Category Archives: Challenges

from the ashes

Book Review of Daisy Harris’ From the Ashes

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From the Ashes

I picked up Daisy Harris‘ novel, From the Ashes from the Amazon free list. At the times of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
When an accident burns down Jesse’s apartment, he’s left broke and homeless, with a giant dog and a college schedule he can’t afford to maintain. And no family who’s willing to take him in.

Lucky for him, a sexy fireman offers him a place to stay. The drawback? The fireman’s big Latino family lives next door, and they don’t know their son is gay.

Tomas’s parents made their way in America with hard work and by accepting help when it was offered, so he won’t let Jesse drop out of school just so he can afford a place to live. Besides, Jesse’s the perfect roommate—funny, sweet and breathtakingly cute. He climbs into Tomas’s bed and tugs at his heart. Until Jesse starts pushing for more.

Their passion enflames their bodies but threatens to crush Tomas’s family. Tomas is willing to fight for Jesse, but after losing everything, Jesse isn’t sure he can bear to risk his one remaining possession—his heart.

Review:
I’m fairly torn about what I thought of this book. I really liked the characters. Tomas is pretty much everything a person could want in a lover. Yes, he has a few issues of his own, but any man who is so willing to put himself out there for the man he loves is alright in my book. And while Jesse comes across as young and naive, I also respected that he was hell bound and determined to stay independent. There were a lot of really sweet scenes. The whole, ‘you don’t have to be perfect’ thing made me sigh. There were also some cheesy ones, but nothings perfect.

But as much as I liked these aspects of the book, I also found it a little dull. There was very little angst. The two characters met, had an instant attraction, were forced by circumstances to choose to live together, and seamlessly fall in love. It was all just a little too easy.

But I also have this vague uneasy feeling about Tomas’ issue. I don’t want give too much of a spoiler, but Tomas has a problem respecting men he has sex with and what that means as a gay man. While I understand this wasn’t actually meant to be judgemental, rather a challenge for Tomas to overcome, it still made my skin crawl a little. Plus, he seemed to get over it fairly quickly in the end, all things considered.

The writing and editing were both fine and I’d be more than willing to pick up another of Harris’ books.

The Marcher Lord

Book Review of The Marcher Lord (Over Guard, #1) , by Glenn Wilson

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The Marcher Lord

Author, Glenn Wilson, sent me a copy of The Marcher Lord.

Description from Goodreads:
Private Ian Kanters has just been initiated into the renowned ranger division of the Bevish Empire–a space-faring, Victorian-Era society. He is slightly apprehensive, however, as his first assignment is escorting a noble family on a hunting expedition. But their destination, the newly-acquired planet of Orinoco, quickly lives up to its wild reputation.

The planet’s climate is harsh and the wildlife deadly. His company of rangers is also not nearly so easy to win over as he had hoped, though he finds the nobleman’s daughter to be unexpectedly distracting. But that’s only the beginning as they trek into the vast wilderness where Ian is soon to find the adventure that he’s been waiting his whole life for.

Review:
Um, where to start. The Marcher Lord is surprisingly well written and edited, considering it’s gotten almost no attention since it was published. I liked the main characters. I thought the side characters were pretty interesting. (I was especially fond of Rory.) The alien planet kept me interested and the military bits felt really believable. But, and it’s a big but, the book is missing something important, a plot.

Well, that’s not strictly true. I think there is a plot, it’s just so slow in developing that it’s sure to take about 2,000 pages or so to get to it, meaning that this book is not a complete work on it’s own. It barely feels like a prologue actually. The book is roughly 250 pages and, while there were a few vague hints at possible political intrigue, the only action that might (depending on how it’s explained in the next book) be described as plot-driven happens in the last 5 or so pages. The rest is just soldiers on safari.

In a way, it reminded me of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. You go in expecting intergalactic sci-fi and instead find military fiction in space. Like Starship Troopers, the book is centred on a young, naive, idealistic new recruit sent out to an alien world to use all his military skills to fight non-humanoid prey. However, instead of being at war with an intelligent insectoid race, Ian and his cohort are escorting a noble on what amounts to as an African big game hunt.

