Review: Gideon (Nightwalkers #2) by Jacquelyn Frank

[megwrites]

Title: Gideon (Nightwalkers #2)
Author: Jacquelyn Frank (jacquelynfrank.com*)
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Page Count: 337
Publisher: Zebra Paranormal Romance

*Reviewers Note: WARNING for the author's site because it loads with a very loud, surprise thunder/lightning noise and the SOUND OFF button is at the BOTTOM of the page and is small and might be hard to find if you've just been nearly given a PANIC ATTACK by a sudden clap of thunder while you have your headphones on listening to quiet music (this happened to me). Very annoying and the thunder is on every single page. And not all pages have a SOUND OFF link. And even if you push SOUND OFF on the front page, it re-loads on subsequent pages. Accessibility and design fail.





Basic Plotline: Gideon and Magdalegna have had a long standing dislike of each other, but when they realize they are Imprinted, there's no getting away from each other. But a conspiracy at the highest levels of demon society and a plot to Summon demons threatens not just their friends, but Gideon and Magdalegna themselves.

The Positives: I'm afraid the positives for this book will be few and far between. It was a fairly easy read and I supposed it was paced competently enough, and you don't really need to read the preceding books, so if you just want to pick this one up, you can. Other than that I can't really say I'd recommend this book to anyone and I find myself glad I got it used instead of new.

The Negatives: The writing in this book was the weakest I've seen in a long while, and given that paranormal romance is decidedly forgiving, even I lifted an eyebrow. The dialogue was stiff, jarringly so, and had me laughing at the characters when I was probably supposed to be sympathizing with them or finding them sexy. While understanding that characters who are supposedly part of a world that's not like contemporary, Western/U.S. places aren't going to speak like us, there's a way to manage different styles of dialogue, ways to get tone and culture across without it sounding like all your characters are extras from a really cheesy Eurofantasy novel.

There was a healthy dose of "as you know, Bob" throughout where characters reminded each other of things that both of them knew and went onto explain events they'd both experienced in great detail for no reason I can think of other than to clue in people who hadn't read the previous books. Which given that I didn't read the first was good, but I can think of a lot better ways to clue in new readers without being so blatant and obvious that the reader feels they have been slammed in the head with a brick.

The book itself starts out with what has to be the most overwrought, melodramatic conversation in the history of paranormal romance. Between Gideon and the vampire he's talking to, it becomes positively campy how dark, dangerous, and immortally old they're trying to come across as. Not to mention that the scene itself which takes up several pages, is kind of irrelevant, and hard to slog through. I nearly put down the book, and found myself at the end wishing that I had.

The romance between Legna and Gideon doesn't really convince me, nor is it all that dynamic or sexy. The only connection between them seems to be that they're Imprinted. Otherwise they don't seem terribly compatible or even interesting as a couple, and the entire trope of "Imprinting" or otherwise being bonded or fated to a certain person by an outside force (fate/magic/etc) has grown tiresome for me and its a trope that I actually liked at one point. It's just that Frank does nothing creative with it, and it works the way I've seen in so many other novels at this point. I'm sort of wondering why I'm supposed to care once Legna and Gideon know they're Imprinted. Okay, they're fated to be together. It would have been more interesting if there'd been more obstacles beside just "my brother won't like it" or "you think I'm just a kid and we have a love/hate going on" - or if there'd been some question as to the Imprinting or if some consequences had been built in so that there was something to do besides read a book where the author sets out a run-of-the-mill paranormal romantic relationship while setting up the stage for the sequels.

That was another slightly annoying thing. I could just see the author reminding us of the previous book while setting up the next one. I get that in a series you have to do a certain amount of that, but reminding me of breakfast while I'm eating lunch and as you tell me what's for dinner is just a bit excessive.

The sex scenes bored me more than anything, though that's par for the paranormal romance course.

