Monthly Archives: February 2014

Chaos Bound

Book Review of Chaos Bound (Chronicles from the Applecross, #2), by Rebekah Turner

Chaos Bound

I grabbed Rebekah Turner‘s Chaos Born from the Amazon free list, since I loved it I bought the sequel, Chaos Bound.

Description from Goodreads:
Lora Blackgoat — mercenary and smuggler — has only just recovered from the last threat on her life and hasn’t even begun to sort out the mess of having both a nephilim warrior and a reborn hellspawn as potential lovers. Work should be a refuge, but a job finding missing persons puts her in the crosshairs of a violent gang and a merchant with a taste for blood sport.

Reluctantly, Lora turns to the two men in her life for help. Roman — the nephilim — professes to be her soul mate and turns to her when he feels the darkness of nephilim madness descending. But though Lora is drawn to Roman, it is Seth, ex-lover and reborn hellspawn, who Lora must ultimately ask to protect those she loves. Can she trust Seth to save Roman and her adoptive family, or will this be a fatal mistake?

Review:
I really love Rebekah Turner’s sense of humour, which in turn means I enjoy Lora’s quips and comebacks. I simply enjoyed the experience of reading about Lora and her friends. I also liked that, while there is a little romance, it takes a major backseat, letting the adventure and Lora’s frustrations take the spotlight.

I’ll admit that I didn’t love Chaos Bound quite as much as Chaos Born, but that’s often the case with sequels. Lora just seemed to have more irons in the fire here and it left me feeling a little distracted, because nothing got much attention before skipping off to something else. This makes for a fast-paced novel, but little in-depth exploration of any single theme. However, it did all tie together in the end.

I also thought that we weren’t given enough interaction with Roman, considering how important his character was to Lora. I suppose I could say the same for Seth. This is, of course, just personal opinion though. As I said, I generally really enjoyed the book.

The writing and editing was good. Like book one, there were a number of missing words. Part of me wonders if some of this is because the author is Australian. I have a friend, for example, who always says I “I went to hospital” instead of “I went to the hospital.” This is a linguistic difference between where she grew up and were I grew up. Neither is necessarily long. So, hard to be certain, but I felt like there were the occasional missing words.

Also like book one, the world-building is still a little weak. It’s an interesting world, for sure, but it’s unclear how it relates to the real-world and I would really like to know more about this.

While the book isn’t a precipitous cliffhanger, as is so common these days, it isn’t a stand alone book either. Lora faces a couple challenges in this book and she deals with them. But there are a number of open threads left, so the reader is still left wanting at the end. I suppose what I’m saying is that the books in this series are each an episodes in a larger story, as opposed to their own, individual, self-contained stories. Don’t go in expecting to finish with all the answers. This isn’t a criticism, just a comment on the type of series it is.

All in all, I will definitely be looking for the next book in the series and any new works by Ms. Turner.

Chaos Born

Book Review of Chaos Born, by Rebekah Turner

Chaos BornChaos Born, by Rebekah Turner is one of those books I grabbed from the KDP free list based almost exclusively on its cover. Come on, it’s awesome, right?

Description from Goodreads:
Lora Blackgoat, smuggler and mercenary, has been lying low after a job gone bad made her a laughing stock in the industry. When a childhood friend turns to her for help, Lora leaps to restore her reputation and starts hunting a killer who is stalking the gas-lit streets.

She never expects that her path will lead her to the Order of Guides, a sadistic militant religious organisation – or to Roman, a deadly and dangerously attractive half-angel warrior who also hunts the killer.

When Lora discovers that the killer has broken fundamental laws of magic to enter the city, she also uncovers a conspiracy that leads back into her own dark past.

Review:
Awesome, just awesome! I really liked almost everything about this book. Lora was a snarky, determined, tough badass who I enjoyed immensely. She managed to rush into danger without feeling suicidal, have adult relationships without coming across as easy, dispute with her friends and family without going overboard, and retain a sense of humour without it feeling forced. *Sigh* If only I could find more characters like her. 

My only real complaints are that the book could do with a little more editing to address the missing words and I never could get a firm handle on the world. The city names were real-world and there were cars, guns, etc., but there was also some magical, steampunk-like realm where modern technology wouldn’t work and mystical creatures lived among humans. This could have been a dystopian future, an alternative reality, alternate history, etc. It doesn’t define itself in any way and this left me perpetually confused on the matter. 

Despite that, I laughed a lot, rooted for Lora and her cohort, snickered at the mild romance, and generally just had a good time. At about 50%, I went ahead and bought the sequel, knowing I would want it as soon as I finished this one and I’ll be starting any minute now. 

