Tag Archives: erotica

Book Review: The Beast, by Jenika Snow

I purchased a signed copy of The Beast, by Jenika Snow.

What if the Beast never turned into the prince?

My father had just sold me off.

Bartered my body to erase his debt to the very devil himself.

A Beast of a man. Literally.

A creature whispered about amongst the villagers and feared by all.

He was a beastly visage at three times the size of a man, his monstrously huge body covered in fur. Sharp fangs and eyes that held an unearthly red glow. He had pawlike hands tipped with claws and horns that arched back from his inhuman face.

I was to live with him, to be his in every way—all ways—he saw fit.

I was to be his wife, and so I offered myself up as the proverbial sacrifice to the very devil himself.

I just didn’t expect to enjoy being with a monster as much as I did.

Meh, I didn’t love it. I picked this up because I’d seen it raved about over on Tiktok and thought the idea of Beast, from Beauty and the Beast, remaining beastly was intriguing. But there’s just not much to it. Which might be fine (erotica doesn’t need much of a plot), except what is there doesn’t even try to be original in any way. It just feels like poorly done Disney fan fiction.

So, if the minimal plot didn’t interest me, that left the sex. What a reader likes in a sex scene is super individual. But, for me, this was far too focused on how he was going to hurt her and she’d beg for more. (Plus, all the spitting…and leaking…wasn’t my jam). Which means the sex wasn’t a big winner for me either.

Thus, to say it again, I didn’t love it. But to each their own.

Other Reviews:

Book Review: The Beast: A Monster Romance (Monsters and Beauties, Book 1) by Jenika Snow

Book Review: The Dragon’s Bride, by Katee Robert

I purchased a copy of Katee Robert‘s The Dragon’s Bride.

Briar Rose might have a name out of a storybook, but she learned at a very young age that no prince was coming to save her. She’ll have to save herself. Unfortunately, even that is an impossible task in her current situation—trapped in a terrifying marriage to a dangerous man.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is how she finds herself making a deal with a demon. Freedom from her husband…in return for seven years of service.

She expects the service to be backbreaking and harsh. She doesn’t expect to be put on an auction block in a room full of literal monsters and sold to the highest bidder.

To Sol.

A dragon.

He might seem kinder than his fearsome looks imply, but she knows better than to trust the way he wants to take care of her, or how invested he is in her pleasure. In her experience, if something seems too good to be true, it certainly is.

Falling for Sol is out of the question. She’s suffered enough, and she has no intention of staying in this realm…even if she leaves her heart behind when she returns to her normal life.

I had a pretty middle-of-the-road reaction to this book. But that feels a little disappointing. I saw it raved about and recommended so very many times that anything less than utterly loving it feels like a let down. But if I force myself to let that go, I can admit that I enjoyed this book, just not as much as the reviews led me to believe I would. (That’s the danger of too much hype, right?)

On the positive side, Sol is just a doll. He’s so sweet, even with his dangerous edge. It would be hard not to appreciate him. Similarly, Briar is a fun character. I very much appreciated that she was able and willing to go for what she wanted. The overall world seems fun, and the writing is easy to read.

On the negative side, I didn’t think the sex scenes fit the characters. This might take little explaining and is 100% subjective. I’m not going to be all ‘no abused woman would do x, y, or z.’ I can’t know what someone with a history of abuse would or wouldn’t do in any given scenario, let alone when faced with a dragon. But what I will say is that I didn’t feel like the characters Sol and Briar were outside of the bedroom matched the characters they became in bed. It’s hot and very on point for current spicy fantasy trends. But it felt a lot more like it was written to those same trends than to character consistency. And this annoyed me…even if it was hot, as I said.

All in all, I liked the book—I’ll read the next one—but it wasn’t the knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark I was hoping for.

