Reader's Discretion Advised

Still think the name "alchemy mate" is really stupid. There should be some kind of poetic other name for it. "Alchemy mate" is far too straight-forward to sound good.Since this is consummate pulp, I guess I'd have to make allowances.But still. Come on. Getting letters with sketches as proof of kidnapping? Wouldn't it be more effective to send, idk, a lock of hair or some drops of blood? I mean, you're sending it to a vamp. They have magical smelling senses whatever. Actually, the blood makes the most sense. Or maybe some blood-stained cloth. Stained with the kidnapped person's blood. That's not only more dramatic but also makes more sense than a bundle of sketches. (I get they're trying to do the "Regency" equivalent of photos, but come on. The idea is so damn stupid.)I mean, can you imagine it?They kidnapped the dude, stripped 'em and tortured 'em. And then had 'em freeze so a sketch artist could capture their visage."Hey, don't you move. Hold that angle. No, move a little to the left...too far. Back to the right...aaaand. There. Perfect. Hold that, please."It's at that point the entire thing became really, really stupid. *sighIt was even kind of okay up until this point.And then Andren goes all...I dunno. Melodramatic caveman. Jeoffrey?Maybe he's got a Jeoffrey-mode.Either way, it was really stupid. Coming off the heels of the retarded sketch-thing (I normally try to avoid using retarded as an insult, but in this case, I think it may apply literally).That moment imploded my ability to suspend my disbelief. Anything and everything that came after was just ridiculous and stupid.And the villain dude could have been so great! But instead it was trite and cheesy and downright awful.It's horrible because the more this goes, the more apparent it becomes how unhealthy any of the "relationships" are (Raj and Rannulf are the only one who've maybe found some sort of equilibrium, even though it sounds kind of like at the root of it, it's rather unideal).The vampy-bondy-claimy thing makes no sense. None at all.And then the thing with Jager - I mean one of the A dudes (Aiden) - and Sky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwC7OHpesKYYou all get African babies.I mean, I would read the next book because Aiden and Sky seem to have a decent story proposal whatever, but this book makes me very leery of going further.