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Veiled

Book Review of Veiled, by Victoria Knight

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Veiled

A representative of Laudanum House Publishing, contacted me about reading and reviewing Victoria Knight‘s PNR, Veiled. When I agree, they sent me a copy. As far as I know it wasn’t an ARC, though I’d be happy to find out I’m wrong about that. 

Description from Goodreads:
Until now Saul relied on the solitude of the forest to hide his true nature from prying eyes. But now a nameless evil has arrived, shaking his world to the foundation. With a trail of death leading right to his doorstep, he must join forces with the most unlikely of allies to save not only his existence, but also the lives of those he holds most dear…

Review:
From time to time, I write a review that turns out to be closer to an essay than any kind of mere critical analysis of a couple hundred page book. This will likely be one of those times.

You see, I don’t always take notes when I read. Usually I can depend on my memory to remember what I want to talk about. However, when I start finding a lot of those kinds of things (good or bad, but honestly usually bad) I start a notes page. It’s not usually a good sign for a book or it’s author…I took a lot of notes while reading this book.

I’ll start, though, by saying that the book does have an interesting premise. And I have to give some serious props to Ms. Knight for creating a heroine who truly wasn’t wimpy or limp-wristed in any manner. She was also a girl who knew what she wanted and went for it. I appreciate this a lot. It’s a little on the rare side and I’m always delighted when I stumble across it.

However, my praise pretty much ends there. To start with, the writing (the actual words chosen, writing) is far too wordy. I know that statement is a little vague, so here’s an example.

Saul was dashing back towards Lester before his better judgement could so much as utter a sound within his head. His rage took the better of him. He didn’t even feel silly running down the street with a bag of groceries in one arm, while intentions of pounding a drunken jerk’s face left him robbed of his good judgement.

Grammatically it’s a passable passage. But there are just too many words in it to allow it to flow smoothly. Over and over this wordiness kept me from really sinking into the story.

Neither was the situation improved by the stiff dialogue that used names far too frequently and felt very staccato; the repetitive use of certain words or phrases, ‘primal’ and ‘he could tell’ come immediately to mind; the giant info-dump at about 25%; or the odd chapter headings.

I don’t usually pay any attention to chapter numberings, but at some point I noticed that I was reading what I thought must be a Chapter 2 for the fourth time. I don’t know. I think each chapter had numerical sections, but it’s never explained so I was just basically confused at all times about it. That’s definitely not standard.

Even these things I probably would have looked over. But the ever-increasing list of contradictions was another matter entirely. Here are a few examples. Saul unlocks a door and when he relocks it, the reader is told it’s the first time the door has been locked in over 100 years. Saul says that he is 106 years old, but also that they (presumably he and his family) lived in Romania for 200 years. Jason’s father is said to have died 5 years earlier of a heart attack and then shows up. Kara gets out of the bathtub and goes to bed, only to be back in the bathtub in the next scene. (At least she’s consistent in liking a drink after her soak though–a beer the first time around and a glass on white wine the second.)

At another point, she shot at someone and is certain she hit them twice, a second person confirms a third hit too. Then later it’s referred to as she hit him once and the second person confirmed a second shot. The numbers aren’t adding up. Later still, she is sitting with a steaming cup of coffee only to get up to go get a bitter cup of coffee. That’s a lot of times for a reader to stop and scratch their head in confusion.

The book was also repetitive, but didn’t always quite line up with itself. For example, we’re told more than once about vampire physiology. At one point, we’re told they can stay out direct sunlight, but after a full day it would alter their DNA (or some such). Then in another passage we’re told much the same information except the vampires will get sick after an hour or so.

Typos, missed words and the occasional homophone can slip through even the most thorough editing regime. I understand that. But these sorts of inconsistencies (especially so many of them) are a fairly clear indication that the book simply wasn’t read and reread often enough or by enough people before going to press. I find this far more unforgivable, further, I’m as inclined to blame the publisher for this as the author.

There were also some basic ‘but, huh?’ kind of questions. For example, Saul can smell Nikki in a car as she pulls into the driveway (it’s long enough to just see the road at the end from the house). The baddie can smell Saul all throughout the woods and smell sex from outside the cabin. So, how come Saul never smelled that baddie who’s been lurking around his land for days?

Then there were the drastic and basically unfollowable leaps of logic. For example, Nikki sees a 20 year old, grainy black and white newspaper article that has a man that looks like Saul in it. Her first thought isn’t that there may be an older relative (brother, cousin, etc) but that it’s Saul and he hasn’t aged. Who thinks that FIRST?

Besides, she’d only ever seen him twice before. Once when she passed him in a grocery story months earlier (and she didn’t even know who he was until later) and then she’d recently caught a glimpse of him in a passing car window. It’s not like she’s intimately familiar with his appearance to start with.

There is also no real world-building or character development. Everything and everyone is fairly unidimensional. As an example, Saul is easily able to walk around with a human face, only transforming to his frightening vampire appearance when fighting.  But the baddie (who presumably also could remain in human guise, no reason is given that he couldn’t) never did. He spent all of his time wearing the transformed face of a monster…you know, so he’s easily identifiable as evil. He had no other character traits.

What made the matter worse was that the characters really needed some backstory and depth. None of Saul’s years were felt by the reader. He could have been any other man in his mid-thirties. Nikki, even more, she seemed to possess no fear. Seriously, she seemed to lack any sort of instinct for self-preservation and this oddity is never explained. Yeah, there’s a little hint that she’s supposed to have had a bit of a tragic past, but it doesn’t really explain her complete disregard for her own personal safety.

I really needed to know what made her that way, because lacking any explanatory information, I just have to assume she’s too dense to know better. And a lack of willingness or ability to keep oneself alive is my number one qualification for Too Stupid To Live. Plus, it’s 100% unbelievable in a character. Seeing her waltz into Saul’s home and basically offer herself up was laughably…just wrong basically.

I especially needed this character depth in the face of the fact that she’s a rebellious 19-year-old. 19! (Though, whom she and all her cliché piercing are rebelling against is a mystery, since her mom is dead and her dad is locked up for offences unrevealed.)

The story would have been far more believable if Nikki was older. At 19 she barely scrapes by as a YA heroine, but there is too much sex for this to be a YA or even an NA book. So I ask, why is she 19 or why is all the sex there? It didn’t contribute anything to the story. She’s also very forward and experienced for an unpopular 19-year-old, with just the one friend, who she’s pointedly not attracted to. All-in-all, I was left feeling that the genre was muddled and the book could have done with either choosing to go YA to match its heroine or ageing it’s heroine to match it’s parental advisory rating.

Honestly, I could go on. I could get into the nitty-gritty of little things like “only a few minutes after Nikki left Saul finally got out of bed.” Well, if it’s only been a few minutes it doesn’t rise to a finally type scenarios, now does it? But I won’t. I think I’ve made my points. This could have been a good read, but it just wasn’t. And I really hate having to say that kind of thing.

Book Review: Lion Hearted & Beast In Me (Divination Fall Trilogy #1&2), by Sommer Marsden

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I initially downloaded Sommer Marsden’s Beast In Me from the Amazon free list. When I could never catch the prequel, Lion Hearted, free I gave up and bought it.

Lion HeartedDescription of Lion Hearted:
Tryg Avondale is the muscle for his pride, and when he’s called upon to hunt down two missing teens, he sees the job for what it is – a chance to give his pride a break from him and his “nature”. Tryg is a gay lion and it’s not something his “family” seems to embrace.

He takes with him Luke Dorchester – an empath and the perfect travel companion. Luke can feel and soothe every emotion that coils deep inside Tryg, and the sex between them is the hottest Tryg has ever known. Tryg has no intention of letting his emotions go any further when it comes to this brand new man. But he also has zero intention of letting him go. What follows is a road trip from campground to campground, hot nights in hotel rooms and close encounters spent together as they follow the scent of the two abducted shifters. A scent that takes them to Divination Falls, a haven for shifters and associated magical folk; a place where an old evil will surface and Tryg will learn just how far his love for lion-hearted Luke must take him.

Review:
I’m a bit torn on this one. In some ways I thought this was a fairly middling read, enjoyable but nothing to sing about. In other ways, I found myself surprisingly happy with it. I thought the plot was ok. I thought the characters were ok. I thought the sex was ok. I wasn’t displeased with any of it, but I didn’t find myself falling in love with any of it either.

However, somewhere in there, among the shallow character portrayals and weak plot, drug out over 100+ pages by copious amounts of sex (there is A LOT, so much that I thought the guys could probably have rescued the girls a lot sooner if they’d stopped shagging and got on with investigating) I found a series of touchingly romantic moments. Yes, almost all of them occurred in the middle of a sex scene and there is a bit of a sex=love correlation going on that I find a little disturbing. But regardless of their literary surroundings, I found Tryg’s slow change of disposition sweet, for lack of a better word.

Since there was sooo much sex, I should probably talk about it. None of it was overly graphic. It didn’t foray into kinky territory or anything. It was all fairly straight forward. My only real comment would be on the ridged roles. This never used to bother me. I came to reading M/M by way of yaoi manga, where I would call it the norm rather than the exception. But the more m/m I read the more often I find myself bothered when there is no flexibility in who gives and receives, asks or demands, etc. And I found it particularly notable here. It was emphasised and I found myself uncomfortable with it.

Speaking of uncomfortable, I didn’t care for Tryg calling Luke ‘boy’ all the time. Luke’s 25 to Tryg’s 32, so there’s no pedophilia or anything, but the use of ‘boy’ or, even worse, ‘the boy’ in sex scenes just felt hinky. Plus, it just seemed to be one more way to emphasise the power disparity between the two of them.

Lastly, I want to address the cover. I know this may seem irrelevant, especially since covers can so easily change, but this one hit a pet peeve of mine so I’m going to indulge myself by griping about it. If a book is going to have one of its characters on the cover (a dangerous proposition to start with), every effort should be made to ensure that the picture used matches the character it’s representing. As an example, I once read a book in which the main character was meant to be a natural blond and the bleach blond on the cover had an inch and a half of dark roots–obviously not natural then. (I can’t be the only person who notices this kind of thing.)

Here the narrator goes to some effort to describe the way Tryg keeps his hair short and his face cleanly shaven to avoid the cliché lion-headed appearance (which is probably exactly the impression this particular picture was going for). This means he would likely be displeased with the very image used to represent him on the cover and if the character would be irked by it so am I. Mostly, however, I find it disruptive to look at a cover and be forced to notice discrepancies instead of consistence with the story. The cover is still part of the book, after all.

Beast in MeDescription of Beast In Me
Weather worker Cameron Bale rolls into Divination Falls after being prompted by Spirit and Brother Lighting. He discovers that the small, hidden town full of shifters and magical types is suffering a series of unsettling events. There’s speculation from the town seers that he could be the answer they’ve been looking for. Cameron’s willing to try and help: he’s got nowhere to go and nothing to lose. His life is simply about loneliness and it turns out that Trace, a grumpy wolf with stunning eyes, knows just what that feels like. Cam finds himself wishing maybe they could be alone … together. Oh yeah, and battle whatever evil it is that still lurks in Divination Falls.

Review:
While this wasn’t a horrible book, it wasn’t all that great either. I’m really glad that I got it for free. It certainly wasn’t as good as book one. I think the best way to describe it is clumsy and abrupt. The writing is clunky, with pretentious descriptions of emotions substituting for solid, believable emotional developments.

What I mean is that Mrs. Marsden uses heavily evocative language to create artificially poignant responses in the reader. I call it artificial because the plot didn’t allow for the characters to develop the feelings the reader is told they suddenly have for one another. But contradictorily, we’re hit with some lovely imagery that if placed within a more thoroughly and patiently established story could have made for a gripping read.

This is a serious case insta-lust, moving to instant ‘I want to support and heal him’ as step one of insta-love. It’s that second one that really drives me crazy. Insta-lust I can handle. Insta-love I don’t like, but I’ve learned to accept. (They’re shifters after all.) But the whole idea of instantly knowing, trusting, and seeking to meaningfully support another is just too much for me and my distaste for sappy hearts and flowers in general. It’s wholly unsupportable in a plot.

Seriously, this instant connection between the two starts before the two men have even seen eachother’s faces. It’s so abrupt that that the book just feels like a listing of emotions, events and sexual positions with no real story attached.

What’s more, the weak attempt to provide a mystery as a plot was essentially a failure. Seeing Cameron go around and listen to everyone’s stories, when the information could have just been recapped for him, felt like filler. Then he suddenly and almost miraculously knew what to do, with no evidence of an impetuous to his sudden insight. Isn’t that convenient for him?

Add to that so much sex that it actually started to feel redundant and I’m bound to lose interest. (And for the record, I love me some smexy yum-yum. But too much is too much.)

Lastly, and I know this sounds ridiculous, but the whole thing kind of had a bit of a YA feel to it. Cameron went around and met a variety of different shifter and a lot of time (that the book really couldn’t afford to dedicate to such distractions) was spent describing them and their quirks. It gave the whole thing a bit of a Hogwarts/Harry Potter-like feel. By which I mean a ‘lets go see some strange and marvellous mythological creatures just for the amazement factor.’ It didn’t contribute anything to the story and IMO detracted from the already lagging attempt at a plot.

Additionally, Cameron’s tendency to just say anything with no filter and to space out easily and repeatedly, gave him a childlike quality. When paired with the litany of fairytale beasts I’m reminded of young adult (or even middle grade) literature…except for the sex, of course. Lots and lots of sex. It wasn’t a successful combination for me.

Final thought…Ms. Marsen can write. She proved that more book one of the series than here, but she’s proven it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m a huge fan of what she writes, or rather the relationships she chooses to create. (This is another completely inflexible top/bottom, dominant/submissive pairing, for example.)To each their own, of course, but it’s not topping any of my favourites lists.

throne of glass

Book Review: Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas

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Throne of Glass 1I grabbed a copy of Sarah J. Maas‘ Throne of Glass from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted Throne of Glass 2her freedom. 

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her… but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. 

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead… quickly followed by another. 

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Review:

This book was an all-right YA read, but it didn’t live up to its hype or that cool cover—the one with the dangerous-looking hunting knives, not the sweet sixteen (which actually does match the tone of the book, to my disappointment). Do me a favor, open a new tab, and do a quick image search. Find both copies and have a look. They give totally different impressions of what the book will be like.

I like and wanted a gritty, tough assassin-woman, and the first cover promises that. I’m not all that fond of sensitive, if skilled, teenage girls slowly falling in love. The second cover could easily relay that…Of the two, the second cover is far more appropriate for the book.

And you know what? I wouldn’t have picked it up. Just goes to show the importance of a book’s cover. I COMPLETELY read this book because the version I got my hands on has the first one, and the awesome cover pulled me in. I was fooled.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Celaena is said to have been the best and most notorious assassin in all of the kingdom. However, in the course of the book, we NEVER (not once!) see her act as an assassin. The closest she comes is using that skill (which we’re repeatedly told she has but almost never see) to save someone’s life. At ~85%, there is finally a fight scene, but due to extenuating circumstances, she’s not even in peak condition for it. So, her as an assassin really was an existential thing.

As a result, I found Celaena COMPLETELY unbelievable as an assassin. Because, as I said, we almost never see her act like one (you know, killing anyone or even perpetrating violence of any sort). She was involved in a truly imbecilic competition in which almost all of the challenges were individual events like archery, knife throwing (both at targets), or identifying poisons, and the vast majority of them were actually glossed over. So, even though the competition is referred to as “brutal” in the sequel’s blurb, it was actually really tame. She did a lot of reading and flirting and almost no fighting.

But also because she had such a lovely disposition. She had the personality of a nice girl next door most of the time. Yes, she’d let the occasional threat fly and frequently imagined how she might kill someone, but otherwise, she was pleasant as can be. For someone with as much horrible history as she was supposed to have, she was remarkably well-balanced.

I think it’s unfair to the reader and untenable for an author to separate a character’s history from her current manifestation. Celaena was supposed to have been trained in assassination since she was 8. She was referred to as the ‘Queen of the Underworld.’ This is a woman who was supposed to have endured, seen, and perpetrated enough heinous acts to terrify a nation. That is the premise of her character. But the nice girl she actually was in the story, the one who valued life so much and felt so bad about killing or slavery, CANNOT SUPPORT THAT PAST. It just can’t. And if the very structure on which the story is built is compromised by such a yawning hole, I guarantee the rest will collapse for me.

I’m not saying the book is bad. In fact, it’s remarkably well written, with snappy dialogue and a rare heroine who, in one sense, chose her own freedom over some mythical idea of true love. I really, really respect that and was impressed by it. (I imagine it will be undone in future books, but here I got to be pleased.) It’s just that it sets itself up to be this heavy, ponderous, maybe even violent book when it’s actually pretty light and fluffy. It’s not what I expected to read, based on the cover and blurb, and while a lot of people love it (I didn’t actually hate it), I did feel cheated out of the story I was promised.

Hey, by the way, I notice that until June 18 Goodreads has a contest to win a copy. Go here.