Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges - NO


Bridges, Robin The Gathering Storm, 400 p. Delacorte (Random), 2012.  $20.  Katerina Alexandrovna may be a spoiled princess, sailing through the halls of 1880 Russian nobility, but no one knows that she can also raise the dead.  Katerina longs to be part of the light court, but if she uses her powers, she will come under more and more influence of the dark, so she refuses to ever use them,  Until one night she stops a plot of the evil Montenegrin’s to control the Crown Prince – and reveals her powers to the wrong people.  Now she is stuck in a power struggle between the two sides, with the throne of Russia and perhaps the future of the entire world hanging in the balance.  

Katerina is the same ineffective, passive princess that made Bella so irritating in the long run, but her shortcomings are even more evident.  When the prince of the Montenegrin’s uses blackmail to claim her as his bride, her brilliant excuse to delay the marriage is “My parents won’t allow me to marry before my birthday”.  Really?  When the evil vampire Montenegrins kidnap her at sweep her away to their dark castle to use her in some dark ritual, she pins all of her hopes of escape that her Maman is sure to have some kind of temper tantrum or hissy fit over something (not the fact that they kidnapped her) which will allow Katerina to leave their clutches.  By the end I threw the book against the wall in disgust.  This vapid attempt at a supernatural romance I can do well without.  NOT RECOMMENDED. Cindy, Library Teacher

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