Category Archives: Challenges

Cry Baby Hollow

Book Review of Aimee Love’s Cry Baby Hollow

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Cry Baby Hollow

I grabbed Aimee Love‘s Cry Baby Hollow from the Amazon KDP list recently.

Description from Goodreads:
There are things we all know about werewolves:
-The only way to become a werewolf is to be bitten by one.
-They only come out on the full moon.
-They can only be killed with a silver bullet.
-They are not real.

But when Aubrey Guinn comes to Eastern Tennessee to help Vina, an aging family friend, werewolves are the furthest things from her mind. She is preoccupied with more mundane concerns, like keeping Vina’s ingrate step-children from putting her in a nursing home, avoiding the advances of her handsome but dim witted neighbor, and keeping her mailbox away from the good old boys baseball bats. It isn’t until Aubrey finds the body of a local boy, gruseomely murdered, that she begins to see that life in the country is anything but slow, and werewolves are far from what Hollywood had led her to expect.

Review:
Cry Baby Hollow was a surprisingly good read. I say surprisingly because there are so many werewolf books on the market these days and almost all of them seem to be small variations of the same story. This one is not one of those. For one it isn’t about some dimwitted heroine falling hard for another testosterone crazed alpha wolf. Thank you sweet baby HeyZeus for variety. I would hesitate to even call this paranormal romance, except that it does have paranormal creatures in it and there is some romance. Either way it’s a lot of fun, if a little slow at times.

Ms. Love has created an interesting story, with engaging characters and some true regional humour. I can say that too. I happen to be from Tennessee. There was a lot of genuine southern culture depicted here, but there were a few inevitable stereotypes too. Sadly, there’s often a grain of truth in even them so I can’t fault the book for that.

I did have a few gripes though. While I loved Aubrey’s sharp tongue and quick wit, it didn’t always feel realistic. Old women like Vina can get away with being so acerbic, younger ones haven’t earned the social right yet. On more than one occasion I laughed at some cut down or defiant act of Aubrey’s (’cause they are funny and fist pumpingly “right on”), then thought, ‘what a bitch.’ She was just too quick to jump onto the offence. Plus, since you are given so little of Aubrey’s history upfront it felt a little like all of her considerable skill came unearned. Of course she’s supposed to have spent 10+ years in the Navy. No doubt she worked hard for them, but you don’t feel it.

I loved, loved, loved Joe, but there’s a fairly drastic change in his personality about halfway through the book and I was a little disappointed in that. It was predictable really, but I still much preferred his Good ‘Ol Boy self to his cleaned up self. I also wondered why he knew the area so much better than Aubrey if he’d been vacationing there for 10 years, but she’d been visiting her whole life. Seemed a little backwards.

Lastly, some important events were strangely glossed over: almost anything bedroom related, Aubrey’s days in the hospital which marked a sharp change in the tone of the book, her first training with Vina and pals that allowed her to fight on an even playing field with the baddy. All of them are game changers to the plot, but none of them are given to the reader. Their absence tended to make the events following them feel like abrupt shifts even when they really weren’t.

These are all fairly minor complaints in the grand scheme of things though. I have no hesitation about recommending Cry Baby Hollow book. It’s well worth reading.

A Hint of Frost

Book Review of Hailey Edwards’ A Hint of Frost

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A Hint of Frost

I Grabbed a copy of A Hint of Frost, by Hailey Edwards, from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
When the head of the Araneidae clan is found poisoned in her nest, her eldest daughter, Lourdes, becomes their clan s new maven. If her clan is to survive, she has but one choice: she must marry before her nest is seized. All she needs is a warrior fierce enough to protect her city and safeguard her clansmen. Such a male is Rhys the Cold.

Born the youngest son of an impoverished maven, the only things Rhys has to his name are his sword and his mercenary reputation. His clan is starving, but their fondness for the flesh of fellow Araneaeans makes them unwelcome dinner guests. Torn between loyalty to his clan and fascination with his future bride, Rhys s first taste of Lourdes threatens to melt the cold encasing his heart.

Amid the chaos of battle, Lourdes s sister disappears and is feared captured. Lourdes and Rhys pursue their enemies into the southlands, where they discover an odd plague ravaging southern clans as it travels north, to Erania. Determined to survive, Lourdes will discover whether she s worth her silk or if she s spun the thread by which her clan will hang.

Warning: This book contains one mercenary hero with a biting fetish, one determined heroine who gets nibbled, and an answer to the age-old question, What does dragon taste like? Matricide and sibling rivalry are available upon request. The house special is revenge, best served cold.

