Tag Archives: book review

saving the world and other bad ideas banner

Book Review: Saving the World and Other Bad Ideas, by Jayce Carter

1 Reply

I received a pre-publication ARC of Jayce Carter‘s Saving the World and Other Bad Ideas through the Totally Entwined Group. This is book three of the Grave Concerns series. You can find my review of book one and two here.
saving the world and other bad ideas

I finally get four hot men and the world’s going to end. Typical.

I’ve gone to hell, I’ve faced off against the devil and I’ve lost someone who meant the world to me. That’s usually the end of the story, but it seems the universe isn’t quite done with me yet.

Lilith is still out there, the end of the world is getting closer and only I can hope to stop it. The more I discover, the deeper I dig into the mystery of Lilith’s past and my own powers, the less sure I am that I can actually defeat her.

Still by my side are the four men I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with—leave it to me to get my romantic life in order just as the world falls apart. With all the questions, there are only two things I know for certain—I will face Lilith, and only one of us will walk away from it.

my review

I thought this wrapped the whole series up marvelously. I liked that the traumatic past of each male got some attention and we see the group really gelling nicely. I love the way Ava was so protective of them and was just adored and valued by each as they developed a respect for one another (even if there were still contentions). And, of course, the sex was hot.

As throughout the series, I still feel we never get to truly know the men beyond their particular caricatures. This is the stoic one, this is the joker, this is the irreverent one, this is the staid one, etc. And I understand the books would need to be significantly longer to allow for this. But since I liked each of them, I did miss getting the chance to really get to know them.

All in all, reverse harem isn’t my favorite erotic genre. But I enjoyed this series quite a bit.

saving the world and other bad ideas photo

the wisteria society of lady scoundrels banner

Book Review: The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, by India Holton

Leave a reply

I won a book stack from Waves of Fiction and among the books was India Holton‘s The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels.

the wisteria society of lady scoundrels cover

A prim and proper lady thief must save her aunt from a crazed pirate and his dangerously charming henchman in this fantastical historical romance.

Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She’s also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it’s a pleasant existence. Until the men show up.

Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he’s under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake. Never underestimate a woman.

When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her–hopefully proving, once and for all, that she’s as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.

my review

I adored this. It was an absolute mad-cap adventure, full of sarcasm and pointed cognitive dissonance. I adored Cecilia and all of her morally ambiguous, but completely proper aunties. I thought Ned was a marvelous love interest. It would be difficult to call him a hero, since Cecilia has so little need of one. But he does try, bless his heart.

As much as I loved the witty repartee and utter lack of seriousness, it did become tedious at times, making the book feel a little like a one-trick pony. But every-time I started to think it, the book would throw some sarcastic aside at me and I’d find myself laughing again. I also disliked how easily Cecilia went from strong, smart, and capable to silly and how often. One sip of alcohol and she’s giggling drunk, for example. But that’s a relatively small complaint in the larger picture.

I’m so glad to see Alex will be the male focus of book two. I’ll be lined up to read it on it’s release.

the wisteria society of lady scoundrels photo

Other Reviews:

Review: The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels #1) by India Holton

THE WISTERIA SOCIETY OF LADY SCOUNDRELS by India Holton – Review

axiom's end banner

Book Review: Axiom’s End, by Lindsay Ellis

Leave a reply

I won a copy of Lindsay Ellis‘ Axiom’s End through Goodreads last year. I only just now got around to reading it.
axiom's end cover

Truth is a human right.

It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.

Realizing the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to uncover the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being human—and could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined.

my review

I always find it interesting when I read a book, love it, and then read other reviewers’ critical reviews of the same book. I just read one that discussed the romance of the book. And while I’ll always defend the stance that every reader’s encounter with a book is valid, I didn’t read romance into this story. Mutual affection by the end, sure, even a relationship of a kind, but a platonic one built on circumstances. I wouldn’t call anything in this book romantic, or it a romance in and of itself.

In fact, that’s part of what I most liked about the book. Ellis didn’t take the low-hanging fruit of tossing in some romance. The aliens are ALIEN. The circumstances are bleak. People are shit, sometimes even ‘people’ of multiple species. It made for an interesting mélange.

I appreciated that some questions are left unanswered, leaving the reader to make their own assessment. I also liked Cora quite a bit, though I’ll acknowledge that she tended to just go with the government flow a little more easily than I’d have liked. The book is quite long and a bit slow in the beginning, but the writing is readable and eventually the pages flew by for me. I quite enjoyed this and will be looking for more.

Other Reviews:

REVIEW: “Axiom’s End” by Lindsay Ellis

Book review: Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis

Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis: Book Review