Tuesday, January 5, 2010

WoW: Sherrilyn Kenyon, The League

First off, I have to say I hate her name, I never know if I wrote it correctly (the "y" place keeps bothering me). :) But that's about the only thing that bothers me in regard with Mrs Kenyon. Everything else is great and I hope she lives to see my death and keeps writing until then. So I have a lifetime supply of her novels.


I just finished her Born of Night novel, the first in The League series (there are two more at the moment). It turns out, she wrote this in a much smaller format years ago and it went out of print (if I remember correctly) and now it was re-issued and although I didn't read the original, I'd say improved. I don't see how something can be taken away from the story.


I wonder how many of you are familiar with SK, she is one imaginative and proliferate writer. Not that I mind. :)


I first started reading her novels with the Dark Hunter series, then some Dream Hunters and I think I did read one of the Were Hunters but can't say for sure. I've read so many of her novels, I'm a bit lost. It is very good that her site offers reading order for all the books and series, otherwise one would be completely lost. I'm not even going to go into all other series listed on the site.


What many of her characters have in common is that they all suffered through great injustice and usually a lot of physical pain as well, and in the end all of them turn out as fierce, loyal and positively good protectors sometimes because they find love (although they always had it in them) and sometimes just because that is what they are and they cannot go against themselves.


The good thing is there is always a love story (never an easy one) and even though there are typical things I already mentioned in all of these novels, the characters are always different and stories never feel the same (taking into account the amount of them SK has written).


The League combines a bit of sci-fi (which is something I like) and the hero who has been wronged so much it is sometimes hard to even read it and the heroine had some bad experience from her youth as well. Their story isn't an easy one but of course it ends positive. Otherwise I wouldn't keep reading her books.


It also makes me wonder if something like that would be possible in real life - to go through such an ordeal (that is a serious understatement for the character from Born of Night) and emerge as a person who can love and enjoy life - ok, not immediately and without some serious help, but still. I want to think so - that goodness can and will prevail.
While looking for a photo, I came across some reviews on Amazon of this book. It never ceases to amaze me how people come to certain books/authors expecting something completely unreasonable. Especially if they already read some of the novels written by that person. I know what I can expect from SK and that is why I read her stories. As you could have probably guessed by now, I'm not always in the mood for some of the things I read, so I read according to what I crave at the moment. People are so eager and so liberal with criticism. I think about it this way - could I have written it? No? Ok, then, I'm not going to be hoarding criticism on that author then. If I don't like it, I simply won't read it anymore and problem solved.
Has anyone here read anything by Sherrilyn Kenyon? What do you think of her novels?

2 comments:

  1. People ARE so liberal with their criticism-- you know, I think about that all the time. It is SO much easier to destroy someone or something by tearing it down or finding fault than it is to actually DO something.

    (I don't read romance novels, so when you post about them, Ines, I'm at a loss-- I'll just have to relate everything to perfume!!)

    Unless something is truly terrible, I try to focus on the positive-- after all, what's the point of writing about what you hate? (Other than to warn other people to stay away...)

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  2. Rita, I don't mind relating everything back to perfume - lately, I started paying attention to all the smell references in the books I read. :)
    I agree with you about not writing about what you hate and it is different if you say you don't like sth which is normal but to go out of your way to trash sth, I find that really says a lot about that person.

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