Tag Archives: Fae

More Than Mortal

Book Review of More Than Mortal, by Abbie Zanders

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I won a paperback copy of Abbie Zanders‘ More than Mortal through Goodreads.

Description:

Ceri always knew she was different. Seeing people’s auras and being able to change the weather with her moods just isn’t normal, nor does she understand why simply being around others saps her of her strength. There’s no one she can turn to; who she is and where she comes from are the biggest mysteries of all.

Settled into a small college town, she immerses herself in studies of the supernatural and lives a solitary existence. Until he crosses her path and comes to her rescue.

After earning his master’s in criminal justice, there’s no plausible reason for Edan to stick around campus. There’s only a feeling. A feeling of destiny and purpose that calls to his ancient Highland ancestry and keeps him right where he is. When he meets her, his purpose becomes clear. He can’t explain it, but she needs him, and he’ll go to great lengths to protect her.

In their search for answers, Ceri and Edan learn there’s a lot more to the world than either of them ever imagined. The lines between reality and myth blur as they discover ancient magic, hidden realms, and the truth about who – and what – they really are: pawns in a game that’s been played for millennia.

Will Ceri and Edan embrace the destinies that have already been written for them? Or will they sacrifice everything to be together?

Review:

This book started out very poorly, with a male (who you might think is the hero, I did) using his mystical powers to turn women into mindless sex kittens, getting him and his friends BJs in a night club. Something he apparently does multiple times a night, regularly. The book does improve from there, but that’s not saying a lot. I almost DNFed it there, in chapter one. The fact that I needed a Z-author for my alphabet challenge was what forced me to hang on.

While I’ll admit the writing is perfectly readable, so much about this book made me rage. Back to those sex kittens mentioned above, for example. Women are SERIOUSLY underrepresented in the book. With the exception of the heroine, a grandmother and one woman who turns out to be a main secondary character’s mate, every other woman is basically faceless and there for the purpose of sex. That’s it. There isn’t a queen, a female guard, a woman passing on the street. Nothing. Women outside of the main characters exist as sex objects only. Even Ceri’s two friends (the books only hope for a woman existing as something other than something to fuck) turn into mindless lust as soon as they serve the purpose of introducing Ceri and then disappear. Abbie…hey Abbie, don’t you think you could have done us sisters a little better than that? It’s FUCKING INSULTING.

You know what else is insulting? A heroine who is so infantalized she couldn’t be more childlike if the author had put her in pampers. She’s small and innocent, with big wet eyes and a tendency to cry and snuggle into mens arms as they LITERALLY CARRY HER OFF TO BE TUCKED IN AND PUT TO BED (repeatedly). All the men always know what’s going on, but no one tells her anything. And her mental state is so fragile she can’t even be left alone in public. No males, even ones of the same fae species, are so mentally delicate their sanity is in question. What’s more, in order to maintain this virginal childlikeness, the only relatively detailed penetrative sex scene in the book isn’t even between the H & h. We never see that. It’s off page. The second couple seems to have been included entirely to function as proxies for this very purpose.

What’s more, I didn’t really feel the development of any spark between the love interests. This is the sort of book (and it is a sort of book) where we’re just told how awed they are of each other, how this or that warms their hearts, or slips through their walls, or boosts their pride. Whatever. It’s meant to make the reader go “Awww.” But it has absolutely no substance, and as such, just irritates me.

The thing is though, I know that some people like this sort of book. As the writing seems fine and with a few exceptions (like the main character being named Ian on my copy’s cover blurb, but Edan in the actual book) the editing seemed pretty tight I can’t wholly trash it. But this was not my jam at all.

And as a totally petty aside, because that’s how I’m feeling, the cover is ugly.

Shayna

Book Review of Shayna (The Fate of the Faes #1), by Cynthia Melton

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Cover of Shayna

I received an audible code for a review copy of Cynthia Melton‘s Shayna from the narrator, Amy Deuchler.

Description from Goodreads:

A darkness approaches that only a fae can stop. 

Evil forces threaten to cover the human world with darkness. The faerie world is dependent on the human world’s survival or they, too, will perish. Shayna, a faerie warrior of the Light is sent to the human world to prevent that from happening and must convince a human to help her. 

When she reveals her true self to Detective Pierce Cochran, his world is thrust upside down. Everything he believed to be a fairy tale is true. 

