10.05.2012

Review: Voodoo Kiss by Jayde Scott (Ancient Legends #3)

Title: Voodoo Kiss (Ancient Legend #3)
Author: Jayde Scott
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Mystery, Fantasy
Publisher: Scotland (self-published)
Synopsis/Summary:Aspiring rock star, Sofia, had her whole future figured out. Or so she thought until her sister's sacrificed in a horrific ritual. Now Sofia's haunted by dreadful nightmares and terrifying visions from a past she never knew existed. Until this year.
On a trip to Brazil, something awakens inside Sofia -- her legacy, a blessing and a curse, drawing to her every paranormal creature out there: vampires, demons and reapers, ghosts and Shadows, and something much darker that's been twisting its way into her heart and soul. With the help of Thrain, a striking demon of the highest order, she sets out to uncover the truth about herself and the ones she loves.
In a world of love and betrayal, of reincarnation and ancient bonds, to solve the mystery of her sister's murder, Sofia must embrace her own century-old legacy. But do do so, she must also let evil into her soul.
Find the book on: Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

      Voodoo Kiss is another wonderful installment to the Ancient Legends series. The book is very fast-paced, a lot seemed to happen in one chapter. While I do like to have a more complex story, sometimes I tend to forget details from previous chapters when I put down the book and picked it up later. Luckily, I wasn't exactly lost, I could pick things up again after a few paragraphs, when the memories come back.

     The story this time is more mystery-like. We had a lot of questions about Sophia and we got to discover the answers with her. The previous book, Doomed, is a little more like a rom-com, so I think this book is a nice change. I do have a little complaint though, there was a sub-plot in the first half of the book that was forgotten to make way for the main plot and another sub-plot, we got to see it got resolved in the end, but I felt like the lack of mention of this sub-plot made it seem like Jayde Scott was just remembering it after she ended the main plot, so she just added another chunk of the story to resolve it. I think there needs to be a balance on how several plots develop, not just introduce several plots at the start, and then develop one plot and resolve it and move on to the next one. I want the plots to go more simultaneously.

    I wanted to note that I like how the series progresses. It move onto another character every book in the series, while continuing the story from the previous book. It was refreshing since I've never seen another series like that before. Also I love that we get to know the characters as we go through the story in their POV. I do hope that there will be stories with Kieran and Clare as the main protagonist though, I heard the 4th book is going to go back to Amber, but I really liked the idea to change the main protagonist every time...

    I had a hard time getting into the book. Other than the plot amnesia I mentioned, I also found that there were a lot of editing mistakes from start to about 60% into the book. There were repeated passages and misspellings, and I was annoyed by it. Especially the repeated passage problem, it was a little confusing to me when reading. The first 2 books didn't have much editing problem, and since this time the book is 4.99 instead of 2.99, I expected higher quality, meaning a more thorough edit, hope it's just a one time thing. The editing problem lessened as we near the climax of the book, and I was able to really enjoy the story during the climax.

    The climax, like former Jayde Scott books, were full of twists and I thoroughly enjoyed everything, and was really surprised at how things worked out (not really the knock-your-socks-off kind though).


    The story this time involved Voodoo magic, instead of just paranormal creatures, and I loved it. I got a little bored just watching paranormals, and adding magick to the mix is good. There wasn't really a lot Voodoo in this book, but there was a ritual, and I can see Jayde Scoot had done her research.


    I liked every character in this book, including Gael.

    Sophia is a very likable character, she is a typical strong female heroine, wouldn't back down from anything but what really made me like her was how much she was similar to me. At the start of the book, she was one of those person who couldn't say no to anything, because she felt guilty for turning people away and I could really connect to her feeling. I feel bad when I turned people down, not exactly guilt, but close enough that I could relate to Spoh. And as the story progressed, I saw her growth. By the end of the book, she was stronger, more sure of herself, and much more happy then she was in the start of the book, and I was really glad for her. However, I did have a small complaint, Soph was really humorless. Sure, she'd giggle at jokes, but she wasn't really the joking type herself. While I do like a protagonist that would treat things seriously, it made the book less funny than the previous installments, since there was no snarky character in this story.

    Thrain was one character I didn't really care about. Sure, he was the male protagonist but really, I would rather see a story of Kieran instead of his. He was sweet, there was no mistake about that, but I couldn't really connect with him. So I don't exactly like him, but I don't hate him either. I usually felt a lot like that towards male characters, Aidan was another example (although now he has grown on me), the only male character that I really loved is Kieran (yes, I kept saying that).

    Jayde Scott actually developed her characters really well, even the secondary characters. Gael didn't have a large part in the story, but I could really understand his person and his feelings, though I am not connected to him, I understood him, and that was no easy feat because Gael almost only appeared at the start and near the end of the book. Also, I really liked Clare. She wasn't really an important character in any of the books so far, but this time, Scott kept mentioning that Clare had a dark past, and I hope that's a hint that there will be a story featuring Clare.  (That would me awesome.)

    The romance between Sophia and Thrain were the same as the last two books, insta-love. I know a lot of people hate insta-love, but there's the bond so the insta-love was kind of justified.

Conclusion: 

    This book is another suspenseful installment for the Ancient Legends series with likable yet mysterious characters. I really enjoyed this book, especially towards the end with the climax scene and no more editing mistakes. I would give this book 4 stars because I think the ending is wrapped a little too nicely and the editing mistakes really took the joy out of most of the book. The sub-plots were a little messy, being forgotten then suddenly the plot continued without any foreshadowing. However, I do enjoyed the plot and loved how the mysteries in this book were resolved. I would recommend this book to YA paranormal romance fans, be sure to check out the series ;)

Rating: 4 stars!


 Do you like a more mysterious story, or a more romantic one? What do you think of insta-love? How do you like Voodoo Kiss by Jayde Scott? I would love to see what you think of the book in the comments below ;)

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