Book Review: Murder at the UFO Festival, by Kaja Fivecrows

I picked up a copy of Murder at the UFO Festival by Kaja Fivecrows as an Amazon freebie.

“Having only one husband? In this economy?”

34-year-old Alexandria Bellecourt runs her small-town Oregon bed & breakfast like a well-oiled machine, with her severe, harsh husband Grayson in charge of finances and her warm, friendly husband Greg in charge of promotions.

But all this organization goes down the toilet during the annual UFO Festival. Alexandria doesn’t realize that hidden among the psychics, aura readers, and alien abductees, one of her guests is an abrasive skeptic with a lot of enemies. After he threatens to expose her other guests as frauds, he gets stabbed in the back, seriously disrupting brunch.

Her bed & breakfast is suddenly plunged headlong into a murder investigation, and Alexandria has a lot on her plate already, like why isn’t the guillotine working for her husband Greg’s amateur play and why does her husband Grayson have a suspicious amount of combat skills for an accountant?

When the rest of her guests start getting targeted one by one, Alexandria is going to have to go undercover at the UFO Festival to find out who the culprit is. Can she and her husbands discover who the murderer is before getting targeted themselves or, even worse, getting a bad guest review?

This was OK. I enjoyed it well enough. I did, however, find the characterization shallow. The reader is not given anywhere near enough background on the characters or their situation to feel satisfied. Don’t get me wrong, I liked them, Grayson especially. But they are cardboard cutouts more than fleshed-out characters.

While the mystery was entertaining, I rather suspect the story of how Grey, Grayson, and Alexandria met and evolved into the throuple we meet here would be a more interesting story than what the reader is offered in this book, which would be fine if that book existed. But as far as I can see, it doesn’t, which means the reader feels its lack. Further, I quibble that this doesn’t qualify as Why Choose as there is no choosing involved. The throuple is established and comfortably married before the book even starts. Maybe that’s just me, though.

Lastly, the merging of cozy mystery and an attempt at spice didn’t really work. The sex scenes felt shoehorned in and often out of place. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover this was written as a cozy mystery and the author later went back and added the sex scenes to try and catch a broader audience. All in all, I’d read another, but it isn’t topping a favorites list.

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Book Review: Fighting Destiny, by Amelia Hutchins

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I picked up a freebie copy of Amelia Hutchins‘ Fighting Destiny way back in 2015. Since then, it has come to my attention several times, either in an ad or just scrolling my TBR, etc. I finally just decided to give it a read.

Have you ever heard of the old Celtic legends of the Fae – beautiful, magical, deadly and a love of messing with humans just for kicks and giggles?
Welcome to my world.

What started out as a strange assignment, leads to one of the most gruesome murder mysteries of our times and my friends and I are set and determined to find out who is killing off Fae and Witches alike.

Couple of problems in the way – I hate the Fae and the Prince of the Dark Fae is bound and determined that I work for him. He’s a rude, overbearing egotistical ass with a compulsive need to possess, dominate and control me. Oh – did I mention that he is absolutely sex-on-a-stick gorgeous and he makes me feel things that I never ever wanted to feel for a Fae…every time he touches me or looks at me with those golden eyes seems to pull me further in under his spell, despite my better judgment.

My friends and I can’t trust anyone and nothing is as it seems on the surface – not even me.

Meh. The writing here was fine. But I simply did not like the book. Mostly, I did not like the love interest. Yes, I understand the idea of dark romance and enemies to lovers, etc. Here’s the thing, though: even in dark enemies-to-lovers romances, the reader needs to feel that no matter how dark and dangerous the male lead may be, the heroine is ultimately safe from him. I never got that sense here. Plus, there has to come a point in the book in which the male lead goes from enemy to lover and redeems his previous actions. I never reached that point in this book. They went from not having sex to having sex, but not to lovers. Even at 85%, he was still doing things I could not forgive him for. And at 99%, the author was still submitting the heroine to things I could not forgive her (the author) for.

