Tag Archives: erotica

Book Review of Branded by Flames (Dragon Soul #1), by Sean Michael

I received a copy of Sean Michael‘s Branded by Flames from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
For years, dragon-shifter-slash-firefighter Jake has been searching for his mate, but he’s beginning to tire of the search. Maybe soul mates are only for the lucky few.

Then he meets Shae.

A former navy welder, Shae is handsome, talented, into power play and rough sex, and covered in dragon tattoos. All of this suits the shape-shifting dragon just fine—until he finds out that Shae literally has Jake’s family crest already tattooed on him. A coincidence? Or something more…

Jake must convince Shae to trust him as a man and as a Dom before the heat between them burns out of control. Becoming a dragon’s mate is not without danger, and Shae will need Jake’s guidance—and love—if he’s going to make it through alive.

Review:
This has dragon shifters. Dragon shifters! I should have loved it. But I’m afraid I just didn’t. The book is too long by half and it’s all sex. I mean ALL SEX.

I understand that it is erotica, not romance. (Though, I didn’t realize that when I requested it from Netgalley.) So, it’s fine that the focus is on sex not relationships, but it is not enough to carry such a long book. I got so tired of sex scenes. You wouldn’t expect them to bore a person, but when it’s just the same thing on repeat, that’s what it is, boring. I literally fell asleep at one point!

And it was painfully repetitive. I mean, there are only so many ways to describe two men having sex. The word ass is used 168 times and cock 202 times, in the novel. Now, the book is 216 pages long. That means that once you take out the front and back matter, it’s basically once per page. So, you can estimate how much non-sex plot there is. Hint: essentially none. It might have worked for 75-100 pages, because Shae and Jake are likable, but not 200.

It also uses one of my personal pet peeves. I hate the whole ‘boy’ thing in BDSM books. Totally personal, that; probably doesn’t annoy others like it does me. But it’s nails on a chalk board, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe it’s because I’m from the American South and, while there is definitely a traditional power play involved in the term, it’s not one I find sexy in the least. In fact, I always unconsciously read it with an unnatural emphasis that rips me right out of a narrative. I just really hate it.

I also disliked that Shae started the book as a somewhat butch, tattooed, pierced, ex-Navy welder and as soon as Jake showed up, he turned into a rather camp ‘queen.’ Either would be fine, but the personality shift was jarring.

Outside of these irritants the writing is fine and there is some humor in the book. Plus, I rather enjoyed Jake’s uncertainties, though I also thought they didn’t match the rest of his character. I appreciated that Shae was supposed to be almost 40. It’s so rare to find older romantic leads. And, of course, the whole this is about dragons, which is always a plus for me.

In the end, I think this may just be a case of a poor pairing between a reader and book.

Book Review of Taming Heather (Cariboo Lunewulf #1), by Lorie O’Clare

I’m trying to read some of the physical book from my shelves, to make room for new ones and to replenish the restock stash for my Little Free Library. Wanna see a picture? I’m awful proud of it.

Anyhow, I’m trying to clear out the physical book, so this was my morning.

I picked up this used copy of Taming Heather, by Lorie O’Clare, from Goodwill for $0.70.

Description from Goodwill:
Heather Graham had one thing in mind—furthering her career. And an exposé on the werewolves in her community would do just that. All she needed was to get up close and personal with one of them, and she could write an article that would give her front-page coverage across the nation. Her career would skyrocket! And Marc McAllister was just the man—and werewolf—to help her do it.But when Marc realizes Heather’s flirty behavior exists solely so she can exploit werewolves in her newspaper, he decides it’s time to show little Miss Graham exactly how a werewolf behaves. And Marc McAllister isn’t just any werewolf, but purebred Cariboo Lunewulf—wild, strong, aggressive and the quintessential alpha male.In a clash of wills, bodies and souls, Marc and Heather set off enough sparks to start a raging fire. Drawing the wild side out of Marc hits Heather with a bolt of lust that won’t go away. Unexpectedly for Marc, he may just have met his match in the little spitfire.But their biggest hurdle may not be with each other, but from another direction entirely.

