"If Cinderella carried a gun, and was just as set on committing murder as on finding her prince..." is a very poor quote, as all the main character is is another run of the mill Mary Sue that you can find in any My Immortal based fanfiction.
Talia is annoyingly similar to Ebony, even going out of her way to become a complete and utter twat to her boyfriend by page six.
'“You’re so beautiful Talia.” Kellar smiles up at me in the candlelight...I feel myself blushing and reach over to chuck a tasselled cushion at him. “Shut up idiot!”'
Forgetting that there should be a comma between up and idiot and that tasseled is misspelled, how childish is she to insult her boyfriend, who just went on a date with her and had sex with her. You have no idea how much I want to choke Talia right now!
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Talia is a seamstress who has lost all of her family to douche-bag McGee and eeks out a difficult living selling her fashions at a rather crappy boutique.
Or at least the author says it's a difficult living, considering the author also says that Talia sells out of her wares and has to go back and get more from her inventory. Granted, this is attributed to her boyfriend, Keller, being 'amazing' and 'wonderful' and 'dashing' with the customers despite the fact that she wasn't interested in him being at her shop in the first place (since he's a solider and it'd make her look like a criminal) and only seems to change her tune due to the fact that he brings her income.
This story, in much the same way Vengeance was, is a story about...well, vengeance. Talia's great goal in life, constantly referred to as 'The Plan', is to kill the warlord that ruined her life...which despite the so called hardships doesn't seem to be a bad life.
And yet, somehow it is. I will never understand why perfect characters are so bitchy and miserable. Is it because they realize that they are so perfect that nothing interesting ever happens to them? ‘Oh, woe is me! I’m such a super special snowflake! Look how hard my life is thanks to this villain that’s just here for me to be awesome!’
The story sets up some kind of fantasy world. It seems similar to our own, as Talia mentions that Keller is a pilot and they talk about trains, but nothing is ever explained. How does this world work? I dunno. How technologically advanced is the world? Who knows?
What makes all this worse is that the story simply doesn't cover basic events, such as when Talia and Keller have sex in his quarters. I had to guess by the fact that Talia mentions that she picked up her dress off the floor when a sentence before she was talking about the drapes and tapestries in Keller's room.
Talia also goes on a tirade about how her boyfriend doesn't really love her when Keller says he does. Then when he gets angry that she's being a dick, I can't really blame him. Yes, she mentions that Keller is known to have dated a lot of women before her, but it would be nice to be 'shown' this. Talia says that gossip gets around in the camps, so why not use the fact that she has to go back for more clothing? Add in more descriptive detailed about the people and the environment. Have her bypass a group of women talking about her, thus revealing this to the reader by someone other means than Talia think bubbling it all. Then we can have her narration about her feelings, which are shown by her happy mood being darkened with self-doubt. And to show how much he does love her, or at least how well he knows and cares for Talia, Keller could wave off a patron and quietly ask her what's wrong and reassure her.
It would be much more adult and natural than the childish way she's acting. Oh, and please take out that digesting scene of where sex makes everything better after this fight because I seriously hate this trope. Sex does not equal love.
Taming Tigers by Daisy White is easy to read, so you can slip right into it but only people much younger than I whose brains haven't matured past knee jerk reactions and silliness will enjoy this book. And even if you're at the age that likes this crap, AVOID this and go read something else, like anything by Jamie Sedgwick.