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Book Review: The Melier, by Poppy Rhys

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I received a copy of Poppy Rhys‘ The Melier in a recent Renegade Romance book box.
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Running for her life…

Lucia hijacks a stolen cargo ship only to find she’s not alone. A giant, beastly alien slave with no memory of his past is now her newest acquisition, and she has no idea what to do with him.

Stuck together for the foreseeable future on the journey back to her home planet, Lucia struggles with the decision to keep him close or risk letting him fall back into enemy hands.

Outrunning the pirates in pursuit, and her own desires, is shaping up to be an impossible task.

my review

Entertaining, but honestly, a structural mess in which the first third doesn’t match the last two thirds. I was frequently thrown for a loop when characters were suddenly setting off to do this or that with no explanation. Like, ‘Time to get ready for the party,’ and I, the reader, was like, ‘What party?’ The story wanders and feels plotless. At no point did I really feel Rhys had a plan for the story; everything feels random. By the end, I was still unsure if Lucia is meant to have one or two mates, for example.

There is an entirely pointless SA scene. It’s comparatively mild but absolutely extraneous. Leaving it out would have no effect on the outcome of the story. But even the consensual sex is disappointing. None (NONE) of the sex scenes have even a paragraph worth of foreplay. Sex is 100% just P-n-V. Boring.

I liked the characters, especially Soren and his brothers, and the family made for interesting side characters. But this was a pretty ‘meh’ read for me.

 

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Book Review: Of Dragons and Cruelty, by Catherine Banks

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I purchased a copy of Catherine Banks‘ Of Dragons and Cruelty through Etst.

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She’s no avenging angel; she’s a Vengeance and she’s out for blood.

Fighting, sex, comradery, food, and drink; these are the things that the warrior women known as Vengeances enjoy.

While locked away for a minor crime, Jenecca’s kin are attacked and slaughtered before she can break free to rescue them.

She’s the last living Vengeance.

The only thing on her mind – in her very being – is revenge upon the man who murdered her sisters, but to enact her plan, she must travel to an entirely different dimension.

Turns out, she’s not so great at landings and finds herself right in the middle of a dragon shifter den.

Now, Jenecca must battle not only against the slayer of her kin, but against her heart and the ticking clock on her revenge.

Throw in the difficulties surrounding her when the men from her past rise up to seek revenge alongside her and seek her heart, and Jenneca might have more than she can handle.

Can she maintain her sanity? Or will it be too late for the last Vengeance?

my review

This honestly just isn’t good. It is neither plot nor character-driven. Nor is it something like erotica that would acceptably be void of plot and character growth. It just plops the reader down in a random world with random characters who are never truly introduced and then sets the main female character off doing random things and collecting random men (who happen to of dragons and cruelty photobasically be the only people she meets).

The reader gets no sense that there are any rules to the world or their magics. It’s inconsistent, and things often don’t make sense. The men are bland cardboard cutouts who fall in love on sight. The heroine feels like author-insert and is the prettiest, strongest, wittiest, etc., that every male wants. And she is, frankly, intolerable. I mean, really spoiled and unlikable. Overall, I only finished it because it was short, and I wanted to count it toward my reading goal.

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Book Review: Lord of Population, by Elizabeth Stephens

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A copy of Elizabeth Stephens‘ Lord of Population came in my most recent Renegade Romance book box.
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She thinks she can steal from me, the little human. Adorable. I can’t decide what will be more fun – the hunt, or what I will do to her when I catch her. And I will catch her. There is nowhere she can run.

Abel was of perfectly sound body and mind when she looted the Other’s corpse. He looked dead. Wait. Did he just smirk up at her? No. Definitely not…

Hiding out in an abandoned townhouse, Abel doesn’t expect to hear that same bloodsucking alien come knocking on her door or that, when trouble finds them, he might stand at her back, rather than stab her through it.

But when he offers to help her cross the ruined world of Population, Abel knows better than to believe him. Because when he looks at her, it’s with a hunger that seems to go beyond the taste of her blood and, when he asks for payment, he requires the one thing she can’t give up.

Her trust.

Run all you like, little human. The sword you carry won’t be enough to stop me from coming for you. You’re mine. Blood. Body. Heart.

my review

Goodreads tells me that “Lord of Population is a relaunched and combined edition of Population and Saltlands.” That it is two books combined into one is not surprising. You feel it as a reader. In fact, it feels like three. Arc one is Abel meeting and falling for Kane. Book two would be Abel and Mikael’s rescue plot. The third is dealing with Elise. (I hope I made those vague enough that those who’ve read it recognize what I mean, and it isn’t spoiled for those who haven’t.) So, yeah, the book is a little clunky in that regard. “But at no point was I like, OMG, when will this end?!”

I had other complaints. The book starts out giving you a rough, tough, alpha bad-ass alien. Then, he pretty quickly turns into a mild-mannered feudal lord, loved by his subjects, one and all. *Whiplash…and disappointment* The plot pretty predictable. I can’t think of a single twist that caught me off-guard, not even the last one. And the editing starts to fall apart toward the end (both copy edits and content edits). For example, we’re told someone is clean-shaven, and then, on the same page, Abel touches the person’s beard.

Complaints or not, however, I generally enjoyed this. I liked the characters. There are a few heavy topics dealt with. While rape in the dystopian world is inferred, it never happens on-page to the main character (so I didn’t have to read it). And I liked the story in general, better than I liked Taken to Voraxia (which I didn’t hate), for sure.

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The Tattered Page: Lord of Population