That’s it. That’s the book. You spent time marching, hunting, fishing, eating, etc. In and among these really quite mundane activities you get to know Ian. He’s a really nice chap, Ian is. There’s one little twist in the female MC department, that I admit I didn’t see coming, but I also have to admit wasn’t well explained. (Someone’s attitude seemed to change inexplicably allowing Ian’s to change too.) There’s a little out of place religion. It’s part of the worldbuilding that this is a “space-faring, Victorian-Era society,” so by extension Christian. But it felt extraneous to the story. Similarly, given this is a galactic empire, it felt really simplistic that the few dominant cultures seem to only be Earthbound cultures (specifically English and French).  But there is also some interesting observations on humans and humanness.

All in all, not a bad book. Pleasant reading, but no real pay off in the end, unless you’re committing yourself to the whole series, all of which isn’t even available as far as I know. But it you liked Starship Troopers, I bet you’d like this.

Hainted

Book Review of Hainted, by Jordan L. Hawk

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HaintedI borrowed a copy of Hainted, by Jordan L. Hawk. (Thanks, S.)

Description from Goodreads:
The Good Guy: Haint-working runs in Dan Miller’s blood. Not everyone can help the restless dead cross over, especially when the haunting threatens the Living. But the death of his parents six years ago forced Dan to give it up in exchange for raising his brother and sister, all the while struggling to keep their rural NC farm afloat.

So when the flamboyantly goth Leif Helsvin shows up on Dan’s doorstep looking for help with an evil necromancer named Runar, Dan’s first instinct is to turn him down. With two teenagers to look after, he’s already got all the trouble he can handle. Besides, the sexy Leif is too much of a temptation, and Dan is firmly in the closet.

The Bad Boy: Pierced, tattooed Leif never has sex with the same guy twice. It keeps things simple, especially since his oath to stop Runar has him constantly drifting from one town to the next.

But this time, it looks like Leif is going to need help, in the form of the very down-to-earth Dan. Since Nice Guys are off the menu, Leif just has to keep his hands to himself for as long as it will take to stop Runar’s latest scheme. But as Leif finds himself drawn deeper into Dan’s life, he quickly realizes he’s not just in danger of breaking the rules, but breaking his heart as well

Review:
I don’t usually use star ratings on the blog. But I think it will help me explain my indecision on this one. If I were to star this book, I would be stuck between a 3 and a 4. It’s not quite a 4, but it’s better than a lot of books I’ve given 3s to. I think my seesaw-opinion comes from it being a fine book, but grating on my personal nerves.

It is well written and well edited; no complaints on that front. I’ll definitely be looking for more of Hawk’s writing, but Dan and Lief just annoyed the living daylights out of me almost every-time one of them opened their mouth.

I did appreciate the twist on the characters, on who’s the strong one and who needs the healing. Well, they both need healing, but the bad-boy character isn’t usually the one written as fey-like and fragile and it gave the book a bit of something different. And I did like both characters. I also thought the side characters were very well done. Taryn was awesome, Bea was stable and dependable, Virgil gave everything a little friction, even Corey and Marlene added a little something to the mix.

However, the book is repetitive. We’re told the same information multiple times, very close together. I think if Dan blamed himself for not saving his mother one more time I might have tossed my kindle over the back of the couch. (This also made his sudden repressed memory and the strength he garnered from it at the end unbelievably convenient.) Similarly, Lief’s constant ‘if he knew the truth’ mantra grew old pretty quickly.

I was also absolutely sickened by the sex=love and instant endearment laden relationship—you know, the way the characters instantly start calling each-other baby and sweetheart and saying things like ‘I’ll love you forever.’ Especially since Dan simultaneously held onto the ‘he’s leaving next week.’ It was pretty clear that had fallen off the table. Plus, if I’m honest, Lief’s ex-prozzie, ‘I’m into toys and plugs and everything else’ attitude didn’t really fit the tone of the rest of the book.

Then there was the fact that I was confused about the haints. They’re supposed to be ghosts, but lets be real, they’re zombies. And I didn’t set out to read a zombie book. This wasn’t help by the fact that I found the action scenes fairly mild and almost always brief.

The whole set up also felt a little wobbly because Runar seemed to discover what he came to Ransom Gap for after he came to Ransom Gap. I can’t really explain this without a spoiler, but once he arrived he discovered something he wanted to find and went about searching it out as Dan and Lief tried to stop him (that’s the non-romance part of the plot). So, what brought him there in the first place?

So, in the end, it was a fine book. It really was. I didn’t even dislike it. I liked a lot of it. But there were just so many small annoyances that they started to reach a bit of a critical mass by the end.