Category Archives: books/book review

Descended From Dragons

Book Review of Descended From Dragons (Moonlight Dragon #1), by Tricia Owens

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I grabbed Tricia Owens‘ Descended From Dragons when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
To save Sin City, she must battle Hell. Too bad the odds are against her. 

Beneath the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas lies another city. A secret city in plain sight, full of warlocks and demons, shapeshifters and golems. A city that feeds off the chance magick that is generated by gamblers and which is ruled by mysterious beings called the Oddsmakers. 

It is in this strange underbelly of the occult that Anne Moody runs a cursed pawn shop for the desperate, the curious, and the magickally inclined. Though the job is boring, it keeps her under the radar. None of her customers have any inkling that she is a dragon sorceress with a power that’s been feared throughout history. One day, a visitor to her shop pawns a stone statue that is more than it appears. The statue is a gargoyle named Vale, who is shrouded in mystery and secrets. When she learns that Vale is possessed, and that the person responsible for cursing him plans to take over Las Vegas with a horde of demons from Hell, Anne realizes it is up to her to defy the Oddsmakers and save the city, and possibly the world.

Review:
Eh, amusing enough but not overly impressive, nothing we haven’t all seen before. But I still enjoyed the couple hours it took to read it and I’d read the next one. I liked that Anne unequivocally saved the day and that the characters were racially and culturally diverse. The ending felt a bit abrupt and the world wasn’t very developed. All in all, a nice fluffy book to pass the time with, as long as you’re not looking for something particularly original.

Coexistence

Book Review of Coexistence (Human Hybrids #1), by Clare Solomon

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Clare Solomon sent me a copy of her novel Coexistence for review. There is also a prequel available on her website and a second book available if you sign up for her newsletter.

Description from Goodreads:
Scientists have genetically engineered five human hybrid races known as werewolves, vampires, dragons, sensers and wendigoes. The first four races coexist with humans in relative peace. The fifth one wants to butcher the others and they are getting stronger.

Jaspal ‘Pal’ Khatri is nearly killed and forced to leave his home with a werewolf pack in Oxford, England when the local HyCO group leads a mob of anti-hybrid rioters against them. He travels to the Highlands of Scotland for a fresh start and meets Brand, a werewolf still grieving after the murder of his lover, Kye, a year ago. He and Brand find a dead vampire and Pal is suddenly in the nightmare situation of being accused of the murder. There is a link between this death and that of Kye and Brand works for another branch of HyCO so, to prove his innocence, Pal must join the organisation he loathes and try to ignore his growing feelings for Brand as they work to uncover the real killer. Can they solve the case in time or will they become the murderer’s next victims?

Review:
Umm, no, this did not work for me. It’s too long, provides the same information over and over again, is far too heavy on the tell vs. show, has a ‘love’ that is rejected for ridiculous reasons and then has a sudden and unbelievable turnaround, a mystery that is solved with far too much ease and a second that drags on eternally, a doctor that never doctors and a world with five types of humans that isn’t really explored beyond wendigos bad everyone else good.

Solomon has a good idea here and I liked the characters. The book even starts out really well. But in the end the writing, editing, pacing and plotting wore me down and I was just glad to finally finish it.

27 Days to Midnight

Book Review of 27 Days to Midnight, by Kristine Kruppa

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I won a copy of 27 Days to Midnight, by Kristine Kruppa, through Goodreads.

Description:
Everyone in Dahlia’s world knows when they’re going to die. Except her.

Her father has never shown her the pocket watch counting down the days she has left to live. When he sacrifices himself to save her from her scheduled death, Dahlia abandons her comfortable home and sets off after his murderer to uncover the secrets her father died to protect…and the time research that could bring him back to life.

Then she meets Farren Reed. She should hate him. He’s an enemy soldier, a cowardly deserter, and the most insufferable man Dahlia’s ever met. Still, she needs all the help she can get, and Farren is the only chance she has to find the man who murdered her father. But Farren has only twenty-seven days left on his watch.

In that time, Dahlia must recover her father’s time research, foil a psychotic general’s plot, and learn to survive in a world that will never be the same. But the research holds secrets more dangerous than she had ever imagined. She will have to choose what is most important: revenge, Farren’s life, or her own. And time is running out.

Review:
Thank goodness, I’m finally finished with this book. I feel like I’ve been reading it for eons….ok, a week, but still, forever. It wasn’t particularly bad, I was just a tad bored with it. The writing is lovely, editing clean and I love the cover. But it felt very much like most of the book is spent with Dahlia and Farren running around reacting to things and not really progressing the plot.  Several convenient things pop up to help them in their times of need, the motivation of the villain seems flimsy, at best, and I really need to know how human lives came to be attached to watches. I mean, how does a newborn get a watch? Do they come into existence magically on birth? Do parents have to order them? If so, how does the baby live until it arrived? What if no one buys them a watch? I needed this aspect of life dependent on an external device explained. But all in all, it was a fine book, an OK book.

What I’m drinking: A latte at a artsy, if somewhat grotty cafe called The Stone Spiral that I am quite fond of.