Why can’t book one mean book one anymore?

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This isn’t a review. I’m stating that up front. But I’m going to take a moment and use this as launching point to have a little rant. As with other such rants, this is my opinion. I’m claiming no authority beyond that. But I am a reader, a voracious reader and when I encounter the same things irritating me over and over I need a place to vent.

Prophecy: Blood Moon Madelynne Ellis‘ book Prophecy: Blood Moon was supposed to be the fifth book in my Blood Moon Reading Challenge.  It was the book I had the highest hopes for in the list of seven I planned to read. Which is saying something; I have found an imperfect, but perceptible correlation between books with common names and common, uninspiring stories. This means when I set out to read seven books with essentially the same title, I knew some would be flops. But I held out hope for this one.

And based on the writing, I may have been right. It seemed fine. Unfortunately, I only made it 15% in before I decided not to finish it. And if you knew how bad the last two Blood Moon books I read were, but still finished, you would understand this is not something I do easily or happily. So, if I’m willing to slog through poor plotting and bad writing to finish a challenge, why did I give up on this one? Because I had no idea what was happening.

Screen Shot 2016-05-15 at 10.38.05 AMHere’s the thing, this is very clearly labeled as book one, but it’s not the beginning of the story. There is a prequel called Broken Angel available in a compilation titled Possession. Anyone who has read many of my reviews has probably hit at least one in which I’ve stated loudly how much I hate this trend toward teaser prequels. I hate picking up a story and reaching the end without followed any sort of complete arc. It leaves me feeling cheated.

Here we have just the opposite problem. Apparently, Broken Angel, rather than being a little teaser about the characters, or an extra side story IS THE BEGINNING of the story being told in Prophecy. So, without having read Broken Angel I can only scramble along and try to keep up with the goings on of Prophecy, ignoring all references to things I don’t know. This makes for a very poor reading experience.

And it’s not just prequels that cause this problem. Anyone who has followed my twitter lately might think I’m a little obsessed with complaining about spin-off series.

I felt burned because two books (No Boundaries and Dragon Fall) in a row, despite being labeled #1, first in a series, turned out to be the first in a spin-off series and neither stood alone well. You were very obviously meant to have read the books in the previous series to fully engage in the new series. As with the second tweet, how could that not be the case? No matter how conscientious the author is, there is simply no way to integrate the knowledge and information of 10 previous books into one new one.

So, I started thinking. Why do authors or publishers do this? I’m not in the publishing industry, as I said, I’m a reader. So, my guess may not be correct, but it will be indicative of what these actions on the part of authors and publishers feel like for readers. And here’s my guess, it’s all to trick you into buying more books.

The simple fact of the matter is that I can no longer go to the book store or library, scan the shelves, pick up something that’s numbered one, buy it and trust that I’ll be able to sit down and read it. These days there is a better than average chance that I’ll need to either also have bought a prequel or the previous series the book is based on.

Because let’s be logical. When a publisher puts out a book that is number eleven in a series, there is a limited audience: predominantly those who are following the series and read the previous ten books. I don’t think I’m the only one who would be wary about putting money out for a book ten volumes into a storyline. But, oh, if they call it a spin-off and label it number one, a certain number of uniformed buyers won’t realize it’s part of a larger series and buy the book when you wouldn’t if it was labeled (what I’d deem) more accurately. Make sense?

I feel the same way about prequels generally and the fact that they’re often free doesn’t negate the feeling of being manipulated for me. Often you read a prequel and it’s only part of a story. You have to buy the next book to finish it. Or in the case of Prophecy, you need to have bought the prequel in order to read book one in the series.

It’s not the spending of money that is an issue. I have a limited book budget, but I have no qualms supporting artists by paying for their work. It’s the attempt to entrap me, trick me, manipulate me into buying something I wouldn’t have otherwise that infuriates me. Not to mention that all of this is chipping away at my reading enjoyment. The number of books I’m reading that are unsatisfying because they are only part of a story that an author/publisher decided to break up or number in some artificial manner to make more money is steadily increasing.

It brings less-than-cordial utterances like these out of me.

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Tell me honestly authors; are those the emotions you want to be bringing out in your readers? I ask because, as the industry moves farther and farther in this direction, I feel like this more and more. I could fill pages with reviews in which I’ve been spitting mad about only reading part of a story and then expected to pay again to get the ending (or beginning).

And yes, I understand what a serial is. But they are OFTEN not accurately labeled as such and so readers are not fairly warned beforehand that they are in fact buying a serial. Take for example the review I wrote of Fated Nights:

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Three serial starters in one book and not one accurately labeled. Because to do so would discourage people form buying it. That’s not an allegation against any one author, but against the industry that’s making tricking the reader the new norm. And I am getting madder and madder.

I haven’t the slightest idea what to do about it. I’m just one reader and maybe I’m the only one so bothered by the situation. New readers probably don’t even remember a time when they could trust the label on a book to be accurate. But I thought I just might bust if I didn’t give myself the chance to cry foul.

surrender blood moon

Book Review of Surrender (Blood Moon #1), by Evie Ryan

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SurrenderI picked up a copy of Surrender: Blood Moon, by Evie Ryan, at Amazon. It was free at the time and I believe is a perma-freebie. I read it as part of my Blood Moon Reading Challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Daphne Storm knows how to save lives. 

