Review of Leigh Parker’s 10 Ways to Kill a Cupid

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I’ve come across Leigh Parker on Goodreads a couple times, so when I saw her book on the Amazon free list back in June I nabbed it. Boy I’m glad I did.

Description from Amazon:
Three years after becoming a Cupid, the normally cheeky and cheerful Leigh has to question her work ethics when her next assignment happens to be the woman who killed her. 

Meet Natalie McIntyre, actually, no, you wouldn’t want to meet Natalie McIntyre, the foul mouthed, anti social Senior Manager at her father’s cardboard box factory who really isn’t in the mood to spend the next 7 days with a weird blonde haired girl who just will not go away. 

Over the course of a week Leigh has her work cut out when she learns that not only is Natalie hell bent on being stubborn, cranky and incredibly hard to pair but the appearance of the blue spark puts everything she’s ever learnt as a Cupid in jeopardy.

Oh man did I laugh while reading this book. The one-liners simply never stop. Yes, it starts off a little slow with Leigh giving the reader the run down on the rules and such of being dead and a cupid. But once she meets Natalie the fun really starts. Yes the language is deplorable. They curse like sailers, but there really couldn’t be a better way to express the supreme frustration of some of the characters. Yes, some of the antics are simply over the top, but if you just suspend your judgement and roll with the punches it is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.

I really liked Leigh and Natalie (even though Leigh was possibly the most unlikeable person alive…and really Leigh wasn’t that far behind). They took chunk after chunk out of each-other, but you could relate to their situation. They are the odd couple and stuck with each other. They made the best of it by taking it out on one another. Despite their extreme dislike for each-other their emotional shift was easy to follow and didn’t feel too abrupt. Then the whole thing wrapped up on and incredible AWWW moment. As an aside I liked Sam and God too. I’m just saying.

I don’t usually like books told in the first person, but Leigh’s voice was so conversational (bubbly even…she was a blond) that I’ll make an exception for it. The POV worked well. I’m told that there is a sequel due out by the end of the year (10 Ways To P*** Off A Reaper). I’m eagerly awaiting it’s release and can’t wait to read it.

Book Review of Pushups in the Prayer Room

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Author, Norm Schriever sent me an e-copy of his book Pushups in the Prayer Room.

Description from Goodreads:
In the spring of 1999, Norm Schriever leaves his old life behind and backpacks around the world for a year, not returning to the US until the spring of 2000. Throughout his journeys he touches down in more than 20 countries in 6 continents, spanning 70,000 miles total, or the equivalent of almost three times around the equator.

There is never a dull moment on this wild and irreverent adventure, whether Norm is evading armed carjackers in a high-speed chase in the barrios of Venezuela, exploring ancient wonders of the world like the pyramids, the Great Wall, and Machu Picchu, almost landing in a Bolivian jail for mistakenly being accused of cocaine trafficking, or witnessing the holiest sites on earth in Jerusalem. Along the way, Norm encounters a broad spectrum of human existence and experiences a blossoming of consciousness and spiritual growth that he never anticipated. What started out as a wild, raucous party trip evolves into a man’s quest for his life’s purpose in the world.

Review:

I don’t usually read travel journals, and if I was going to pick one up, it would probably be one by a woman so that I had more in common with the author. For example, any way you look at it, the dangers of picking up women in San Juan isn’t relevant to me. Much of what Schriever does in his year long journey would be inaccessible (or at least highly inadvisable) for women. However, due to my generally inability to say ‘no’ I agreed to review this one. Yeah, it’s a character flaw that I am trying to address. But I’m glad to have read this one and I’ll tell you why. The man can write. The book is easy to read and quite funny. It also addressed some vague and hard to conceptualise subjects, like the effects of the media on fear. You can’t really quantify it, and so, it can be hard to explain. Schriever’s first-person account easily highlighted it.

I also love the title. It has panache. It has wit and hints at a meaningful intersection of otherwise incompatible cultures. I think Schriever tried very hard to address ethnocentrism and cultural discrepancies he encountered on his journey. Sometimes he was more successful than others, but I absolutely appreciate that he made the effort. It is so much more than some would do. I was disappointed that he felt the need to explain the title though. It took a lot of the mystery out of it and made me wonder if I wasn’t expected to be smart enough to ‘get it.’ The incident leading to the name could have still been relayed without making the point so disappointingly blatant. I know that might not be fair. It’s probably not fair, but that’s how I feel. A person can’t always be responsible for how they feel about something, but I can sure be accountable for it and that is how I feel.

Other than being far more relevant to men than women, my only real criticism is that I didn’t see much of the spiritual growth that was referred to. He essentially got drunk, high, and laid in over 40 countries. I’ll admit he definitely seemed to grow as a person, possibly even discovering adulthood in his travels. While that is an important transition and worthy of a book in and of itself, it didn’t strike me as particularly spiritual. Now, this may be a subjective argument, but there it is. If you are looking for an interesting account of someone’s travels around the world this one is worth reading.

