Category Archives: First Reads 2015

New Sky

Book Review of New Sky: Eyes of the Watcher, by Jason Kent

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New SkyI downloaded a copy of New Sky: Eyes of the Watcher, by Jason Kent, from the Amazon free list.

Overly Long Description from Goodreads:

See the Future.
Kill the Mechs.
Save the Earth. 

See the Future. Kate Thompson did not expect to receive the power to see into the future when her day started. Everything changed for Kate after boarding an enemy Ironclad Star Cruiser, a mechanical wonder seemingly from another time, alongside a platoon of Stellar Union Marines. Embedded with Master Sergeant Kelly Merrick’s SUMC unit by her corporate employer, Electro-Magnetic Technologies, Kate is expected to repair the high tech gear the Stellar Marine’s somehow manage to keep breaking. Unfortunately, Kate’s work is never done as the space-going Marine’s constantly find new and unusual ways to destroy their equipment each and every time they embark on a mission. Her previous work does little to prepare Kate for the complete electronic system failure the team experiences aboard the Ironclad starship. When Kate finds her high tech gadgets useless, she is glad to find her assigned guardian, Kelly Merrick, functions just fine with only his sniper rifle and a combat knife. They fight their way deep into the Ironclad, where Kate’s Quest truly begins. Together they encounter an enigmatic Tallinn Watcher, and Kate finds she needs Merrick more than ever. Javin is a Watcher, one of the enemy’s top battle commanders charged with ensuring Tallinn victory over Earth’s forces…at any cost. Javin shares a mysterious link with a powerful entity called Knowl, allowing him to predict the outcome of crucial events with startling clarity. Javin uses this insight to utterly defeat his opponents in battle after battle. While fighting on the side of the Tallinn, defeating far superior forces, Javin has been secretly searching for someone who will end this bloody conflict. When Kate bursts in on Javin’s inner sanctum, he knows his search is over. With his dying breath, the Watcher passes his ability to see into the future to Kate; opening her eyes to wonders she never imagined! 

Kill the Mechs. Master Sergeant Kelly Merrick’s mission is clear and brutally simple; destroy as many enemy machines as humanly possible. Carrying out his orders as a Stellar Union Marine Corps sniper is the only way he knows to protect his fellow Marines as they battle legions of the relentless Tallinn clockwork soldiers. Fortunately for his team, Merrick is very good at his job. Little did he know he would end up assigned to baby-sit Kate, one of the civilian contractors who keeps getting in his line of fire. If only he was not so attracted to his new charge as she ends up requiring more protection than even he may be able to provide. After their life-altering encounter with the Tallinn Watcher, Merrick enlists the help of his fellow Marines to keep Kate and her new abilities safe. He also convinces them to follow Kate halfway across the galaxy to worlds only a Watcher can see. Merrick discovers his new mission; keeping Kate Thompson alive, is the key to saving everyone on Earth! 

Save the Earth. The strange encounter with the Watcher leaves Kate linked to Knowl and in possession of a new inner sight beyond time and space. Kate has many questions about her new found abilities but Javin is gone before she can get her answers. Several things are clear; Kate must find Knowl, stop the Tallinn’s, and save the Earth…no problem. She is not alone on her journey.

Review:
This was an amusing, if somewhat shallow read. It’s action packed and never seemed to lag, despite being quite long. So, my main take-away is that I had fun with it. But that doesn’t really negate the fact that the characters were not fleshed out; not one of them had any history at all. The romance came out of nowhere and was wholly unsupported. Plus, there was absolutely no chemistry between the characters, even if I did like them both and liked them together. The point of view was inconsistent and a random enemy showed up at about 60% through, but never really did anything.

Anyhow, it was an enjoyable read. And though it could use a little more editing, the writing was quite readable.

Saltwater Secrets

Book Review of Saltwater Secrets (Song of the Sea, #1), by Jade Varden

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Salt Water SecretsAuthor, Jade Varden sent me an ecopy of Saltwater Secrets for review.

Description from Goodreads:
I always knew who my mother was. I always knew where I belonged. And I always knew I wanted to be on the water, like my dad.

…Until I was forced to go out into the water, anyway. Out there, you feel really lonely. But you’re never alone. There is more life and emotion under the waves than most humans will ever see, more than I could have ever imagined. Down there, it’s an entire world of rage and hate, love and hope. It’s a world of fear.

It’s a world of war.

Once, my mother told me she would sing me a song of the sea. But under the waves, the only music I ever heard was the sound of screams.

Review (spoiler warning):
This was a pretty middle of the road read for me, even if I don’t factor in being burned out on YA.

Actually, lets do factor the YA in for a minute; not me being burned on it, but that the character was supposed to be 15. I found this extremely unbelievable and many, many times throughout the book had to remind myself of it because I kept forgetting. Let’s just list some of the reasons, shall we? And we’ll skip the mystical or paranormal ones.

