Okay, there is a lot here that is confusing and I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how any of this works, but I'm somehow really into it. The romance is slower and I'm still not 100% sure who all will be in it.

I really wish that I liked Raven.

I love everything else about this book, seriously. But Raven sucks, and she sucks so much that it is hard to gauge the other characters. Like, they walk all over her like she's a doormat. Does that reflect more on them, or her? I don't know, so I can't gauge them.

Raven is a pretend badass. She talks tough, she seems to have strong powers (seems, because that's another flaw to this book - there's little detail or structure given about her powers, so I don't know what she can REALLY do, and I'm suspicious that's deliberate so she can do anything the author needs her to do, frankly), people she's known for a long time seem to respect that she does indeed have strong powers, and her inner narrative has a baseline setting of "take no shit".

That would ordinarily be great - that's the basic ingredients for Kate Daniels, one of my favorite UF heroines ever. But it's all a lie. Literally everyone she encounters in this book walks all over her. She lets people bully their way into her life and her job with only a token pushback - Jackson even goes so far as to fuck up her work relationships and leak info about her cases, and she blusters about it a teeny bit but ultimately does nothing. People stand in her kitchen and call her a whore, and she doesn't kick them out of her house. She rolls over and accepts everything. It is fucking disgusting.

Then, for the last quarter of the book, the only thing she had going for her - seeming to be competent at her job - falls apart as she makes one stupid decision after another. The bad guy is so fucking obvious he's practically twirling his curly mustache in her face. She walks into his trap. She then proceeds with the world's most hare-brained plan, to catch the hunters. It predictably falls to shit. There seemed to be lots of opportunities to salvage the situation - seemed, because her powers are so ill-defined, but there's stuff we have seen her do before that I don't understand why she doesn't do here, like suck people's energy out - but she doesn't do any of it. Then, in the most laughable moment of the climax, she's running from a murderer in the woods and she stops running to yell at the person running with her. And then murderer then jumps her. I rolled my eyes so hard that I actually gave myself vertigo.

The backstory elements are cool, but that may only seem to be the case because they are so nebulous. Who knows. I'm going to read one more in the series to see if it gets its shit together, but I'd say there's maybe a 10% chance of me continuing beyond there.

**2.5**

I’ve never been more confused about what happened in a book... like things happened...there was a plot? And characters? But what happened exactly? I feel so baffled... 😩

What the fuck did I read?

I'm so confused. Nope Nope

A storm is a good title for this book. Because there's an absolute shit-storm of stuff going on...overall I enjoyed it and will be reading the next one, but wow my brain was a little scrambled at times!

More to come, maybe...

This book had all the elements of being a great read. However I keep feeling like every scene need more explaining then what the reader was given. Do to lacking info the book got confusing. The whole pack/lusting element was irritating. you have the main character keep getting into sexually charged situation but no one has sex. you just have five guys lusting after one women. That whole situation felt odd and forced. Again something that more explaining would have help.

While I found the world-building interesting, trying to follow the story was incredibly confusing as relationships and the society itself weren't well explained, and the story moved along very rapidly before I fully understood what was going on.

The slave auction didn't seem like much of a slave auction when I hadn't noticed any bidding, and the extra shifter that followed Raven's claimed slave home came out of nowhere and was just accepted by Raven without much protest. It took a good 25% of the book before Jackson's backstory was explained and why he was following Taggert around. The whole shifter mating and pack joining seemed to have new arbitrary rules added every few chapters and seemed to be a bunch of poorly planned out details.

The concept of Raven's house of misfits was also a huge mass of confusion to me. Was Raven the boss or was Dominic the boss? Where did all the shifters live usually if they only lived in Raven's house for short stints of time? Is Dominic supposed to be a love interest of Raven? Why is he and London the bear shifter the only ones that keep showing up in the nick of time? Then there's Rylan the deadly vampire - his background with Raven was glossed over in a few sentences, and his appearance in critical scenes are quite unpredictable.

Raven's conduit abilities were another pretty poorly explained plot point. Her deadly ability had to deal with lots of electricity and hoarding it from the environment, but she also couldn't control it because of... personal reasons? mental reasons? just reasons? She somehow also ended up with a ton of shifter animals inside of her from experimentation in the labs and they do... something? They're somehow vital to tying different shifters she encounters into her pack for safety reasons? What shifter animals does she have inside her anyways? And just to add to the chaos, let's also give Raven some vampire-like and necromantic abilities that had to be a *big secret* that would pop up every few chapters for some random purpose?

Raven seemed to just be along for the ride throughout the whole book, pushed around like a leaf in a current by the other men in her life, rather than a bad-ass alpha chick that set the course of action as she was portrayed to be with all these god-like special abilities. I'm giving this book a marginal 3-star since I do like what I understand about the characters and the world but very unenthusiastically since the book was very poorly paced and the plot poorly implemented.

Continuing with the next book to see if it improves.
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Ratings - abandoned series:
#1 Electric Storm (this book): ★★★☆☆
#2 Electric Moon: ★★★☆☆
#3 Electric Heat: ★★★☆☆
#4 Electric Legend: ★☆☆☆☆ / DNF

This book was pure rubbish. I think mainly because the author took no time to explain the world she was creating or its occupants. I wish I knew how such trash gets published

DNF