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Book Review: Blood On My Name, by K. Elle Morrison

I picked up a freebie copy of K. Elle Morrison‘s Blood On My Name. I think I maybe saw it on TikTok originally. I happen to have downloaded it on my birthday. So, let’s call it a birthday present.

blood on my name cover
Mara has nowhere else to run when she summons the ancient demon Vepar to make a deal. He promises to rid her of the man hunting her down for a price: Her name.

Vepar keeps to his word and erases Mara from her abusive ex’s mind, but Vepar is back to retrieve her only a day later with his twin brother at his side.

Mara must find strength within herself to survive… and fight the growing lust for the dark, sexy demon holding her hostage.

Zepar has found his place on Earth collecting the souls of wealthy and desperate business executives. His wicked ways are interrupted when Vepar ropes him into helping conceal Mara from their holy brethren and a Prince of Hell. But he quickly sees something within Mara that’s worth tearing apart Heaven and Hell to save.


Just because I stumbled across it, so I decided to share it:

my review
Meh, there wasn’t really anything super wrong with this. It was slow, and I never felt particularly immersed in the plot. But it was fine. But there just wasn’t anything that stood out as more than fine either.

There were a roughly equal number of things I appreciated, and that annoyed me. I appreciated that Zepar wasn’t the ultra top dog, alpha a-hole. But I found the inclusion of BDSM references annoying and pedestrian, considering it wasn’t integrated into the plot at all. I liked the way Vepar was willing to step aside for his brother. But I also didn’t understand why he was so invested in the whole affair if he was so willing to step aside. I thought the Biblical lore was used interestingly, but also that the ending fell flat.

So, all in all, I’ll call this a middle-of-the-road read.

blood on my name


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@katherineguild Blood on my Name by K Elle Morrison @K. Elle Morrison – Author #kellemorrisonauthor #booktok #bookreview #bookrecommendations #bloodonmyname ♬ original sound – katherineguild

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Book Review: An Inheritance of Monsters, by Cate Corvin

I received a copy of Cate Corvin‘s An Inheritance of Monsters in my monthly Bookish Buys box.
an inheritance of monsters bookish buys cover

Here there be monsters.

It was an offer too good to refuse: spend one month in the most haunted house in the world. When the reclusive owner of Duskwood Manor opens the door to five teams of paranormal investigators, there’s no way my team can say no.

But there are no ghosts here.

There are monsters.

They live under my bed, in my closet, and watch me from the shadows, whispering filthy visions in my ear at night.

Begging me to come with them to their world—the Void, where the monsters roam free… where they teach me what it really means to want.

Every night I disappear from the mortal world to play in theirs, swallowed by their insatiable, terrifying shadows.

Consumed by their claws and fangs.

Caressed by slick tentacles and endless, delicious hunger.

But the longer I stay in the Void, the harder it is to ignore its call.

There is a price to pay for stepping foot in this manor…

And the monsters have demanded me.

my review
I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s silly fun mind you…I mean sexy silly, but still silly. Don’t take anything in these pages too seriously. But I enjoyed my time with Juno and her crew.

I did think that some of the sex scenes got a little out there and some of the dialogue during such scenes crept up on cheesy. Actually, a lot of the dialogue during sex scenes just didn’t fit the characters. One of the monsters, for example, feels very child-like in his understanding of many human things for most of the book—he’s NOT a child, just also not a human who’s lived in the human world and it shows in his character—but suddenly bust out the Porn Hub language during sex scenes. It felt jarringly out of place. And the plot’s pretty predictable.

But all in all, I enjoyed this. I’d read another in the series and/or another Cate Corvin book.

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Other Reviews:

Maybe Tentacle Porn isn’t all that bad…

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Book Reviews: Draekon Warrior & Draekon Conqueror, by Lili Zander & Lee Savino

In December of last year, I picked up a free copy of Draekon Conqueror (by Lee Savino and Lili Zander), only to later discover it’s book two in a series. (Yeah, I don’t always pay enough attention. I know.) In March of this year, book one, Draekon Warrior, popped up in my feed as a freebie, so I grabbed it, too.

