Destined (Forever Book 3)

I fell in love with Alpha, the first book in this series, and now having read the third book, I’m having mixed feelings about the series and author. I feel like it sort of is ups and downs reading her books. It started with loving her first book in the series and excited to read the next, then disappointment reading the second book. And now I don’t really know what to think of this one I’ve just read. It’s better than Fated but not nearly as good as it could have been compared to Alpha.

The one thing that I really liked about the second book was the cliffhanger leading to Destined. The love interest fleeing and Kyle finding out she is his mate. The mystery as to why she was running from him made me really excited to read Destined. However, I don’t really feel like it lived up to my expectations. First of, the first half of the story was, I wouldn’t say slow paced exactly, but it took half of the book until Kyle finally found and confronted Crystal. I don’t know why some authors thinks it’s a good idea writing books that way, where the love interests is apart or does not meet or interact in at least half of the story, but I’m not a fan of that style. I read the story for the romance and in a romance book I don’t expect and I don’t like it when the author minimize the room for the relationship development. I don’t get the idea behind it either. It’s clear that Destined, and the whole series in general, sole purpose is for the character to find his or her’s true love. The main genre is romance even. Why take some of that away then? You will only disappoint and annoy the reader doing that, I think.

The other thing that was kind of a disappointment was the relationship. It fell flat. I was finally excited again when Kyle finally found Crystal. Sadly, that excitement did not last long. The confrontation the story was building up to was barley a confrontation. It was Kyle asking why she ran and Crystal telling him why and then it was suddenly all good between them. Years of keeping a secret to protect her mate and running to make sure he’d be safe suddenly did not matter, which I found very strange. She put so much effort into making sure Kyle never found out and keeping him safe, but just with a few words from him it was suddenly okay for her to spill her guts and fight to stay with him? I had expected more, a bigger confrontation. Some sort of battle of wills and an argument at least. But no. Years of being on the run alone and pushing people away to keep a dangerous secret from coming out was suddenly irrelevant when Kyle found her. It was just very unrealistic and felt rushed just to get to the point where Kyle and Crystal mated with each other.

I found the dialogues between the lovers rather strange as well. Pretty much everything they said to each other sounded like it came directly from a sappy romance movie. It was always compliments or declarations of how much they loved each other. It all was kind of cheesy. Since it is romance I’m okay with some of those cheesy lines in the big moments, but in this book the author overused it. It became to much to me. It actually kind felt like she used it so much just to convince the reader that they loved each other or to show how strong their love was. That is unnecessary. As a reader we’re supposed to see that on our own reading the story by the personalities, story- and relationship development and dialogues without the author making it obvious. If the reader can see it reading between the lines it makes it a much better romance and stronger case than the author having to literary tell us they’re in love.

The story weren’t all bad of course. The authors writing, even though it’s slightly awkward and stilted, is not bad. She knows how to catch the readers interest and emotion. She knows how to develop a story and making the reader want more so there is talent if you look between the lines. After all, after three books in this series I will still keep reading whatever comes out next. That counts for something.