Category Archives: book review

Book Review of Rachel Francis’ Life on Fire

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Life on FireYesterday, as I was trolling my TBR list, muttering to myself about how I could have so very, very many books and still not pick anything to read, my daughter reached over and said, “How about that one? It looks interesting.” Well there you go, decision made (and proof positive that covers matter).

Rachel Francis‘ PNR novel, Life on Fire, was downloaded from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Anna grew up in the peace of Caroline, a small East coast town barely warranting its own school district. When that serenity is shattered by murder, no one feels safe. One, two, three attacks and no end in sight, Anna falls into a deep depression, spurred onward by the sudden departure of her best friend.

It’s then she notices the strangers around town. Anna enters a world of magic when she comes face to face with two of the newcomers, leaving her changed forever. Saving her hometown may be second only to keeping a centuries old war from boiling over.

Review:
Life on Fire takes the same old, same old and spruces it up enough to be interesting. Anna is a regular, small town girl until her life is endangered and she awakens to her inherent, and previously unknown, paranormal powers. These powers are of course the most powerful there can be. But not to worry, there is an emotionally damaged hotty available to fall in love with her and help her through the transition. She in turn will of course sooth his injured soul in a way no one has been able to before. As well as effortlessly help and earn the admiration of everyone around her.

I’m being trite I know. I did say the same old plot was livened up a little bit though. It’s the characters that add the spice. Wendrick is a wonderfully conflicted character, by far the best in the book IMO. He carries his own heavy burden of ability, responsibility and basic guilt for what he is. David and Rosalyn have an interestingly tempestuous relationship, and Anna has a strong, loving family. Anna was my least favourite of the bunch. In a book that walked the standard genre line so unwaveringly it was the small divergences that kept it from being boring and Anna didn’t stray too far from the standard PNR heroine. She therefore didn’t hold my interest very well. I didn’t hate her or anything. She was just kind of a null for me.

Her and Wendrick together were pretty good however. This isn’t exactly a case of instant-love, or rather I think the author tried to pull it back from insta-love. It’s pretty quick though. And even if not quite instant, the love between Anna and Wendrick solidifies with very little outside influence. He is inexplicably drawn to her and she pretty much goes on a systematic campaign to make him her own. There isn’t really any falling in love as much as finally accepting the love.

Though the main character is 22, this reads like a YA book. Anna still lives at home with her parents. Wendrick is several hundred years old, but acts like a stroppy teenager. David sulks through the whole first half of the story and Anna has dealt with one of her best friend’s crushes for years. There is one mild, largely inexplicit sex scene. It’s the only reason I hesitate to call this YA.

My main complaint is that the dialogue is incorrectly formatted throughout the book, such that a spoken sentence is often on the same line as the response of the person spoken to. Creating confusion about who is actually speaking after all. A made-up example (cause I’m too lazy to go find my kindle and pick out a real one): ”Sit there.’ John sighed, but sat.’ In this case John would be the person spoken to, not the speaker. It’s obvious on a second glance, but it takes that second glance and disrupts the flow.

For an easy, mindless couple hours of entertainment Life on Firefits the bill.

Review of Witchy Business, by Eve Paludan & Stuart Sharp

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Witchy BusinessI grabbed Witchy Business from the Amazon KDP list. It’s written by Eve Paludan and Stuart Sharp and apparently presented by J.R. Rain. I’m not sure what to make of this ‘J.R. Rain presents…’ It reminds me of the old Masterpiece Theatre, “presented by PBS.” I don’t mean to make fun of it or anything. I mention it because I don’t know how to, or even if I need to, incorporate it into my review in any way. I don’t really know what it means. I’m guessing ‘edited by’ or ‘mentored by,’ but that’s just a guess.

Description from Goodreads:
What would you do with unspeakable power?

Elle Chambers is Edinburgh’s hardest working insurance investigator, and one who solves cases using unconventional means. Supernatural means. Elle is a witch–and a damn good one, too.

Assigned back-to-back cases, Elle must first find a missing bad boy who might or might not be a werewolf. Next, a simple missing artwork case turns out to be not so simple. What Elle is about to discover will change her life forever…and open her heart to the possibility of love.

