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Book Review: Luna Wolf, by G. Bailey & Regan Rosewood

I accepted a review copy of G. Bailey and Regan Rosewood’s Luna Wolf through Love Books Tours.

Luna-Wolf-Kindle (1)I’ve been rejected by everyone—but an alpha heir wants me to be his pretend mate.

As the only wolf shifter in my pack not to shift, being rejected from my home when I turned eighteen was not unexpected when the shifter war is so close. But being sent to a secret academy full of immortal wolf shifters, demons, and teachers with no morals wasn’t something I planned for.

Luna Alpha Academy is for rejects only.

They choose wolves that no one cares about if they go missing and if I can survive long enough to learn the dark magic they teach, I might even be welcome back home as a wolf-witch.

Only catch?

My tutor is a hot shifter asshole who takes what he wants—this time it’s me.

In exchange for extra training, Atlas wants me to pretend to be his.

Every kiss, every possessive touch, every growl to anyone that comes near me only makes me want him more.

But I can’t have him. Not really.

He’s the alpha heir.

I’m a wolf who can’t even shift.

We don’t belong together, and it’s fake. It can’t ever be real.

Dark magic is my future and my only way back to my pack.

my review

I have very middle-of-the-road feelings about this book. Or rather, I liked the book fine, with the exception of a few critical elements, and I’m afraid that if I innumerate them, this review will come across as far more critical than I intend. So, let’s establish up front that I liked the book fine but have a few critiques that shouldn’t nullify the previous statement.

My biggest issue is the inconsistency in the characters, Atlas especially. He literally acts as if Nyx is a huge imposition on one page, and by the next, he’s hitting on her and has had a complete personality transplant. There is literally no transition between his attitude shifts. It was abrupt, unfollowable, and pulled me out of the narrative harshly. (Worse, it happened more than once.)

luna wolf photoMy second issue is how cliched and predictable the plot lines are. The primary immediate villain is a scorned woman fighting over a man—sometimes I want to shake authors and scream in their faces that women really can have motivations that don’t involve men—and the big reveal is seen coming from…well, basically, the beginning. Honestly, it all felt a little too focused on these small-scale dramas instead of the larger end-of-the-world level drama that is sketched out at best.

The writing is mechanically fine, if a little rough around the edges. The over-arching world seems interesting and I think I’d read another in the series. But, again, I’d call this a middle-of-the-road read.

On a totally unrelated note, I’m SO GLAD the book got a new cover. I’ve stumbled across the old one (with the pretty girl on the cover). And it made me seethe. A big deal is made in the book about Nyx being ‘curvy’ (and I do love a plus-sized heroine). That girl on the cover was not. So, I’m glad I don’t have to be irritated about that.


Other Reviews:

The Moon Alpha Series by G. Bailey and Regan Rosewood

Nocturnal Predators Reviews: Luna Wolf, by G. Bailey

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Book Review: Consort to a Dark Fey, by S.K. Kilburn

I accepted a review copy of Consort to a Dark Fey, by S.K. Kilburn through Reedsy.
consort to a dark fae cover

Aiden Moray is raising a son and a daughter with a fierce and powerful fairy, whose forest home is the secret doorway between the fey world and modern Earth.

When a fey monster crosses to Earth, kills one teenager, and injures two more Aiden must convince his incensed fairy wife to allow the human police and the FBI into her woods to investigate the attack.

As more people go missing, Aiden discovers that another vicious fairy wants the doorway between worlds and will not stop killing people until he wrests control from Aiden’s partner.

However, the antagonistic fairies are not the only ones interested in the newly discovered doorway. While Aiden’s suburban neighbors, the police, and the National Guard on the Earth side prepare for action against the forest, on the fairy side an entire fey kingdom is planning to invade Earth via the doorway.

When the two armies clash, Aiden must figure out how to save his family trapped in the middle.

my review

This was not a big winner for me, and there are two main reasons for this. As far as I can tell, this is Kilburn’s first book, and it feels like it. The writing and plot/plot progression feel untried and underdeveloped. Names/titles/endearments are used far too often in dialogue to feel natural, and the plot jots and judders along at an uneven, uncomfortable pace.

The writing is mechanically fine, as is the editing. But it was not such that you could ever sink seamlessly into the narrative. It also feels very much like there should be a previous book somewhere. Events are referenced and characters know each other from a previous encounter. So, I felt I was missing something. That’s the first reason.

The second is a little more amorphous. Even before I looked it up to verify the S. in S.K. Kilburn is for Scott, I’d have bet my left tit that this author is a man. While Kilburn isn’t too bad about the male gaze (despite the cover), it is 100% apparent that the only individuals with an ounce of emotional maturity are the males. I say males instead of men because one is 17 and still given the agency, understanding, and narrative authority that the women are denied. The males spend the entire book smoothing female, out-of-control emotions and keeping other men from pissing them off to disastrous effect. (That’s basically the plot of the book.) None of the female characters feel fully-fledged.

I appreciate that the hero is a little older, not an alpha-male sort, and that Kilburn brought back the fae of old—powerful and inhuman, but morally bound to a morality incomprehensible to humans. This is my favorite kind of fae. But that wasn’t enough to save this novel that I was forced to skim to finish (because I wasn’t enjoying it and just wanted to be done).

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Book Review: Tides of the Sovereign, by Kate Gateley

I accepted a review copy of Tides of the Sovereign, by Kate Gateley through Literary Bound Tours. However, I have to admit to not loving the book. So, I held this review until the tour was finished.

A centuries-old rebirth curse, an otherworldly Celtic prince, and an inescapable prophecy.

Thirty-year-old magic Bearer Julia Harrison had never given the notion of past lives or grand destinies any real credence or thought. She has knowledge of magic, and the power she shares with the women of her bloodline. She’s aware of the difference between Druids and Sorcerers, Wielders and Bearers, and so on, but regardless of all of that… her everyday life has always felt quite normal—distinctly unmagical—and never more so than as of late.

With the recent death of her beloved grandmother, Julia finds herself severed from the only sense of place she’d ever known. Grandma Gertie had all but raised her and was easily the strongest connection she’d had to her own magic, and that of the natural world. Without it, she feels lost. Disconnected. Unable to rely on (or even effectively access) her own limited magics in her current emotional state, Julia’s primary focus turns to placing one foot in front of the other as she resumes a linguistics degree that has taken far longer to earn than it should have.

But when a visiting professor arrives on her Vancouver campus—one who brings with him an odd sense of familiarity that’s almost as compelling as his raw Celtic masculinity, Julia knows that her life’s journey is about to change, heading off on an entirely new path. What she could have never predicted, or even dreamed of, was that somehow, they had walked that path together countless times before… each time towards their own inescapable deaths at the hands of Marcus Cassius Longinus, the indomitable “Child of Rome.”

my review

Do you know what my primary thought was on finishing this book? It was “finally!” This book takes more than 500 pages to tell a story that might fill 200, if all the fluff was removed. I was so bored; just so, so, so bored throughout this book. It felt like it legitimately was never going to end.

I kept consciously reminding myself that this isn’t urban fantasy, in which I might expect action and adventure. Be that as it may, 500+ pages of be told (not shown, but told about) Julia going to class, eating dinner, living her day-to-day life, AND NOTHING OF NOTE HAPPENING was just more than I could tolerate, let alone enjoy. I was bored!

Then, the whole thing ended (or fizzled out) with Julia miraculously doing something to save the day that she didn’t know how she did or even what it was. So, it contained no sort of real agency. Plus, nothing truly concludes. It was utterly anti-climactic.

I’ll grant that the writing is mechanically sound, the editing seems pretty clean, and those who like a little bit of sappy slice-of-life literature might well enjoy this. (The book seems to have good reviews outside of mine.) But I’m just glad to be finished and have no intention of continuing the series.

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