Book Review of Phoebe and Seithe (Neuripra, #1), by Poppet

Phoebe & Seithe

I grabbed Phoebe & Seithe from the Amazon  free list. It’s by someone named Poppet. I tell ya, that’s gonna wreak havoc on my last-name, first-name alphabetised list of reviews. I’m just sayin’.

Description from Goodreads:
Phoebe has the worst taste in men and after storming out on Brian she goes from the hearth into the pyre. Seithe has an immediate hold on her from the moment they touch. He’s more dangerous than Russian roulette and yet he makes her feel alive, exhilarated, safe. Infected by his intoxication she is obsessed with the man who changes more often than a chameleon at a disco. 

Seithe is more than a man, he’s a supernatural, one who puts Phoebe into immortal danger. Now she’s hunted, betrayed, and deliberately misled. 

This is a scorching journey to reawaken your senses. Phoebe’s light can only be found in the darkness of Seithe’s home, in his bedroom, in his arms.

Review: **spoiler Warning**
I’m torn on how to rate this one. At some points, I really liked this book. This is important to note, because I’m about to list a series of complaints that will make me sound like I didn’t. But they were the potholes in an otherwise smooth experience. While generally enjoying the book, I had some really frustrating moments reading it.

The first came about because of the unique writing style. It uses a lot of short, clipped sentences, often consisting of a single, descriptive word. “Angry.” “Hot” “Scared” “C-c-c-cold” This is definitely used stylistically, as opposed to a lack of writing skill and it does fit the tone the book wishes to create, especially since Phoebe spends so much of it angry, but it also doesn’t allow for a lot of description. I happen to like those details and I missed them.

The unexpected writing carried into the romantic scenes too. There is a lot of foreplay in this book. A full 39% of the book progresses in various forms of sexual teasing (really, there’s little else) before there is a sex scene and it’s the most obfuscated sex scene I’ve ever encountered. Not un-erotic, but not clear on what’s happening either. Really, they all kind of felt that way. They were sexy, but more because of Poppet’s descriptions of emotions than actual actions. I feel like I should call this erotica, but on reflection the sex isn’t graphic at all. It just feels that way. Odd, I know.

Also odd is the fact that Phoebe accepted all the strange paranormal things she encountered 100% without question. She noticed them, rationalised some of it away and simply ignored the rest. There wasn’t any sense that she thought it strange that peoples’ eyes and hair changed colors “every 32 seconds” or that Seithe could blind her at will or transport them about. None! How realistic is that? For me this was a strong weakness in the plot and it REALLY needed to be addressed.

This lack of believability was exacerbated by Phoebe’s amazing ability to trust. The fact that the whole thing has a satisfactory ending doesn’t really negate the fact that Phoebe was almost too stupid to live for returning to Seithe again and again. Really, all logic suggests that she should have been running like hell in the opposite direction. He kept insisting she trust him and then doing things that PROVED she shouldn’t (BIG deal type things, you know, like try and kill her), then insisting she trust him again. And you know what, like a mindless idiot she did. This was amazing to me.

I also couldn’t always follow her leaps of logic about why Seithe was doing the things he did. Sometimes it felt like magic that Phoebe understood. For example, at one point he was feeding her and she suddenly understood that he was trying to teach her about instincts. I get the linguistic gymnastics going on here, he was putting food IN her mouth, therefore it could lead to INstincts. But somehow seeing those words on paper and connecting random actions to a meaningful but vague theme aren’t quite the same thing. How did Phoebe get there? There were a lot of these sorts of miraculous “ah-ha” moments. In fact, the happy ending comes about because of one.

Lastly, to have the whole thing boil down to some form of brotherly one-upmanship, that instantly dissolved with no lingering ill-feelings a) stole a little of the books gravitas and b) was damned unbelievable. I mean, come one, Phoebe had made her choice abundantly clear, so why did the trial have to happen? And if the two were so hostile toward one another how did they make peace so quickly? Not to mention the fact that they pretty much hijacked phoebe’s life, manipulated, terrified and forced her to question her own worth. How come she wasn’t pissed off? Felt like a very convenient HEA to me.

Again, there were a number of aspects of this books that made me go “grrr,’ but for the most part I enjoyed the experience of reading the book. I’d be more than up for reading another of Poppets works.

On a side note: I THNK that this is a repackaging of the Pravus series (or more exactly, a combination of the Pavus and Neuri series), making this a retitle of Seithe: Pravus. This is an issue for me, because I happen to have a copy of Zauran (Pravus, #3) that I picked up on the free list last year. I think it’s probably repackaged as Zaria and Zauran, which is listed as book 2 of the Neuripra series. I’d read it now if I was certain it was the same storyline. I really hate uncertainty in these matters though.