The Most Boring Thing I’ve Read In Years

I read a lot of crap novels. Generally as audiobooks while folding laundry or doing dishes, but loads of them. This is one of the few books I haven’t finished. It was just so boring. I’d started the series with the water one, which was fine. It wasn’t good, but not too bad. The second one was Spirit Bound, which was less fine than the first, but not the worst thing I’d ever listened to. The reader kept pronouncing the name Levi as “Levy,” which was annoying, but not a deal-breaker. The third book was the end for me, and I’m generally a completist.

 

***Spoilers Ahead***

 

The premise of the series is that a selection of women (5 or 6, I don’t remember) meet at group therapy for survivors of traumatic incidents, then go on to purchase a farm on the California coast, with space for each of them to have their own 5 acres. This alone is preposterous, but somehow these women all have ties to the elements. One can control water, another air, earth, fire, spirit, and the last is never explained; the author is probably saving it for the last book. Ms. Water is the first, she rescues a drowning man who turns out to be some kind of Russian operative with his own supernatural abilities. He’s on the trail of a man that hurt his brother. Of course they fall in love and get married. I’ve forgotten the rest of the story, and I just listened to it last month. The second of the “sisters” is Ms. Spirit, who can amplify emotions and the abilities of her sisters to control elements. She runs into a man who turns out to be some kind of Russian operative with his own supernatural abilities. He’s on the trail of his brother, who was on the trail of a man who hurt their other brother. He pretends to be interested in purchasing an art gallery where Ms Spirit sells her kaleidoscopes. Stuff happens, she amplifies her sisters’ powers, they get the bad guy, and she and Russian #2 fall in love and get married.

 

And now we reach the third book. Ms. Air. She tells Ms Fire or Ms Earth that she hopes to never meet another one of those Russian operatives, because she would hate to be destined to be with one. Then she goes outside and gets kidnapped by one, this one is named Maxim, and he can also manipulate the air. Airianna (because this series is not about subtlety) and Maxim have to get to her father, a Russian scientist she’s never even heard of, but first they have to kill a bunch of white slavers on a boat owned by the man that hurt Maxim’s brother. They end up rescuing/adopting some orphaned Italian children from the boat, and then scuba dive to a submarine. They get to her dad’s yacht, but it’s a trap! The same guy owned both boats! He wants to kill ALL the Russian operative brothers so he can be the new president of Russia! Airianna turns out to be really good with a dart gun, and saves Maxim. They’ve known each other for about 72 hours and have already had about 700 discussions about how they love each other, that they’re destined for each other, and how he isn’t good enough for her, but she’s committed to him and blah, blah, blah, secret weapon using weather patterns. This is where I gave up. I’m assuming there are or will be three more novels in the series, but I don’t care.

 

We’ve got so many cliches in the series. We’ve got woman who can’t get along with anyone forced to share space with a man, resulting in love and marriage. We’ve got spy lying to a woman for information, but he falls for her, and also turns out to have loads of money, resulting in love and marriage. We’ve got a virgin genius with a guy who’s never thought of settling down until he meets her, resulting in love, marriage, and adoption. And that’s just the first three!

 

I don’t recommend this series to anyone, and wish my library’s algorithms would stop trying to recommend it to me.