Other Reviews:

Review: The Dragon’s Bride by Katee Robert

Book Review: The Dragon’s Bride by Katee Robert

Book Review: The Dragon’s Bride by Katee Robert

Book Review: Mint Freeze, by Laurel Chase

Last week, I suddenly remembered that you can buy signed copies of books from authors on Etsy. So, I purchased several. Mint Freeze, by Laurel Chase was one of them.

Talk about rags to riches. Cinderella had nothing on me.

I have a sparkly new crown, a remodeled ancient castle, and I’m mated to six of the most delectable princes a girl could conjure.

But my happily-ever-after honeymoon still seems a long way off.

There are plenty of magical creatures in Haret and Earth who would kill to see me dethroned – literally – and we can’t let our guard down yet.

Still, my men promised me a break and a bucket list, and my mates always deliver their goods. We’ll just have to get our sugar in small bites.

I’m Carlyle Licorne, and I’m ready for my next sugar fix.

The Sugar Bites series features Carlyle and her six men, navigating the new Haret as only she can do – with snark, sugar, and shanking.

These fun novellas follow the main Haret Chronicles, but they can be read before those books, too.

I am just infuriated. I can’t even tell you if this was a good book or not because I’m so distracted by, yet again, picking up a book labeled book one and finding out that THAT IS A LIE. I have complained about this before. Hell, I wrote a blog post way back in 2016 complaining about this very thing.

I started this book and very quickly sensed that I’d been dropped into a story. Characters appeared without introductions. There was no world-building or even descriptions, places were named but nothing else. And the plot was 100% based on events that apparently happened in the past, outside of this book (one presumes the previous series).

So, a quick Goodread search provided me two pieces of information. I was reminded that the blurb says,

These fun novellas follow the main Haret Chronicles, but they can be read before those books, too.

And that the The Haret Chronicles is a 7 book series. And since I’m deeming the above statement untrue, that makes Mint Freeze book number 8, no matter what the cover and blurb say. Because even at page 107/130 (82% into the book) I came across quotes like this,

What we’re doing—what you’re doing—it means everything, Carlyle.

My heart gave a lurch. I knew it. God, did I know it. I lost sleep over the pressure of what I was supposed to be able to do, and the fear that I wouldn’t be enough.

But, if you’ve not read the previous books (like I haven’t, trusting that ‘book one’ on the cover) you have no idea what they were doing or what she was supposed to able to do.

The book is entirely like this. I could have chosen a hundred other quotes. I chose that one because it’s so late in the book and illustrates the point that the reader is never given the information missing from the previous series and it’s pertinent to understanding this book. YOU CANNOT READ THIS AS A COMPLETE WORK.

You, in fact, can’t read these books before The Haret Chronicles, as the blurb claims, and feel as if you’ve been given any sort of satisfying story. Period. I literally just spent 130 pages with characters I didn’t care about—since the reader is apparently expected to already know and care about the characters, that opportunity isn’t given here—chasing a plot I knew nothing about, in order to…yeah, I got nothing. I don’t even know what the end goal was. Plus, it’s a cliffie on top of everything else. I mean, I read the book. But I feel nothing but frustration having done so. And I can’t imagine that was the author’s intention.

What’s more, over half of this novella appears to just be pulled directly from past books and fed to the reader as memories. So, I don’t even think this is a new story. Having not read The Haret Chronicles, I can’t know if it’s literally a cut and paste (from previous books) job or if it’s freshly written. But it felt like a cut and paste job.

So, if you’ve read The Haret Chronicles, this is probably a fun little addendum and you’re experience with Mint Freeze was probably completely different than mine. I can see what role the ‘sugar bites’ are supposed to play, after all. If you haven’t read The Haret Chronicles, don’t believe the lie that you can read this first. Put this book down and go start at the beginning.

The writing seems fine. The three characters included here (Carlyle and two of six of her mates) seem likeable enough. The sex scenes were fine. I might have liked the series if I hadn’t unknowingly started it at book 8.

Other Reviews: