TEST
The Daredevil Snared is the third book in Stephanie Laurens’ The Adventurers Quartet. Going in, I knew I was starting the book mid series; but what I didn’t know is that the books are not self-contained. I was able to catch on pretty quickly; but interested readers may want to start with The Lady’s Command. It’s not impossible to enjoy The Daredevil Snared on its own, but you will get a lot more out of it if you read this series in order.
The central plot of The Adventurers Quartet revolves around an illegal diamond mining operation in West Africa. The Frobisher brothers – Robert, Declan, Caleb, and Royd – are the owners of the Frobisher Shipping Company and occasional agents for the Crown. From what I can gather, without having read the previous books, the brothers have been tasked with investigating the diamond mining operation, and they have assigned one leg of the mission to each brother. Why one brother cannot be involved with the entire investigation is unclear; but by the time The Daredevil Snared opens, we already know the following:
- There is an illegal diamond mine somewhere in West Africa near Freetown, but the exact location of the mine is unknown.
- A slaver has been kidnapping residents from Freetown to supply the diamond mine with free labor. Some of the people kidnapped are relatives (and fiancée) of characters who appeared in the previous books.
The Daredevil Snared starts with Captain Caleb Frobisher leading his men through a dense West African jungle in search of the slaver and his camp. After a short trek and a skirmish, Caleb and his men are able to dispatch the slaver and his associates with relative ease. The goupr then trudges on, trying to find the mine with only clues from Robert’s journal as guidance. Luckily, they soon came upon Diccon, a seven-year-old abductee who is forced to work in the mine. Diccon is then able to lead Caleb’s party to the mine as well as give them a detailed layout of the mining compound.
I really enjoyed the first half of the book and thought that I would be giving it at least a B+. After Caleb made contact with Diccon, he sends a dispatch to London so that his brothers can organize a rescue party. Meanwhile, he has his men set up camp in a clearing nearby so they can provide assistance to the hostages should the need arise. One of these hostages is Katherine Fortescue, a former governess from Freetown. Being the only hostage besides Diccon who is allowed to leave the mining camp, Katherine is soon meeting with Caleb clandestinely to plot how they can keep all the hostages alive until the rescue party arrives.
Both Katherine and Caleb are smart, capable leaders and it’s easy to see why the others in the circle look up to them. Upon meeting, their attraction is immediate and before long, they have declared their feelings for each other. I thought that the first stages of their courtship are handled very well and it is refreshing to see a couple who actually talk to each other, instead of leaving each other to guess at the other’s feelings. During this part of the book, we are also introduced to a bevy of other interesting characters who could all easily be heroes or heroines of their own stories. Caleb’s friend Phillipe, in particular, had me searching through Ms. Laurens’ backlist to see if he has his own book. Another thing I liked is how the author avoids the pitfall of using mistrust between the hostages and their rescuers as a plot device. These people trust each other and know that the only way they are going to get out of the jungle alive is to work together. Dubois, the leader of the mercenaries running the mining camp, may think that he’s in charge. But the hostages do plenty to ensure their own survival.
Up until about the midway point, The Daredevil Snared is a fast and breezy read. But then it stalls. I don’t want to give too many plot points away, but basically, the entire second half of the book deals with one dilemma faced by the hostages, which got really boring, really fast. It was also at this point that the hostages’ stoicism starts to take on a tinge of implausibility. Am I to believe that in a camp with almost 40 hostages, no one will inadvertently let something slip and rouse Dubois’ suspicion that they are plotting something? This is especially hard for me to believe given that about half of those captured are children between the ages of 6 and 14. But then again, none of these children act a bit like any of the kids I’ve ever known.
This is one of those books in which the romance takes a backseat to the adventure. There are plenty of pages devoted to Caleb and Katherine’s courtship; but without any tangible obstacle to keep them apart, many of the later scenes feel superfluous. The love scenes, in particular, feel tacked on and unnecessary. Stephanie Laurens is famous for writing long and detailed love scenes, and she is true to form here. But in this case, I found the writing style – just like the title of the book – dated and uninteresting. Of the two love scenes, one is an extended make-out session that lasts five pages. After yet another kiss and we were told for the fifth time how desire bloomed between Caleb and Katherine, I skipped to the end of the chapter.
Ultimately, this book is comprised of two halves – one half that I liked a lot, and one that I had to slog through. The novel ends very abruptly with many questions stilled unanswered; and there is an attempt to introduce Royd, the hero of the next book, that doesn’t feel quite right. Still, I would say that the positives of this book outweighed the negatives and I would definitely be interested in reading the next book when it comes out. Here’s hoping that Lord of the Privateers will effectively tie up all the loose ends and bring the series to a satisfying close.
Grade: B-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 04/07/16
Publication Date: 06/2016
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I discovered my first romance novel at the age of 12 when I accidentally picked up a Harlequin (or was it Silhouette?) title from the library. Since then, I've mostly gravitated towards historical romance and more recently, urban fantasies. I live in the Washington DC area with a cat and the biggest Star Wars nerd this side of Tatooine.
Related Reviews
So far I have really enjoy these books. I just finished #2. My problem with these books are…The long drawn out kissing and foreplay. I mean, really?! Maybe a teenager would get some thrill from it, but I am grown. It insults me to have to trudge through it. I want the excitement of the Adventure in the story. The romance of it is also great, but please, down play the numerous; unnecessary stuff. Thanks
Unfortunately, that’s just Laurens writing style. I haven’t read this series, but I’ve read a lot of her Cynster books, and they’re all like that. It can definitely get annoying especially because not only are the scenes themselves long, but there’s a lot of them too.
