Official Review: Dark Vortex by Chantel Seabrook
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Official Review: Dark Vortex by Chantel Seabrook
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Dark Vortex" by Chantel Seabrook.]
3 out of 4 stars
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Dark Vortex is a Mated by Magic book written by Stella Marie Alden and Chantel Seabrook that explores the mating and witchcraft. This is a book that is intended for mature readers and while I had assumed that there would be a few steamy scenes, this book starts in on the action from the very first chapter. The heroine, Zoe, learns that she is a witch when she performs magic to save the life of Jack Fialko, the leader of Iesco clan, the reigning clan of the North Eastern coast of the U.S.
Saving Jack introduces Zoe to the world of witchcraft, of which she is very reluctant to believe. Along with this disbelief, Zoe has to adjust to her attraction to Jack, something she had never experienced before and had never hoped to experience due to the abuse she suffered from her adoptive father. While Zoe and Jack’s relationship grows, they become targets for a mysterious warlock bent on killing Jack and kidnapping Zoe. With the help of Jack’s clan, the two work to figure out the boundaries of their relationship, the identity of the mystery warlock, and who location of Zoe’s biological family.
While I thought that the plot of Dark Vortex was very scattered and the characters were not the most relatable, the prose was well written and made reading the book quick. The book read like the average romance novel, which was not something that I complained about. The dialogue between characters was typical and felt like a natural conversation between people, as natural as a conversation could be when the topic of choice was witchcraft and kidnapping. The plot felt similar to a YA romance, with A LOT more explicit content. Many actions and situations felt predictable and didn’t add angst and energy to situations that could have used more.
Dark Vortex was well paced until the very final chapters, where the plot was wrapped up rather quickly and didn’t stay true to what I felt the characters would have done in those situations. There were multiple subplots that were added and discarded throughout the book including: a drug-using witch trying to usurp Jack’s leadership, a drug-ring using underage Afghan girls for smuggling and prostitution, a Russian mafia boss trying to gain control of a weakening clan, and the likeliness of a half-breed pregnancy coming to term. Seeing this list should offer some insight into how disjointed the plot felt. The subplots themselves could have been interesting but for a 280 page book, there wasn’t enough room to flesh them out and add depth.
“’Don’t touch me,’ she [Zoe] whimpered, fear blazing in her eyes…. Before she knew what was happening his hands were around her waist.” [Chapter 6]
Jack Fialko was a problematic character. I tried to like him from the beginning, but I couldn’t find any connection to his behavior towards Zoe. It didn’t feel romantic or sexy at all and I came to dislike the interactions that he had with her. Most of these were centered on the “need to mate” that witches have during Solstice and when they find their true partner. Instead of acting like a nice person, since Zoe was still a stranger to him, Jack turns into a crude and brash individual; He acted more like a nineteen year old than a mature adult in most of these situations. What I found interesting was that the term “act like caveman” is used a few times when referring to how Jack should handle a situation with Zoe and it was made to sound like a reasonable idea/ method to getting things done.
The quote I used is one instance of many throughout the book where Zoe expresses her wishes to Jack, whereupon he acts contrite for a moment, and then goes back to his previous behavior. Most of the situations like this are connected to Jack’s raging libido and lack of common decency, which never get called into question because they are due to the mating feelings, a result of the Solstice. It’s a poor excuse for borderline abusive behavior.
The excuse for Jack’s behavior brings me to my next issue that I had throughout the book, which was the violence that was needed to begin foreplay in their sexual activities, as I have excerpted below.
