Category Archives: books/book review

Review of Off the Beaten Path, by Cari Z.

I borrowed a copy of Cari Z.’s Off the Beaten Path through Hoopla.

Description from Goodreads:
When Ward Johannsen’s little girl Ava shifted into a werewolf, she was taken into custody by the feds and shipped off to the nearest pack, all ties between father and daughter severed. Ward burned every bridge he had discovering her location, and then almost froze to death in the Colorado mountains tracking her new pack down. And that’s just the beginning of his struggle.

Henry Dormer is an alpha werewolf and an elite black ops soldier who failed his last mission. He returns home, hoping for some time to recuperate and help settle the pack’s newest member, a little pup named Ava who can’t shift back to her human form. Instead he meets Ward, who refuses to leave his daughter without a fight. The two men are as different as night and day, but their respect for each other strikes a spark of mutual interest that quickly grows into a flame. They might find something special together—love, passion, and even a family—if they can survive trigger-happy pack guardians, violent werewolf politics, and meddling government agencies that are just as likely to get their alpha soldiers killed as bring them home safely.

Review:
This is a fairly basic M/M, shifter romance, much like we’ve all see before. Having said that, I also thought it was very sweet. I appreciated that it was a bit of a slow burn and I very much liked the way Henry found himself falling for Ward. I liked that Ward was sickly, but still perfectly capable. I did, however, think that the way everything was solved in the end was a little too easy and off-page to be satisfying.

River of Teeth

Book Review of River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey

I borrowed a copy of Sarah Gailey’s River of Teeth from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true.

Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

This was a terrible plan.

Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

Review:
Awesome cover and really interesting plot, with the hippos and all. I liked the alternative history and the characters. I liked the wildly diverse cast and the speech patterns. I thought the writing was clean and easy to read. But I also thought it was all just a little too vague. There were aspects of the plot skimmed over that left me uncertain how or why some things happened. The book is only 170 pages long. There was plenty of room to fill it out more. I’ll be happy to read the sequel though. Because for all its faults,it was just plain fun.

Book Review: Midnight Crossroad, by Charlaine Harris

midnight crossroad cover

Description from Goodreads:

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth…

My Review:

Honestly, it wasn’t as good as I’d expected. If I didn’t know this woman has dozens of books to her name, if I hadn’t read almost all the Sookie Stackhouse novels and know she can write, I might call the writing in this book amateurish! In the beginning, I thought it was an effect, something she was putting on just for the prologue. But it just didn’t get much better. I liked the characters and all, but the writing just didn’t flow particularly well. Was there maybe not as much editing as in past books? I’m willing to give book 2 a chance, to see if it improves. But unless it gets better, I won’t be continuing the series.