Review:
I thought this was an alright read, though it didn’t really do it for me. I don’t even really know why, but I finished with a bit of a ‘meh.’ I did enjoy the way the book played with the normal hero/romantic partner character. Often in PNR (I’m thinking Ward, Frost, etc. here), the hero is muscle-bound, leather-clad, beefcake, and the antagonist is the smooth-talking, well-dressed, and sophisticated. Both character types are present in this book, but the heroine’s choice of mates is unexpected. The effect of this was that I spent the whole book waiting for the reversal, the point when the good guy suddenly reveals his betrayal and the heroine runs into the arms of the unexpectedly compassionate, stoic man on the side. This never happened. It was a fun little twist and proof that sometimes it’s not a matter of what’s written but what isn’t that can add the most spice to a story.

But I also felt that the whole thing rolled along a little too smoothly. N. goes to great lengths to meet Elle, but we never discover how he even knew about her to begin with. We never learn when, why, or how exactly he fell so deeply in love with her unless it’s just a matter of ‘we’re the only two like us, so we should be together.’ That seems pretty weak to me. There is definitely some insta-love on Elle’s part, however. Then there is Rebecca and Everett, who can blithely acknowledge Elle’s burgeoning feelings and tell her to arrange to kill that person in the same conversation. Seems a little unrealistic to me. Could they really expect compliance? Elle solves the missing art case, seemingly without any clues, and in the end, manages to resume her life despite the coven’s long-standing policy of eradication against her kind. Yep, everything is resolved just a little too easily.

On a side note, I also didn’t find the book to match the description very well. The bad-boy werewolf is already found when the book starts and he’s an overwhelmed lawyer with mother issues, not a bad boy at all. For most of the book, Elle is a decidedly weak enchantress, not the damn good witch described. (In this particular story, there is a divide between witches and enchantresses, so it’s not the same thing.) And she isn’t assigned back-to-back cases. She is an insurance agent who solves cases with a little magical assistance, though, and she is on the case of a missing piece of art. Maybe these are small details, but still…

Despite the above points, it was an entertaining enough read for an evening. The writing seemed fairly smooth and I didn’t notice many, if any, editorial mishaps.

Book Review of Meredith Allen Conner’s Dead Vampires Don’t Date

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Dead Vampires Don't DateI grabbed Meredith Allen Conner’s PNR, Dead Vampires Don’t Date, off of the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Kate Storm is your typical everyday mortal witch. She owns her own matchmaking business, hangs out with her vampire best friend, Morgan and enjoys the company of Big Al, her hit man channeling Chihuahua. Plus there’s a certain demon that she has her eye on. Life is pretty good until her first important non-human client winds up dead and his body is dumped at her back door. Turns out, disposing of the body is the last thing she needs to worry about. Kate will have to find the true killer if she wants to save her business and her life. And her new found witchy detective skills may not be enough to save her, especially if the demon is involved.

Review:

This was an entertaining, quick read. Though fairly useless in any sort of combat and therefore unable to do much in terms of defending herself, Kate is a fairly strong character in other respects. She’s quick witted, sarcastic, and relatively self assured. I particularly liked that she isn’t a stick figure. She’s described as a size 10 on a good day. I always appreciate seeing alternative body types (ie, not the anorexic ideal of the modern west) described as equally appealing.

There was a lot of good humour here and, though no actual sex, a few steamy almost-sex scenes. This does lead me to my one significant complaint about the book though. I don’t know if this is the first of a series, but there are quite a few things that are hinted at throughout the entire book, but it ends without any sort of reveal. One of these is why Ash is so interested in Kate to begin with. He purposefully seeks her out, is unusually aggressive in his pursuit of and affection for her, essentially admits to having an ulterior motive (Kate is certain there is one), and he is constantly running off and appearing again, but the reader never discovers why. In fact other than being a distraction from the mystery and adding a little spice he plays almost no role in the book. This only heightens the sense that something important has been left out. Why else is he there?

I also thought some of the jokes when a little overboard. For example, the Bewitchedconnection was just ludicrous. For the most part however, I enjoyed Kate’s narrative style. The mystery was fun, though I don’t think too many people will be overly surprised by the identity of the culprit. Still, it’s an all-in-all good summer read.