Author Archives: sadie

27 Days to Midnight

Book Review of 27 Days to Midnight, by Kristine Kruppa

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I won a copy of 27 Days to Midnight, by Kristine Kruppa, through Goodreads.

Description:
Everyone in Dahlia’s world knows when they’re going to die. Except her.

Her father has never shown her the pocket watch counting down the days she has left to live. When he sacrifices himself to save her from her scheduled death, Dahlia abandons her comfortable home and sets off after his murderer to uncover the secrets her father died to protect…and the time research that could bring him back to life.

Then she meets Farren Reed. She should hate him. He’s an enemy soldier, a cowardly deserter, and the most insufferable man Dahlia’s ever met. Still, she needs all the help she can get, and Farren is the only chance she has to find the man who murdered her father. But Farren has only twenty-seven days left on his watch.

In that time, Dahlia must recover her father’s time research, foil a psychotic general’s plot, and learn to survive in a world that will never be the same. But the research holds secrets more dangerous than she had ever imagined. She will have to choose what is most important: revenge, Farren’s life, or her own. And time is running out.

Review:
Thank goodness, I’m finally finished with this book. I feel like I’ve been reading it for eons….ok, a week, but still, forever. It wasn’t particularly bad, I was just a tad bored with it. The writing is lovely, editing clean and I love the cover. But it felt very much like most of the book is spent with Dahlia and Farren running around reacting to things and not really progressing the plot.  Several convenient things pop up to help them in their times of need, the motivation of the villain seems flimsy, at best, and I really need to know how human lives came to be attached to watches. I mean, how does a newborn get a watch? Do they come into existence magically on birth? Do parents have to order them? If so, how does the baby live until it arrived? What if no one buys them a watch? I needed this aspect of life dependent on an external device explained. But all in all, it was a fine book, an OK book.

What I’m drinking: A latte at a artsy, if somewhat grotty cafe called The Stone Spiral that I am quite fond of.

Love and Legend

Book Review of Love and Legend, by Vanessa Lennox

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I picked up a copy of Vaessa Lennox‘s Love and Legend when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
Jules Flannery makes everyone feel better. It’s a gift. But this particular gift just may get her killed.

The day of the funeral, Jules is assaulted and loses Uncle Charles’ urn to the thief. Her Uncle’s odd last request offers Jules an unexpected new beginning. Jules, a sweet but accident-prone art teacher, and Bingham, a terse and potentially dangerous Navy SEAL, must unravel, and ultimately fulfill, their part in an ancient prophecy. Villains are out to orchestrate their own nefarious interpretation. The two lovers face Gallic and English thugs, coax a troubled boy out of his gloom, and discover that they have a strange and powerful connection. Their mission: find an Arthurian artifact kings have coveted for 1500 years. The trick is to not get killed in the process.

Love and Legend breathes contemporary life, dangerous action, cookie baking, and steamy love scenes into the myths surrounding King Arthur’s era.

Review:
Sigh. This was not a winner for me. It started off well….Or rather, the writing started out really staccato and stiff, but got better (except for the persistent over-use of names in dialogue)…But the plot started out well and quickly got worse. The action, by which I kind of mean the plot, doesn’t really start until about 80% into the book. Everything up to that point is two people flirting badly and Jules being overly perky and too mommsy, cute and perfect. Then, once the h/H get together, it’s just an endless barrage of “I love yous,” “you’re perfects” and sex/kissing. Which might be ok if this was erotica. But all the sex is fade to black, so its just sexual inferences on repeat. God, I got so tired of it. Though I did have to appreciate that Jules was comfortable with her own sexuality and there was no angst or shame about her pursuing sex and the author didn’t make her a virgin. That’s refreshing.

Then, in the last 20 or so percent of the book, when the action picks up everything is solved in a matter of paragraphs. Each challenge barely has time to develop before it’s overcome, so there is no tension in it. Even the big, final climax happens off page!

