Captivated By You (Crossfire, Book 4)
CUSTOMER REVIEW
Please be aware there will be small spoilers concerning the plotline.
It is such a shame......this series started out so strong. Bared To You and Reflected In You were absolute perfection. Entwined With You (book 3) was just okay for me, but I understood going into it that is was a transition book so I didn't expect too much to happen. The best part of EWY was Gideon and Eva solidified their relationship. Looking forward to Captivated By You, I had very high hopes. I had read some interviews with Ms. Day and watched her on Youtube explaining books 4 and 5 would focus on Gideon's issues and I was excited about the prospect of finally really digging into Gideon.
Unfortunately that is not how it played out for me. Right off the bat, Eva is dealing with some left over emotions concerning Brett Kline. I am like....what??? I thought that particular door closed for Eva in EWY at the Golden video premiere. She realized she loved Gideon completely and although she may have a sexual chemistry with Brett, their relationship would never resume. She belonged with Gideon. I felt the only lingering storyline concerning Brett was the sex tape....guess I was wrong. This bothered me for a couple reasons. I felt this drama was contrived only to be a filler.....I felt this issue was resolved also Eva's conflict over Brett seemed to set her back a few steps.....taking her back to that desperate girl who used sex to try and keep him. That is not the Eva that has been growing stronger and stronger in the past 3 books. I didn't get angry with Eva, but I truly didn't understand why Ms. Day chose to take Eva's character in this direction. I did get frustrated with the fact it seem to take Eva much too long to really deal with the Brett situation and would have preferred to see it wrap with more quickly.
Something different happened in Captivated By You, rather than just experiencing Eva's point of view Gideon had a turn to express his inner thoughts. It should have been awesome crawling into Gideon's head, but honestly Gideon and Eva's voice seemed to be exactly the same. I really couldn't distinguish between the two "different" views. In the past books, I thought Ms. Day did an excellent job of allowing readers to really understand Gideon even though we only saw him through Eva's eyes. And while it was nice to hear from the man himself, I am not quite sure I liked it. Gideon is not really good at telling Eva anything and he was doing things, manipulating situations and people without communicating with Eva. I found that I didn't like that aspect of him. He knows how much Eva hates that. Gideon has seen how secrets have stressed Eva and Monica's relationship so I was frustrated seeing him do the exact same thing knowing full well that these actions were going to cause problems later on. The best part to Gideon's point of view was being about to see how truly damaged he is from his past. I think I expected more growth from Gideon in this book. He has slowly started making changes to heal and confront his past in the previous books, but I really wanted to see more of that in this book and I didn't get that until the very end of the book. I am sure in book 5 Gideon will really start to the process, but I expected more.
Captivated did answer some questions that have been floating around in my head, but not all questions of course were answered. I thought some loose ends were tied up a little too quickly. For example, I have been wondering what the hell was going on with Nathan's bracelet and basically it was answered in two pages.
When I finished CBY, I turned the page and saw the title for book 5 and I can tell you quite frankly I don't feel any excitement for the next installment. I don't have that dread of waiting a year or six months for it either. I feel let down; as far as I am concerned books 3 and 4 could have been combined. I feel like the past 2 books have not taken the characters far enough and the series seems to have lost that momentum. I don't know if that is because of the long wait between installments or if that the characters are not as vibrant as they were in the beginning. I will definitely be reading the last book; it just won't be with the enthusiasm and excitement I had before. I had no problem with Ms. Day extending the series by 2 books, but I don't feel like extra books have added anything to series or strengthen the characters or the storyline.
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