Tag Archives: fantasy

Shadow Scars

Book Review of Shadow Scars: Rogue Wolf (Haven City #1), by Zoe Perdita

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Shadow ScarI grabbed a copy of Zoe Perdita‘s Shadow Scars from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Conner, a rogue wolf and murder detective, isn’t looking for a lover when he moves to Haven City. He wants to solve crimes and keep to himself – unable to trust anyone since his pack betrayed him six years before. 

But Seth Alwen, his new partner, is different. He excites the wolf’s animal instincts – waking up the passion Conner buried long ago. Seth’s not only beautiful and alluring; he’s also haunted by the death of his former partner. And despite his better judgment, Conner aches to relieve the man of his guilt.

Seth’s a seer, but ever since his old partner died his powers have been on the fritz. 

Enter Conner Sharp, Seth’s sexy and mysterious new partner. While the dark-haired stranger ignites Seth’s desire, he also awakens the seer’s power with every touch. Seth sees their future together – a future rich with lust and danger – but is it a future the enigmatic Conner wants?

As the two men solve a series of murders, their sizzling attraction overflows into the bedroom. Is the overwhelming passion just a fling or is it forever?

Review:
Eh. Ok, but not great. I have nothing particularly good or bad to say about this book. It was just ok. Conner and Seth are fine characters. I liked them ok. The sex was ok. The world was simplistic, but ok. The mystery was ok. It was basically something to hang the romance on and I didn’t think it ended particularly satisfactorily. We were given a pretty pat ‘and then this happened’ wrap up as an ending that left more unexplained and open for the sequel than it explained. But it did conclude.

The writing was also ok. Nothing about it was particularly good, but other than a couple really annoying things (like hips that buckle instead of buck, even when a person is laying supine) and some repetition, nothing about it was bad either. It was all ok. (Could have done with a tad more editing, though.)

This is one of those books you read and forget because it all just feels so insubstantial and flat. But if I found the sequel as a freebie I’d give it a read.

King of Dreams

Book Review of King of Dreams: A Vereldan Tale, by Greg McLeod

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King of DreamsAuthor, Greg McLeod sent me an ecopy of his novel King of Dreams: A Vereldan Tale.

Description from Goodreads:
Everybody’s on the run: Laurin the dwarf, sent on an improbable errand by a dead king, ends up with an assassin on his tail. Bryn of Bailon, heir to a dark and troubling secret, discovers there’s no escaping the impossible burden that’s about to be placed on his shoulders. And Rhea Redbreast, apprentice Headhunter, makes it onto her own guild’s hit-list when she seeks justice for her parents’ killers.

But the real trouble is just beginning: shipwrecked on the frozen shores of the Ice Wastes, eternal victim Nudd Wiggin stumbles onto an ancient weapon and is turned into something more – and less – than human. As the cruel and devious King of Dunmark unleashes a war that quickly spreads to the neighboring kingdoms, a weaponized Nudd raises terror after terror, driving an immense wave of desperate, battle-hardened Nordsmen south towards the war-torn kingdoms’ borders.

Review:
I’m undecided about how to review this book. It’s an interesting story, with fine writing and engaging characters, but I find I didn’t particularly like it all that much. This book finally confirmed for me something I’ve been suspicious of for a while. I’m just not a fan of books that follow several character arcs that eventually come together toward the end.

Here I think the effect is exasperated because the book takes on too much. It starts with Nubb and the Scour. Then there is Wanderer and his challenges. Then there is Anuun and his journey. Then there is Bowen and Bryn. Then there is the king and his advisors. Then there is Rhea and the Dwarf.

They do all come together eventually, but following so many different people, in different places, facing different challenges (that you take on faith will be relevant) diluted my interest for any single pairing or plot arc. I often found myself following one and forgetting the others, then jarred when we changed. Only to then vaguely forget the others once more, for a while, only to again later be jarred by a transition. It was all deftly done (or as deftly as that many groupings will allow) but I’m just not a fan.

But I also think the book in general tried to spread itself too thin. There were two completely different and interesting things going on in the plot. There was the Big Bad, end of the world sort of thing. Then there is the smaller, heir to a kingdom, violence of Man sort of thing. The problem is that either one of them was enough on its own. What’s more, having them both in one book did two problematic things.