“’You know how this works. Either fight me off or kiss me. Decide.’ There wasn’t a whole lot of rational thought left in Jack’s mating-brain. ‘Okay. I choose to fight.’… ‘I knew you wanted me! Stop messing with me.’… ‘What are you waiting for, angel? Fill me with your energy. Fight me.’” [Chapter 2]
The idea behind this is when two witches are well paired and wish to engage in sexual activities, they fight each other using their magic, which they fill with their emotions, to show they are equally matched. However, my issue was with how loose this idea was in practice. Any man could potentially attack a woman and by fighting him off she was considered to be engaging in this foreplay. This happened to Zoe twice in Dark Vortex, not including the numerous times that she fought off Jack at the beginning of the book. It almost comes across as victim blaming in those situations where the woman would either be assaulted or engaging in a sexual situation she did not want and in the eyes of these witches, this was acceptable to a degree.
Also, I found it interesting that this idea of fighting foreplay seemed to only be valid with heterosexual couplings. Jack fights off multiple male warlocks and there isn’t a single point that any feelings were misconstrued, but when Zoe was genuinely fighting him off in the beginning of the book, as in the quote, he only connected it to foreplay rather than an actual fight. I would love to see how those dynamics would play out in a same sex pairing, to see if the guidelines would be changed at all.
The only other issue that I had was that the flow from chapter to chapter was sometimes disconnected. There was one particular instance with chapters 14 and 15 where, within the span of 3 pages, Jack and Zoe had “mated” and then Zoe was promptly kidnapped. It was disjointed and confusing, but only for those few moments in the narrative. Afterwards, it became clearer as to how the kidnapping occurred, but for those few moments where it wasn’t clear I cared more about understanding how it occurred rather than the fact that Zoe was kidnapped at all. It ruined the tension of the moment.
In the end, Dark Vortex left me slightly disappointed. While the prose and dialogue was well written and engaging, I could not sympathize with Jack’s character. In fact, by the end of the book, I felt more hostile towards him and every decision he made. However, that may have only been because of my dislike of “caveman” qualities, which were presented in abundance with Jack. That being said, Dark Vortex is an easy book to sit and read through, especially if you are looking for light, fluffy reading with some explicit scenes sprinkled throughout. Overall, I would give Dark Vortex, by Stella Marie Alden and Chantel Seabrook, a rating of 3 out of 4 stars.
******
Dark Vortex
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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3 out of 4 stars
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Dark Vortex is a Mated by Magic book written by Stella Marie Alden and Chantel Seabrook that explores the mating and witchcraft. This is a book that is intended for mature readers and while I had assumed that there would be a few steamy scenes, this book starts in on the action from the very first chapter. The heroine, Zoe, learns that she is a witch when she performs magic to save the life of Jack Fialko, the leader of Iesco clan, the reigning clan of the North Eastern coast of the U.S.
Saving Jack introduces Zoe to the world of witchcraft, of which she is very reluctant to believe. Along with this disbelief, Zoe has to adjust to her attraction to Jack, something she had never experienced before and had never hoped to experience due to the abuse she suffered from her adoptive father. While Zoe and Jack’s relationship grows, they become targets for a mysterious warlock bent on killing Jack and kidnapping Zoe. With the help of Jack’s clan, the two work to figure out the boundaries of their relationship, the identity of the mystery warlock, and who location of Zoe’s biological family.
While I thought that the plot of Dark Vortex was very scattered and the characters were not the most relatable, the prose was well written and made reading the book quick. The book read like the average romance novel, which was not something that I complained about. The dialogue between characters was typical and felt like a natural conversation between people, as natural as a conversation could be when the topic of choice was witchcraft and kidnapping. The plot felt similar to a YA romance, with A LOT more explicit content. Many actions and situations felt predictable and didn’t add angst and energy to situations that could have used more.
Dark Vortex was well paced until the very final chapters, where the plot was wrapped up rather quickly and didn’t stay true to what I felt the characters would have done in those situations. There were multiple subplots that were added and discarded throughout the book including: a drug-using witch trying to usurp Jack’s leadership, a drug-ring using underage Afghan girls for smuggling and prostitution, a Russian mafia boss trying to gain control of a weakening clan, and the likeliness of a half-breed pregnancy coming to term. Seeing this list should offer some insight into how disjointed the plot felt. The subplots themselves could have been interesting but for a 280 page book, there wasn’t enough room to flesh them out and add depth.
