Thursday, September 13, 2012

"Defying Destiny" By: Olivia Downing Review

Defying Destiny
"Defying Destiny"
By: Olivia Downing

Synopsis from Goodreads:

     She is a Huntress, the last of a long line of warriors who protect the human world from man-eating immortal Wolves. 
     He is a Wolf Guardian, the only of his shape-shifting kind who can break the 500-year old curse that drives his brethren mad beneath the full moon. 
     Blinded by duty and vengeance, Maralee chases her destiny determined to rid the world of the monsters that massacred her family and continue to haunt her nightmares. 
     Desperate to end the slaughter, Nash is certain he can prevent Maralee from slaying his people by showing her their humanity. He invites the Huntress into his life and falls for her. He hides his Wolf form from her, knowing he is everything she hates.
My Thoughts:
     It’s no secret that I enjoy a good werewolf romance, being such a huge fan of Kresley Cole. When I saw on Goodreads that Olivia Cunning had an alter ego that wrote paranormal romance, I was there! I had loved her rock stars and even have her upcoming books pre-bought on my nook. I’m sad to say though, “Defying Destiny” simply didn’t work for me.
     Maralee is a “huntress,” a killer of werewolves. She comes from an entire family whose sole job was to kill werewolves, so she’s pretty proficient at it and actually hunts out the elusive beast on the full moon. Who do you think is her hero? Yep, you guessed it, Nash, a full blooded werewolf.
     Nash and Maralee initially meet during a full moon as Maralee is hunting Nash’s family. She unknowingly fatally injures his brother. Days later she meets up with Nash and instead of being furious she had killed his brother (granted the brother was a snarling werewolf), he decides to take her in and care for her. Not counting that she had been caring for herself for years and she can kill freakin’ werewolves. Ugh.
     Of course Nash’s entire family and village are furious that one, he didn’t immediately kill Maralee, and two, he insists on keeping her within his house to “protect” her. Not the most sound reasoning, but hey, its a romance. In the middle of all of this, Nash decides that Maralee is the cure for werewolves and tries to figure out how she can save his family from the curse.
      I’m willing to stretch my mind a bit for believability. Vampires, sure...werewolves, oh yeah. But when the characters motivations don’t make sense, it just drives me crazy. There was almost zero chemistry between the characters and we are supposed to believe that they can’t live without one another within a few short days. Nash never worries for his own life or his family’s, even though he is a werewolf and his new found girlfriend kills wolves.
      I’m still a fan of Olivia Cunning, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy her voice, just not the paranormal world she has created. The characters weren’t believable and just for basic safety, I wanted to smack them in their head. “Defying Destiny” was a DNF for me, sadly.


Book Details
Publisher: Createspace 
Date of Publication: September 28, 2o11 
# of Pages: 392
ISBN: 978-1463764531

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