Category Archives: books/book review

The Haunting of a Duke

Review of The Haunting of a Duke (Dark Regency #1), by Chasity Bowlin

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I picked up a copy of The Haunting of a Duke (by Chasity Bowlin) from Amazon. It was free at the time and still free when I posted this review.

Description from Goodreads:
Communing with spirits has been both gift and curse to Emme Walters. Now it’s made her a killer’s target.

Emme knows why the Dowager Duchess of Briarleigh invited her to a house party–to investigate whether the duke, Rhys Brammel, murdered his wife years ago. But Emme never imagined she would fall in love with the brooding duke. Branded by society as a possible killer, Rhys is suspicious of Emme and her alleged “gift.”

Then a late night encounter creates awareness of her other, more attractive, aspects. When Emme’s life is threatened, Rhys becomes her protector. Emme and Rhys find passion and peril as they join forces to solve the mysteries at Briarleigh.

She made him believe in spirits, but can she make him believe in love?

Review:
Mechanically the writing here is fine, if painfully repetitive with certain phrases. But the whole plot, every single aspect of it is just so cliched and overused I can’t give it any more. There is literally no aspect of this plot I couldn’t have predicted just by thinking about what motive you see most often in this sort of book and which of the characters were described to match the most common idea of villainy. Plus, it could do with more editing. I mean, the epilogue appears twice in the Kindle copy, so….

I had to just skim the sex scenes as they were so unexceptional and, to me, annoying. I find sex scenes that continuously focus on how “innocent” and “untried” and “untutored” and “inexperienced” the woman is, as well as ones that might as well just be a grocery list of which body parts the man lusts over boring to the extreme. Plus, I found it disturbing how often she couldn’t identify her own feelings. I will give her credit for at least being willing to accept her own desires once she finally identified them and she never pulled the common, “What’s happening to my body” schtick when she lost her virginity.

All in all, I keep trying to like Regency Romance and every once in a while I encounter one I do, which encourages me to keep trying. But this is a pretty classic example of why I generally don’t like the genre, even if paranormal aspects were thrown in.

Woe for a Faerie

Book Review of Woe for a Faerie: Keepers of New York, by B. Brumley

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I picked up Woe For a Faerie, by B. Brumley, from Amazon. I believe it is a perma-freebie.

Description from Goodreads:

Woe for a Faerie 

I never had a choice…
Until I made one and woke up naked in the middle of Central Park.
Wingless.
The cost of retribution gouged between my shoulder blades.
Now I’ve got to choose between Jason, the priest who’s hiding something, and Arún, the off-world Fae that believes I’m his prophesied queen.
Mortality was supposed to be easy.

 Wings Over New York 

I’ve lived in this city for almost a year now, and I’ve happily settled into my wing-free reality.
Lately, my biggest worry is meeting my new in-laws.
When a cop dies and an old foe returns, Jason and Arún join forces to hunt the feathered shifter that’s killing people in Central Park, and I’m sucked into another supernatural tug-of-war.
Only, this time, I’m terrified that I’m going to lose the one I love.

Review:

Slightly spoilerish, but doesn’t give anything away you won’t guess immediately on reading the book.

What the hell did I just read? Part one was all dark and gothic and over-wrought, but in part two the same character turned into a bubbly, happy, pretty-pretty princess who wears bright dresses and worries about her makeup. Seriously, what the hell, is consistency not a thing anymore?

Part two starts with her being in love and married to a ‘man’ that she didn’t even wholly trust at the end of part one. How did that happen? Don’t know, it was off page in an 8 month gap between part one and two. Characters are introduced to die pointlessly. (And I personally believe you shouldn’t kill a title character, so I’m outraged at that too.) At 70%, the side characters finally show up and the team of keepers comes up for the first time. 70% people, that’s far far too late.

I’ve finished the book but still have no idea about the world. Paranormals exist and I think maybe people know about then, but I’m not at all sure. I don’t know a time frame, I don’t know the limits of the world, I don’t know much of anything, really. I don’t know the big players or minor factions. I don’t know the technology level. Despite the existence of angels, I don’t know the religious connection. I don’t know how or why Woe is different to other angels. I don’t know anything.

Then there was the fact that within the first 4% of the book we’re told of 3 females raped. I say females, instead of women, because two of them were children. And they’re 50 years apart, so they aren’t even related events. Is rape really the only thing the author could come up with to show us readers that the world sucks and that the main character is frustrated with it? Really?

In the beginning, despite all the horribly purple writing, Woe (who’s name is never explained) looks like she might turn into something strong and independent. But she happily gives all that up to be a wifey. And you know what? That distinct personality change happens off-page. No idea why or how it happens. It’s in that 8 month gap I mentioned. But it’s a huge change. She does not read as the same character from part one to two. Not at all!

And do you know what all this culminates into? After being an angel, giving it up to be mortal, the book hinting that Woe will be a warrior of some sort, do you know what the big climax is? A freakin’ baby. So, we’re safely back in cliched, established gender expectations. She’s preggers, so she’s a real woman now. Disgustingly disappointing. These gender tropes are littered in the book, everything from the woman (though angels are androgynous, read genderless, she’s apparently still female) longing for a baby she can’t have, to the woman fighting for the right to make her won decisions, to her constant sexuality, to rape, to attempted prostitution, to falling in love with literally the first man she meets, to giving it all up for marriage, to accepting colors in her wardrobe because her husband likes them, to being concerned with her appearance, to finally getting her baby. It’s all too cliched for words.

Mechanically, the writing is pretty good and it’s even fairly well edited. But man, I’m dropping this like it’s hot and running in the other direction.

Wake Up Call

Book Review of Wake Up Call (Porthkennack), by J.L. Merrow

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I received a copy of J. L. Merrow‘s Wake up Call through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
South London mechanic Devan Thompson has gone to Porthkennack to track down someone he’s been waiting all his life to know. But Dev’s distracted from his quest by Kyle, a broodingly handsome local of only a few months, who’s already got a reputation as an alcoholic because of his strange behaviour—including a habit of collapsing in the street.

Kyle Anthony fled to Porthkennack to escape from the ruins of his life. Still raging against his diagnosis of narcolepsy—a condition that’s cost him his job as a barrister, his lover, and all chance of normality—the last thing he wants is another relationship that’s doomed to fail. But Dev’s easy-going acceptance and adaptability, not to mention his good looks, have Kyle breaking all his self-imposed rules.

When disaster strikes Dev’s adored little sister, Kyle steps up to the plate, and Dev sees a side of his lover he wasn’t prepared for: competent, professional—and way out of Dev’s league. With one man determined that they don’t have a future, and the other fearing it, life after Porthkennack is starting to look bleak for both of them.

Review:
I thought this was cute, but I won’t say I was blown away by it. I’ve read Merrow’s work before and quite enjoyed it (Muscling Through is one of my all time favorite MM novels), so I figure this is just one of those books I liked less than the others. It happens.

While I liked the writing and I enjoyed Dev’s regional dialect, I just thought nothing in the book stood out as special. Sure, the author included some heavy topics—chronic illness, adoption, rape, ‘the system,’ economic disparity, race, etc.—after a while they started to feel little more than plot mechanisms than anything deeply explored or fitting seamlessly into a natural story.

All in all, not a bad book. Again, I did think it was cute. I wouldn’t tell anyone not to read it. But it doesn’t stand out either.