Category Archives: book review

Burned to a crisp title

Book Review of Burned to a Crisp (Gingerbread Hag Mystery #1), by K.A. Miltimore.

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I came across and claimed an Audible code for a copy of Burned to a Crisp (Gingerbread Hag Mystery #1), K.A. Miltimore. I don’t honestly recall where though.

About the bookHedy Leckenmaul runs a strange little bakery in the sleepy town of Enumclaw, Washington. Her bakery may be bizarre but it is the non-human guests who stay at her home, along with her resident ghost, and her menagerie of talking animals that truly is strange. Hedy hosts a waystation for supernatural travelers and while hosting two such travelers, the town is rocked by an arsonist who is kidnapping women, and pitting the residents of Enumclaw against each other. Hedy and her friends must solve the mystery when one of their own vanishes, leaving them racing to find out who is behind it all before it is too late.

my reviewThis was pretty good, if not quite to my tastes. It does depend heavily on being quirky and cute, with the main character just being the sweetest lil thing you could imagine. *Insert eye roll.* Maybe it was the way she was voiced, but for all the world she reminded me of Ms. Frizzle, from The Magic School Bus. I’m not so much into the nice-nice protagonists, with their utter lack of grey, which the heroine and all the good guys here are. Despite that I do appreciate that the book is well-structured (though the pace sags in the middle a little), there’s a pleasant little FF side romance, the mystery isn’t blatantly obvious (though not too hard to figure out either),  I liked the characters themselves, and the narrator did a fine job. All in all, I might read another Gingerbread Hag Mystery, but I’m in no rush about it.

 

Her Shifter King title

Book Review: Her Shifter King, by Bailey Dark

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her shifter king audible coverI picked up an Audible code for a copy of Her Shifter King, by Bailey Dark, somewhere along the way. It’s narrated by Sommer Hines.

A past she can’t remember. A secret he must keep hidden. A passion they never saw coming.

Ten years ago.

That was the last time I knew peace, family, sanity.

But after they came for me – everything changed.

Now, I live my life as an outcast, hiding among the shadows of each new city. Every move I make is a risk, and I’m fully aware that I’m only one wrong turn away from certain death.

When I find myself trapped between an enormous wolf and the monstrous shaded creatures that have been hunting me for the last decade, it seems my time is up.

Except, it isn’t.

My beastly savior shifts into a not-so-mortal man. He claims to be King Alpha of the Blueblood pack in Detroit, and he has a deal for me: Marry him and become his mate, and he’ll offer me more freedom and protection than I could ever have on my own.

Sounds too good to be true, which usually means it is, but I’m in no position to refuse this overbearing, dominant, ridiculously handsome warrior.

So, I make a choice.

On the surface I’ll play his game and be his wife. But behind the scenes, I’ll use his resources to find out the truth behind who I am and what he really wants from me before he can get it.

I guess this was ok. Listening to it got me through a tedious day of stripping wallpaper (and the narration by Summer Hines was fine). But nothing about it stood out as exceptional in any real way. None of the characters were particularly well fleshed out, though I did like several of them. The world felt half-hazard and pieced together, though it had interesting elements. The plot was paper-thin, but not uninteresting. Unfortunately, it does end without anything being concluded. Some might call that a cliff-hanger, I call it just half a plot. But that’s semantics. All in all a true “Meh” read if ever I saw one, neither horrible nor excellent. I might continue the series if I came across the next book for free, but I wouldn’t spend money on it; if that tells you anything.

Dragon Consultant Banner

Book Review: Dragon Consultant, by Mell Eight

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Last month, I won a $10 gift card from Nine Star Press. I chose to buy the first few books in Mell Eight‘s Supernatural Consultant series. I started with Dragon Consultant.

 

The FAA has been struggling with dragons attacking their planes, and hire Dane, a supernatural consultant, to look into the matter. What Dane finds in the woods is not quite the problem he expected: a group of dragon kits and their sick father.

When he learns the real reason the family was in the woods, his case only grows more dangerous, and while Dane is plenty experienced at watching his own back, taking care of baby dragons and their handsome, distracting father almost makes danger look easy

 

This was very sweet, however, it’s also very shallow with very little in terms of world-building or character and relationship development. The first time one of the characters mentioned wanting the other romantically and thinking perhaps the sentiment was returned, I literally looked around and said, “where did that come from?” They’d barely even spoken. The same is true for characterization. There basically isn’t any. Why does Mercury seem immune to the territorial urges of the rest of the dragons? How is Dane what he is (redacted to avoid a spoiler)? I don’t know, and I don’t know a lot more than I do, even having finished the book.

The kits are adorable and the characters are likable. Plus, I really appreciate that there is very little angst. Both characters say what they mean and the author doesn’t force them to be oblivious to the obvious to drag out the plot. I have the rest of the series, and I’ll finish it, but this was only a middle-of-the-road read for me.