The day Mariana Zapata disappointed me or “The Things we Water”.

Did MZ or I outgrew the slow burn genre?

Synopsis

Once upon a time, a girl found a magical puppy, and her life was never the same again.

Nina Popoca needs help.

So, so much of it.

The only place she can find that help is on a sprawling ranch in Colorado. A place hiding more than a community filled with magical creatures trying to live their lives in safety and in peace. A village that might hold the answers to questions she’s had her entire life.

And if that ranch is owned by her best friend’s hunky cousin?

…there are worse things in the world than having to live right by Henri Blackrock.

Mini review

3 stars

I have loved every Mariana Zapata book (except the Grump maybe) but this was a disappointment.

There was everything to make it a great book for me:

-an alpha hero (literally);

-cute kids;

-great best friends;

-found family;

-slow burn;

-a kind hearted female character who was an inner badass.

And yet, the recipe didn’t work.

The book felt too repetitive an unnecessary long. With the same “scenes” (Nina loving her Dunky Donut, said Donut talking telepathically with “love” and “yes”, Dunkan being the best/cutest/…, etc) repeating over and over.

The slow burn didn’t feel like a slow burn but simply Nina being oblivious as, contrary to other Mariana’s books, Henri’s feelings were pretty obvious. If a werewolf rubs his scent on you, for someone like Nina who has lived and been raised by werewolves, it should have been evident that he had feelings for you! All that was achieved was make her look naïve and blind.

I was bored so many times!

What felt also very amateur was the inexistent world building. If you decide to branch out of your usual genre and write fantasy, the least you can do is work on your world building. But no, aside every type of magical creatures and lore being randomly thrown in the mix from ogres to Aztec gods or Norse gods, there was zero world building. Sigh…

Now some parts worked very well like the found family, and that’s a favorite trope of mine and all the super cute kids! Nina was also a very likeable heroine but…

Either Mariana Zapata lost her knack/love for writing, after being MIA for three years, either she is feeling trapped in a genre/trope (slow burn romance) and doesn’t know how to break the mold. Or more probably, I outgrew her writing and books.

Will I read her next release…I think I will wait to read several reviews before deciding.

It hurts to write such review as Mariana is extremely sweet and her previous books brought me countless delights but that’s just how I personally experienced this story. And I swore to always be honest in my reviews.

I do hope that lots of people will enjoy it way more than I did because she deserves all the love and I wish her the best. Also one “less great” book doesn’t make her a bad writer. One failed story doesn’t erase all the past good ones.

Thanks for reading.

Sophie