What’s more, the whole book skimms over the fact that the fae are rapists—all of them. The author plays loose and fast with this fact, but it’s an unavoidable truth of the species as written. And, given the coercive contract and fae ability to subsume someone’s free will, I never felt the heroine had the autonomy to choose to engage in most of the acts she did. I understand dub-con and non-con stories. I do. I even enjoy them on occasion. But it’s a difficult sell and a book that doesn’t manage to walk the thin line of a hero who is willing to engage in non-con acts while still being redeemable compromises itself fully. This was exacerbated by how willing he was to threaten the use of further rape (while pretending it’s something else) but to do so when it is literally her greatest fear in life, based on extreme past trauma.

Sure, I’m interested in the mysteries. But I’m not willing to read another however many pages of story in which the author ignores that the very characters we’re supposed to engage with are remorseless (and probably frequent) rapists. Let me be clear before someone comes at me with, ‘Don’t read dark romance then’ or some such. It’s the fact that the author is writing certain world and character traits while similtaneously pretending she isn’t and expecting the reader to do the same that is at issue, not the dark elements themselves. I will not be continuing the series.

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Vicarious Book Reviews: Fighting Destiny by Amelia Hutchins

Fighting Destiny by Amelia Hutchins – Book and Audio Review

Book Review: Blitz, by M. Sinclair

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I picked up a copy of M. Sinclair‘s Blitz as an Amazon freebie.

Three dominant dragon alphas who seemingly have it all… except the one thing they want: me.

My life hasn’t been typical. All I remember is waking up in an alley when I was ten, scrounging for scraps to survive until I was taken to the Bronzeheart estate.

That’s where my life began, where I’ve lived for the past eight years with the ruling family, the Blitz Clan. It’s where I found my best friend Gage, the future leader of this clan.

At the time, I didn’t question my good fortune because I was happy to know I wasn’t alone in this world anymore. But maybe I should have.

After landing a shocking invite to the prestigious Dark Imaginarium Academy, I realized how much of a safe haven the estate was.

The students at this school are out for my blood because somehow I have the attention of not just one, but all three Storm Dragon Clan heirs: Gage Bronzeheart, Breaker Firespell, and Jagger Silvershade.

None of them should have an interest in me, seeing as I’m the only shifter at this academy who hasn’t, you know…shifted. They should want someone powerful at their side. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting them as well.

That is until I find out they’ve been hiding a life-changing secret from me. And now that I know…

Nothing will be the same.

Blitz is book 1 in the Storm Dragons’ Mate series that features a slightly naive but sassy MFC, possessive dragon alphas, and a secret that will change everything. This is not a high school academy book and the contents are intended for mature audiences, with characters who are all 18+. This book includes violence and mature sexual content.

Meh. This was OK, but not the book I had hoped for. However, I acknowledge that it is partly the fault of my own expectations. The description says, “This is not a high school academy book…” and I took that to mean it is not as YA as the blurb sounds. That was apparently wrong of me. Sure, the heroine may be freshly 18, and there may be spice at some point in future books, but this is firmly a YA read. I’m just not a grand lover of the YA genre (too old to relate anymore, I guess).

But I probably could have taken the YA-ness of it all if the heroine wasn’t so strongly infantilized. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I’m very sensitive to it. I’ll acknowledge that the book did give reasons that she had been so sheltered and knew so little. But her descriptions are all child-coded. She’s small. She loves pretty sparkly things. She has a set of stuffed animals she takes places with her. She has significantly less knowledge or information than the males her own age, etc. The book description calls her “slightly naive.” I call her too childlike for my tastes.

I did like her and her harem of men, though. I liked that she was willing to tell them plainly what she was thinking. I liked that they were fully willing to show their vulnerabilities and desperation. None of them are well-developed yet. But I accept that this is only the first book, and there is time for that in future books. I liked the book enough to be maybe willing to read more of the series if it was available for free, but I didn’t enjoy it enough to pay for more (if that tells you anything).

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