Tag Archives: fantasy

Book Review of Blood Ice & Oak Moon: A Coon Hollow Coven Tale, by Marsha A. Moore

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I won an audible copy of Marsha A. Moore’s Blood Ice & Oak Moon.

Description from Goodreads:
Esme Underhill is about to discover a darkness hidden inside her that could destroy her chance for independence and possibly kill her.

Esme’s mother took her young daughter away from Southern Indiana’s Coon Hollow Coven to prevent her from learning about the unusual witchcraft she had inherited. When Esme is twenty-seven, her beloved Grammy Flora passes away and leaves her property in the Hollow to her granddaughter. With this opportunity to remake her life and gain independence, Esme attempts to emulate Grammy Flora as a wildwood mystic who relies on the hedge world of faeries to locate healing herbs. But fae are shrewd traders. When they open their world to her, she must meet the unknown malevolence of her birthright.

Thayne, the handsome king of the fae Winter Court, faces his own struggle to establish autonomy as a new regent. He is swept into the tempest of Esme’s unfolding powers, a dangerous threat to his court. His sworn duty is to protect his people, despite Esme’s beauty and allure, which tear at his resolve.

Both Esme’s and Thayne’s dreams of personal freedom are lost…unless they can trust each other and overcome surmounting dangers.

Review:
Sigh. This may just be a case of a book being poorly matched to a reader, but I didn’t much care for this. It wasn’t all out bad, but it wasn’t great either. If I had to break the review of my experience with this down to one statement, it would be both the book and the audio narration (by Jean Lowe Carlson) were only ok. Neither very good, but not all out bad either, or at least not to my liking.

I found the writing, especially the dialogue really stilted and stiff. This was apparent in the actual writing, but I think it was exacerbated by the way it was read by Carison.

Some people will probably like this kind of Mary Sue heroine, but I don’t see the appeal. She was 27, but the book reads like it is YA. Esmerelda was constantly on about becoming (not being, but becoming) and independent woman. Despite this, she was also always moaning about her mom, or daddy or grammy. And in the end, wanna know what she felt made her feel more independent than anything ever did before? Getting married. Arg, someone get me a drink STAT! And this after spending most of the book all cut up because of one bad past relationship. It was cliched.

She also defeated an all-powerful enemy with presumably hundreds of years of training and experience in less than a page with no training or experience of her own. I won’t quite call it deus ex mechana, because she had the power already. But I also couldn’t believe it.

I felt no chemistry between Esmeralda and Thayne and at no point did I see their relationship develop. They were just in love all of a sudden and she was being handed a princess’ happily ever after for no apparent reason.

I didn’t truly understand why her and her black amber were so sought after. I have no idea what the underlying motivation of at least one of the villains was, and only a vague idea about the others. (And why have so many independent enemies?) And at one point an established dictum of the universe, that fae can’t lie, is broken.

All in all, this is a strong case of ‘special snowflake’ heroine and I didn’t care for it. But I bet others really will.

Book Review of Wolf in King’s Clothing, by Parker Foye

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I received a copy of Wolf in King’s Clothing, by Parker Foye, through Netgalley.

Description form Goodreads:
An exiled shifter. His alpha mate. And a desire so intense it could be the death of them…  

York, England, 1912  

Kent was a pack outcast. His shifter instincts cruelly muted, he was collared and kept as a stray. Until he was offered his freedom—for something in return. He must rescue Hadrian, an alpha held hostage in the wolf highlands. It’s a pleasure for Kent to follow the captive’s scent, one so wild and virile it gives him a rush. Though he despises being treated like a mutt called to heel, he’ll gladly fall to his knees for an alpha like Hadrian. 

Hadrian has never met anyone like this damaged wolf warrior. His savior who licks the blood from his wounds and who arouses in him feelings he doesn’t understand or want to control. But Hadrian suspects that more than desire binds them. It’s betrayal. Pawns in an elaborate and feral deceit, they’re now caught in the deepening maze of a vengeful shifter world, where navigating the mysteries of the heart could prove just as unpredictable and dangerous as the enemies they face. 

