Beneath the Skin: Book Three of The Maker's Song [Mass Market Paperback]

Let me start of by saying that you will have a rather hard time reading this book if you haven't read the first two in the series before. As I have read the first two, and loved them both I was excited to start reading this book. I was pretty disappointed. At over 400 pages I didn't think that the book got good until the last forty. I think that there were too many secondary characters in the book, and there is not enough of Dante, Heather and Von. The groups that are after Dante, the SB, the FBI, all of the individual agents, the cercle and the fallen, are overwhelming to the reader. It wasn't uncommon to start off a new chapter reading from the perspective of a person other than the ones you know well. This became difficult to remember exactly who the person was and what they were doing leading up to the chapter. I also found it difficult to read the book smoothly not only because of all the extra characters, but because of all of the made up names. I enjoy the French/Cajun influence on the characters, but I feel that even with the pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book, I spent a lot of time trying how to figure out the pronunciation of the names each time I read them. All in all I'm excited to see what happens to Dante next, and what happens to Dante's relationship with Heather. I was greatly disappointed in how little the book talks about D&H or involved them, but here's hoping that the next one involves more of them, and less secondary charcters.

Book 3 of the Maker's Song series by Adrian Phoenix picks very quickly after where book 2 left off. In fact the entire events of Beneath the Skin take place over just about a week. So much is going on in these few days that several times I wondered if time just ran differently in their world. Ok not really, but seriously if I could get as much done in a day as these guys I would be superwoman!

In Beneath the Skin Heather and Dante find themselves stuck trying to deal with the aftermath of all the events that take place at the end of In the Blood. Dante is lost within himself, buried in flashbacks and memories of his past. Heather is now on the run from the agencies she used to work for. Lucien is still being held by the Fallen and suspected of being dead. Book 3 explores the question.... can Dante keep his sanity or is he destined to be just a weapon who has lost control?

One of the things I love about this series are the characters. Heather kicks ass and I was glad to see her finally slip on some leather pants. For once I think the book cover actually portrays a look the characters pulls off in the story! I love Heather because she is smart, determined, dedicated, and simply will not take no for an answer. Not even from the bad boy vamp in PVC mesh and leather. There is never even a question that she is strong enough to stand beside Dante and fight with him.

Equally lovable is Dante, a True Blood (born) vampire and Fallen Angel "maker". He is like an M&M, hard shell.... sweet chocolatey goodness in side. His foul mouth and flippant attitude make him a fun character to read about. I just can't help but love a guy who is so fond of flipping people off and tossing out the F#&! word. As if his oddly charming personality isn't enough, Dante is man enough to not push Heather behind him at the first sign of trouble. He doesn't go all alpha crazy and lock her in a closet when things start falling apart, in fact he admits to needing her. But make no mistake, you will get your sexy man beast fix with this book as he has no problem putting Heather up against a wall if ya know what I mean *wink wink nudge nudge*.

Something else to look forward to from Beneath the Skin is an extended glimpse at Von, the sexy biker nomad. He plays a heavy part in the book. His dedication and love for Dante and all the things he considers "his" is touching.

Now for my complaints... *sigh*. I hate to do it, but I have some. This installment has just too much going on. Halfway through the book I was seriously considering whipping out some graph paper and making a flow chart so I could remember who was who and what agency they worked for. The way the author draws us into Dante's head and his struggle to not lose it was flawless. I ate up those chapters like freshly baked cookies. But I found myself growling and sighing when we got pulled out of those scenes only to be stuck in the middle of Shadow Branch/FBI/Whatever other Agency crap. There were just too many agents with too many agendas and in the end there was nothing done with those plot points. They are just left dangling in the wind. On top of that the ending seemed abrupt... I didn't expect it to be so sudden and got the feeling that because of all the plot lines the book was originally longer but they needed a stopping point.

Now that I complained, I will admit, that field agents (don't ask me which agency they were from) Emmet and Merri interest me. I do look forward to seeing what part they will play in the wind and I liked the relationship between them. However, everything else relating to the Shadow Branch and the plot to capture/release Dante just went over my head and left me feeling confused.

Even with my gripes, Beneath the Skin, is a great read. So much of the action of the book comes from within Dante's mind and I found myself really enjoying the experience. Often a good internal struggle is so more engaging than the external dangers. This book was definitely better than the last and I look forward to the next one. It will be interesting to see how and if resolution comes about in book 4.

I absolutely love the first 2 books, but was somewhat disappointed in this one. The book switched back and forth from different perspectives of way too many people, including new characters. Alot of it was not needed. You already knew that different factions of the government was interested in Dante, but the back and forth that was shown between different directors and agents, got very old, very quick.

Their also was not alot of pages in Dante's perspective. I did think that the author did a good job of showing Dante's trouble with keeping track of the past and present.

Another issue I had was you would read about something that happened from Heather's view and in the next chapter would back track to before the previous chapter in someone else's view, and then progress into the incident from the previous chapter. Pretty much you would go thru the same thing twice.

Towards the end, it got a little better.

I think my biggest disappointment was that I had read that this was a Trilogy and the book ends in a cliff hanger, which drives me nuts. Now I am waiting to see if there is a next book and when it comes out, to see what happens with Dante.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 21 reviews  4.0 out of 5 stars