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An Uncommon Whore

Book Review of An Uncommon Whore, by Belinda McBride

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An Uncommon WhoreI borrowed a copy of Belinda McBride‘s An Uncommon Whore. (Thank you, S.) It’s one of those books that I threw on my TBR so long ago I don’t even remember doing it, but there’s a certain notable gratification in finally reading it.

Description from Goodreads:
“As a general rule, you won’t find the love of your life while you’re on your knees under a table.” — Helios Dayspring

Pasha is a slave, whoring for travelers at the most dangerous bar on Warlan. He has no memory, no future of his own, yet deep inside Pasha knows that that he is meant for better things. The day that Pasha spots the dangerous pirate in the bar, he knows that he mustn’t let the stranger slip away, regardless of what he must do to attract his attention.

Captain Griffin Hawke spent the greater part of a decade searching for his lost king, only to find Helios Dayspring crouched between his knees, swathed in the robes and shackles of a whore. Though he is appalled by the downfall of his king, the hardened officer finds himself falling for the allure of the sensual creature who has taken his place. Returning Helios to his position on the throne is the only right thing to do, yet Griffin knows that in doing so, he risks losing his lover forever.

“A whore is a whore is a whore, unless he’s something else completely. I guess I must be an uncommon whore.” — Helios Dayspring

Review:
I don’t know about other people, but I read a lot of books that I neither love nor hate. I have very little feeling about them at all, actually. This is one of those books. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong with it and I didn’t find myself loath to finish it, but I can’t say it rang any real bells for my either. It was OK. It was so-so. It was average. It was a fine distraction that I probably won’t remember tomorrow.

I thought it started off strong and tapered to nothing as the plot died about halfway through. Helios and Griffin were very sweet and there were a number of ‘awww’ moments. I appreciated Helios’ take on submission and surrender and the sex was fine (not fabulous, but not too bad either). All in all, a passable read but little more.

Book Review of Iron & Velvet and Shadows & Dreams (Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator, #1&2), by Alexis Hall

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/fI bought Alexis Hall‘s Iron & velvet and then received Shadows & Dreams from Netgalley.

Iron & VelvetDescription from Goodreads:
First rule in this line of business: don’t sleep with the client.

My name’s Kate Kane, and when an eight-hundred-year-old vampire prince came to me with a case, I should have told her no. But I’ve always been a sucker for a femme fatale.

It always goes the same way. You move too fast, you get in too deep, and before you know it, someone winds up dead. Last time it was my partner. This time it could be me. Yesterday a werewolf was murdered outside the Velvet, the night-time playground of one of the most powerful vampires in England. Now half the monsters in London are at each other’s throats, and the other half are trying to get in my pants. The Witch Queen will protect her own, the wolves are out for vengeance, and the vampires are out for, y’know, blood.

I’ve got a killer on the loose, a war on the horizon, and a scotch on the rocks. It’s going to be an interesting day.

Review:
I have heard so many great things about this series and I’m pleased to say most of them held true. I really enjoyed this. It was funny, irreverent, witty and occasionally just a little naughty—all good things in my books. But I had a few complaints.

There is a lot of backstory that left me feeling like I had missed a first book or something. I eventually caught on, but the details were a bit slow in coming. I’m never overly joyed to start a book and find repeated references to characters I don’t know.

Also, though I appreciate that this is F/F paranormal romance slash urban fantasy (the first such book I’ve ever read), I thought that the lesbian card was over played. It seriously felt like every woman, or at least every powerful woman in London must be Sapphic and every one of them was extremely forward and trying to seduce Kate. It kind of felt like the same shtick played over and over.

Plus, if I’m honest, I don’t think the sex contributed as much as it should have. It all felt a little abrupt and abortive in the end—kiss, kiss, maybe lick, pinch, BITE, done; no significant build up or notable climax. meh.

What I liked, I really liked though. Kate was sarcastic and clever in a self-deprecating kind of way. She’s self assured and willing to admit she’s winging it most of the time. She’s strong without being unbelievably so. (Characters often become caricatures if they’re guaranteed to win every battle with ease.) Mostly I just laughed a lot. I really fell for Hall’s writing style and sense of humour. It’s as acerbic as Kate is and I’m a sucker for that. Plus, all of the running jokes, like “here lies Kate Kane…” and repeat/compounding lists, for example cracked me up.

An all out success. I can’t wait to read book two, Shadows & Dreams.

Shadows & Dreams

Description from Goodreads:
Second rule in this line of business: be careful who you kill. 

My name’s Kate Kane. And right now, I don’t know which is more dangerous: my job, or my girlfriend. My job makes me the go-to girl for every supernatural mystery in London. My girlfriend’s an eight-hundred-year-old vampire prince. Honestly, I think it’s probably a tie. 