1) She takes a boat and successfully navigates and sails to Bermuda, stopping and berthing the boat at various marinas along the way. Apparently, no one thought it odd that she be on her own.
2) She walks into a pawn shop in a country she’s never been in and doesn’t speak the language and pawns a handful of pearls for an appropriate amount of money, meaning she knew the value of said pearls and not only how to pawn them, but how to get the owner to giver her dollars, not euros.
3) She walks into a hotel and rents a room, no adult, passport or credit card needed. Again, without speaking the languages.
4) She easily maps a route through Europe that necessitates trains, buses, ferries and taxis and uses all transport without trouble. Again, without speaking the languages.
5) She rides all said transport, crossing several borders and no one bats an eyelash at two youths traveling alone. Same when she catches a plane home. Again, without speaking the languages or having a passport.

Yeah, I had a little trouble keeping her age in mind. On a positive note, I did think the writing was good. There was an occasional tendency to over-use names during dialogue, but mostly it flowed pretty well.

But like the age issue, I also had a problem with the book’s timeline and geography. They swam, yes SWAM across the Atlantic ocean in a matter of days….DAYS…swimming…with her human arms and legs. From Bermuda to the Azores is roughly 2,225 miles, according to Google, and they swam that in a few days, navigating by who knows what and finding an island to sleep on each and every night. Um…………..no. So, there was a fair bit of suspending belief needed to make this story work.

There were also some character inconsistencies. Dylan seemed quite modern and aware of the world when he and Bren met, but about halfway through the book he seemed to lose a lot of that knowledge. Lastly, I was confused on the language issue, and not just how the pair traveled Europe. Why, for example, do merfolk (who speak several land languages) speak English between themselves?

I do have to give the books props for being willing to challenge some engrained expectations though. I won’t leave a spoiler on the biggest one, but a character acts just as you wouldn’t expect and I liked that twist. There is a George R. R. Martin-like event that I didn’t see coming and wouldn’t have expected most authors to brave. Similarly, Varden provides no happy ending here, not even a happy for now. That takes guts in a writer and I appreciated that a lot.

All-in-all, I had some major problems with this book, most of which could be overlooked with enough suspension of disbelief and none of them were enough to truly compromise my enjoyment of the story. Dedicated YA fans would probably enjoy it a lot more than me.

Werewolves of Brooklyn

Book Review of Werewolves of Brooklyn, by Brad Vance

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Werewolves of BrooklynI nabbed a copy of Brad Vance‘s Werewolves of Brooklyn from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Darien Mackey wasn’t looking for an adventure. For ten years, he’d been happy living in Brooklyn, working as a butcher in the same job, living in the same apartment, dating some “nothing-special” guys. Until one night his buddy Jacob talked him into taking ayahuasca, the soul-changing drug. And Darien had a vision…of a wolf, its all-too-human eyes on him, its paws on his chest, its enquiring mind in his own… 

Darien Mackey is changing. He’s more confident, more assertive, hungrier, hornier. And his world is changing around him – his job, his home, his beloved Mechanic’s Library all falling victim to the predations of unscrupulous developers, bent on demolishing the old Brooklyn he loves and replacing it with a forest of condos. But he’s no longer a passive observer of his own life, and as this thing, this power, grows inside of him, he resolves to fight back, to preserve the way of life he loves. 

And he’s not alone in the fight. The Lipsius Preservation Society of Brooklyn stands ready to assist in the battle, even though it seems like a bit of a joke to Darien, with its King and its Duke, Marquess, Earl and Viscount. 

But there’s nothing funny about his growing attraction to Albeus Finley, King of this mysterious Court. And when slumlords and condo-mongers start to die mysterious, violent deaths at the hands of savage animals, Darien begins to realize that something is afoot in Brooklyn – something supernatural. 

And it’s afoot in him, too…

Review:
Ok, first things first, as a point of information rather than part of the review: despite the cover, this is not a historical novel. With the exception of a rather lengthy flashback this has a contemporary setting. That surprised me. As did the fact that the story ends at 82%, the rest being a sneak-peak of another book.

Moving on. I basically liked this but it felt insubstantial, at least the latter half did. It had a very strong start but then the pace picked up and everything happened too quickly and there developed a ‘Darien can do anything without consequences feel’ that just felt like poor structuring. The romance was almost instant, though I’m still not sure if this was a ‘fated mate’ scenario or just insta-love. There were mysteries left unsolved–why was Darien progressing in his change quicker than others, what was the friend’s trip like, where was the Count from, what happened to Daniel, what’s with the court titles anyway, etc.

There were also some hinky sexual roles going on. I’ll grant that I’ve been party to a few ‘penetration politics’ discussions lately, so maybe I’m just on the lookout for this, but I was greatly disturbed by the very clear association with bottoming and submitting or being submissive. Even when one character was described as a ‘power bottom who’s always in control’ he was also described as a submissive for being the catcher. How is that being submissive? I get it with the wolves, sure, but this was general. And it was all complicated by how much topy-top-top Darien’s personality changed once he decided he was willing to ‘submit’ to Albeus. At one point he (6 foot plus and over 200 pounds) really was carried up the stairs in a princess hold while he clung weepily to Albeus. That should tell you something.

I did appreciate that the men were kind of like hipster bears. (Though Darien hated the term hipster.) But they were big and bearded, wore flannel and long johns and started youthful urban businesses. Hipsters. Either way, it was nice to see a different body type presented as sexy.