This book had me at the first sentence. Beautifully written I fell in love with the imagery and thought that I had finally found a new fantasy author that could really write. Sadly, not far into the book my belief that “well written” does not always equal “great story” came true.
I really wanted to like this book. And somewhere, beyond all of the ill-conceived and random sex scenes there probably is a great story to be told. Unfortunately it was lost somewhere in-between the dry humping.
Let me be honest. I am not a prude. Despite what my friends may think I do happen to enjoy a good love story. I do not read romance novels on a whole because often the romance is lost somewhere between the sheets and the stories are often more about the sex than the relationship. That’s perfectly fine for some. I am all for supporting the top selling genre on the market. It’s just not a section that I frequent. Call me old fashioned but I believe in love over sex and I have found many books are lacking that key component.
After reading Tab Bennett and the Inbetween I feel a more than a little betrayed. Here is the description from the publisher that lured me in:
Yesterday Tab Bennett was a bank teller. Today she’s at the center of a centuries old war between Light and Dark. Tomorrow – well let’s just say she’ll be lucky if she lives to see it.
Engaged to her childhood sweetheart, employed at the local bank, and finally living on her own for the first time at twenty-four years-old, Tab Bennett has no interest in a fairy tale life. She’s perfectly happy with the normal one she already has. But when her sister is murdered on a moon-dark night, revealing a world of power and magic she never dreamed existed, a fairy tale is exactly what her life becomes. Figures it would have to be the Grimm kind.
Just like that, the life she had planned is over. Instead of cashing checks and handing out lollipops, Tab is unraveling clandestine assassination plots and learning to wield the magic that is her birthright. As if fulfilling her destiny isn’t hard enough, she’ll also have to choose between Robbin, a man who’s turned out to be a lot more complicated than the proverbial boy next door, and Alexander, the handsome prince whose smile leaves her weak-kneed and weak-willed.
Now, as Tab struggles to hold on to the human world she’s always known and understand her place in the magical one she’s just discovered, dangerous forces are gathering close to home. If she wants to make it to happily ever after, she’ll have to figure out who she can trust, who wants her dead, and why. The answers will change everything she believes about herself, the people she loves, and the place she calls home.
Sounds like a pretty straightforward mystery fantasy hybrid with a romantic twist thrown in. I can handle that. The story starts off with Tab’s having a vision of her sister dying. We find out she isn’t the first. Someone has been killing off the Bennett women and the patriarch will not call the police for help. The family hides their deaths and carries on as though nothing has occurred all under the pretense of protecting Tab. Tab is the last female member alive and someone wants her dead.
It is at her sister’s funeral that the author lost me. While the family is gathering to grieve a stranger arrives at the service and she is instantly enamored by his presence. When the family is gathering after the service back at the house Tabitha’s fiancé, Robbin, begins to act suspicious and tells her she won’t need him anymore and stays in the car. When Tab gets out of the vehicle she is introduced to the stranger whom she was attracted to at the service. Instantly, she begins to kiss him. As she wraps her legs around his waist they begin groping each other right there on the porch in front of everyone. At her sister’s funeral.
I didn’t give up there, though every part of me was telling me to. I tried for several more chapters to find the story that was buried beneath the trash. I know it is somewhere in there wanting to be told. I convinced myself to be fair. I originally thought that I was reading a young adult novel and it turns out to be a romance novel. I’m an adult. I can handle it. So I read some more.
Turns out Tab is an elf in hiding and is to be the Queen of the Inbetween. Her family isn’t her family, they are all her servants. Her fiancé was merely a guardian sent by her true fiancé (the elf she didn’t meet until her sister’s funeral) to protect her. Everything she had grown up believing was a lie. All except for one thing – she is being hunted by They.
Her reaction to Alex is one due to a spell the elves placed on them to insure they would accept the arranged marriage and, I can only assume by the physical reaction, propagate the race. They didn’t want to leave their relationship to chance and trust in something as lowly and human as love. Tab resists the charm at first, wanting to think with her heart and head and asks for it to be removed. She still believes she loves Robbin and wants to sort things through for herself.
This is all well and fine on the surface however Tab continually places herself in situations where she makes out with both of them. Being a twenty-four year old virgin this is understandable as now she has two men who will dry hump her and take her clothes off getting her almost to the point of full out penetration before she pushes them away. But, what else is a girl to do when she is on house arrest by her cousins, er, protectors?
It wasn’t long after this that I put the book down and didn’t pick it back up. It just isn’t a story for me.
I don’t want to bash the book and say that it was terrible. It is very well written and the author is talented with words. The genre was not what I expected at all and had I known that it was a full blown romance/erotic novel I would not have picked it up to read. If this is your genre, be assured this book will be for you and I expect you will love it.
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