Lauren,
Like you said, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Therefore, I do want to say that I appreciate your comment and that the reason this site exists is to provide romance readers with a forum to discuss their favorite romances.. So please keep those coming. We are hoping that this new format of allowing visitors to comment on a review directly on the review page will help facilitate this type of in-depth discussion among our visitors.
Having said that, I do want to address a couple of points you made in your comment. First of all, these reviews are not only written for people who have read previous books in the series, but also for new comers to the series who are thinking of purchasing it With so many romance series being published nowadays, not every romance reader has the time or care about if they read all series in order. So it is important to state in my review what information they would not be privy to if they choose to not read the previous books in the series. We also feel that it is important to sometimes bring a fresh perspective, which is why having read previous books in the series is not a criteria when it comes to assigning books to a reviewer. If we only assign books to a reviewer who has read all the books in the series and presumably likes it well enough to want to keep on reading it, then what is the point of even having it reviewed in the first place?
As for your comment that I only focused on things that has nothing to do with her writing, I looked back through my review and those were mentioned 2 times – in the 2nd paragraph and my conclusion. In the rest of the review, I mentioned that the 2nd half of the book concentrating on the hostages dilemma is boring, that the little kids didn’t act like little kids, the hostage’s stoicism got to be a bit unbelievable, the romance didn’t have any obstacles to sustain my interest and the love scenes are long and boring. I do believe these have everything to do with her writing and not the fact that I didn’t read the previous books in the series. Also, the comment that this is more of an adventures story than romance wasn’t meant as a criticism. It is a statement meant to educate new readers on what they would be getting if they do decide to buy the book. As a matter of fact, if I didn’t like the adventure aspect of it so much, I would have given the book a much lower grade as I found the romance aspect of it kind of lacking, as I indicated in my review. And despite the flaws I mentioned, a B- on All About Romance is actually a very good grade. It’s not perfect, but it’s the grade I assigned it because of the flaws I mentioned above, not because of any information I felt I was missing because I didn’t read the other books.
Again, I want to say that I appreciate your comment but feel that I did my best to try to provide an unbiased review for both people who are familiar and who are not familiar with the series.
Hi,
I completely understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion, however I have a couple of comments, regarding your review of The Daredevil Snared.
As a reviewer, would it not be prudent to read the first two books in the series, and therefore you would have a complete understanding of the book you are reviewing? In addition, you would then understand that this current series by Stephanie Laurens intentionally focusses on the adventure, rather than the romance. If you are a regular Stephanie Laurens reader, you’d also understand that in the last few years she has branched out to mystery/adventure romances, rather than focussing just on the romance.
You’ve also implied that information is not forthcoming – such as why the brothers are doing the mission in different legs, and you couldn’t understand why that was the case. If you had read the first two books in the series, you’d understand that reason.
My last comment – of course the book ends abruptly, without finishing the story – it’s a series – a quartet. If you want to know how it ends, you need to read the next book.
Apologies for my frank comments, but I found that, even though you said you’re interested in reading the next book in the series, your review wasn’t really fair to the author, or useful to other readers thinking about reading the book, as most things you’ve complained about are things that don’t have to do with her writing, or her storyline, rather the fact that you hadn’t read the rest of the series first.
Please, don’t review a book that’s in a series unless you’ve actually read the rest first!
It is AAR policy to not require that our reviewers have read all the books in a series. There are many series where the books are able to read independently and we let our readers know which books are like that and which aren’t. We often run two reviews of books in a series, one from a reader new to the series, and one from someone who is current. As we continue to offer more content, that’s something we will expand.
I just want to chime in here and stay that most of us at AAR review something like 3-4 books per month, and personally I review many more than that. So there’s a time element at play here, as well in that it is often not possible for a reviewer to read previous books in a series before embarking on a new one. I’ve reviewed books that appear late on in long-running series where I haven’t read all the other books, and didn’t have the time to read all the others AND get the review in in a timely fashion. Some ARCs are made available very close to book release dates, which makes reading all the others first even more unlikely.
And as Sidney says, it’s a valid point to say whether a book works as a standalone or not, especially for readers new to a series or author who want to know whether they can just jump in. I’m about to start reading a book that is number 6 in a series where I haven’t read the others, and I will most certainly be telling potential readers whether they need to read the other books.
When I started reviewing at AAR, I was a dedicated & and devoted disciple of the “I’ll only read books in series order” school of thought. Its still my preference. However, with the volume of books I read both for pleasure and as a reviewer, it simply isn’t possible all the time.
As a rule, I approach most books reading a bit about them beforehand, regardless of whether they are a standalone or part of a series. For those that I’m reading out of sequence, I usually do a bit more advance homework – to get a better sense of the series and of what I missed.
I hear what Lauren is saying, however, I think Sidney’s review is balanced and informative about this title specifically. References to the series as a whole are helpful for someone – like Lauren perhaps – who, based on this review, might opt to start the series at the start for context. If I was planning to read this book, after reading Lauren’s review, I would most likely read the first two titles first.
HOWEVER, because she mentioned the thriller/adventure aspect is a focus throughout the series vs. the romantic aspects (my favorite parts!) – and she could point this out even reading it as a standalone, I’ll just skip all 3.
Just my 2 cents.
Adding to what everyone else said, there are many authors who can coherently write huge series filled with multiple pairings and relationships (I’m thinking specifically of Julia Quinn) and managed to make each story stand out and be coherent apart from the other volumes in the book while letting it interweave characters and plot threads from other volumes. I think that’s a rule of thumb any and every author should follow.