New Adult Dark Paranormal / Sci-fi Romance (The Savage Series)

I picked this book up because of the post-apocalyptic world and the interesting backdrop of Victorian versus Science Fiction. The main character, Clara, is likable and a strong female lead, which accounts for most of the reason I stuck with the story as long as I did.

The Pearl Savage does have some merit, providing a unique world with a workable plot. The main character certainly had potential, tolerating the abuse of her drunk mother in order to protect her people from the mistreatment they would certainly suffer without her interference in royal affairs. However, the writing is off putting, giving you the insight of almost every character in the book.

The characters are simple and undeveloped. There are two main "villains," which is definitively the category they belong to, being "modern" versions of fairytale antagonists. The Queen only interest is wine and the abuse of her daughter, and her reason for both these activities is not explained in the first 75% of the book, which is all I could bear to read. The other villain is a neighboring kingdom's Prince, who is explained to be crazy because of too much inbreeding within the royal family. To put it simply, the evil Queen is an alcoholic and the evil prince is some kind of deranged hemophiliac. Neither character is interesting and the narrator devotes entire sections to explaining their boring and stereotypically evil thoughts.

The romance is confusing. As I said, I didn't read the end. What I did read is either leading up to some kind of love triangle, with very underdeveloped relationships, or a very bum-hurt savage leader, who seems like he'd probably boo hoo cry about the Princess hooking up with another savage.

To sum it all up:

Writing Style: C-- started strong with the language and descriptions, but the narration and dialogue were lacking, to say the least.

Plot: C -- Setting and backdrop were very intriguing, and had a lot of potential for a very dramatic and exciting romance, but failed, miserably.

Characters and Character Development: F -- boring characters with little to no development throughout the story. Their backgrounds were hastily constructed and explained in a most matter of fact way. The antagonists were simple and possibly the worst I've read in a long time.

Romance: D -- Untapped potential. No build up. No development.

The Pearl Savage by Tamara Rose Blodgett takes place in a world that has seen better days. The advanced societies were protected from whatever even wrecked the air of the world by living inside of high tech biospheres. Although everything in them seems to be run on steam so it's a forward/backward kind of thing.

Princess Clara is the primary character of the book and her life isn't what you would think for a princess. Her father died a few years ago and since then her mother (who has never cared for her) now openly despises her. In her mind Clara is something to sell off as a wife to a neighboring kingdom so she can stay wasted off of the wine they produce. Luckily for Clara she is a sincerely good person and has some pretty incredible friends to help her deal with her horrible mother. After meeting her husband-to-be and finding out what her life could be become she is left with no choice but to escape into the possibly tainted outside world. It is well known that there are savages that still exist outside the domes, but they are the creatures of nighttime horror stories told to keep children in line. The reality of the savages are they are a simple people who are in trouble. They would like to communicate with the people inside the domes to try to get help, but aren't sure that it will do any good.

I became of fan of Tamara's writing while reading her Death Speaks series. To be perfectly honest I was a little iffy on this one as it gets advertised a bit as a romance and that is a slippery slope for me. I will have to say however that just like the romantic elements in her other series it is not overwhelming. There is a stronger romantic theme in this book than I normally enjoy, but it is done well and there is plenty of character development and action to keep me attention focused on the book.

The book has a wonderfully unique setting inside the domes. Completely contained and totally self reliant biospheres powered by steam populated by a Victorian Era society. That scored some pretty big points with me as I love the idea behind steampunk and this book has a bit of that feel to it. This is a great book for highschool plus readers, as it has a bit of graphic content, and anyone who enjoys post apocalyptic stories and romances.

Review copy provided by the author.

This book is fun and exciting. I absolutely recommend it.

If you are used to reading simpler books like Twilight of Harry Potter, you might find the prose in this particular book to be more advanced and complex.

Some reviewers have "bashed" the book as having poor grammar. Really, it is written with a very poetic hand. Imagery is emphasized over "order." For instance, in some cases there is a sentence that might not make perfect grammatical sense, but the flavor of the words and rhythm of the language shines through. This asks for a different kind of "reading" from the audience. For any who have studied 'stream of consciousness' narrative, namely Faulkner, you will understand better what the author is doing with her writing style. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the author is also a contemporary poet. And if she isn't, than she should start!

People who enjoy poetry, romance, adventure, and rich imagination will love this story. It was absolutely enjoyable and I look forward to the sequel!

Tamara Rose Blodgett has released a book that, objectively, equals the merits of her first book and series (Death Whispers, and others), but subjectively I don't like it as much. This world is very different, and the entire feel of it is very different. She has a good writing style, and this book reflects one that is more normal than that she adopts for Death. I leave it to you to decide whether that's a good or bad thing ;)!

A stunning story filled with romantic suspense and adventure.

Princess Clara: seventeen, beautiful, intelligent, and capable is caught in a dangerous place where she must choose between staying in the Sphere where she would be subject to abuse and tyranny or escaping to the Outside where she could enjoy freedom at the cost of leaving her beloved people at the hand of greedy and careless royalty.

If you're looking for some sunshine to burn away foggy boredom, this book is for you. Whether it be adventure, suspense, action, romance, or fighting that you crave, Clara and her co-characters can supply it all.

Between realistic relationships, priceless dialoge, unique ideas, gory action scenes, and delicate intimacy, The Pearl Savage had me captivated from the beginning.

The characters in The Pearl Savage are impressively realistic and exceedingly well developed; their eyes seemed to hover before my own more vividly than the person's sitting next to me.

The setting of this story is futuristic, fresh, and original with captivatiing ideas that still fascinate me. The story as a whole invaded my mind and the character's faces floated in my consciousness for days after I'd finished reading.

I rated The Pearl Savage a 4 star, because to me, a 5 star says, "Pefect. No possible way it could be better." Due to minor grammatical errors, I wouldn't call this "Perfect," but the book earned a weighty 4 star, as it is captivating and alluring. This is a GOOD book. I'd recommend it to anyone.

This one left me breathless--anticipating more.

Like everyone else, I totally agree that this could have been a very good book. But the overuse of italics and the word mayhap was just too much. The characters were very bland, and I found them to be quite annoying. I'm glad I was able to borrow this book from the store and no money was wasted on it; just my precious time "mayhaps."

i liked the story but........ I do not like authors who make their books cliff hangers so you need to buy the next book to continue the story. i would have given this book 4 stars but because of the author having her books cliff hangers, I felt only 1 star was appropriate.

This novel has one of the most cleverly thought out plots I have ever come across in the fantasy genre. The Victorian practices, and almost Cinderella-like storyine, in the post-apocalyptic setting (and of course the steamy love scenes) is a very clever mix. BUT although this novel uses an older form of English, it does not ammend for the poor sentence constructruction and odd diction that is seen throughout the novel, robbing it of its deserved 5 stars.

Darn you authors and your great stories. Haha. As usual I get the first book in a series from Tamara and immediatly after reading it have to go buy all the books in the series. Once again, Tamara weaves a story that keeps you in the book and wanting to know what will happen next.