’s transported to the future.
So far no romance or any hint of one, and I am emphatically a romance reader. I skimmed until the hero appeared, but he seems to be an adjunct to the story, not an integral part of it. The heroine could have done what she did without him (he pops up in chapter four). So I gave up. A woman’s story with a bit of hot sex doesn’t really appeal to me. It might to you.
Grade: DNF
Summary:
Awakened in the middle of the night by a future version of herself, Kris Davenport is given a mission: go forward in time to save the world—and His life. Of course, her future self doesn’t tell her who he is, just sends her into the abyss and straight into an alien invasion.
He turns out to be ConRad Smith, the callous, untrusting commander of Earth’s army and the world’s last defense. There’s only one way for Smith to know for sure if this strange woman is an alien spy—slice her throat. Except, he didn’t anticipate the desire he would feel as he interrogates the hot-tempered, warm-blooded woman. For a man whose sole focus has been survival, she’s more temptation than he can handle. But a world on the brink of destruction leaves no room for love . . . and time is running out.
No excerpt available.
