Author Archives: Sadie

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Book Review: Twelfth Grade Night, by Molly Horton Booth

I accepted a review copy go Twelfth Grade Night, by Molly Horton Booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm, & Jamie Green through Rockstar Book Tours. The book was also featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight. So, you can hop over there for the tour schedule, an excerpt, author/artist information, and even a chance to enter a giveaway.

Vi came to Arden High for a fresh start and a chance to wear beanies and button-ups instead of uniform skirts. And though doing it without her twin feels like being split in half, Vi finds her stride when she stumbles (literally!) into broody and beautiful poet-slash-influencer, Orsino. Soon Vi gets roped into helping plan the school’s Twelfth Grade Night dance, and she can’t stop dreaming about slow dancing with Orsino under the fairy lights in the gym.

The problem? All Vi’s new friends assume she’s not even into guys. And before Vi can ask Orsino to the dance, he recruits Vi to help woo his crush, Olivia. Who has a crush of her own . . . on Vi.

my review

Well, I thought this was simply adorable. It touches briefly on loss and grief. But is mostly focused on finding ones self, found family, sibling and familial love, and the trials and travails of (magical) high school. I’ll admit that the magical element wasn’t explained in any way (other than a tie-in with the title). It just is and I struggled with that a little bit. But that wasn’t a huge deal.

There is a fun—if somewhat eclectic—cast, plenty of representation and diversity, and a satisfying happy for now ending. The art is lovely and the moral of the story endearing. All in all, I’ll call this one a win. (And now I’ll pass it on to my 15-year-old. Because I know she’ll love it.)

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Other Reviews:

Twelfth Grade Night – Blog Tour

Twelfth Grade Night by Molly Horton booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm, and Jamie Green Book Tour post

 

 

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Book Reviews: I Don’t Kneel for Monsters & Wolf’s Bite, by Atlas Rose

I received this edition of a compilation of two Atlas Rose books in my September Supernatural Book Crate. It contains two first in series, I don’t Kneel for Monsters and Wolf’s Bite. Though some older editions of the latter have Kim Faulks on the cover too. So, I’m assuming she is (or was) a co-writer.

atlas rose cover


I don’t Kneel for Monsters:

 I might be chained, but I’m no prisoner.
They won’t let me leave this pack of demonic beasts with their red glowing eyes and their pawing touch. They keep me locked up during the day and surrounded by their heat at night.

They keep me…
Confined.
Controlled.
Consumed.

Men who are monsters and monsters who look like men. Trading my fear for their sick, demented games. I hate them. Hate it when they make me run. Hate it when they call it a ‘hunt’. But the capture.

The capture is something I can’t stop thinking about.
Fangs and claws. Their hunger is insatiable.
Until the night I saw him.
A man standing in the middle of a labyrinth where we hid.

A man dressed in white.

He’s here to save me. Here to get me away from these monsters. I just know it. I’ll run to him, the first chance I get. I’ll get away from those demonic creatures…I’ll save myself anyway I can.

Or I’ll die trying.

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my review

I have to say that I’m just confused by this book. There are so may glaring inconsistencies (both in the plot and in the writing itself) and then the whole thing ends on a cliffhanger without providing the reader any sort of payoff for sticking with the book through all the confusion.

Here are some of the types of inconsistencies I mean. In the beginning, 5 wolves break into Arden’s house and kidnap her. However, for the rest of the book, there are only 4—Moody, Broody, Cheeky, and Alpha. (She gave them the stupid names to annoy them.) We lost a Hellhound somewhere. Where? No idea. I can’t even be sure when, because most of the time I was uncertain which hellhound was doing what.

I’m pretty sure her heart stopped about six time before she actually ‘died.’ I was never sure if it was creative license and hyperbole or if it was actually stopping. The button on her jeans was popped off twice. She was later wearing panties that had already been ripped off, same with a shirt. Do her clothes heal? So, the kind of stuff a half way attentive beta reader or editor would have caught.

Mostly I won’t be continuing the series though, because (unless its a duology) the next book will I don't kneel for monsters photoprobably provide as little pay off as this one; same for the one after that, etc. I realize indie authors are being told this whole half-a-book to hook readers is what they should be writing. I know it’s a whole thing in the industry. But I cannot express how much I hate it. In fact, the physical copy I have also contains Wolf Bite, as I said. And I’m strongly considering not bothering to read it, even if that leaves the ‘book’ unfinished and I can’t move it from the unread to the read shelf. Simply because I don’t really want to set my self up for another disappointment of a half-written book. Can this trend die yet?