There are a number of plot holes, most of them coming down to solving problems too easily. Example, a man who doesn’t technically have custody of his nephew arranges his wife-to-be to adopt the nephew from the state in less than a day, somehow without the state representative knowing. Or how about just how he has the nephew in the first place? As a 10 year veteran of children’s services, let me tell you, if you snatch a child from a foster parent the police are coming for you IMMEDIATELY. They are putting you in jail. They aren’t sending snooty employees out to check on you and the child. And they aren’t allowing you to arrange his adoption by someone else. They SURE aren’t letting you do that without background and household checks, interviews, a waiting period and extensive paperwork that has to go through a dozen people, all of whom let it sit on their desk for weeks before sending it on. This is just one example, but the book frequently glazes over things that should take time and effort as if it doesn’t

And can I just address the ‘everyone wants to impregnate Jules’ aspect of this book? Why does every man want her so badly? We’re told they do and we’re certainly shown it. (It’s just one more aspect of her too perfect to be believed persona.) But why? It’s not really explained or shown as pertinent to the events of the plot. And why does her whole purpose in that plot need to be about being desired by men and bearing a child? WHY? And that’s before I get to why does Bingham know more about her and her body and abilities than she does? Why does she need a man to explain it to her? That drives me crazy in a female character! He can understand her body but she can’t? Do better authors. Women aren’t that stupid and men aren’t that all-knowing.

This is one of those books I keep trying to come up for a concise name for. We all know a Mary Sue character when we see one (and Jules is definitely one). We all recognize a Marty Stu (Bingham is pretty close). But what is it called when the whole book has an innocent, too perfect to be tolerated feel to it? It’s so stagnatingly sweet it makes your teeth hurt. People hug and kiss each other constantly and compliment each other so often it’s distracting. What do you call that? Whatever it is, this book is it. And I’ve not found a single such book I truly enjoy because it always strikes me as amateurish.

Outside the names in dialogue, the writings not too bad, some of it’s genuinely funny (though some of the attempts at humor miss the mark) and I love that cover. But I’m afraid I can’t overlook all the aspects of the book that grated on me.

Dog with a Bone

Book Review of Dog with a Bone (Black Dog, #1), by Hailey Edwards

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I picked up a copy of Dog With a Bone, by Hailey Edwards, through Instafreebie.

Description from Goodreads
Half-bloods with Thierry’s skill set are given two options. They can join the conclave’s marshal program, or they can pack their bags. Turn down the job offer, and you’ve just shredded your residency pass for the mortal realm and booked yourself a one-way ticket to Faerie.

Texas is the only home Thierry has ever known, and she’s not going anywhere. Even if it means following in her notorious father’s footsteps as a peacekeeper. But pinning on the badge opens her eyes to the fact sometimes fae need protection too, and that sometimes humans are the real monsters.

Review:
Another reviewer started their review this was: “Dog with a Bone introduces a young Thierry Thackaray who has just become a marshal – a fae cop. ” I read that and thought, Um, no it really doesn’t. The book doesn’t introduce anyone or anything. It just drops you right in the middle a story and leaves you there to flounder.

I started this book and then checked again and again to be sure it REALLY is book one, because I had no idea who or what anyone was. I could figure out what was happening fairly easily. But the characters, their species specifications? Nope, that was a loss, especially when there was supposed to be a meaningful relationship between two of them and we’re given nothing about it. I felt no connection with these characters. I wasn’t given the opportunity to develop one.

This literally feels like the latter half of a book. LITERALLY. Like I said, I kept looking for a prequel or SOMETHING to add to it. Alas, nothing seems to exist. There are several series set in this world. Maybe this is a spin off of one of them and the beginning of Thierry and Shaw’s story is in one of them. But it sure isn’t here.

I technically read Dog With a Bone book in the Black Dog Series Bundle, books 1-3. But I won’t be bothering with the next. The writing, what there is of it, is engaging. I liked what I did see of the characters and world. But I LITERALLY felt like this book was missing half its content.