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Book Review of Fated Dates and Mating Addiction, by Abraham Steele

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I downloaded Fated Dates and Mating Addiction  (by Abraham Steele) from Amazon when they were free. They are the first and the fifth book in the Fated Date Agency series. I’m not sure why I only had one and five, but I did.

Fated DatesDescription from Goodreads:
Bryant had always known that Cade was straight. After years of crushing on his best friend, the bookish young omega was ready to move on. Cade would never be interested in him like that. It was time to move on – time for Bryant to get matched by the Fated Date Agency.

The agency’s response only showed Bryant how cruel fate could be. His sexy jock friend wasn’t just a crush – he was the only one for him. But Cade was still straight. Bryant couldn’t let him know that they were fated mates.

And yet… he couldn’t let him go.

Review:
WTH? This plot had more holes that a mesh screen! Seriously, I spent the whole book being confused about how it was still holding together at all. It was also repetitive, self absorbed, and the writing had a painfully naive quality to it. I didn’t like either of the characters. Being on the receiving end of anal sex was explicitly equated to being a woman. The happy ending was forced and unbelievable. The characters blithely broke the one rule of being a shift the reader was told about (more than once) and it was originally published in three parts, which makes no conceivable sense at all. Thank goodness I had a compilation.

Mating AddictionDescription from Goodreads:
Disowned by his family, cut off from his pack, Raymond Fusco lives for the next conquest. And he’s definitely making one tonight. There’s no way he’s going to close off the weekend without pumping his cum into a hot, willing asshole. Any of the anonymous guys messaging him will do. The young alpha’s standards aren’t exactly high – there’s no point when he’s only going to see them once. The new guy who just emailed him stands out, though. Not only does Diago have a gorgeous face and cock, his way with words is also intriguing. Why would he refer to Grindr as an “agency”?

A week after breaking up with his first and only boyfriend, Diago Ayling has finally heard back from the Fated Date Agency. The lovelorn omega just got his heart stomped on, and now he’s ready to find the real thing: his fated mate. Even though Raymond told him to come straight to his place, Diago is picturing flowers and candlelight for their first date.

Diago is about to get a whole lot more than he bargained for. Then again – so is Raymond… 

Review:
What the hell did I just read? MPreg, shifter romance, sure I’m familiar with the trope—fated mates, knotting, male pregnancy. I knew what I was in for in that respect. But this book was just…well, it’s just a big fat nope for me. The dual first person narratives were painful and the writing style is one I don’t enjoy.

Raymond and his sex addition (more like sex frenzy) was a jerk until the magic peen cured him. Or that’s not quite right, he didn’t get the magic penis because he’d the alpha they don’t get dick. They give the dicking, cause they’re The Man. So, I guess he got the magic ass. Either way he was magically cured of his sex addiction by having sex with Diago. I bet all sex addicts wish they’d known all they needed to beat that demon is the right sex and lots of it. This book is predominantly sex, but really rushed frantic sex that wasn’t in the least satisfying.

I somehow only had book one and five in this series this one is better than the first and both stood alone just fine. Though I don’t understand the breaking into three parts. I think they may have been initially published as serials. If I’d read these as serials instead of a compilation I’d have been furious. Also this (and the first one for that matter) is listed at 200+ pages in length. I have a hard time thinking it’s really that long.

Isles of the Forsaken

Book Review of Isles of the Forsaken, by Carolyn Ives Gilman

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Isles of the ForsakenI borrowed Isles of the Forsaken, by Carolyn Ive Gilman from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
The Forsaken Isles are on the brink of revolution. Three individuals are about to push it over the edge and trigger events that will lead to a final showdown between ancient forces and the new overlords of the land.

Review:
This was an interesting read with some intriguing complexity to the characters and a slow but engaging plot. I was a little uncomfortable with the Great White Savior set up though. And it is a set up, to come about in the next book, but by the end of Isles of the Forsaken I was a bit squinked out with Nathaway’s position. However, up to that point I’d found him pleasantly complex. He was naive and short sighted. He truly believed he was bringing a gift of the rule of law to the islanders and was completely blind to the destruction in his wake, because he simply couldn’t see that the cultures, beliefs and practices of peoples other than his own had value and place. He wasn’t malicious in any way, just utterly ethnocentric.

Then we have Harg, the reluctant hero. I have to admit the reluctant hero is one of my favorite tropes, which made Harg my favorite character. And he too has some complexity of character. An outsider among his own people and ready for a peaceful period in his life, he instead becomes the leader of a rebellion of the very people who largely deny him, while laying claim to his cause.

This tendency of people to greedily grasp at something that would happily be given if not demanded is a theme we see with Spaeth too. She’s desperate to give of herself for the people, but no one will stop demanding from her long enough to let her gift herself instead. It’s an interesting conundrum. The same actions make her a slave in one scenario and a savior in another. And she’s so young and innocent that she has trouble navigating this confusing terrain.

I admit I’m always sensitive to representations of women in novels. It’s hard for me to look at them as individual characters in individual novels and not as one more in a collective of female characters. But the wide-eyed, beautiful, innocent, overly sexual creature of femaleness (created for a man’s entertainment) felt very cliched to me. The impression only got worse when she was constantly protected from herself by the men around her and her will was eventually subjugated to a man while she was unconscious (which she woke up thrilled about, of course).

I’ll be reading book two to see where the rebellion goes. Honestly, there is a political rebellion underway here, but the whole book is about rebellion. Everyone is rebelling in their own way and that subtle, undercurrent of frisson is what’s kept me going even through the weird dream-like scenes and slow passages that pepper this otherwise interesting book.

ghost seer

Book Review of Ghost Seer, by Robin D. Owens

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Ghost SeerI borrowed a copy of Robin D. Owens‘ novel Ghost Seer from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
When her eccentric aunt passes away, no-nonsense accountant Clare Cermac inherits more than just a small fortune. She receives the gift of communicating with ghosts. While Clare may not believe in spirits, it’s hard to overlook the shadowy talking dog appearing on her bed or spectral cowboys tipping their hats to her in the streets of Denver. And when she locks eyes with sexy—and living—Zach Slade, there’s certainly no ignoring him either.
 
A former deputy sheriff, Zach is leaving a painful past behind in Montana for a new life in Denver as a private investigator, a job that has him crossing paths with beautiful Clare. Not that she minds. After the restless ghost of a Wild West gunman demands her assistance, Clare finds herself needing Zach more and more—and not just for help.

Review: 
Entertaining enough to have been worth a read, but nothing to write home about. While the whole idea of a ghost seer is an interesting one and Claire and Zach could have been interesting characters, the truth is that I was bored for most of this book. Never enough to put the book down, but enough to just kind of plod along.

It takes at least half of the book for Claire to come to terms with her powers and I got very ver tired of the redundancies of her denials. Ditto for Zach; he just basically had the same thoughts of denial about his situation over and over and over again.

I disliked Claire, on top of everything else. I found her a fairly weak heroine. In fact, she’s basically helpless without Zach there to save her. She even managed to fall down and twist an ankle while running for her life on a flat surface. She’s THAT sort of heroine.

Further, I thought the kidnapping felt like a forced ploy to add tension and still failed to do that. He was defeated easily and contributed nothing needed to the plot.

All in all, it wasn’t all bad, but I have the next two in the series, as I picked them all up at the library. But I don’t think I’ll be bothering to read them.