 

Book 1 & 2 of Lori Brighton’s The Hunter Series

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I grabbed Lori Brighton‘s PNR The Ghost Hunter from the Amazon KDP list and to my complete surprise remembered that I owned it. Usually if an ebook isn’t lendable I don’t add it to my Kindle list and end up forgetting about it…out of sight, out of mind after all. I don’t particularly care for the cover, but I guess it must have stuck in my mind.

Description from Goodreads:
When Ashley Hunter inherits the Inn where her father mysteriously vanished years ago, she jumps at the chance to finally uncover the truth about his disappearance. But soon after taking ownership of the decrepit building, Ashley realizes she’s in for far more than she bargained. Not only has she inherited answers to many sought-after questions, she’s also inherited spirits, demons and even fallen angels! Then Cristian arrives, a gorgeous man who insists he merely needs a room to rent. She believes him, until one by one her ghosts start disappearing…

As a fallen angel destined for a life of servitude, Cristian Lucius is relegated to protecting earth from unwanted spirits. But he can’t accomplish this daunting task alone. He requires assistance from the very woman who frustrates him as much as she intrigues him. Cristian is determined to ignore his intense attraction for Ashley, and focus on his mission. If they don’t work together, they won’t have a chance in hell of defeating the demon threatening their lives. The problem is getting Ashley to trust him. No easy task, considering Cristian is the very man responsible for her father’s disappearance.

The Ghost Hunter started off well. Crumpled and jet lagged Ashley arrived in England to inherit a decrepit inn from he aunt and find some answers about her father’s disappearance. Life gets complicated after that.

I generally liked Ashley. She had had a hard life and was finally trying to accept herself as is. I can appreciate that. She had an irritating habit of chatting even when endangered though. I wanted to scream at her,”Come on shut up and hide already, or run, or fight, or something, just shut up!” Not that what she often said wasn’t of relevance, but who stands around and chats when a demon is breathing down their neck? She was witty though. She pulled some amusing one liners that I couldn’t help enjoying. 

Christian and his Scottish burr were sexy as they were supposed to be and I liked him too. You have to appreciate a man who tries so hard to do the right thing. But while I get that he was surprised to find himself attracted to Ashley, I honestly think he made the discovery that he loved her 15 times. Blimey! There were a lot of ‘oh how he loved her,’ ‘did she want him as much as he wanted her,’ why couldn’t he get her off his mind,’ etc (or lines of the sort). It did get a little repetitive and a lot of the book was dedicated to it.

Blimey, describes the language in this book perfectly. There were a lot of them, ‘bloody hells,’ shite/arse and other such classic Englishisms. (I know that isn’t really a word, but you know what I mean.) There was also phonetic speech. While this did give the characters character it was really distracting. I mean I had to read the line ‘Yer da’ numerous times before I figured out it meant your dad. It took me a while to remember that ‘ken’ could mean know, so that the line ‘ye ken’ meant you know. Then again “Jaysus, Mary and Joseph” left no question of whether John spoke with an Irish brogue or not. It just sounds right. I guess it is just a think line between some and too much.

All-in-all I liked the book well enough to get the second one. It made me laugh and I liked Devon, so I wanted to know what happens to him.

Description from Goodreads:
Ellie has always been different, from playing with fairies as a child to fighting demons as an adult. She grew up wondering why no one else seemed to notice the oddities of the world that she came into contact with on a daily basis. When she is the only witness of a demon attack and the police suspect her, Ellie skips the country heading to England where she plans to keep a low profile. Everything is going fine, until Devon appears, stumbling around her garden like a drunken fool, and completely naked no less.

Six months ago Devon sacrificed himself to bind the soul of a demon and save the world from certain destruction. Thanks to a spell gone awry, Devon is back. But Devon hasn’t come alone. The very demon he tried to destroy has returned and is wreaking havoc on earth. When Devon meets Ellie, he instantly recognizes another supernatural being. Ellie may just be the only person who is strong enough to destroy the demon, if the demon doesn’t destroy her first.

In one sense I liked Demon Hunter better than Ghost Hunter. I think the writing was better. Not that it was bad in the first one, but I liked it more here. I also liked the juxtaposition of Devon’s Victorian upbringing with his strong warrior nature. But it was his broken, puppy dog moments that made me love him. Ellie’s amazing backbone was a joy. I much prefer a strong heroine to a wimpy one. Plus, the occasion in which she took on more traditionally male romance characteristics (like thinking of Devon as hers) made me smile. I like it when authors play with genre tropes. 

What I didn’t like was the constant and often misplaced descriptions of Devon’s amorousness. Well-nigh half the book was dedicated to explaining how enamoured he was with Ellie. We get it already. It detracted from the rest of the plot and often slowed the action down. I had hoped that if there is to be a third book it would be based on Kipps….I really liked him.

Anyhow, I don’t feel like my time was waisted, but I’m  little relieved that there isn’t another one yet. I liked them enough to read it if there was, but am also not disappointed to be moving on.