I chose to read them now as a little bit of a cheat. You see, I need a Z for my yearly alphabet challenge—where I read at least one book by an author with a last name for each letter of the alphabet. I’m swapping the order of Savino and Zander and calling this my Z…or at least a Z.

draekon Warrior cover

About the Book:

Captured in space. Imprisoned. Sold to the highest bidder.
But my biggest problem is the bossy, aggravating, impossible, alien who’s supposed to rescue me.

The bossy alien I kissed.

That might have been a mistake.

Kadir is dangerous. I’ve seen him fight and his body is littered with scars. He’s a soldier. A warrior. And when he loses control, he turns into a big scary dragon and breathes fire.

Everyone’s terrified of him. I’m not. No, call me the biggest fool in the galaxy, because I’m attracted to the big jerk.

When I first met the small human I was sent to rescue, she punched me in the jaw.

And broke her wrist in the process. Irrational woman.

Then she insists that the two of us set out immediately to find her missing friend.

No, what I have to do is get Alice Hernandez to safety.

She’s soft, yet she’s strong.

Fragile, yet so brave.

She’s everything I’ve never known I wanted.

Everything I can’t let myself have.

When the scientists tortured me, they broke me. And when Alice finds out the truth about the fearsome, raging dragon inside me, I will lose her.

You know, I’ve seen quite a lot of discourse lately on why people enjoy monster romance/smut. And a lot of it comes down to how monsters in such books are often bigger, scarier, and more powerful than the female main character. But they are also almost always very obviously conscious of this fact and go to great lengths and courtesies to reduce themselves as perceived threats…to mitigate any risk they pose. They’re often super conscientious about consent and big ol’ cinnamon rolls underneath the scary exterior. (And how many parallels are there to real world men and their perceived threats in that paragraph, hmmm?)

Kadir is honestly too humanoid to qualify as a ‘monster,’ but he shares many of those same qualities. Not least of which is seeing himself and feeling himself perceived as a monster. And he is every bit as careful and considerate of Alice as any monster, even before he sees her as mate material and the real romance starts. It’s sweet.

The story isn’t complicated. There’s no more to it than any number of other alien romances. But it’s well done and sweet enough that I’m happy to have book two on my Kindle.

drakon warrior photoI did, at some point, realize that this must be a spin-off series, as characters started showing up that were obviously pairings from another book. Turns out it’s a spin-off of the Dragons In Exile series. However, as much as this normally annoys me, I have to say this one stood alone well enough that I noticed but wasn’t too bothered. I didn’t feel like I was missing too much information, having not read the previous series. There were also a couple of minor consistency mishaps. But all in all, I enjoyed this.


Draekon Conqueror cover

About the book:

I’ve lived an eternity. I’ve killed thousands. Destroyed worlds. I thought I’d seen everything. I didn’t think there was anything left in the galaxy that could surprise me.

Then I met her. Lani Dennison. A human woman. My mate.

My mission was simple. Find Lani Dennison.

Zorahan scientists tortured her. I killed them, of course.
Okaki pirates abducted her. I tracked them down and infiltrated their ship. Routine stuff. Nothing that presented a problem to a trained soldier that could shift into a fire-breathing dragon.

I expected her to be smart. You’d have to be, to survive the Okaki pirates.

I didn’t expect her to be lovely.
I didn’t expect her to make me laugh.
And I definitely didn’t expect her to be the one woman I was destined to be with, the missing piece of my soul. My mate.

Now what?


I enjoyed this for many of the same reasons I enjoyed the first book. The Draekon is marvelously solicitous to the human mate. Everyone is careful about consent. There aren’t any needless misunderstandings or mind games. Everyone is delightedly straightforward.

But I admit that I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as book one. I didn’t find Ruhan quite as charismatic a lead male. Sure, he’s cocky and cock-sure to cover his brokenness, which hits you in the feels. But I just didn’t like draekon conqueror photohim as much as I did Kadir from the previous book. That’s not to say I didn’t like him, just not as much. Similarly, I didn’t find Lani as multifaceted as Alice. I liked her. But I didn’t think she had quite the depth.

But the real question is whether I would read another book in the series, and I would. In fact, book three, which involves pirates, looks especially tempting. I don’t have it on my Kindle yet, but I look forward to reading it in the future.


Other Reviews:

In Between the Pages: Draekon Series Reviews

Scary Mary Hamster Lady: Book Review: Draekon Conqueror