Wolf’s Bite:

I carry his bite mark on my shoulder…and the memory of what I’d done in his bed.

Phantom, the Alpha of Crown City Wolves might think he has a handle on me…
He might think this is more than what it was…

He’s about to find out he’s wrong.

I don’t belong to the Wolves of Crown City. I belong to the FBI.
My sole purpose has been hunting scum who sit in their ivory tower and shatter people’s lives.
I’ve hunted the Costello for years now.
They’re lower than low…they are liars…they’re mobsters.

They’re Mafia.

This is more than a case for me.

This was personal.

The last bullet in my father’s policing career. Ruined because of them.

Only a war erupted. A war which I’m now part of…a war between the beasts that roam my city and the powerful Immortals they answer to.

I replayed that night in slow motion. Fangs. Blood…and Phantom. The Alpha of the Wolves. The one I saved from a rogue Vampire.

And the one who saved me.

my review

I will grant that this book was significantly better than the first in the compilation. But that’s a long way from saying it’s good. It could be a heck of a lot closer though, if Rose hired an editor…or even just enlisted a friend to beta read and keep track of the inconsistencies.

About halfway through this book, I posted a whole Tiktok suggesting some authors need a beta service geared solely toward keeping track of a character’s clothes so that they don’t take bras off twice, etc. I didn’t name her, but Rose was who I was talking about.

@seesadieread how does something like this get consistently missed is my other thought. #authortalk #authortok #books #smexscene #booktalk #booktok #authorserivice #reader #seesadieread #books #editing #youalreadydidthat #monsterromance ♬ original sound – SadieF

I’m generally pretty patient about editing. But Rose’s editing is so consistently shoddy in this department that I started to lose my will to continue, after a while. Oddly, it’s not even typos and the normal sloppy editing. Rose just can’t seem to keep track of the elements of her plot. A wolf approaching someone who is already leaning on him, for example. Clothes that get taken off or ripped up more than once, etc.

Outside of the editing issue, I’m torn. I did like the characters. I especially liked how desperate Phantom and his pack were and how we got to see his POV, even if he showed an alpha a-hole face to the world. I’m interested to know what happens next (if I can tolerate more of the inconsistencies).

wolf's bite photoI wasn’t aware that this is a spin-off series. And there were definitely some elements that made no sense to me. Characters were named that were not in the book, a whole war raged for reasons I didn’t know about, etc. So, I would not recommend reading this without reading Rose’s other series (despite being labeled book one). And it ends on a cliffhanger. I am SO tired of books that don’t end!

All in all, I think I’d continue the series if I came across a free copy. But I don’t think I’d buy another book so poorly edited.


Other Reviews:

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Book Review: Human Remains, by Peter Milligan

I accepted a review copy of the graphic novel Human Remains through Rockstar Book Tours. It’s by Peter Milligan (Author), Adrian F. Wassel (Editor), Sally Cantirino (Illustrator), Dearbhla Kelly (Colorist), and Andworld Design (Letterer) and has also been featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight.,

Live. Laugh. Love. Scream.
DIE.
Dax and Bisa love each other. But in this new and terrifying world, love is dangerous. Feeling anything is dangerous. Love. Hate. Joy. Fear.  Any of these in strong doses will bring a swift death. Earth has a new and terrible invader—monsters that smell the scent of emotion, salivate over the prey, and hunt the very feelings that make us human. A shocking tale of pent-up emotions and forced composure in the face of unspeakable horror…

my review

It took me a little while to digest Human Remains. I finished with a feeling of, “Welp, that’s a thing I’ve read now.” I don’t know that I could have even said if it all came around to a salient point or not. However, as I sat on the experience a little while and thought on it, I decided that it did. (Of course, it did.)

It’s gory and touches on any number of heavy, trauma-inducing subjects. (I think a trigger warning wouldn’t be out of place for this one.) But watching as the characters slowly move from shocked and horrified to numb and blasé in the face of countless deaths is poignant. (Can I say a book with roughly 2 million panels of humans being violently dismembered was poignant?) But what does it mean to be human, how much will we give up to remain human, how much can we change and still be human are all important and thought-provoking questions this graphic novel seeks to answer.

I did think it took a long time to come around to those points and a few of the devices used to make them were a little ham-handed. But all in all I’ll call this one a success.

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Other Reviews:

Mallory Books: Human Remains