The faerie and the detective join forces against a growing number of demons and vampires, enlisting the help of an assortment of creatures Pierce didn’t know existed. Magic and weaponry collide as the mis-matched group of warriors race toward the final battle. 

Review:

This is the second time in a relatively short period that I’ve found myself in the same awkward situation, having accepted an audiobook for review from the narrator. Then, finishing it torn because the narrator did a fine job, but I basically hated the book. So, let me be real clear on this:

1. Amy Deuchler did a fine job with the narration. My only complaint being a slight emphasis on the names that exacerbated my main problem with the actual story, which I’ll get into. 

2. The book Shayna sucks balls. 

Now, that complaint: Shayna is perfect. She’s beautiful. She’s innocent. She’s sexy. She’s virginal. She’s the most powerful warrior. She can do any magic at any moment to get them out of any scrape. She’s loyal. She’s clever. She’s empathetic. She’s caring. She’s…she’s…she’s… To call her a Mary Sue is an insult to both Maries and Sues. SHE CAN DO NO WRONG and it makes for a horribly boring book. (This is where my only complaint about Deuchler’s narration comes in. She says Shayna’s name with an almost awed breathiness, which I understand given the text. But when I’m already irritated with the Shayna-worship, actually having to hear it in the name itself grated on my nerves something awful.) At one point an addictive substance was introduced and I actually thought, “Finally, something that might give this character a little depth and interest.” But no, even that was given to someone else, so that Shayna could save them again. 

Further, the story itself wasn’t smooth. I didn’t feel the romance develop AT ALL. It just suddenly was. Some characters seemed to know things they shouldn’t have. While other characters had large changes of heart for no apparent reason. And 2/3 of the book was basically just Shayna running around New York putting out fires as they popped up. Then, the whole thing culminated in a large sword and magic battle that didn’t relate to anything preceding it. It had some of the same characters (plus the ones that were pointlessness added too late in the book to truly be introducing characters), but nothing that happened before that point seemed necessary or to have effected the outcome. Then it was all over, Melton basically skipping over the battle and any last chance of providing a little tension or excitement. 

Overall, I very much feel like the author didn’t really have a plan for the book, so things just cropped up as she thought of them and nothing really tied together. I actually have all three books and I hate to not fulfill my obligation to read them. But I so disliked this one that I have a hard time thinking I’ll ever really listen to them.

Bless Your Heart

Book Review of Bless Your Heart (Fairy Tales of a Trailer Park Queen #1), by Kimbra Swain

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I purchased an e-copy of Kimbra Swain‘s Bless Your Heart.

Description from Goodreads:

Scorned by her family. Banished by her kind. Hunted by zealots. 

Where does an exiled Fairy Queen hide? 

A remote mountain cabin, the seedy underbelly of a metropolis, or an uninhabited island. All would be good choices, however, after hundreds of years on the run, the daughter of Oberon, King of the Wild Fairies, signs a binding contract with the zealots that hunt her. In exchange, they allow her to settle down in the last place anyone would look for fairy royalty. 

Adopting the name Grace Ann Bryant, the Queen buys a double-wide and moves into a trailer park in the one-horse town of Shady Grove, Alabama. Her contract requires her to lend aid to the local sheriff, Dylan Riggs, when supernatural problems arise. 

But when two children go missing, the humans point to the trailer park queen helping the sheriff, and the zealots point at the exiled fairy. Grace must decide whether to fight for her innocence or break her contract returning to life on the run. 

Bless Your Heart is a Southern Urban Fantasy that will make you laugh, cry, and laugh until you cry, as Grace wrestles with the dark fairy inside herself and starts to see that she’s more than just trailer trash.

Review:

This was a cute story let down in the execution. It really needs another copy editing pass, to catch misplaced commas, missing words and homophones and such. Plus, someone really needs to sit the author down and discuss the fact that people DON’T SAY NAMES IN EVERY CONVERSATION. It’s one of my biggest dialogue pet peeves. It’s redundant and annoying, and Swain is particularly bad about it. I almost DNFed the book pretty early on honestly, because of it. 

Beyond that, I didn’t believe the twist at the end (in the church). Grace would have to be exceedingly oblivious, moving into Too Stupid To Live territory, to really not have noticed ANYTHING until the big reveal. And could/would the town really have kept that secret so well? Plus, keeping the secret from her doesn’t even make sense. 

All in all, I did actually like the characters and I appreciated the male/female platonic friendship. But beyond that, the book didn’t live up to what it could have been.