Cold Reign, Audio Book

Cold Reign, Audio Book (2017) Faith Hunter narrated by Khristine Hvam (Jane Yellowrock)

Things never slow down from here. Which is why I think I missed some things previously that bothered me this time.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Alex is almost killed.

He fingered his throat. “Hurts.” He looked around him on the floor, at the amount of blood. “All that mine?”

My own throat nearly closed up on my reply. The blood was everywhere. It looked like gallons. “Yeah.”

“Eli’s gonna go apeshit.”

I didn’t fuss about the language because my new cell rang. It was Eli. I filled him in. My partner went dead silent and when I was finished, he disconnected. Without a word. To Bruiser, I said, “I’m changing and going to fanghead central. You coming?”

That last line there is what started to seriously bother me. Alex–her brother–has almost been killed, and she plans to leave. Without mention of new backup coming to guard Alex.

And from the way it read, Eli didn’t immediately come home either. Which I don’t believe for a second.

Eli and I took our usual SUV back to the house, my partner silent as he drove through the rain. The storm had let up again as an arm of the slowly swirling weather system passed us and New Orleans’ massive drainage system cleared the city of flood water.

Traffic was at a crawl when Eli casually said, “Nice weather we’re having.”

I cannot believe that after his brother was almost killed he was calm and at HQ.

And then:

Eli smiled, the twitch of lips that meant he had relaxed. “Alex texted me that he found some more humans and vamps who came ashore. They came in from Lake Borgne through Bayou Bienvenue Central Wetlands in an air boat. Private surveillance cameras got some pretty clear shots for night cams.”

When Eli was almost killed and healed with vampire blood, he was blood drunk and almost insensible for almost a full day. Here it’s been mere hours since the attack.

And then:

“Nice work,” Eli said as he moved the door back and forth. It didn’t even squeak. The witches stepped in and Eli closed the door behind us.

Inside, the DBs and puddles had been cleaned up, the house smelling like citrus instead of death. I hadn’t even thought about that when I opened the door. I held in a grin at the imagined expressions on the witches’ faces.

Alex had placed towels and bathroom rugs all over the foyer, along with a metal rack that was usually in the laundry, used by Eli to hang his clothes when he ironed. In a basket were towels, blankets, socks, and robes. Smart boy. I’d have to give him pizza.

There is no way, from the way vampire healing has been described in previous book, and the relationship between Alex and Eli and Jane and Alex, that everyone was all casual about Alex almost dying. And Alex just going around putting down towels?

No. No no no.

Also, the timeline with Brian & Brandon disappearing is weird and off. Again, like chunks of text were shifted around and didn’t quite fit where they ended in reference to the earlier timeline.

Then there was the bit in the warehouse, where Rick insisted he should change into cat form.

And missed the entire fight.

I can’t believe he didn’t realize that would happen. It was just stupid.

Publisher: Audible Studios

Rating: 7/10

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