Monthly Archives: September 2017

Blood Guard

Book Review of Blood Guard (Mission #1), by Megan Erickson

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I received a copy of Blood Guard, by Megan Erickson, through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Tendra: One minute, I’m a bartender in gritty Mission City; the next, I’m whisked away by a vampire named Athan who tells me that I’m the lifeblood of his clan. It sounds unbelievable, but he’s got evidence I can’t deny. Turns out, Athan belongs to an underground society of vampires who feed only on humans with their consent. Their enemies have no such qualms, and they want me dead. The only thing standing in their way is strong, sexy Athan. And the closer we get, the more tempted I am to let Athan feed. . . .

Athan: How could I have known when I snatched this snarky, beautiful human off the streets that she would change mydestiny? As a loyal soldier, I must deliver Tendra to our future king—my brother. Empowered with the blood of ten generations of the Gregorie breed, she is fated to rule as our queen. But there’s something between us that’s so intoxicating, so carnal, I can’t help wanting Tendra for myself . . . even if it’s treason.

Review:
Sooo, I was not impressed. I swear I’ve read this book before. I’m not throwing out the big P word or anything. Good lord, nothing like that! But it just felt like a common plot, with a pretty common heroine and a fairly common hero and noting about it felt particularly new or fleshed out. When you really boil it down, this was a bog standard paranormal romance with nothing (good or bad) to make it stand out in any way.

What’s more it was about as subtle as a sledge hammer. Nothing had enough time to develop or for me to become invested in it. The book isn’t bad. It’s just not overly good either. But for a quick, you’ll-know-exactly-what-to-expect kind of read it’ll fill the bill.

Dark Protector

Book Review of Dark Protector (Paladins of Darkness #1), by Alexis Morgan

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Last year, I found several autographed Alexis Morgan books at a second-hand store. They were signed “To Mom and Dad.” I was totally taken with the mystery of how these books came to be at a charity shop, so I bought them and made them my own.

This is not one of those books. It turns out that they were the second, third and fifth in the Paladins of Darkness series. (I bet there had been a copy of this one too, but either someone had already bought it or it was just lost in the thousands of books available.) I bought this one, Dark Protector off Amazon so that I could read the three signed ones I’d already bought.

Generally, regardless of what I might or might not think of the books, I love the mystery around them.

Description from Goodreads:
Devlin Bane: Born a Paladin, he is a member of an ancient band of warriors locked in a centuries-old war against evil.

His destiny: To die over and over again to protect mankind from the Others, only to be revived each time by his mortal Handler.

But his fierce strength and courage cannot save him from gradually becoming one of the monsters he was born to destroy.

Dr. Laurel Young, who has spent years training to become a Handler, must remain detached from her patients. But each time she revives the darkly compelling Devlin Bane, he claims a little more of her soul and incites in her desires that grow wilder and wilder — even as he inches closer to losing his humanity.

As the war against the Others grows more desperate, Laurel and Devlin can’t help but give in to the fierce hunger that’s sizzled between them for so long. Now they’ll face the ultimate battle together — to save a dark, passionate love that goes against every rule as they join forces to fight an enemy who is closer than they ever imagined….

Review:
Soooo, this was not good. But not good in a the-genre-has-grown-up sort of way. This book is from 2006 and just like bodice rippers are out of style in the romance genre, I think the sort of plotting in this book has gone out of style in the paranormal romance genre. We readers just expect so much more now than a thinly defined Other enemy of paranormal origin, a characterless alpha hero and a sweet little thing heroine. Maybe this would have been enough when there weren’t a lot of other PNR books around, but not anymore.

The enemies from across the ill-defined border are literally just called Others and the reader learn almost nothing about them except that they’re evil in some way that effects the environment. But even this little bit of information is compromised at the end and maybe wrong. (A “twist” I saw coming from the beginning.) The hero has no history or character beyond alpha-asshole warrior man. The heroine has a little more, but not much. The romance is instant, except that they’ve known one another for three years. So, I still have no idea why they suddenly had this sudden, irresistible attraction to one another. And the book has a bad case of sex=love. They have sex and suddenly they’re in love. The villain? Totally obvious (as is the bigger villain that is carrying over to the series). [Spoiler] If you are told the bad guy is a guard and only one guard in the whole book shows up more than once and is given a name, that’s the bad guy.

All in all, the mechanical writing and editing is fine. This was apparently Morgan’s first book and there are tons now, so I’m willing to give her another chance, maybe with something a little more recent. Plus, I do have three more Paladin of Darkness books to read.

femme

Book Review of Femme, by Marshall Thornton

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I won an audio copy of Femme, by Marshall Thornton.

Description from Goodreads:
Queeny cocktail waiter, Lionel, wakes up to find himself in bed with Dog, a straight-acting softball player and the two embark on a rocky road to romance. A journey that requires coming out of the closet, going into the closet, a pair of red high heels, many pairs of red high heels, a failed intervention, a couple of aborted dates, and homemade pom-poms. Mostly, Lionel and Dog learn what it means to be a man. 

Review:
Generally enjoyable. For the most part I very much liked this. I liked that it took a look at stereotypes within the gay community, by the gay community. I liked that all sorts of identities were legitimized. And I thought the whole thing was warm and fuzzy and funny.But there were just a few too many moments in which I was rolling along, pleasantly enjoying the narrative only to have some needle-screech moment in which something that made me twitch happened.

I am apparently a lot less forgiving than Leon, because I would not have forgiven Doug for denying me so many times. Nope. Which means I had a hard time rolling with the happy ending. Further, I didn’t think some of the characters whose actions needed to be addressed as problematic were actually challenged. [spoiler] The sister who continued to set her brother up on blind dates (including with his ex-fiancé) despite being asked not to, who then outed him to his homophobic parents, AND THEN brought said homophobic parents to a place she knew he’d be on a date with a man, for example. Yes, she was a perfect example of an ally who is more concerned with how cool it is to be an ally than actual ally-ship, but not once was she reprimanded for her horrendously distressing behaviors, nor were the rest of the family.

Lastly, the book deals with stereotypes and I’m glad it did. I liked that. But I also found the characters, Lionel especially, too pat and stereotypical in some ways that weren’t being explored. Just because he’s femme, for example, doesn’t mean he also has to be flighty, unable to think before he speaks, consider the consequences to his actions, or perform a single domestic chore (like cook). This is not just the ‘femme persona,’ this is a stereotypical representation of the femme persona as it is often stereotyped. And part of the point of the book is that we are more than our stereotypes, a theme I thought would be a lot more effective if the characters actually went past their own stereotypes.

All in all however, I liked the book. I liked the theme. I liked the writing. I thought Joel Leslie did a great job with the narration. I’d happily read another book by this author.