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Audiobook Review: Bloodthirsty, by Cassandra Featherstone

I’m fairly sure I picked up an audio copy of Cassandra Featherstone‘s Bloodthirsty in a freebie event.

bloodthirsty audio cover

“Forgive me.”

Those were Professor Arnaud’s final words before I sliced through his neck. His was the first head I took, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Severing my connections to l’Academie d’Invisible was harder, but eventually, I escaped and built a reputation of my own.

Infamy suits me, and the harsh lessons of my childhood have served me well. I’m untouchable, undetectable, and untraceable. My targets are dead from the moment my name is whispered.

I am the Guillotine, and I work alone.

That is, until five criminals from my past reappear like unwanted phantoms, and I’m forced to choose between my targets and my vengeance.

Either way, heads will roll.

my review

This was, at best, ok. The writing seems readable (as best I can tell in an audiobook), and the narrators did a fine job. But, lord, was I bored, and the book is just the same thing over and over and over again. The FMC, Remy, tells us how awesome she is, what disguise she’s using, and something about her past at l’Academie d’Invisible. The book then cuts to one of the MMC who will tell us how his and his brothers’ trauma from losing her is destroying them before cutting back to her, a new disguise, etc. There are five men. They all do this. It’s agonizingly repetitive. Add to that the author’s tendency to forget injuries such as the FMC appears to heal at supernaturial speeds, and the fact that this is a slow-burn. So, ultimately, there’s no real payoff at the end. Plus, there’s a disconnect between what’s in the blurb and what Remy says in the book.

Also, as a side note. I know one doesn’t read this sort of book for the feminism. But I found it bloodthirsty photoseriously irritating to have the men written to give lip service to it, commenting on equal opportunity, and women’s capabilities, etc. But then, the author uses the same misogynistic tropes of reducing women to disposable “pussy,” etc. This is super common in the genre. I get that, annoying as it is, once you become aware of it. But it played worse than usual to have male characters who are theoretically mindful but also enact the same old misogynistic games. I wanted to be like, ‘Choose a lane.’


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Review: Book: Bloodthirsty- Cassandra Featherstone

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Book Review: A Claim to Murder, by Jean G. Goodhind

I accepted an e-copy of  Jean G. Goodhind‘s A Claim to Murder for review.

A Claim to Murder Book Cover

Life couldn’t be sweeter for Honey Driver, floating around the Med on her own private yacht, with her dishy detective husband Steve.

But dark clouds are gathering on Honey’s perfect horizon. And the forecast looks like murder!

When Honey’s love boat sinks in a freak accident, she has no choice but to return to rain-drenched Bath. But now that Honey needs him, her insurance broker, silver-tongued Norman Glendower, is nowhere to be found.

He’s not at his luxury offices in town and he’s not answering his phone.

Honey could kill Norman for leaving her in this fix. But what if someone got there first?

Behind the gates of leafy Regency Gardens, the exclusive complex where Norman lives, something is terribly amiss. Norman’s mewling cat leads a curious neighbour straight to his dead body!

He’s been bludgeoned and left for dead on the pristine tiles of his designer kitchen. Which of his many enemies was the one to strike the fatal blow?

Honey’s on the case — with a killer watching her every move . . .

my review

I’m going to preface this review with the caveat that I’m not a massive reader of mysteries (cozy, British, or otherwise). This one came across my TBR largely by accident. But I gave it a good go, and I didn’t hate it. That’s faint praise, I know, but the most honest expression of how I feel.

I didn’t hate it. I liked that the characters are older but still active and with internal lives of their own, and honestly, I liked them well enough. But I was bored for a lot of the book. I didn’t feel the loss of a quarter of a million dollar investment was adequately mourned, and very little seemed to actually happen, investigation-wise, until right at the end. And then I thought the narrative treatment of a well-pulled-together, influencer-type woman to be clichéd. It has just a little too much of a whiff of shaming women who are proud of or use their looks for their own (as opposed to the patriarchy’s) gain.

All in all, this was middle of the road for me. But it might be a bigger winner for someone who especially likes cozy, British mysteries.

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Book Review: Blood Sings, by Denisa Mih

I was recently lucky enough to win a giveaway on Instagram that included a copy of Denisa Mih‘s Blood Sings.

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An heir…
Destined for a throne soaked in blood, Aurora Tepes must navigate the intrigues of court and the brutality of battle. As heir to the Crown Republic of Transylvania, she is bound by duty to protect her people, wielding her sharp mind and mastery of blood manipulation—
no matter the sacrifice.

A century of war…
Beyond the walls, a conflict meant to be without casualties stains the hills with innocent blood while the powerful turn a blind eye.
But Aurora cannot.
Armed with the magic of her ancestry and revolutionary technology, she joins the Outliers—the oppressed, deemed inferior by the Republic—on the frontline, vowing to bring justice once she claims her crown.

A desire for more…
Dark secrets, deadly creatures, and new alliances test Aurora’s convictions as she confronts the savagery of her nature and an uncertain future that could unravel everything. But when she meets the longest-lived Outlier, a mysterious moon-haired captain whose magic holds world-changing secrets, destiny and duty collide.

my review

This was OK. I enjoyed it well enough. I don’t regret reading it or anything. But I also felt like everything was just skimmed over or surface-level. There were time jumps in places I would expect to see what happened on-page, for example. But mostly it was just kind of the overall tone of the novel. Where I wanted to understand the complex world and multi-species intersections thoroughly, I didn’t. Where I wanted to see a relationship bloom, it just appeared on the page. I liked the characters, but I neither got to know them well nor saw much in line of character growth. And there were a lot of them to keep track of, all of whom eventually got a second set of names, which meant I only had a loose grasp of who was who.

All in all, I’d read book two if it were out. But, honestly, by the time it comes out early next year, I suspect I won’t even remember having read this one.

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