Author Archives: sadie

The Rogue Hunter

Book Review of The Rogue Hunter, by Lynsay Sands

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The Rogue HunterI picked up a used copy of The Rogue Hunter, by Lynsay Sands, at Goodwill.

Description from Goodreads:
Samantha Willan is a workaholic lawyer. She’s grateful for some rest and relaxation in cottage country, and after a recent breakup she wants to stay as far away from romance as possible. Then she meets her irresistible new neighbor. There’s something strange and mysterious about his eyes. Is it just her imagination, or are they locked on her neck?

Garrett Mortimer is a rogue hunter. His last assignment united Lucian Argeneau with his lifemate, and Mortimer is hoping this one will be less…adventurous. He’s here to track down a reported rogue, but fun in the sun is every bloodsucker’s nightmare. Worse, he can’t seem to get his mind off Samantha, especially when he spies her skinny-dipping in the lake. After eight hundred years as a bachelor, is he ready to turn a volatile attraction into a lasting love affair?

Review:
What nonsense did I just read? I mean really, what was this supposed to be? What it was was boring and basically a failure as both a PNR and a decent mystery.

Let me start with the fact that all of the characters are paper thin—no significant history, no real emotional depth, no obvious beliefs or thoughts outside of the immediate. In fact, for most of the book the side characters just went off by themselves and left the H & h alone. So, why bother with them?

There was also almost no world-building. What little there was, explaining vampires, came at about page 300! This is probably because the book is labeled as “The Rogue Hunter (Argeneau #10) (Rogue Hunter #1).” Someone tell me what that is supposed to mean. Is it the tenth Argeneau book or the first Rogue Hunter book? Because after reading it, I’m 100% certain it can’t be both.  While I could follow the plot, it was always painfully apparent I was missing something. The world-building, as stated, wasn’t there. Probably because it was in the 9 previous books. People were referenced that the reader didn’t know,  I strongly suspect Mort was a side character form another book, etc. So, as a 10th Argeneau book, it might have been successful (I don’t know as I read it as the first Rogue Hunter book), but as a first in a series, it’s a failure.

Now let me address the mystery around the rogue that Mortimer is supposed to be hunting. This investigation literally takes up about 20 pages of this 373-page book and then it’s solved with anti-climatic aplomb. Let’s be honest, Sands didn’t set out to write about a rogue vampire and the hunters who go after it. It is just the device used to get the two characters in the same place at the same time. Disappointing to the extreme. I’d have preferred the man to have just been on vacation and Sands not to even bothered with the half-assed attempt she made at pretending this book is anything other than a romance (which is pretty sad because the romance is pretty weak too).

The romance? CHEESY! There is the cliché immediate recognition of one’s life mate (that somehow turns the tough, broody Mort into a bumbling social throwback), the fragile female in need of assistance with, you know, walking, stupid antics to get around telling the truth, the convenient ability to change people’s mind if they ask inconvenient questions (thereby negating any possible narrative tension), and true immortal love and loyalty developing in a mere two weeks. What’s more, the whole book is essentially a tease. Over and over Sam and Mort almost have sex, but don’t quite manage it. Redundant…and PREDICTABLE!

This book is little more than a collection of weak PNR tropes, and none of them were executed particularly well. But worse than any of that, is the fact that I was bored for 373 pages. This sort of book is the epitome of why I refused to read romance for 30 years of my life. I’m in no hurry to read another Lynsay Sands book. How the heck does dreck like this get published over some of the great indies I’ve read?

A small book promotion(ish) opportunity available to anyone interested

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Little Free Library

In my front yard, boarding the road, I have two large trees. They’re beautiful sweet-gums (we just won’t speak of the endless time I spend raking up artillery-worthy spiky balls) and for years I have looked at these trees and thought one of them would be perfect to mount a Little Free Library on.

WheeeeThe problem is that I’m not really the crafty type and, though I know I can buy a LFL for a couple hundred bucks, I’d still need to mount it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not helpless. I could manage it, but it would be inelegantly done, to say the least.

Even if I involved the husband, it wouldn’t be much better. He doesn’t work with wood. Need a bicycle frame welded into perfection? He’s your man. So, while he could certainly make me a mount, it would probably weigh more than the LFL, including all the books. (Plus, steel isn’t exactly cheap!)

OK, I probably won't get the fancy, super expensive one, but a girl can dream.

OK, I probably won’t get the fancy, super expensive one, but a girl can dream.

But I see an opportunity in the future. The husband’s family is coming to visit early this summer and his uncle, though now retired, is a builder. I’ll have my LFL this summer. <Insert wild applause here.> That means it’s time to prepare.