Back to this specific book, the plot itself was muddled, and the villains were stunningly one-dimensional (as were the protagonists for the most part), and their motives for Summoning demons and seeking power didn't quite come across as plausible. Again, it may have been addressed in the earlier book, but it basically seemed like the conspiracy of "evil" women who were going to Summon demons and do other evil things were just there to bwahaha and be evil and aside from Ruth and Mary, their motives are rather vague. Okay, so they do this and get power and then what? What do they want to do with this power? And maybe the fact that these demons are actively responsible for the genocide of a human magical race (the Druids) has lead them to believe that demons are a danger to them (gee, why would anyone take a little old genocide the wrong way? Besides, demons aren't really bad, they just didn't know any better before they slaughtered their enemies into extinction! Actually, they're meant to mate with Druids and make half-demon babies!)

The worldbuilding was nothing special and could have been pasted together from any number of other books. Vampires, Lycanthropes, Demons. Yawn. Authors in paranormal romance seem to get the idea that taking the standard party line on supernatural creatures and creating very complex and meandering details amounts to being creative. Nuanced history is quite boring when it doesn't differentiate your vampire clans and lycanthrope packs and demons from everyone else's. There was nothing in this book I hadn't seen done elsewhere, and given that the writing was not so strong, it really could have used a dose of originality.

The characters, aside from Legna and Gideon, were mostly boring. I found myself sympathizing with the wrong people and being more interested in the villains. I wanted to know Ruth and Mary's story. After all, Mary survived the death of her Imprinted mate. How did she deal and cope? What was her life like when the person that fate had apparently decreed she was to be with forever and ever until death kicked it and she was left with "ever after" and no guaranteed happily (with the gleeful "oh, hey, guess what, I'm preggers!" Hallmark card ending to go with it). What do you do when your destiny is thwarted, when your true love is gone. What happens then? What happens when it all goes wrong?

I wanted to know more about Ruth, sitting on a council, fighting these people who actively don't like her and want to shove her out, and who robbed her daughter of so much. I wanted to know more about those who were Summoning demons and how they got together, how they infiltrated these networks, and what their motives were. An organization of powerful women working in secret to upset the system! How fabulous! I wanted to know about this uprising of uppity, bad (and apparently bad-smelling) women. There's a fascinating and sharp story there, but the author chose to tell this tale instead. A perfect shot at upending tropes and upsetting norms and subverting everything in sight to make it surprising and fresh, but nope. We got this book instead.

I just couldn't invest myself in the "good" characters. Bella was somewhat memorable, though I got frustrated when she didn't address her husband bordering on abusive and controlling. When your partner growling at other men who come near you as though neither you nor they can be trusted, that's a problem. That's not healthy.

Storywise, the book lost focus many times. I was confused when a book that was ostensibly about Gideon and Legna's romance so much spent time setting up or revisiting other couples. Gee, I wonder if Siena and Elijah are going to have a thing? Oh, wait, there's the next book. I wasn't sure why the book needed to waste pages on scenes between Jacob and Bella or Kane and Corrine or Siena and Elijah. Especially since they were not terribly interesting or distinct from other characters around them. I didn't see much to differentiate Noah from Elijah from Gideon from Kane from Damien. They all talked alike, acted alike, and the only difference seemed to be cosmetic and having to do with what powers they have and what woman they were paired up with rather than them being distinctly different personalities.



CoC Score: 0/10. I'm not sure there were any CoC's in this book, and I had some issues with the way the author used names from the Old Testament and didn't seem to want to address or deal with the fact that names like Gideon, Noah, Ruth, etc have deep roots in Judaism and that they're not just Biblical (and indeed, assigning the designation "Biblical" could be problematic) - and that having beings calling themselves demons and deriving names from that belief system going on to celebrate holidays that are specifically Irish/Gaelic - like, say, Beltane is also something that bears explaining and thinking through, especially since these names taken from Jewish beliefs and history are not their true names. It's possible that this was addressed in other books, but given that Frank had the characters reminding each other of mutually known facts constantly, it seems unlikely. Also, I really don't like when authors appropriate specific cultural and religious facets without good damn reason, as though these things aren't part and parcel of someone's culture, someone's faith, someone's history. If these demons celebrate Irish holidays, why aren't they taking Irish names for themselves? Just because your creatures aren't real doesn't mean the cultures aren't. Doesn't mean the history isn't. Doesn't mean the people who claim those histories and cultures aren't and don't matter because you decided to slap their history and faiths and sacred celebrations onto a bunch of demons and call it a novel.

