You are browsing the Blog for Reviews.

← Previous Entries
Next Entries →

Release Day Review: Drink Deep – Chloe Neill

November 1, 2011 in Reviews

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • List Price: $15.00
  • Publisher: New American Library (November 1, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0451234863
  • ISBN-13: 978-0451234865
Buy Drink Deep at:

Clouds are brewing over Cadogan House, and Merit the vampire can’t tell if this is the darkness before the dawn, or the calm before the storm. With the city itself in turmoil over paranormals and the state threatening to pass a paranormal registration act, times have never been more precarious for the vampires. If only they could lay low for a bit…

Then magic rears its ugly head when Lake Michigan turns black. The mayor insists it’s nothing to worry about, but Merit knows a panic is coming. She’ll have to turn to friends old and new to find out who’s behind this, and stop them before it’s too late for both the vampires and humans.

*Contains Spoilers From Previous Book*

There is so much I want to say about this book, most of which would include spoilers. So I will avoid all spoilers, feel free to read the review knowing I won’t spoil anything. I do feel the need to explain my feelings on the book, most of which were WTF. This is going to be a bit disjointed, due to the fact I’m trying not to spoil and this is the ramblings of my brain right after reading it.

I stayed up until 2am reading it on the day I got the book. At 2am, I emailed Tori and ranted. At 9am, I had coffee & a major rant session with Tori & Mandi from Smexybooks. It’s one of those books that you need your friends to rehash with. So thanks ladies, I needed to get all that out of me. See Mandi’s review of Drink Deep posted yesterday here.

I had a huge amount of issues with Drink Deep, starts with people/backgrounds rehashed. There was a scene that had Morgan in it, made no sense to me. I don’t see why he was there, maybe just to show he’s still alive? We know he’s an asshole, nice to know it again? That’s exactly what I mean by WTF, why? I don’t get it!

We also get more Jonah time, but really all he is (IMO) is someone for Merit to pass the time with while she “mourns” Ethan. He really serves as her partner and someone to pass the time with. Funny enough, I ended up liking Jonah more then Ethan and hell Merit showed more emotion with Jonah then she has with Ethan in the past.

My big issue was it takes place 2 months after the last book, thus we get almost zero mourning out of Merit. When a major character is killed, I want mourning. I don’t want it skipped past, where you still cry a little bit. I want ugly cries and the character getting comfort. It’s sad when I feel that I cried more about the passing of a character then Merit did. It felt like it was done for shock value, not to move the series along or in a different direction.

Another issue was the lack of movement. 3/4 of this book moved at a snails pace, I was bored & really had no investment in what happened. The sky is turning red, the lakes black & it’s all to do with ancient magic. I honestly didn’t care about the plot, more then likely because I figured out who the bad person was right off the bat.

I was not impressed with that usage either. But I can’t go into more detail about that without spoilers. Needless to say, I want my mystery. If I can guess who the bad person is because of big hints dropped, I get a bit aggravated with the story. There’s also someone trying to take over the House for mismanagement, it gets “resolved” so quickly I had to re-read to see wth I missed. I missed nothing, it just skipped by so fast.

Towards the end is when I got really confused & wtf’y. I still don’t understand wth happened, but I do know it was totally unrealistic. I’m aware this is fiction, but I want some realism in my fiction. When you kill off a major character, THEN start changing characters, I am not impressed.

You may get what I mean after you read Drink Deep, but needless to say I thought it was a bit cheesy. It seems like everything at the end came fast and furious, which to me usually results in WTF and WHY? It all felt way too rushed, explanations were dropped in favour of hurrying up.

I might re-review this & ask a few of you to join me, a few weeks after release so I can talk about the book more in depth without worrying about spoilers.

I will be saying goodbye to the Chicagoland Vampires, Drink Deep was it for me. I’m sad to have to shelve this series for good. Drink Deep felt rushed, lacked clear direction and I missed out on the emotions.

 

Tags: ,
26 Comments »

WLP & Seleste review Hunter by Skyla Dawn Cameron

October 29, 2011 in Reviews

  • Paperback: 228 pages
  • List Price: $12.95
  • Publisher: Mundania Press LLC (August 30, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1606592688
  • ISBN-13: 978-1606592687
  • Skyla Dawn Cameron’s Website

 Buy Hunter at:

 

Sometimes natural predators need to be kept in check, and for that, there’s Ryann David. Orphaned as an infant and raised by an exiled branch of the church to become a warrior for God, she and her fellow members of Venatores Daemonum have trained all their lives with only one purpose: destroy all demons in the mortal realm.

But when Ryann and her team are sent to hunt down a vampire who has killed one of their own, a new world of danger, betrayal, and conspiracy greets her. Allied with an irreverent psychic detective and the very monsters she was raised to kill, Ryann will risk everything—her life, her faith, and her heart—in pursuit of the truth as the black and white existence she knew turns a murky shade of gray.

Seleste: Sometimes when I read the first book in a series by a new-to-me author, I’m nervous about reading the next one…especially if I loved book one. Not this time! When I found out Skyla had switched narrators from bad-ass vampire assassin Zara Lain to, of all things, a nun, I dropped the book I was reading to pick up Hunter.

WLP: Agreed. I went “HUH? Nun? What the fresh hell….gimmie” I knew I’d love Ryann, something about the words kick ass vampire killah + nun make my insides all sorts of warm!

Favorite Lines:

Seleste:

We’re a strange breed, you and I. We feel closest to God while hitting things.

“My boots. Do you like them?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well, see, I’m about to shove them up your lopsided ass if you don’t the fuck out of here so my friend and I can talk.”

“Fuck fear, fuck pride, and fuck your bloody vows.”

WLP:

“You think sacramental wine is great, just wait ’til I introduce you to Baileys.”

WLP: Honestly, I have fallen in love with the way Ms. Cameron writes. Vampires have been done to undeath, but the way this series has been written (changing narrators) keeps me involved. I didn’t think I’d like Ryann as much as Zara but I did! I really did miss Zara narrating but Ryann’s story was the perfect piece to the puzzle. Plus we do get to hear from Zara and you can tell she’s changed a lot since the first book. *Sniffles*

Seleste: I still like Zara better than Ryann, but for me it’d be hard to top Zara. I did, however, adore Ellie. When Ryann first came on the scene, I was afraid I’d miss the snark that came with Zara, but Ellie filled that attitude gap. Plus, I love the way his psychic ability is portrayed. There’s always that “you’re a psychic, why don’t you just win the lottery and retire?” attitude, but in this case, it’s made clear that he only gets certain things. I love that Skyla always makes things like that have reasons–nothing in her supernatural world just “is”.

Seleste & I agreed on our rating after much debate! One this is for sure, we’re DYING to get our hands on the next part of the series!

Tags: ,
3 Comments »

Seleste reviews My Third-World Girlfriend by RJ Silver

October 27, 2011 in Reviews


  • Ebook: 64 pages
  • List price: $0.99
  • Publisher: Self-published (September 27, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B005SUBI6W
  • RJ Silver’s website
To purchase My Third-World Girlfriend:

Gerry Lankin has a problem. All his life, women have been hitting him over the head, usually for good reason. Recognizing he’s at fault, he’s about to make big changes in his life, when three older men convince him that the key to romantic happiness isn’t self-improvement; it’s finding a woman with low expectations. Gerry’s about to discover just how wrong three old men can be.

 

I made no bones about my love for RJ Silver’s The Princess and the Penis. It was laugh-out-loud funny for me, and I love stuff that cracks me up, and it was one of my favorite reads since I’ve started reviewing for Nat. The reason I’m prefacing with that is to give you an idea of what his next story had to live up to.

One of the hardest things with satire is that it is, kind of by its nature, going to offend some people. Social commentary is tough enough, but when you try to make it funny, stereotypes have to be drawn upon. I’m not a person who disbelieves in stereotypes. As far as I’m concerned, traits become stereotypical because of the fact that they are common enough to be noticeable. That doesn’t mean I like seeing stereotypes perpetuated. If you’re going to do it, it has to be really funny (like the innocent virgin in TPatP).

The horn-dog men in My Third-World Girlfriend were stereotypes too: the big, burly Texan, the beer-swigging German, and the English gentleman. But they, and our intrepid hero, all were the worst stereotype of men–the guys in it for the booze and the babes and want nothing to do with settling down. They’re so bad, they travel around the world taking advantage of “bar girls” and drinking themselves to oblivion then moving on when things get tough. I’d have been okay with the men being stereotypes (sort of like I was with the Princess), but it carried over to the women too.

At a certain point, I stopped noticing funny lines and started noticing the stereotypes. That’s not to say there weren’t funny bits, because there were. Here’s a few examples:

We men, on the other hand, are only casual nesters. For us, any old nest will do. In fact, we’re happy flyin’ from one nest to another so long as we have one by the time nightfall rolls around. And even if we do settle in one nest, we’re perfectly content to leave it the way we found it for the rest of our lives.

 

Here I was, my mind simultaneously racing with caffeine yet still a little woozy from all the booze, and I was stuck in the back of a cab with a Thai Perry Mason.

 

…the next thing I knew, my lips pressed down on hers, sending an electrical charge through me far more intense than any of the times I’d been tasered.

And the story did come full circle and effectively deliver its message. So, it wasn’t a bad story by any stretch. It did what a good satire should, just for me, it did it with a lot fewer laughs and a bit more teeth-grinding than The Princess and the Penis. 

The problem with rating this piece is that good satire (well, what I consider good) is hard to find, and this is still pretty good satire, ruined only by my irritation at what I found to be offensive stereotyping (which might not bother other people). Had I found it funnier, maybe I would have moved past that and been able to love it as much as I did his previous work, but I didn’t do much laughing after the first couple chapters. Like I said though, good satire is hard to find, and this is still pretty good…and a tale worth telling I think.

Tags: , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

CdnMrs Reviews – Forbidden Embers

October 25, 2011 in Reviews

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • List Price: $14.00
  • Publisher: NAL Trade (October 4, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0451234707
  • ISBN-13: 978-0451234704
Buy Forbidden Embers at:

The Dragonstar clan is under attack, endangered by an insidious enemy. Now a top sentry must go undercover, but the task will be more than he bargained for…

Desperate to save his clan from deadly biological warfare, Dragonstar sentry Logan Kelly must infiltrate the Wyvermoon clan—and put an end to the war. Posing as a rogue dragon without a clan, Logan quickly realizes how close the Wyvermoons are to anarchy since the death of their leader. Their ranks are thin, and their only hope lies in Cecily Fournier, the princess whose grasp on the throne is shaky at best. All he has to do is stick around long enough to see his enemies fail.

The plan is foolproof. Until he falls for Cecily.

What starts as an uneasy alliance turns into an uncontrollable passion. As the spark between them gets hotter, Logan discovers the Wyvermoon’s hidden agenda. But how can he bring down the Wyvermoons without exposing himself as a traitor to the woman he loves?

I love really good blurbs. They make review writing super easy. The blurb for Forbidden Embers, the third book in the Dragon’s Heat series,  pretty much tells you the entire story and I’m ok with that. Forbidden Embers is a straight up PNR and exactly what I wanted to read. You know the drill: one or more characters with a paranormal ability of some kind meet, face trial, fall in love, bump uglies, endure conflict and then possibly obtain an HEA. This being said, Tessa Adams writes great PNR and it’s in no way run of the mill. Her Dragon’s Heat series has a fresh dragon mythology, with strong, female leads and sexy, alpha males, hot romance and plots with action and suspense.

Here’s what I liked about Forbidden Embers.


Forbidden Embers is sexy.
All of the Dragon’s Heat books are sexy. Hell, book 2, Hidden Embers,has given me a whole new perspective on hotel room furniture and Tequila. In Forbidden Embers we get tons of hot smexy times, but with a paranormal element. Logan, our hero, is a telepath. You know what that means – he can sex you with his mind! Think of the potential for long distance relationships!!

