Prince of Fire

Keelia, Queen of the Anwyn, has been kidnapped. When she finds the kidnapper to be none other than a Caradon, she cannot believe it. Not only is he a Caradon, but a shape-shifting mountain cat that has haunted her dreams in vivid sexual explicitly. He has taken her because he thinks she is the caster of spells on his people, but is she? What does he have planned for her?

PRINCE OF FIRE is by Linda Winstead Jones. This book started out with such promise, the hook in the beginning is one of the best this reviewer has read in a longtime, but it stops there. After reading the Sun Witch, Moon Witch and Star Witch, PRINCE OF FIRE disappointed this reader.

A passive voice and heavy handed use of ‘was’ marred the enjoyment of PRINCE OF FIRE. By the end, this reviewer could have sworn a different author wrote it, the style of writing that different, that unpolished.

Keelia cannot understand why this man, this shifter, thinks she is the cause of his people’s misery. They might be enemies, but she would never inflict that kind of horror on another. Even as she faces her captor, seeing him for the first time, she is stunned how much he looks like the lover from her dreams, yet there is no kindness in the way he treats her in real life.

When she tries to read his thought, it is like reading a blank piece of paper—nothing. Keelia has been told that would happen when she met her mate, but that cannot be, not a Caradon.

Will Keelia be able to convince this coldhearted man she is not the one he is looking for? Is he her mate? Who has been casting spells on his people and why?

With the fierce competition in the paranormal genre, there is no room for anything but the very best and PRINCE OF FIRE just cannot even compare. You might want to pass on this book.

June 2007