Gender Score: 4/10. This has to be one of the most misogynistic books I've read in a long damn while, and that's saying something because paranormal romance does love it's misogyny. This book reminded me of just why I hate the use of the word "females" in place of "women" and "males" in place of "men" there are some startling moments where the sexism made me want to put down the book. For instance when Bella and her mate Jacob (Oh yes, I snickered hard when I read about Jacob and Bella in this book. The pub date says this book came out in 2006, so it's probably coincidence, but still…) are shown, I got whiffs of domestic abuse. Why? First, this quote:

"Yeah. W,…as in Wife. Ugh! He's always saying or thinking things in this high and mighty way and tacking the word 'wife' onto the end like it's some kind of password that let him wordier me around." Bella noted her friend's still perplexed expression, so she screwed up her face, attitude, and voice into an uncanny approximation of Jacob. "'I do not want you hunting in your condition, wife. It is too dangerous for you and the babe to accompany me, wife. I have told Elijah that there are to be no more training lessons until after the birth, and do not argue with me about this, wife, because my mind is set." Isabella sagged back with a frustrated sigh. (Frank, 36)."

And that coupled with the fact that Jacob gets actively hostile to any man that gets near Bella - even Gideon who is their medic and just trying to help Bella with an unusual pregnancy - and all I can think is, "Wow, this is like a blueprint for how to isolate a woman as part of an abusive relationship. Control her activities, cut off her access to people you don't like, be jealous and distrustful of her when other men are near, make decisions for her without her consent - (like TELLING someone that she won't be continuing training lessons rather than letting her make that determination for herself)."

I get that being pregnant for a person might require taking some extra precautions, but goddamn. Let the actual pregnant person decide what they can and cannot do while pregnant. I mean, Kari from Mythbusters was shooting guns and blowing shit up well into her third trimester, so why can't Bella continue with some modified training or other activities?

Oh, yeah, because a man thinks pregnancy makes her helpless and doesn't bother to ask her about it and thinks it means he's being protective and charming. Because if a man thinks it about someone else's body, then it's obviously true. *nods* (That last bit was sarcasm).

Then there is a mention of the relics of misogyny (women required to bathe their men back in Gideon's time) that crossed Gideon's mind and how he sort of wanted that and how he got angry with Legna for "disobeying" him and several other instances of the same kind of dynamic where Gideon seems to get pissed because Legna doesn't share his opinion or act as he thinks she should.

But the real kicker was this quote:

"It was a reflection of how the black magic permeating the room was poisoning the very souls of these women. Having learned about instinct and nature these past days, Legna understood that a huntress only huntred for what she needed, and only killed for survival and self-defense. She never sought out trouble, and she left the challenges for power to the males of the species.

These corrupted women killed in a warped view of self-defense and sought trouble with all their energy and focus. It was unnatural, mutative behavior that made their scent so abhorrent to creatures as in tune with nature as Demons and Lycanthropes. (Frank, 292)"

So basically in this world, any woman that seeks out power is unnatural, warped, corrupt and otherwise wrong. Women seem to have precious little agency here without becoming evil. Any woman that decides to buck the system is evil like Ruth and Mary, who rebel when Mary's Imprinted mate was killed by Elijah in a painful way due to being separated from Mary because Demons decided to commit genocide against the Druids and any demon who doesn't follow the sex laws of the culture is punished. Ruth is colored as a complete bitch because she dares to argue with the men on the Demon council (because a group of people who partook in genocide could never be wrong or misguided, could they?).

The Queen of the Lycanthropes is painted as a man-hater who is ripe for being taken down by the right man (and surprise, surprise, Siena gets with Elijah in Elijah). So there is not one positively portrayed woman in this book who has any kind of substantive agency outside of being part of the male-dominated structures. Bella is basically controlled by Jacob and apparently being pregnant makes her utterly helpless

GLBT Score: 0/10. This book is so astoundingly heterocentric that I honestly think the possibility of anyone being queer or trans or non-binary or otherwise not het or cis could even exist in this universe. Yet another reason I won't be revisiting it.

Ablism Score: 0/10. No PWD's or situations dealing with disability in this book.