“’Don’t touch me,’ she [Zoe] whimpered, fear blazing in her eyes…. Before she knew what was happening his hands were around her waist.” [Chapter 6]
Jack Fialko was a problematic character. I tried to like him from the beginning, but I couldn’t find any connection to his behavior towards Zoe. It didn’t feel romantic or sexy at all and I came to dislike the interactions that he had with her. Most of these were centered on the “need to mate” that witches have during Solstice and when they find their true partner. Instead of acting like a nice person, since Zoe was still a stranger to him, Jack turns into a crude and brash individual; He acted more like a nineteen year old than a mature adult in most of these situations. What I found interesting was that the term “act like caveman” is used a few times when referring to how Jack should handle a situation with Zoe and it was made to sound like a reasonable idea/ method to getting things done.
The quote I used is one instance of many throughout the book where Zoe expresses her wishes to Jack, whereupon he acts contrite for a moment, and then goes back to his previous behavior. Most of the situations like this are connected to Jack’s raging libido and lack of common decency, which never get called into question because they are due to the mating feelings, a result of the Solstice. It’s a poor excuse for borderline abusive behavior.
The excuse for Jack’s behavior brings me to my next issue that I had throughout the book, which was the violence that was needed to begin foreplay in their sexual activities, as I have excerpted below.
“’You know how this works. Either fight me off or kiss me. Decide.’ There wasn’t a whole lot of rational thought left in Jack’s mating-brain. ‘Okay. I choose to fight.’… ‘I knew you wanted me! Stop messing with me.’… ‘What are you waiting for, angel? Fill me with your energy. Fight me.’” [Chapter 2]
The idea behind this is when two witches are well paired and wish to engage in sexual activities, they fight each other using their magic, which they fill with their emotions, to show they are equally matched. However, my issue was with how loose this idea was in practice. Any man could potentially attack a woman and by fighting him off she was considered to be engaging in this foreplay. This happened to Zoe twice in Dark Vortex, not including the numerous times that she fought off Jack at the beginning of the book. It almost comes across as victim blaming in those situations where the woman would either be assaulted or engaging in a sexual situation she did not want and in the eyes of these witches, this was acceptable to a degree.
Also, I found it interesting that this idea of fighting foreplay seemed to only be valid with heterosexual couplings. Jack fights off multiple male warlocks and there isn’t a single point that any feelings were misconstrued, but when Zoe was genuinely fighting him off in the beginning of the book, as in the quote, he only connected it to foreplay rather than an actual fight. I would love to see how those dynamics would play out in a same sex pairing, to see if the guidelines would be changed at all.
The only other issue that I had was that the flow from chapter to chapter was sometimes disconnected. There was one particular instance with chapters 14 and 15 where, within the span of 3 pages, Jack and Zoe had “mated” and then Zoe was promptly kidnapped. It was disjointed and confusing, but only for those few moments in the narrative. Afterwards, it became clearer as to how the kidnapping occurred, but for those few moments where it wasn’t clear I cared more about understanding how it occurred rather than the fact that Zoe was kidnapped at all. It ruined the tension of the moment.
In the end, Dark Vortex left me slightly disappointed. While the prose and dialogue was well written and engaging, I could not sympathize with Jack’s character. In fact, by the end of the book, I felt more hostile towards him and every decision he made. However, that may have only been because of my dislike of “caveman” qualities, which were presented in abundance with Jack. That being said, Dark Vortex is an easy book to sit and read through, especially if you are looking for light, fluffy reading with some explicit scenes sprinkled throughout. Overall, I would give Dark Vortex, by Stella Marie Alden and Chantel Seabrook, a rating of 3 out of 4 stars.
******
Dark Vortex
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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Latest Review: "The Kiss" by Michelle Bolanger
