Tag Archives: challenges

Dark Moon Rising

Book Review of Dark Moon Rising (Stella Brock, #1), by Ashley Dunson

Leave a reply

Dark Moon RisingI downloaded a copy of Ashley Dunson’s Dark Moon Rising from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Stella Brock hunts the things that go bump in the night. It isn’t a glamorous job, but it keeps the lights on…usually. Now, the hunter has become the hunted and the source of all childhood terror is hot on her trail. She’ll need the help of a sexy elf and an arrogant jaguar shifter to avoid being caught by one of the most notorious monsters of all. If only she could control darkness beginning to rise within herself.

Review:
Wow, I got so much more than I bargained for with this one. I really enjoyed it. Stella was a great lead character, who managed to be tough without being unfeeling. She also successfully walked that tenuous line between being pleasantly, sarcastically irreverent and being suicidally confrontational. Dark Moon Rising is a fun read and I’d be happy with it for that alone, but it’s not flawless.

While I enjoyed the book and the events of the book, there didn’t seem to be any overarching plot beyond, here are Stella and her friends and these are the things they do in response to a series of seemingly random stimuli. Again, it’s fun but it felt anchorless. There was no single challenge Stella and her cohort needed to overcome or identifiable point in which their adventure could be seen to have been complete. I don’t mean it’s a cliffhanger, it’s just (I think) part of one series-wide plot instead of having its own. The result is that the ending felt sudden, even if it wasn’t.

It’s also one of those books in which every powerful paranormal male all but falls at Stella’s feet, despite her attempts to dissuade them. Now, unlike a lot of other such books, there is a reason for that here and it is an integral part of the story. But it still started to feel redundant after a while.

Lastly, the book could do with a little more editing. It was odd, I noticed very few misspelled or misused words. (There were some, but not a ton.) But every few pages a word just seemed to be missing. Here’s an example: “Do have any idea how that fascinates us?” Obviously, that’s supposed to be, Do YOU have any idea how that fascinates us? More often than not it was a ‘to’ or an ‘a’ missing though, small words that don’t change the meaning or context of a sentence but cause the reader to stutter over an otherwise smooth sentence.

So, in the end, if you’re looking for a little fluff to pass an evening with and you’re willing to overlook a few flaws, this is worth picking up.

Finding Release

Book Review of Finding Release (Wild R Farm, #1), by Silvia Violet

Leave a reply

Finding ReleaseI bought a copy of Silvia Violet‘s Finding Release.

Description from Goodreads:
Coleman Wilder is a half-breed werewolf. Some days the tension between his human side and his werewolf instincts threaten to tear him apart. But the challenge of running a horse farm as a gay man in a conservative Tennessee town keeps him focused until he meets horse shifter, Jonah Marks.

Jonah’s family insists that shifting is sinful, but Jonah longs to let his stallion run free. Desperate to escape his family’s judgment, he asks Cole, his secret crush, for a job. Cole turns him down, scared his desire for Jonah will make him lose control. When Jonah’s brother threatens his life, Cole struggles to save him and give them both a second chance at the life they’ve always wanted.

Review:
I love me some m/m shifters. I do. I was even intrigued by the idea of a horse shifter (though I did wonder were all that extra mass would come from). But the truth is that this book just didn’t live up to its potential.

Scroll up. Read the book’s description. Add in some serious insta-lust/love and a lot of inappropriately timed and out of nowhere sex, then read the description 50 more times. There, you’ve just read the book. It’s so repetitive that I can’t think of anything not in the description that was added in the ~200 of the story. It was just the same arguments, internal thoughts and mushy, lovey-dovey drivel over and over and over again. It was also incredibly predictable and all the challenges were overcome easily.

The writing itself was fine, but there was no world-building, no character development, no shades of grey to those characters, no growth of a relationship, no depth to the plot, no twists, no turns, no unexpected events, no finesse in the story, and no doubt from page 1 that everyone would have their awkwardly arranged, anything but naturally occurring happy ending. No, this one was not a winner for me.

Murder Most Witchy

Book Review of Murder Most Witchy (Wendy Lightower Mystery #1), by Emily Rylands

Leave a reply

Murder Most WitchyI downloaded a copy of Murder Most Witchy, by Emily Rylands from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
The Lightower family has been hunting down paranormal phenomena in the small town of North Harbor for generations. Unlike the rest of her family, Wendy Lightower has never dreamed of chasing evil witches or unearthing magical secrets. Her greatest ambition in life is to be a full-time librarian and leave her witchy roots far behind her. But when a murder is committed in her very own library, Wendy cannot ignore that there is no natural explanation for the killing. If the killer is to be caught, she must call on family and friends alike to solve the magical murder. 

When she chose books over boogeymen and libraries over lycans, Wendy thought she would finally be able to live a ‘normal’ life. Now, her library is no longer the sanctuary she imagined it to be, and there may just be a killer hiding in the stacks.

Review:
This was cute but a little on the slow side. While I never quite achieved boredom, it never grabbed me either. The murderer was obvious from the beginning, though thankfully not as obvious as the red herrings might have been. Unfortunately, even they were so obvious as to be too obvious and therefore easily dismissible.

The characters were fun but not deeply developed and a little on the cliché side. The outline of a love-triangle felt unsupported and annoying (especially since I couldn’t figure out why she even considered one of the men). There was no significant world-building. So, while it was entertaining it all felt very much like fluff.

The writing itself was straightforward, though the occasional abrupt shift in POV was jarring. There did seem to be a need for some further editing. I caught a lot of small mistakes, little things like the ‘witch trails’ instead of witch trials. Perfectly readable, but also distracting.

All in all, not a bad book but not great either. Kind of a witchy, cozy mystery. I’d read the second if I found it free, but I’m not rushing out to buy it.