Review: Fighting Destiny by Amelia Hutchins

Julia's Book Review:
Fighting Destiny by Amelia Hutchins 

Genre: Urban Paranormal Romance
Wine Pairing: A full-bodied red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon, will definitely get you into the right state of mind for this dark& sexy book! 

So, this book was NOT on my TBR list, but I read it and this was me after finishing this book: 

          So I got his book for FREE on Kindle and thank god. I probably would have lowered the rating if I had paid for it. This book (at the time of this review) has an average of 4 stars on Goodreads, and came highly recommended to me in a FaceBook book group that also loves Fae books. I was excited. Expecting something a little bit like the Fever series, maybe a bit raunchier due to the disclaimers that follows the blurb on this book....but I was WRONG. So wrong.
                Our main heroine, Synthia, is....interesting. So she's a kick-ass Witch, sassy mouth, blonde-haired woman with a mysterious and heart-breaking past...with WAAAYYYY too many cliche&snappy one-liners that make her and the world that the author has created totally unbelievable.
              The world building in this novel is dismal. So it's an urban paranormal novel on the basis that the Celtic Faes & Otherworldly creatures are known the modern world as we know it and that they lead almost regular lives. There are Witches Guilds (that I'm still not sure of their function), Vampires(that have their own bar), Light Fae, Dark Fae, Unseelie, and Necromancers all with little to NO information about their role in this society and how it affects our main character, Synthia. I wanted more information!!!!

             I'm always a little weary when the book description claims 'don't read this book if you don't like ALPHA-MALES'. Alpha-male books walk a fine line between creepy&abusive&crazy and honorable&sexy&strong, and unfortunately for the better half, the Alpha-Male in this book was in the former. Now, he is a Ryder is a Dark-Fae Prince BUT he was a little too ruthless for me sometimes, but that made his sweet&caring moments really noticeable but a little too unrealistic. Now, don't get me wrong sometimes he made some really nice lines like,
"“I’ll be strong for you, Syn…if you need it. You don’t always have to be the strong one. I’ll be your glue if you want to crumble. I’ll hold you together,”

         But, these lines were few and far between and though I feel like his character motives might flesh out later in the series, it did NOT in this book. Synthia & Ryder's relationship is filled with "heated" tension. I think the author was going for the "fighting turning into screwing" type relationship but it really just made me hate Ryder for being a borderline abusive kidnapper or Synthia for being a two-dimensional character. Also, their sexy talk just went in a circle 90% of the time with the SAME LINES. It got repetitive, and by the time they actually did the deed I wanted them to SHUT UP. However, that being said the sexy times were pretty sexy. I was glad that they didn't immediately go at it like bunnies in the first half, but the drawing out was interesting. 

        Plot....Plot....Plot... This story lacks a clear plot until a good 100 pages in when Synthia and Ryder are investigating murder scenes of both Witches and Fae. So many things are going on at once that I wonder why the author didn't just choose fewer subplots to keep her characters grounded and realistic (as real you can get in paranormal). Hutchins did leave many questions unanswered and gave a huge game changer for Synthia about 70% in (which I was like, why are you doing this so soon, this a show stopper change), still have questions about Ryder and his secrets, and really what is the main source conflict that the characters are facing? 

     All in all, I'll give it 3 stars. I enjoyed the attempt at the world Amelia Hutchins created, I wish the characters would have been more interesting, the sexy scenes were steamy, and there are too many questions and theories that I have to NOT read the next book....

So yeah, I definitely already bought the next book...