A Job From Hell

Title: A Job From Hell
Series: Ancient Legends #1
Author: Jayde Scott
Pages: 374 (ebook)
Published: May 11th 2011
Published by: Aurora Press

The moment Amber starts her summer job in Scotland and sets eyes upon Aidan, her fate is sealed. Summoned by an ancient bond, she can never love another. Lost in the woods one night Amber enters Aidan's deadly world when she unknowingly participates in a paranormal race and promptly wins the first prize...a prize worth killing for.

In a world of forbidden love, ancient enemies, legends and rituals, nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Life will never be the same again, unless she enters the Otherworld. But to do so, Amber must die...

We join Amber just as she arrives in Scotland to begin a job as a housekeeper. A job she is totally unqualified for and she's pretty sure she only got because her brother, Dallas, lied on the application form. Queue her meeting a series of stunning attractive individuals *ahem* vampires *ahem*, including her employer Aiden. Oh, what are the chances! She soon finds herself to be awful at her job, but instead accidentally wins a prize which puts her in danger from the entire paranormal world. Apparently.

We don't really see this...at all. Most of the danger she ends up in seems to stem more from the fact that she's involved with Aiden.

Gah.

There are so many things that annoy me about this book. So I'm not going to go into it too much, otherwise it'll just turn into a rant.

It has all the cliches of a paranormal romance, and all the characters are quite flat. The lead - Amber - is supposed to be all strong-willed and adjusts to the idea of vampires/demons etc. very quickly, yet gets talked into stealing some jewels in about 30 seconds flat. She can't make up her mind about Aiden (gorgeous vampire cliche - check!) and seems to go from absolutely-hating-him-and-she's-going-to-leave-and-she-never-wants-to-see-him-again-and-she-just-wants-to-have-her-old-life-back to letting him kiss her and melting into it (kissing cliche - check!), also in about 30 seconds flat. And this happens about 12 times. Then she has periodic weird moments when she's all like SASS! which don't really fit with the way she acts the rest of the time.

Then, the editing wasn't great; Amber's brother's name is Dallas; the author, character and book settings are all British yet American words for stuff (diapers, college instead of university, parking lot) kept appearing; Amber's parents are all like "yeah 17-year-old daughter, totally go live in Scotland for two months. We're not even going to make sure you get there ok or anything!"; and there were quite a few plot holes/inconsistencies in regards to the special abilities of the vampires.

There are a couple of saving graces in this book, in that some of the secondary characters are quite interesting (namely Cass, and I think Blake has the potential to be an interesting character, or an interesting device at the very least) and there are a couple of funny moments.

I got this book because it had been recommended to me loads, and was free. I don't really understand all the rave reviews, and wish it hadn't been free so I wouldn't have been persuaded to get, and therefore read, it.