Burned follows Tempted, almost immediately. By now we’re head long into the soap opera Nights of Our Lives. Or maybe As the Tattoo Turns.
Zoey’s soul has been shattered, which no priestess has ever, ever come back from. But Zoey will, of course, because her menz love her. So much so, that two of them sacrifice themselves for her in this book. (Okay, so Heath was already dead, but they have yet another I-love-you-goodbye, which we’ve only have about five of so far. But this time it’s REALLY, REALLY goodbye. Right? Sure.)
Honestly, Stevie Rae’s story in this book isn’t much better. Stevie Rae likes Rephaim, now that she’s gotten to know the real him. But Rephaim still is not sure how best to break from his dad, mainly because he doesn’t want to. He wants to redeem Kalona. Just like Zoey.
Finally, we have Neferet, evil genius, who instead of just letting Zoey fester for a week while her body dies, sends a person she knows is escaping her control and loves Zoey to kill her soul in the spirit world. Not an evil genius move.
At this point I’m wondering if there is anyone in the books who is too broken to fix. Oh, wait, yeah, the female characters are. Venus and Neferet and many other female characters are totally able to become and remain evil with zero attempts made by either Stevie Rae or Zoey to save them. Why are they, and Dallas, allowed to make their choices about dark versus light, but Kalona and Rephaim who have killed and raped people, lots of people, aren’t?
Leaving more irritation and questions than happy feels, I suspect the series might be broken for me at this point.