Laura Thalassa The Bargainer #1 and #2

Author: Laura Thalassa
Title:  Rhapsodic; A Strange Hymn (The Bargainer #1 and #2)

Language: English

Format: ebook

Rating: 3,5 stars and 2,5 stars

No of pages: 326 + 385

Goodreads for Rhapsodic

Goodreads for A Strange Hymn

BLURB: 

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear.

Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer to make it happen. He’s a man who can get you anything you want... at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects.

But for one of his clients, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now. When Callie finds the fae king of the night in her room, a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, she knows things are about to change. At first it’s just a chaste kiss—a single bead’s worth—and a promise for more.

For the Bargainer, it’s more than just a matter of rekindling an old romance. Something is happening in the Otherworld. Fae warriors are going missing one by one. Only the women are returned, each in a glass casket, a child clutched to their breast. And then there are the whispers among the slaves, whispers of an evil that’s been awoken.

If the Bargainer has any hope to save his people, he’ll need the help of the siren he spurned long ago. Only, his foe has a taste for exotic creatures, and Callie just happens to be one. 

It's been .. awhile since I last posted anything on here. I don't even know how to format my posts anymore, because Blogger has changed its interface and I simply cannot find the things I used to know. *hides face*

Anyways, about The Bargainer. I absolutely devoured the first book, but the second one dragged on for me and I actually do not feel like reading the third book in the trilogy anytime soon. Whereas Rhapsodic was somewhat new and refreshing, A Strange Hymn became a repeat of itself. I honestly grew tired of the "he's so hot" and "we did it then there and there and there and there...". Anyways, you get the point. 

In Rhapsodic, it was a bit more about Callie and her life, but in A Strange Hymn, I felt that it became mostly about Des and how Callie wants (or needs) to prove herself to him. Whereas she had her life before Des, she seems to lose herself in Des and their relationship. And so did Des. We get these glimpses of his past and everything, but the second book makes it seem like a person is completely lost without his or her soulmate and once you find them, it becomes all about them. Being a mom of a 18mo toddler myself, I *know* how easy it is to get lost in someone's life, but maybe authors shouldn't make it so, especially in romance novels. Maybe they should emphasize the fact that a person does not disappear with a new relationship. Oh, how reading preferences change... :) 

In Rhapsodic, the villain of the story was a surprise for me, but in A Strange Hymn, I felt that Thalassa hinted at it from the very beginning. She tried to make it not too obvious, but it was actually quite obvious ...