Review:
Here’s the thing, I liked this book. I thought the pairing was cute and was all for their happily every after. But liking a book isn’t enough to ignore the fact that it basically doesn’t make sense. I’ve finished it and still have no idea what exactly was happening. Was it a power grab? And if so, was it against Hadrian or Kent’s boss? Was Kent actually an outcast, as the blurb suggests? If so, when and why? What exactly happened at the end? How did Hadrian heal Kent? What of Hadrian’s pack? Friend or foe? The plot was so full of holes that I couldn’t follow the story. I liked the mechanical writing. I liked the characters. But the rest o the book was a mess.

Book Review of The Alpha’s Claim, by Holley Trent

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I received an ARC of Holley Trent‘s The Alpha’s Claim from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Jim West, the New York Coyote pack alpha, has successfully defended his territory from external threats for almost fifteen years. Pack politics may be a pain in his ass, but his command has never been doubted, his authority never questioned. 

Until Teddy, an argumentative pancake-house server, challenges more than his patience. 

The lithe, pretty human calls to Jim’s baser instincts. He knows instantly Teddy is his mate—but the timing couldn’t be worse. Tension within his pack is growing, and adding a human mate to the mix could spark an uprising, with Teddy as the target. 

Teddy’s smart mouth may heat Jim’s blood, but with a full moon only days away, getting Teddy to let down his guard and accept him—the man and the beast—is his main priority. There’s no fighting the pull of a mate, but learning his lover is a literal predator might make Teddy run right into the danger Jim’s desperate to control. 

Review:
Look, this wasn’t baaaaad, but it just wasn’t very good either. The writing was ok and I liked the characters (even if the alpha was decidedly not alpha-like), but the story, the plotting, and conflict (lack there of) were a problem. Plus, I found what I consider a fairly large hole in the plot. I’ll address it first.

The basic idea is that Teddy is Jim’s mate. Jim recognizes him, immediately wants to make house with him and that’s that. It appears to be a fated mates kind of deal. But one of the few conflicts in the book is that there is a lack of females near the pack and the pack members keep finding mates that Jim won’t approve to join the pack. But if the world is set up to have fated mates, how can that be? It’s not like finding a new girlfriend, they’re MATES. I spent the whole book being like, what?

Secondarily annoying is the fact that I really don’t understand the whole “he’s an asshole to me constantly, so I lust after him” thing. I have never met a man or woman who purposefully treated me like crap, let alone came into my section of a restaurant, ran me ragged and then stiffed me on a tip (every week for months) and found them appealing, let alone sexy. So, chapter one I was already side-eyeing this story. And that is also a perfect example of how juvenile alpha-Jim is. He picks on the man he likes to get his attention.

The only relationship conflict seemed to hinge on Teddy being generically treated poorly in the past and therefore being wary of jumping into another relationship, which he does anyway. So what’s the point in giving him a weakly described tragic past? And if you’re going to do that, maybe be a little more descriptive and imaginative.

Then there is Jim. I liked Jim. He’s puppy dog cute, but puppy dog cute is not an alpha. He never once did anything alpha-like. His pack is walking all over him. In fact, he seemed to want to find his mate in order to have someone to stand up for him and make the decisions. Speaking of, what he really wanted was a wife. Sure the book called it a keeper or a minder, but he wanted someone to clean and organize his house, fire his staff, keep him in line and sleep with him. He wanted a wife. And that wouldn’t be a problem, except why write a male/male romance and then uncomfortably force one of them into such a cliched, gendered role?

All in all, I basically thought this a weak offering. It could have been bulked up, better thought out and plotted and been something special. Trent’s actual writing skills seem fine and the characters are cute, but the book needs to be more and better.