She blushed, thinking of everything she’d let him do to her that night, when she thought it was only her imagination.  “You weren’t anywhere near me.  How did you get inside me like that?”
“I was having the same fantasy you were, I think.  Or something pretty close to it, and somehow my mind found yours.”

Character Depth.
Yes, both the characters are dragon shifters and yes, the heroine is kick ass and the hero a tough-guy, alpha male, and this alone gives them a bit of depth, but characters with these attributes are all through PNR. Tessa Adams, in my opinion, was able to infuse more than the average amount of depth into Ceciliy Fournier and Logan Kelly .

Logan Kelly is essentially a refugee in the Dragonstar Clan having left his clan in Ireland centuries ago. His telepathic abilities keep him constantly on guard and his departure from his previous clan centuries ago leave him feeling like he doesn’t and won’t really ever truly belong. Add to this an intense loyalty to the Dragonstar Clan for taking him in and you’ve got a guy who doesn’t think much of himself, but will die for others, hence the reckless mission he decides to go on.

Cecily Fournier has been raised to be a figurehead for her people, but nothing more. To smile and wave as the menfolk of her male dominated clan tend to the needs of the Wyvermoons and eventually marry a politically appropriate husband. Until recently, this all well and good, but after the death of her father and brother it becomes apparent that her clan is going to hell in a hand basket and that if she doesn’t step up there will soon be no clan to be figurehead for.

Both Logan and Cecily have a warped sense of their own self-worth and a sense that they don’t belong and as a result offer a vulnerability and depth to the classic kick ass heroine and alpha male characters of PNR.

DRAGONS!
I’m on a bit of dragon kick right now and I really enjoy Tessa Adams’ dragons.  Each of her dragons possess a paranormal ability, unique colouring and unlike some other dragon mythologies are very social creatures, living in large clans.  Maybe I’m a weirdo, but there’s something about ferocious dragons that could tear your head off living in at least semi domestic bliss with family and friends. This adds another layer to the plots in the Dragon’s Heat series, something you wouldn’t get reading about a lonely, old dragon living under a mountain atop his gold. (That’s right, I’m talking to you Smaug!)

Forbidden Embers is a fun and sexy book. You could technically read it as a stand alone, but I’d recommend at least reading Hidden Embers, book 2 in the Dragon’s Heat series, it will give you a bit more insight into the character’s motivations and some plot elements. I have no idea what Tessa Adams will do with this series now that a certain story arc has concluded, but I look forward to reading more about her dragons and their adventures.

Tags: ,
2 Comments »

Mini Monday Reviews (The Help, Blood Coven Vampires & Down These Strange Streets)

October 24, 2011 in Monday Mini Reviews, Young Adult Reviews

The Help – Kathryn Stockett

Buy at:

After seeing all the hype surrounding the movie, I knew I had to check out the book. I really enjoyed it, until I got to the ending. Way too abrupt on the ending. Not impressed! I hate when you have a certain momentum going and bam…the end. Boo Hiss. It was all sorts of lead up to the conclusion and no “real” conclusion.

 

Blood Coven Vampires – Mari Mancusi

Buy at:

I was actually pretty impressed with this series. I got books 1-2 in a volume and bought the rest. I went through them like water. A cute YA series and not the typical vampire story. I’ll for sure continue reading this series, it’s snarky & witty & damnit Mari Mancusi has awesome taste in music. As a total side note, I looked at the authors picture and had to giggle…it was taken by my boss! Small world!

 

Down These Strange Streets – Edited by George R.R. Martin

Buy at:

I’m not really a fan of anthologies, I like to invest my time in a character that is going to continue on instead of a quick blip on my radar.  I have to say, GRRM’s intro on what Urban Fantasy is, was the best introduction to an anthology I have ever read. It really set up the stories perfectly. My favorite of the collection, The Bleeding Shadow by Joe R. Lansdale. That story alone is worth the buy and I am not a huge fan.

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,
4 Comments »

← Previous Entries
Next Entries →