Review:
Oh man, this was bad. If I used stars here, I’d say it’s only avoiding a one star because I laughed a lot. (There was very little deliberate humor in it.) It was basically just a thin veneer of plot to allow for lots and lots of sex that essentially started the moment the man characters met. But hey, it’s Ellora’s Cave and that’s practically their business model. So, I can’t say I went in unaware. I happen to occasionally like that sort of book in a “I’m laughing with you, not at you sort of way.”

Unfortunately, the sex wasn’t that great. The writing was extremely repetitive, with the same stock words/phrases being used again and again and again and again, sometimes more than once within the same paragraph, and the same information being provided over and over. The characters never really lived up to their description; the book depending on that description to give them life, instead of providing proof. Plus, I thought Marc was a jerk. Lastly, the copyediting needed a bit more work and it contradicted itself.

What I’m drinking: Milky chai. My stepfather gave me some loose chai from The Natural Way, but I failed utterly in making it correctly. It hardly had any flavor at all. I think I didn’t boil it long enough, so it’s basically just warm, brown milk. *shrug* live and learn

Book Review of Captive (Beautiful Monsters, #1), by Jex Lane

Captive I received a free ARC of Captive, by Jex Lane, in exchange for an honest review.

Description from Goodreads:
Matthew Callahan has spent seven years struggling against the insatiable hunger for blood consuming him. Unable to stop the vampire inside from preying on humans, he keeps himself confined to a lonely existence.

Everything changes the night he is lured into a trap and taken prisoner by High Lord General Tarrick—a seductive incubus who feeds off sexual energy. Forced into the middle of a war between vampires and incubi, Matthew is used as a weapon against his own kind. Although he’s desperate for freedom, he is unable to deny the burning desire drawing him to the incubus general he now calls Master.

Review:
Man, I hate being the first person to give a book a poor review, but I just can’t agree with the majority here. I did not enjoy this book. The writing and editing are fine, but I had some major problems. The first of which was a preference thing. I’m not into the master/slave thing. It’s not my kink. Watching a man be broken and then come to love his enslavement is just not something I enjoy. I personally find it abhorrent. Not morally or anything, I wouldn’t bring that into a review. But I don’t find anything about it sexy. I consider it torture porn and, again, not my kink. I wouldn’t have picked the book up at all if I’d really believed this was the plot.

But outside of just not liking the type of book this turned out to be, I also basically thought this was 200+ pages of Matthew being too perfect and that just got old really, really fast. He started out clueless and I liked him as a character. But as soon as he got a little information he excelled at everything. He was faster, stronger, smarter, sexier, wittier, etc than everyone else. And not just a little bit better, but four times stronger than any other vampire. Plus, he had additional skills that I won’t mention so as not to include a spoiler, but he shouldn’t be impossible. He could charge into a room head-on, outnumbered and over-powered and win every time. Well, knowing that it’s hard to feel any real tension in any of the numerous fight sequences.

I did not feel the supposed affection between him and Tarrick (even when keeping a mind open for lies of protection). Please, don’t mistake this for a romance just because there is sex in it. You will be disappointed. I did appreciate that Matthew and other characters had both M/M and M/F sex, but I was shocked to find incubi and succubi with such HUMAN sentiments toward sex and relationships.

Humans were shockingly disposable. The narrative frequently fell into long tell heavy passages, as time passed. Matthew accepted his situation with shocking ease. The answer to the ‘what am I’ mystery was painfully obvious. The book felt overly long and, worst of all, never really accomplished anything significant before concluding with an open ending.

All in all, while it might be a matter of matching a book to a reader, I was disappointed with Captive. I could see what the author was trying to create with it, but I don’t feel it ever really accomplished it.