As a dedicated E.R. nurse at Wyoming Mercy Medical, there isn’t much Daphne hasn’t seen: sickness, broken bones, and hunting accidents. But when a little boy is admitted one dark night after barely surviving a vicious animal attack, Daphne’s world is suddenly turned upside down. Whatever did this to him is a monster – a vicious creature threatening not just her town but the very fabric of morality, humanity itself…it is evil. 

And as Daphne holds the hand of the boy she and the doctors couldn’t save, she sees a brief mental image of black fur and white fangs. Little does she know, she is playing right into the hands of fate — even more so when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to a man with raven-black hair, one of the strange, rough men who have invited themselves to her town. 

The blood moon prophecy unfolds. 

The power of the blood moon will turn Damon’s people mad, as the prophecy foretells. During its rise and fall his men must fight the urge to shift, the desire to turn wolf, the need to kill, but when one of the men goes crazy, escapes, and terrorizes Timber Springs, Damon must stop him at all costs. 

But the rogue wolf isn’t after the people of Timber Springs. He only wants Daphne. He must be stopped, but no one knows how…

Review:
This is the second book in two days that I wouldn’t have finished if I hadn’t been reading it for a challenge. It was not good.

There was no character development. The whole Blood Moon things was poorly explained. I felt no chemistry between the characters. The heroine was a May Sue that all the men seemed to want. And OMFG the TSTL stunts she pulled darned near drove me to distraction! The editing was a mess. The sex scenes went on forever and weren’t very good.

Every once in a while a phrase would turn just right and dazzle me, but they were few and far between. All-in-all, I have little praise for the book.

Blood Moon

Book Review of Blood Moon, by Aimee Ash

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Blood Moon Aimee AshI picked up a copy of Blood Moon, by Aimee Ash, from Amazon. It was free at the time.

Description from Goodreads:
Haidee had a bright future ahead of her, that was until she was viciously attacked in the Never North forest. With a single breath of life left in her lungs she is found by a strikingly gorgeous man. With hope in her heart that this mysterious stranger will save her life, she is dumbfounded when she sees his fangs appear. With Haidee buried alive in the forest she fights for freedom, but when the sun burns her skin she fears that her worst thought is true. She has been turned into a vampire. But soon she will realize that she is no ordinary vampire, she is the chosen one and is sent on a mission by her mistress to kill the leader of the only werewolf pack left in existence. But as she finds herself distracted on her journey the fate of everyone’s lives soon rests in the palm of her hands.

Review:
Wow, that was shockingly bad. The book starts out with this TSTL move on the main character’s part.

Following my usual trail, just as I’d done many times before, my basket gently swayed comfortably on my arm. While I walked, I pictured just how beautiful my sisters would look with mauve bellflower weaved through their braids. Drifting into a daydream, I soon found that I’d lost my bearings and had roamed much further into the forest than I’d intended.

In one short paragraph, the author manages to tell us the girl knows her way, but then gets her lost. What’s more, how stupid does she have to be to wander far past the route she’s supposed to KNOW and end up in a part of the forest called the Never North that she and everyone else is afraid of?

The book had a serious case of, oh-so-special for no apparent reason. Haidee was apparently beautiful, smart, strong, alluring, her blood was sweeter than anyone else, and everyone desires her. She was given power and position for no reason and with no effort. She was too perfect.

The book then just basically turns into a list of fed from/had sex with this person and that person and that one too, interspersed with small snippets of story. She went from virgin to having sex several times a day with no time in between. Maybe this was supposed to be erotica. I say maybe because I’m really not sure. It isn’t, but the character had enough sex for it to be. Until she fell in love with a man she literally hadn’t even had a conversation with.

There were also all sorts of oddities, like her being buried overnight to become a vampire, but never needing to bath afterwards. There also wasn’t a point in which it could have happened and the author simply not mentioned it. Or up until 53% the setting was women in long dresses and cloaks, horses, bows/arrows, candles, and prudish women in teashops. I understandably assumed it was a historical setting. Then, suddenly, Haidee’s talking about her car running our of gas and getting a ride from someone. I honestly believe the author wrote it as a historical and then lost track of the story. That’s how it felt!

The whole thing was full amateurish writing. The narrator’s voice damn near killed me. The writing makes me think the author is very young, though I don’t know if that’s true.

There was an overuse and often inappropriate use of adverbs (other words too, but the adverbs really stood out). Plus, everything seemed to be pulsating, throbbing or pounding. Beyond that, the grammar was just a mess in general. Haidee’s name was used too often in conversations. There was no character development, in fact a large number of them never even speak. They were just there to highlight Haidee’s perfect, desirable self.

I’ll be honest. If I hadn’t been reading this for a challenge, I wouldn’t have finished it. I wouldn’t even have made 20%. It was quite frankly horrible. I’m not even going to pull that punch. That had to be the longest 98 pages of my life. I’d never been so happy to have an ebook end at the 80% mark!