I received an ecopy of Dawna Raver‘s novel, Colour Wielders from the Story Cartel.

Description from Goodreads:
Warning: This book is not your mother’s fantasy. It’s a modern story with a sexy alpha male who’s tired of waiting for what he wants. Once he gets her, he’s not afraid to take on the Universe to keep her. Don’t let the cover fool you. This book is hot!

Behind the Faerying Mysts, hidden from Mortal eyes, is a land where gods and creatures of myth and legend dwell. And in the Mortal Realm, their Princess is hidden away.

Quinn Sinclair lives an ordinary life with her less-than-loving mother in Conifer, Colorado, clueless of her true nature. On the night of her birthday, a staggering betrayal sends her life spinning out-of-control. As she struggles to pick up the pieces, a vision of a man with haunting tourmaline-blue eyes begs her for help, and she is transported into a Magykal battle-forever changing her life.

Arik Morgaine-Demigod bad boy and outcast of the Magykal Realm-tried to avoid contact with Princess Quinn for eighteen years, not wanting to make good on an old threat. But the fates have other plans. Arik can no longer deny his growing desire for Quinn, or the need to protect her from those wanting to control her burgeoning powers. Can the two of them come together and save the Magykal Realm from being destroyed by the Darkest of Magyks?

Review:

I have to be honest; I didn’t care for this book. Having finished it, I feel like the whole thing could be condensed into a discourse on who’d had sex with Quinn and who retained the rights to have sex with her in the future. Honestly, who cares? How could it possibly be such a big deal?

Now, maybe I’m just not the right demographic for this book. But I’m not sure who is. Some parts of it felt very YA and then other parts not at all. Quinn was supposed to be 22, but a HUGE deal was made of  losing her virginity (seriously it happened in chapter one and was still being harped on about in the last chapter), she constantly said effin’ instead of the F-word and she just basically she felt like a stroppy teenager (crying, storming around, slamming doors, etc) Many of the other characters however felt much more adult, as did those parts of the book not dedicated to Quinn. The end result is that sometimes I felt like I was reading a Harry Potter wannabe and then language like, “Nothing like a tight fuck. Know what I mean?” would be thrown in. It was really disconcerting. 

None if it was helped by the weird mishmash of modern English slang and mythical words. Not to mention the relentless and largely unnatural pop references—Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Disney, Rambo, The Simpsons, South Park, The Exorcist, Spider Man, and many more.

Those aren’t my main complaints, however. My primary gripe was what a pitiful heroine Quinn made. She was ostensibly the main character, but she didn’t DO anything.  She took no initiative. NONE! She spent most of the book either crying or lying in bed. The very few times she was even active was in reaction to something, not because she engaged her mind, made a decision and chose to do something, but because she was being chased or kidnapped. Other than occasionally reacting in a childish manner and storming out a door, I don’t think she perpetrated a single purposeful action. She was nothing more than the Maypole the men danced around—limp, passive and wimpy. She did less than nothing for me. 

There were some good parts. Like the time Quinn and her brother insisted people stop calling her ‘The Princess,’ because it depersonalised her. It made me want to pump my fist in the air and say, “Thank you, at least someone gets it.” But such moments were buried in the painfully repetitive narrative, too frequent use of names, annoying italicisations and my constant confusion (especially in the beginning). I spent a lot of time being confused by the racing pace of events interspersed with molasses slow sappy scenes.

So, while I know no book can be for everyone, I also know I have no real desire to continue this series. Or more accurately, I wouldn’t mind knowing how the whole thing concludes, but I’m not willing to sit through any more of Quinn’s whiney, limp-wristed, lacklustre reactions to find out. Any character who can be told, ‘Oh, BTW your mom is a Goddess, your dad’s the fairy king and a big bad sorcerer wants to use you to take over the world’ without even an eyebrow twitch, let alone a serious WTF response isn’t enough of a character to interest me.