Book Review - Once Burned

Once Burned by Jeaniene Frost
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the Night Huntress series, despite some choppy writing, mixed verb tenses and other minor editing issues. The characters were well-conceived and the plot worked. I cannot say the same for the first of Vlad's books, however, and I feel like I need to avenge the poor guy.
Here we have such an opportunity to really have fun with the infamous Dracula, and the book falls flat. Leila's character is one-dimensional and at best, annoying. At worst, she's barely thought out, flip-flops at the drop of a hat, and thinks WAY too much, making no effort to shield her thoughts from her lover.
The narrative is boring, wordy and awkward, and I constantly felt like the events were being reported to me. Never did I feel pulled into the book or its action. Even when Leila goes to a club, which is attacked by bad guys, the place set on fire and her legs are BROKEN do I feel even an ounce of fear, adrenaline or pain for her. To me, that's just poor writing. The sex scenes are truly laughable, and the vocabulary was overused. Too many times I read about the color of Vlad's eyes. Words like loins were overused, as were ridiculous descriptions throughout. And "blade of flesh" - seriously?
This book featured a whole lot of awkward sentence structure, peppered with strangely large words that seemed out of place in contrast to Leila's rather simple mind. It made me wonder if it had been edited at all. There were also many instances of information being relayed almost as an afterthought - like the revelation that Leila blamed herself for her mother's death. Up to this point, we know very little of her, so for the characters to have this information feels like it was concealed from the reader. It was for this and the reasons above that I stopped reading this at chapter 27.

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