Perfect Strangers (The Valens Legacy) (Volume 2)

The story picks up, and the players become clearer. Sides are forming, dissolving, and sometimes destroyed. Nobody knows the whole picture yet, including the reader. We’re lucky as readers, we get to peek over Sean’s shoulder for the best view.

One interesting concept is Sean treating magic like a physical science. He learns how to cook up quicker and simpler spells to do the work of older, unchanging ones. He can apply magic down to the atomic level, as he shuffles around electrons in the electron cloud, the outermost ring of electrons in a metallic atom.

I found it interesting that he even managed to work in fission to safely handle highly-radioactive elements by making them decay into safer, more stable atoms, rather than run the risk of transmuting into still-dangerous radioactive isotopes they might otherwise still transmute into.

All a very elegant concept in magic, even if the author confuses elastic with INeleastic collisions.

About the same as the first book.

The magic system is described as complex, but leaves the reader feeling like it's pretty easy. Since the MC is applying computer programming techniques to magic, I understand the author not wanting to go into it for fear of boring most readers, but it really diminishes the impact of magic and makes it feel inconsequential. This leads to the villains seeming to be incompetent fools, since they're pretty much all magic users that are much less skilled the MC who's only been using magic less than a month.

The MC feels pretty flat sometimes, especially when he goes right from fooling around with his girlfriend to worrying about his kidnapped mother (for like five seconds) then back to fooling around.

This was an entertaining and fun read. I shot through the first three books in minimum time and enjoyed almost everything Van Stry wrote. I enjoyed the story line, characters and even the bad guys. Looking forward to the fourth, fifth and sixth books to come out. Fourth should be out soon. Do not hesitate on these books. Well worth the read and totally entertaining. Keep up the good work.
There were numerous typos and misspelled words, but I have not figured out how to annotate them and pass them on to the author. The only negative comment I could make is that the first three books could have been compressed into two books, and then I would have felt like I was paying for a true book of over three hundred pages, not 164 for the first, and so on.

Borrowed this book through the kindle unlimited program. I just finished the first book and downloaded this one at midnight the day of release. The book had me sucked in. Besides work and the commute from home, I couldn't put the book down.

We see Sean progress in his search for answers as well as his growth as a character. Along the way he picks up new allies and identifies his enemies. It's clear that the series is picking up the pace as we learn more and more about the world Sean lives in, those on his side and against him.

As with the first book, I felt that the story ended just as things were getting good. Not as bad of a cliffhanger as the first book in my opinion, but leaves me eagerly awaiting the third book.

Thank you Jan Stryvant for another enjoyable read.

Fun, fast paced, sexy times with some good ol violence thrown in. Interesting world building and good writing and story telling.

I blasted through all 5 that have been published as of this review in about a week. Really fun, enjoyable reads. Basically a copy/paste of my review of the first book as I don't want to spoil the fun. The harem, erm, "pride" grows a bit more, hot ladies and more depth to the world building.

This was a great story of overall.

My only complaint is it was too technical at times. I think it could have possibly been explained with going into so much detail. But, other people might find that fascinating.

The love story aspect between Sean and Roxy is adorable.

The addition of the third gal was a fun twist!

Running off to find book three!

Again, a very good read. Thinking I may simply wait until the next couple are out to read back to back. This story has an amazing assortment of threads being woven, and I look forward to reading through them all.

This same author put out Shadow, which seems a little more rough cut, but was still an excellent story and had the added benefit of being one that could take a day rather than a couple hours.

A magic- using were seems a trifle over-powered.

I like the combination of magic and programming, but it seemed a tad convenient/gimmicky to allow Sean to essentially power level so rapidly.

And please, find another affectionate diminutive besides "Hon." (Although I guess one could do a shot every time they saw "Hon," which might make it more palatable. If "Hon" is what you call your wife, please don't take this personally. )

I would have appreciated not so explicit sex scenes. The story line issue well thought out and grows on you as it draws you in. Still the triple X encounters take away [In my opinion] from the story line, leave me some room for my own imagination.
It was a bit disappointing. I did read this on my kindle unlimited account but won't be purchasing it for my library

Again, a very good read. Thinking I may simply wait until the next couple are out to read back to back. This story has an amazing assortment of threads being woven, and I look forward to reading through them all.

This same author put out Shadow, which seems a little more rough cut, but was still an excellent story and had the added benefit of being one that could take a day rather than a couple hours.

A magic- using were seems a trifle over-powered.

I like the combination of magic and programming, but it seemed a tad convenient/gimmicky to allow Sean to essentially power level so rapidly.

And please, find another affectionate diminutive besides "Hon." (Although I guess one could do a shot every time they saw "Hon," which might make it more palatable. If "Hon" is what you call your wife, please don't take this personally. )

I would have appreciated not so explicit sex scenes. The story line issue well thought out and grows on you as it draws you in. Still the triple X encounters take away [In my opinion] from the story line, leave me some room for my own imagination.
It was a bit disappointing. I did read this on my kindle unlimited account but won't be purchasing it for my library

every time the story builds up real momentum author ends the chapter and the book. I'm used to books being an entire arc of story per book and this book series, while good, is as said by the author a 3 arc story with approximately 6 books per arc. which flat out tells me that they turned what should be 3 books into 18... its mildly frustraiting that just just as the book starts making me want to keep turning pages, i run out them and have to go to the next book. for me the feeling is similar to what happend to the hobbit when it got a movie, instead of one movie it was three. in this case instead of one good length book there are 6 short books that so far end frustratingly abruptly

Good action. A little more gratuitous sex than I want (but I've learned to skip over it). As I finish one book, I immediately go on to the next book in the series. This is why I find Kindle Unlimited so cost saving. I read all the series as fast as I can.

Well written. An easy read. You can speed thru this one and not have to worry about hitting speed bumps in grammar, plot or content. A continuation of the series true to form.
Testosterone is a little heavy but confined and easily skipped.
Fun series.
A bit of a young man's fantasy.

Marvelous. Still a good story with nice unique adds. Sex is a lot less fade to black in book two. However, still not offensively shoved into yer face constantly. It adds instead of distracts from the story. Haha point in case. The sex mage saying "study first, play and sleep later"

Jan Stryvant's gripping Valens Legacy continues in Book 2. His strategic endings serve to urge the reader onward without leaving that cheated, "cliffhanger" feeling. It makes me glad to be in KU's trial period, 'Cause I'm going straight to Book 3!

Read the first book....have now done nothing and read all 6...lol. LOVED them. Not once did I turn a page unread due to over writing (rare for me). Great characters, excellent action...loved the plot.

Can you PLEASE start on round 2 of the series?!?!?!

Decent enough story, nothing really great about it that stands out to make it really good, but entertaining, guy becomes a were and a mage starts building a harem and fights bad guys, pretty straightforward, will read the next one.

If you enjoyed the first book, you will enjoy this one. I will say that for all of the author’s disclaimers, nothing is overly graphic so if you are not reading these books because you are you are turned off by graphic sex scenes, try the books. I think you will be able to enjoy the book.