Melinda's Reviews > Prisoner

** spoiler alert ** Not only is this book absolutely riddled with usage errors and typos ("will you disappointment the ladies?"), but the characters' motivations are muddy, the plot is simply not believable, and the magic systems aren't very well thought through. A good romance would mitigate these failings to some degree, but the two romances in this novel are thoroughly unsatisfying. The rather sweet secondary couple get together after a disappointingly perfunctory courtship. As to the primary couple, the author seems have confused abuse, physical and emotional, for banter. A combative romance, while not necessarily desirable in real life, can be a great way to build sexual and romantic tension in a novel, but in the development of the relationship there must be some indication that there is potential for a relationship--a reluctant glimmer of admiration perhaps, or a quickly suppressed flash of desire. Instead von Adolwulf and Beraht never display, to each other or, more importantly, to the reader, anything other than mutual and contempt and disgust. The sudden reversal of emotion at the end feels rushed and unearned.