Lynne Connolly’s review of Touch of Surrender (Primal Instinct Series, Book 5) by Rhyannon Byrd
Paranormal Romance published by HQN Books 27 Apr 10

I’ve read Rhyannon Byrd’s books before and enjoyed them very much, but they were the books she wrote for Ellora’s Cave, and so I couldn’t review them, because they constituted a conflict of interest (I write for Ellora’s Cave). So when she went mainstream, I picked up a book, looking forward to it. I got this book in galley format to review, so I feel obliged to say something about it. Otherwise I’d have been tempted to bury this one and tried another one.

Touch of Surrender is the second book in a series, and the fifth in the Primal universe, but I’ve never been big on reading every book in a series in order, unless the books simply have to be read that way. Sometimes I find it’s a good test. If you haven’t read any others in the series, you can spot the sequel-bait and the recurrence of characters from previous books and see if they work for you as stand-alones. I don’t really mind the spoiler of seeing the couple from a previous book, as if it’s a romance, it’s pretty obvious who is going to end up with whom. And I have to confess that I’m an end-reader. Years of reading the classics for my first degree gave me enough unhappy endings to last me a lifetime.

I looked forward to getting into a great erotic romance, set in a paranormal universe, but if you’ve seen the grade, you’ll know I didn’t get it with this book.

The blurb sounded great. A bit of adventure, a lot of romance…I would have liked a touch of the erotic, but the book didn’t promise that, although, knowing Rhyannon’s way with a sex scene, I looked forward to some hot sex, too.

I didn’t last long enough for that, although I did skim forward a bit, to see if it improved later. At least some of my concerns stopped, but others popped up and I knew this book wasn’t working.

So what went wrong for me?

I found the first three chapters incredibly frustrating. The story starts when Morgan confronts Keirland in a nightclub. She’s come to fetch him because of a problem with the Watchmen, the organization they both belong to. Images of the other Watchmen intruded in my mind. For me, Watchmen meant Allan Moore’s seminal comic books of the 1980’s and images that didn’t belong to this book kept blocking my read. I’m not saying that authors shouldn’t use a term they enjoy, just that in my case, I had to fight through that to get to Rhyannon’s characters.

The hero had his arms around two swan shifters. While the idea of swan shifters intrigued me, they turned out to be cardboard bitches, just devices to create a bit more tension between Morgan and Keirland. Because of course, they’ve wanted each other for years, but something has kept them apart. Not a device I particularly enjoy, but okay, I kept reading. Only to hit a brick wall of several pages of backstory. I tried to concentrate, but at this point in the story I didn’t care enough about the characters to concern myself with the intricacies of their world.

They get into a fight. Then they get into another fight. And the fights are interspersed with yet more backstory and world-building. And a bit of standard yearning, to indicate that the two main characters still want each other.

Morgan isn’t the kind of heroine who particularly interests me because I have absolutely nothing in common with her. She’s a shape-shifter and has fought through the fact that she’s a “mongrel” and doesn’t have a specific form to become a seasoned warrior. But she’s a “generic” warrior. She fights and kicks and scratches and gets in close physical contact with the big, bad hero and–well, I didn’t care.

At first, it was the screeds of backstory and world-building that kept me from immersing myself in the book. The world wasn’t introduced in the action scenes. Instead, the action stops while the world is explained. So I started skipping. Not a good sign, to start skipping that early in the story. I’m a big believer in explaining things only when they need to be explained, and while in a paranormal romance there are a lot of things to acquaint the reader with, it’s so much better done in the course of the story. Write scenes that explain the world, rather than explain it separately. To explain a world, a writer tends to go into the omniscient viewpoint, and that is one reason why it distances the reader. After all, if both characters are heavily involved in the world, who are they explaining things to? Some of it is unavoidable, but please, not this much.

The first scene is set in Prague, but I didn’t get any feel for that gorgeous place. It could have been any city, anywhere. And the book starts with “The club reeked of sex, drugs and rock and roll,” so I have to thank Rhyannon for sending me back to my Ian Drury collection. I am now revelling in “New Boots and Panties.” Elvis Costello next. Anyway, I digress. I give Rhyannon credit for knowing that a club in Prague will play Europop or, more likely, pure electronic dance music, but it’s a shame Morgan didn’t like it, or recognise it, as I’d have liked to have known if it was an Orbital kind of gig or a Basement Jaxx one. What I guess I’m saying is that I’d have liked less of the generic and more particular details, the stately beauty of Prague, the kind of nightclub this one was. Details can bring a scene alive, just as much as a man in worn jeans and a shirt can.

Take this sentence; “Filled with every kind of depraved vice imaginable, the dark, trendy establishment was the last place on earth she ever would have expected to find fellow Watchman Kierland Scott.”

What kind of depraved vice? Drugs, drink, sex? I can imagine a lot–the trouble is, I can imagine too much. Regency gentlemen getting their jollies from chloroform included, but I doubt there were any of them in that club. Cut the backstory, and give me detail instead. Colour the scenes to show me what kind of paranormal world this is, and why Keirland isn’t usually found there.

And the characters. Kick-ass heroine who every other woman is a bitch to. It’s a variation on the Cinderella heroine, but with martial arts thrown in. I am so over the kick-ass warrior heroine, but here’s where your mileage may differ enormously, because I know that kind of heroine sells by the bucketload. If you like that kind of heroine, you’ll like Morgan, because she has all the ingredients. I just can’t identify with her, and so it takes a very special kick-ass heroine to get me going.

Keirland I never got a feel for. He was your standard alpha male werewolf. He could melt your heart, but I didn’t notice any vulnerabilities, except a penchant for cheap liquor and hot sex.

What I wanted was one of Rhyannon’s deeply involved stories about a couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other, bound in with a little danger and a lot of spice. What I got, as far as I read, which wasn’t even a third through, was a generic story about standard characters kept apart by a conflict they could have talked through. And a dangerous situation that didn’t make any sense. And buckets of backstory.

And Rhyannon – No buy links on your book pages on your website, and no indication of the order of the series, for people who like to read them in order.

It won’t put me off looking for her books, but I won’t be reading any more of the Primal Instinct series.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

Their Love is their Destiny. . .

With his auburn hair and lean build, Kierland Scott looks more man than Lycan. But his wolf instincts are aroused by the gray-eyed Morgan Cantrell. Not because of  her beauty, but because of her long-ago betrayal, a fateful choice that made their love impossible.
Now, however, the two Watchmen must team up, leaving the placid Lake Country for the forests of Scandinavia. To rescue Kierland’s brother, they must track a vampire—and use their combined shape-shifting sensitivities in a battle that will take them beyond death. As the two learn to seek together, they begin to understand the history that has driven them apart. But they will have to overcome death itself, if their shared passion is to have a chance.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series: