Tag Archives: erotic romance

Book Review: Blood of the Pack, by Cassie Alexander

While it wasn’t on the blog, Sadie’s Spotlight’s Insta featured Cassie Alexander‘s Dark Ink Tattoo series (Blood of the Pack, Blood at Dusk, and Blood at Midnight). However, I didn’t get all of the books at the same time. I had book one, but not the tail end of the series. So, my plan to read all three and review them together, in a single post, crumbled to dust. I’m just too much of a mood reader to allow so much time between books in a series. But since I have read book one, I’ll post it’s review and give the other books their own post when I get to them.

Angela, Dark Ink Tattoo’s owner, has a secret – she’s a werewolf who used to run with the Pack, a dangerous drug-dealing motorcycle gang that services Vegas’s seedier side. She’s been free for the past seven years, ever since her ex-boyfriend (and Pack leader) Gray went to prison – but when the Pack starts threatening her shop and son she realizes she’s on borrowed time.

Dark Ink’s best artist refuses to show up before sundown – because he’s a vampire. Vegas is the perfect place for Jack – it’s an endless buffet of strangers to bleed. The only thing that haunts Jack more than his hunger is Angela.

Welcome to Dark Ink Tattoo, Las Vegas’s premier 24/7 tattoo studio, where needles aren’t the only things that bite….

Sooo, this isn’t a romance. It’s erotic fiction. Sex is the point and there is a lot of it. I’m not complaining about the fact. I’m just stating it, in case anyone needs or wants the knowledge/reminder before jumping into this series.

And while I’m also not complaining about this second point I’m about to make, it was more eyebrow raising for me. Angela and Jack are not the people between whom the sex is happening. In fact, they’re not even on page together at all, past about page 50 of the book! Maybe they’ll get together in future books; their separate plot-lines are definitely connected. But do not go into this expecting Angela and Jack as a romantic pairing (like I did).

The plots are interesting looking, if a little unimaginative. The rough, evil biker gang…even the rough, evil werewolf biker gang is hardly original. Anyone who reads in the paranormal genres will have encountered it before. But both plots hold together, even when only sprinkled lightly between innumerable sex scenes.

About the sex (since it’s the point, after all), I appreciate that Alexander gave us some variety in both partners and activities beyond plain old P-n-V. I won’t go listing them all, since that would ruin the fun of discovering the various pairings for yourself. But I liked that some peoples that you don’t often see in sexual setting are given sex lives here. And I loved that Jack is assiduous about consent and unwaveringly kind to his partners, even when the kink is rough or the sex meaningless.

I didn’t love Angela’s ‘I want to be used, dominated, and “put in my place” by a man’ sex as much as Jack’s various liaisons though. For her it wasn’t play, as it was for him, for example. It felt 100x more cliched and unoriginal. It felt, in fact, like a male character was allowed variety beyond societies assigned place for him (bisexual—if not pansexual—and allowed to have varied sex). While Angela (as a woman) is still only allowed the one male partner and the sex still has to meet societal (read porn’s) approved scenarios (ie: rough, with the appearance of being demeaning, or at least subservient). Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t hot. I’m just saying it didn’t feel anywhere near as fresh as it could have.

All in all, however, for a one-handed read, I enjoyed the book and I look forward to the next one.

Other Reviews:

Book Review: Solstice Surrender, by Tracy Cooper-Posey

I picked up a copy of Solstice Surrender, by Tracy Cooper-Posey, way back in 2013 and it’s been chillin’ in my cloud ever since. This year, I thought the solstice might be holiday-like enough to be included in my holiday reading challenge.

For Special Investigations Agency Operatives Destiny Tremayne, Jenna MacDonald and Nur Aydan, Christmas isn’t all about celebrating.

Jenna MacDonald, cynic extraordinaire, flees to Banff, Canada, for the holiday season to lick her wounds in private after an assignment takes a tragic turn. But trouble manages to find her even in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. A mysterious stranger called Rhys Cellyn exerts a powerful influence over her mind and body, while Jenna struggles to stay afloat in the mythical world he plunges her into. Time is against her, for at the moment of the winter solstice she must make a fateful choice. I’m going to get housekeeping out of the way first. I read this as part of my Holiday Reading Challenge, thinking that being set during the solstice might give this a bit of a holiday theme. But it really doesn’t. The solstice is important to the plot, but not in any sort of holiday-related way, not even a solstice holiday. So, it’s kind of a failure in that regard.

Moving on to the review itself, I knew I was in trouble when I read the note in the introduction that mentioned that this book had originally been written as a novella for an Ellora’s Cave anthology. Ellora’s Cave had a pretty predictable story format—lots of sex, very little plot. Cooper-Posey said she’d expanded the novella into a short novel, but I didn’t expect the sex to plot ratio to change. I was right, it didn’t. And while there was a time I quite enjoyed such books (that’s how I knew what to expect from Ellora’s Cave), now is not the time. So, I spent a lot of this book skimming.

I will assert that this was better than most of what I read from Ellora’s Cave, but it wasn’t very good when judged on its own. The writing wasn’t the issue. Other than a disconcerting and anachronistic tendency to use “for” in sentences, the writing is actually fine. The editing had a few hiccups, but nothing egregious. It’s just that the plot is so very thin and there is so very very little character development, world-building, romantic build-up, etc that the story barely holds together. And then there is a ton of sex to further destabilize it all.

So, I’m just gonna have to go with “Meh” for this one.

Come backlater this afternoon. I’ll be reviewing Charley’s Christmas Wolf, by C.D. Gorri and tomorrow when I’ll be reviewing The Problem With Mistletoe, by Kyle Baxter and Fighting For Us, by Bella Emy. Yeah, I’ve had to star doubling up to fit them all in by Christmas.

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

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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.

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.

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.