A few weeks ago, I was hired for a simple missing person case. Next thing I know, I’m being arrested for murder, a vampire army is tearing up London, and even my dreams are out to get me. Something ancient, evil, and scary as hell is on the loose and looking for payback. The vampires are in chaos, the werewolves are culling everything, and the Witch Queen can’t protect everyone. 

Which means it’s down to me. And all I’ve got to hold back the shadows is a stiff drink, a quirky sidekick, my creepy ex-boyfriend, and the woman who left me for a tech startup. It’s going to be another interesting day.

Review:
I found Shadows & Dreams very similar to Iron & Velvet. In some ways, this is great. It’s an obvious sign of consistency and much of what I loved about book one I still love here. Kate is still a sarcastic, fly-by the-seat-of-her-pants badass, the side characters are still colourful, the writing is still flippant, and the story still engaging. There is a lot to adore here, just like in book one.

However, the flip side of that consistency coin is that all those things that annoyed me about book one are still there to annoy me here too. The prose during sex scenes was still blindingly purple and the sex still felt too clipped (the vampiric bite seemingly used as a substitute for conclusive penetration to signify completion of the act and cutting it off abruptly). Meh. Plus, there was just a vague sense of repeat for some of it, since it all felt so similar to book one.

I did love the addition of Kate and Elise’s running gag. They had a bit of a Manzai thing going on; Elise being the straight man and Kate the fool. It worked. It really worked. As did Patrick’s completely obsessive and oblivious neuroticism, Ashriel’s unexpected nice-guyness, Nimue’s patient attentions, Julian’s hedonism and Eve’s loveable geekiness. There is a huge cast here and with the exception of Corin, who can just go die somewhere, I loved them all.

I’m calling this one another success. I might grumble over little things, but I loved a lot more than I didn’t. I really hope there will be more of the Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator Series.

Book Review of An Eye For An Eye For An Eye, by Marc Nash

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An eye for an eye for an eyeAuthor, Marc Nash sent me a copy of his novel An Eye For An Eye For An Eye.

Description from Goodreads:
You can tell a lot about a society from its murders. And Simon Moralee can tell everything from its victims. He has the gift- or is it a curse?- of being able to recover a vision of the last thing murder victims had imprinted on their minds before death. It means he can identify their killers and describe them to the police to secure a one hundred percent clean-up rate. A gift he first discovered as a teenager when cradling his butchered mother in his arms.
His financially bankrupt society leaps at the opportunity his gift provides, by cutting the level of policing and detection back to the bone, as a yet another cost-saving measure. The few remaining policemen serve as Simon’s minders as they seek to protect their most valuable asset and the one remaining celebrity the State can promote to their citizens as a good news story. Only people are losing interest in his exploits, as they lose hope for their society with its murder rate spiralling beyond Simon’s ability to keep pace. And into this numbers game emerges a new threat, when a criminal mastermind with a psychic power of his own, challenges Simon in a psychological joust to the death…

Review:
You know how people sometimes gripe that there are rarely any surprises at the end of books, as the good guys are guaranteed to win one way or another? “Why can’t the baddy win every now and again?” They might ask. Well, here is the book for them. It’s not strictly that a person on the evil side of the protagonist/antagonist divide wins, so much as a delicious twist on winning at all. Look for no happily ever afters here.

To be sure this is a dense read though. I generally enjoy the occasional ten dollar word, but they are the norm rather than the endearing exception here, making the book feel like an obscure work by some long dead classicist Russian or, gawd forbid, Italian. Obtuse. I spent a lot of time rereading overly wordy, syllable heavy passages of ethereal prose. It wasn’t quite purple, but it held that same uselessly accessorised feel to it. In the end, it just felt pretentious and pompous, as if Nash was puffing it up for ego’s sake.

Now, don’t get me wholly wrong. The style annoyed the ever-living crap out of me, but it was smart writing. The vocabulary was definitely well above the average, the ideas being imparted were thoroughly thought out and it was all mechanically and editorially without fault. (Or at least I noticed very few errors.) So, pending you can get past the self-important writing style, a good story awaits.

I did have trouble with the disassociated detached observer narrator. To me all of the narrative about the social situations and such felt like it should be coming from Simon, which meant anytime that that same narrative then turned its external eye on him, referring to him in the 3rd person, I was jarred. It just felt wrong to me.

I also found it inconsistent. Sometimes functioning as an omnipotent observer, other-times being denied knowledge of people’s thoughts or motives. Again, I found these moments pulled me from the story.

Final say? A really interesting dystopian setting (I might even call it post apocalyptic, if you’re willing to credit economic collapse with ending civilisation.), thought provoking characters and a appropriately gritty noir mystery of sorts, but not really. All presented in a painfully flouncy package, making it a so-so read but good thought experiment.