This brings me to the opportunity I suggested in the title. The whole idea of a LFL is that friends and neighbors borrow regularly, always taking one book and leaving another. As an example, below is a short film from British Columbia in which the library’s steward states it rotates roughly 100 books a week, in the busy season. I’m guessing ‘the busy season’ means spring and summer.

My road isn’t quite as busy as the one in the video, so I don’t anticipate quite that much traffic.  Though I am close to a main road and there are a number of dog walkers, so you never know. But I intend to ensure that there is at least one indie/sp book in it at all times and I’m open to authors sending me a copy of their book to be included.

Now, I can’t guarantee that this will result in a review for those authors who take me up on this offer and, since I don’t want to make this an indie LFL, I won’t be putting them all out at once. Therefore, it could take a while for your book to make it into the LFL, but it will get a book out there and into circulation. Which you have to admit is something.

If you’re interested in sending a book, email me at LFL@sadieforsythe dot com. I would suggest only stand alones or first in series, please. Unless you and your series are particularly well known, I can’t imagine a second or third book in a series no one knows circulating well.

On a side note, whether you’re interested in my future LFL or not, the LFL movement is a worthy one. Until May 21st they are running a Kickstarter to earn money to post libraries and books in book-deprived neighborhoods. Why not check it out?

Have questions or comments, feel free to drop me a line. I’m open to discussion and/or suggestions.

Book Review of Conquered (Kivronian Vampires #1), by Sandy L. Rowland

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ConqueredAt some point, quite some time ago, I downloaded Sandy L. Rowland‘s book, Conquered, from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Claiming a mate on conquered Earth is driving alien vampire, Rafe, insane…literally.

He’s lost his comrade to madness and has sworn against suffering the same fate. Time is out for the ruler of the western quadrant and any female will do.

Spunky reporter, Pepper Morgan, has lost friends, her mother, and a fiance to the devastating plague that ravished Earth before the vampires subjugated them. Desperate to reunite with her captured father, she throws herself on Rafe’s mercy.

Now, Rafe and Pepper find themselves bound by more than desperation and blood, but also by secrets that have the power to enslave humanity and threaten vampire survival. Can they overcome their inner demons and learn to trust each other, before it’s too late?

Review:     **spoiler warning**
We are not amused.

While the mechanical writing and editing in this book were fine, I found almost all aspects of the story, plot, characters and world disappointing. First, we had a Mary Sue who is chosen to mate the über sexy vampire because she was different, a special little snowflake unlike all the other vapid, beautiful women. Arghh, so cliché.

Next, we had a woman who in two weeks goes from not liking the vampire who is consistently an ass to her, to being in love. Then we had her developing a special power out of nowhere and somehow learning to use it in almost no time at all. We had baddies who conveniently leave doors unlocked and chains removed to allow for escape and miraculous recoveries. Not to mention, most of the events in the book came down to avoidable miscommunication or lack of communication. None of this is good, as far as I’m concerned.

But worst of all, the whole premise of the book made no sense to me. Somehow her love was going to keep him from going insane, because at a thousand years old vampires go crazy if he’s not mated. But first they had to be betrothed for exactly a month and if they had sex before that they’d both go crazy. Um, exactly what biological mechanism was keeping track of time and how exactly did his body know she loved him? I mean, what was causing this change. I get the theme, but it made no sense.

Speaking of biology, how exactly does an alien race evolve to need human blood to survive? I mean, what did they do before they came to earth? Seems like that would be an important piece of world-building, but it’s not addressed.

I probably could have just suspended my disbelief and rolled with it if I hadn’t found the style so infuriating. It’s repetitive, the reader is told the same things over and over, and it’s almost all exposition, internal thoughts and mental planning. This means that very, very little actually happened in the book, because the action is CONSTANTLY being stopped for the narrator to explain what the characters are thinking or feeling or planning to do. It really felt like one small step forward, stop and explain, one small step forward, stop and explain, one small step forward, <i>ad infinitum</i>. If you break it all down almost nothing actually happening in this book and what action there is is all in the last 10%.

That last 10% also introduced a new character and the idea that vampires could be made as well as born, which hadn’t been mentioned once the whole book. I mean, if you can make vampire, why is there the chronic lack of females? Why not just make some? This is an unaddressed issue or inconsistency. As is, for example, the fact that somehow the baddie never faced insanity if he didn’t wait the required 30 days before raping his bride.

All in all, it’s an interesting idea, but poorly executed. The author spent far too much time telling us things we should have been shown. There are also a lot of threads left open, I assume for a sequel.