One, it spent more time on the small-scale human war than on the big-scale, danger to the whole human race aspect; which made the matter of one country’s heir to the throne seem more important than preventing the end of the world as we know it. In fact, no one even really knew about the big danger.

Two, both plot-lines distracted and detracted from the other. I would much rather have just read about Bryn, the Dwarf, Rhea, Bowen et al. and their fight for survival on its own. Then separately read a book about Nubb’s encounter with the Scour and The Snowpeople and Iceling’s fight to defeat it. Both are interesting, but both deserved their own book, in my opinion.

Again, the characters are mostly engaging. The writing was perfectly readable. The world-building is adequate for the story. It’s a fine book in that sense. I did think it needed another edit, especially toward the end. I noticed very few errors for the first 3/4 of the book, but in the last quarter whole sentences (and at one point a paragraph) are occasionally repeated.

All-in-all, a book that I think the right person would love. Given a more attractive cover, I think it could pull in plenty of readers and keep them happy.

The Devil In Her Heart

Book Review of The Devil In Her Heart, by Elle P. Charles

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Devil in her HeartI downloaded a copy of Elle Charles‘ The Devil in her Heart from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
When Cara Hansen receives a psychic prediction during a bachelorette party entailing “a demonic presence approaching her near future,” she is determined not to believe that such supernatural things exist. But when she is visited at work by a strange man with unearthly features it seems only Cara can perceive, she begins questioning everything…including her sanity.

As a string of bad events occur, beginning with the disappearance of a co-worker, she begins to uncover secrets she was never meant to know, including a realm of demons and her unexpected affiliation with them…

Review:   *somewhat spoilerish*
This was not a winner for me, for a number of reasons. To start with the author sets the whole thing up as not adhering to Christian doctrine—characters stress that the evil beings are ‘Shadows’ not ‘Demons,’ for example—but then the book repeatedly falls back into Biblical and Christian mythology. (Look at the title, even.) There are demons, angels, a Garden of Eden, a fall, prayers to God are answered, crosses hold power to save, etc. It felt very much like Charles just couldn’t help it, or maybe (worse) didn’t even notice.

The book dragged on and on, spending lots of time on trivialities like going to work or dinner with family or dating or four thousand ‘woe is me’ complaints about not being the pretty one. Then it rushes through scenes relating to the actual plot, often even falling back on cop outs like ‘that week passed without incident’ and large chunks of unaccounted for time being swept away.

Despite involving demons and such the whole thing felt very flat. Mostly because no one seemed to really ever react to anything. For example, the declaration that Cara is half ‘shadow’ is made as the last sentence in a chapter, with no build-up and is not addressed in the following chapter. So any emotional impact it might have is missed. It might as well have been a statement about it being warm this August. Or the time she woke up on a different plain of existence (maybe even in hell), having just lost her virginity to a demon (now a Demon, not a shadow, BTW) and is being hunted by the demon queen and her horde of followers, you would think she might be a little freaked out. Nope, she’s concerned about missing her shift at work and heads off for breakfast. WTF? Really?

This was pretty much the norm for the book. It doesn’t allow tension to build. As another example, at one point Cara is in the middle of a fight to the death, then, while being strangled, she suddenly wakes up in a car and it’s over. (Which is really jarring, BTW.) It’s not until pages and pages and pages later that we get a second hand, paired down account of what happened. That scene (and plenty like it) could have been really powerful; instead, it just fizzles to flat. It felt like the author didn’t know how to conclude the fight, so she just skipped it.

There are also a lot of things that aren’t really well integrated into the plot. For example, Liz is presented as a work colleague, maybe-friend. She and Cara had never even hung out outside of work. So, Cara’s determination to save her, as if she’s the most important person to her, doesn’t make sense. Also, Caymn is oddly sweet, but there is no explanation for the fact that he is such a good ‘person’ when every other demon is evil. He is still a demon of greed, so why doesn’t he act like one?

The book is basically about the dreaded girl who discovers sudden powers and then, with no real training, manages to fight and defeat a 10,000-year-old, extremely powerful, experienced, skilled enemy, with no real explanation of how. It was ineffective, to say the least.

I could not relate to any of the characters. I did not feel any tension in the plotting. The ‘romance’ was insta-lust and never felt solid. But though the writing is really flat and not particularly engaging, it is structurally sound (minus some editing issues). There may be others who like this a lot more than me, but I’m calling it a fail.