Virna dePaul - Chosen by Fate

Although he keeps company with a vampire and a were, human Shaman Caleb O'Flare can definitely hold his own. But neither his psychic ability nor his healing powers can help his sexy-as-hell teammate, Wraith-a ghost with no memory of her human existence, who cannot experience touch without pain. No wraith has managed to exist past its tenth year, so her time is about to run out. She wants only two things before accepting her fate: to learn her human identity, and experience one night with Caleb...

Comment: This is the second installment in the Para Ops trilogy by the author and as I'm determined to finish it, I started this one and there's the last one to be read in June.

The book continues the adventures of the Para Ops team we've met and saw in the previous book but this time Knox and Felicia aren't on stage as much because they're newlyweds. The focus turns to Caleb and Wraith and how they keep playing the cat and mouse game throughout the story. There's a mission but its resolution isn't on the same level of the inconsistencies I've read until then...

I haven't felt this book was as interesting as the previous one, although I said at the time the other one had its flaws. The thing is, this story felt badly constructed, like the things to be worked within the plot were there but I had the sensation they weren't glued together the right way. Too many random things happening but the conducting line wasn't easily understood.
There's the main romance, the vampire scenes, the secondary plot line with Dex, the mission, the goddess parts... I can't say if it was a case of too much happening or author's lack of control over her elements, or an edition that seemed good...for me this didn't work very well. 

I'm glad that things worked out for the characters, that eventually we could see where things were going, but the lacking of connection with all the things happening ruined the story a bit for me and I wasn't always interested. In the end, we've seen everything explained, especially the action parts but it looked like the path towards that wasn't the right one. I keep thinking something was missing and the overall feeling the story gave wasn't solid, wasn't captivating. There wasn't really much interest for me in following things and I confess I've read some parts rather fast, without paying real attention just to move forward.

The romance was OK, apart from the fact they weren't really sure of what they wanted. They played games with their intentions and their words and I didn't feel the connection between them that much. Despite the romance being the weakest part in the book before this one, I still consider this weaker, which says a lot. They worked better before we saw them individually. Of course, I was happy they got a HEA, that Wraith accepted her past and her present, but I wasn't feeling very motivated to want them working things out.

The mission they take on in this book is interesting and amazingly has a deeper explanation we, as readers, wouldn't expect. This kind of saved the story for me in a way, because after all the boredom and misunderstandings and walking around the issue between other even more uninteresting things, in the end, the main reason behind what was happening as quite interesting and provided an interesting element to all this.

There's also the preparation to the final book, whose couple we know and which might prove to be very interesting..I hope it's done well.

In the end, this installment was weak, not as well worked as I imagined and expected, and it was hard to find interest to go on. The final explanations and my own personal will to finish a book kind of saved it, but it was close...
Grade: 5/10