Review:
It was that silly little warning at the end of the description that made me want to read A Hint of Frost and I was pleasantly surprised by it. Yes, it’s has many of the fantasy PNR tropes, but it has enough in it’s favour to keep it for feeling like just another rehash of the same old same old. Yes, there is an instant attraction between Lourdes and Rhys, but it wasn’t quite insta-love which was nice. Plus, Lourdes has accepted her situation and the necessity of mating Rhys so there isn’t all the bitchy hero blaming that so often goes on in such books. I appreciated having two mature characters in a difficult situation who didn’t take it out on one another. Yes, Lourdes is sheltered and virginal, but she doesn’t act like a fragile flower and is more than willing to acknowledge her own desires. I especially liked that in the sexy scenes (there isn’t a lot of actual sex) the language used to describe her thoughts, feelings and actions were almost identical to those usually attributed to males in other PNR novels. She wanted to mark him, claim him, pleasure him, etc. It’s usually the female who is the passive participant in these scenes so I got a real kick out of seeing that turned on it’s head.

The book is full of beautiful prose and I really enjoyed Edwards writing style. There is also something else I’m trying to put my finger on that I liked. There were a number of times in which I remember reading a passage and vaguely acknowledging that certain characters’ thoughts or actions went against what normal PNR characters would do (despite my allegations of the use of tropes, which might be largely unavoidable anyway). But it wasn’t blatant, small things like Lourdes acknowledging and apologising for an error that another PNR heroine would insist she had every right to. Or being observant enough and aware enough of her own body to admit attraction when other PNR females would flounder around in the ‘he can’t possible be attracted to me’ or ‘what is this strange flutter I have’ for a while. It was more a general feeling given to the characters than anything I can find many firm examples of, but it was nice.

Now I was completely unprepared for the human/arachnid blend going on in this book. People with spinnerets in their fingers and venomous fangs….not completely cool with that. Sorry but spiders are high on my totally freak me out list. Luckily they only had two arms and two legs or I wouldn’t have been able to make it through. But it did make for an interesting addition to the world building. It allowed there to be different subspecies in a sense. Some clans being more or less venomous than others.

All in all I enjoyed the read. It’s the first in a series and there are a few arcs that are obviously only meant for carry-through, the Yellow Death for example. It served almost no purpose in this book, but appears (from the book descriptions) to be a major occurrence in the future books. There is no cliffhanger at the end of this one though. This book wraps up nicely. I’m learning to appreciate that more and more.

Book Review of Thomm Quackenbush’s We Shadows

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We ShadowsAuthor, Thomm Quackenbush, sent me a copy of his novel We Shadows.

Description from Goodreads:
After a year of coasting rather than living, destroyed by her boyfriend Eliot’s death, Shane Valentine matriculates into his college. She begins to build a new life as a college freshman, only to have it stolen from her one night, when she is trying to drown her sorrows at the bottom of a daiquiri.

She wakes the next day in a strange apartment with three scars she can’t remember and a bloody shirt. On her walk of shame in stolen clothes, she realizes that no one aside for her roommate Roselyn, a Wiccan with epilepsy, remembers her. Unfortunately three occultists are after her to fix the mistake they made and they remember her too well.

Gideon, a daemonic being with an penchant for card, finds her and assures her he is going to help her out of his own sense of self-preservation. After a quick trip to the nameless campus drug dealer, whose abilities far exceed the selling of narcotics, Shane begins on an adventure to figure out what was done with her and why, to regain a life she had been wasting in mourning. Then, she begins to see Eliot’s ghosts and realizes even chaos cannot be so cut and dry.

Review:
I have to be honest. I only kinda, sorta, maybe understand what just happened at the end of this book. It feels like things wrapped up, but I don’t actually know what happened. Did she? Didn’t she? Was she? Wasn’t she? Will she? Won’t she? (Ok, now I just sound a bit like Girl.) At best it’s a loose conclusion, though it does conclude. Having said all of that, I quite enjoyed the ride. Quackenbush has developed some really interesting characters in this book. Some I know are poached from various mythologies, but they are all artfully integrated to create an engaging story.

The whole thing just felt a little shallow though. I don’t necessarily mean that as a harsh criticism. The characters had enough depth, there weren’t too many deep plot holes and dialogue flowed well, but for all of the philosophy spouted, decisions made and actions taken very little deep explanation was ever given. It all led to a feeling of gloss…like looking at a water colour where you can clearly see what the picture is despite the fact that the lines are all indistinct and often wobbly. As a result I regularly “only kinda, sorta, maybe understand what just happened.”

Then there was Girl. She’s was very Mad Hatter-like, speaking in enlightened gibberish and riddles…and just in case you don’t immediately note the similarity she liked to quote Carroll and have random tea-parties too. Actually, now that I think about it, I kind of wish I had paid more attention throughout the book. I’d bet there are more than a few Alice in Wonderland references I didn’t catch. Gideon’s penchant for cards could be one. Hookas and ‘who are you’ type conversations abound. Yes, I’ve decided. There is a definite Alice in Wonderland feel to this book. Shane has lost her sense of self, just like little Alice.

Quackenbush is a talented writer, without doubt. The dry, witty humour was worth reading the book for on its own. Shane, for example, very much reminded me of Rory from Gilmore Girls, though there isn’t any real reason for me to make that comparison since the genre’s are so very different. But there just aren’t a lot of characters that could make grammar jokes funny, probably not many authors either.