Tag Archives: fantasy

Man and the Beast

Book Review of Man and the Beast (The Beast Within #1), by J. Ashburn

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Man and the BeastI downloaded a copy of Man and the Beast, by J. Ashburn, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Alec Ashcroft is afraid. Afraid of himself, the black outs, the hunger, and of what he might be capable of doing. See, Alec is a shifter, a wolf and he doesn’t know how to control his extraordinary power. Refusing to put his boyfriend Matt or his family at risk, Alec runs away from everything. He must protect others from his dark side and hopefully find the answers he’s been seeking all of his life.

The town of Redfern seemed the perfect escape, lots of forest land and animals to hunt, until Alec met Luca. Dark, seductive, sexy, Luca is like Alec and the scent of him drives Alec wild. He shows Alec how to control and use his power to his advantage and soon Luca exerts his allure over him. The two become entwined in a passionate and wild relationship with Luca even inviting him to join his pack high up in the mountains above town. Is this enigmatic new stranger to be trusted or is there something more sinister going on? All Alec wants to believe is that he’s finally found someone to calm the Beast Within.

Review:
Meh. Not wholly bad, but clumsy and uninspiring. Nothing is particularly well fleshed out. For example, the book starts with Alec in a longterm, committed relationship. He has lived with his boyfriend for years and loves him. However, he leaves when he fears he’ll hurt him. He is attracted to the first man he sees in his new town, then immediately falls in lust with the first other werewolf he meets and then when he discovers he is evil, he immediately falls in love with another (and I mean IMMEDIATELY). They have sex once and suddenly it’s ‘baby’ this and “I love you” and “I’m coming with you forever.” The original love of his life was long forgotten. So, as you can imagine, even though these emotions are supposed to be important, they don’t feel very deep. Correction, they’re not deep. Nothing in the book is.

There also isn’t any character development or worldbuilding. I have no idea what the details of the werewolves’ physique, society, etc are. Heck, I’m not even sure if these are supposed to have always been wolfmen or four-legged wolves. There is some mention of ‘pure bloods,’ which presumably are more powerful than the standard wolf, maybe higher in a hierarchy but I don’t know for sure.

The writing itself was OK. There was a slight tendency to use names and titles in dialogue too often and the editing started to fall apart toward the end. But it was perfectly readable. It’s just that the story was shallow and pretty predictable.

Book Review of Prey & Bloodlines (Infected #1 & 2), by Andrea Speed

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Prey/InfectedI bought a copy of Prey (Infected, #1), by Andrea Speed. Then I borrowed a copy of Bloodlines.

Description from Goodreads:
In a world where a werecat virus has changed society, Roan McKichan, a born infected and ex-cop, works as a private detective trying to solve crimes involving other infecteds.

The murder of a former cop draws Roan into an odd case where an unidentifiable species of cat appears to be showing an unusual level of intelligence. He juggles that with trying to find a missing teenage boy, who, unbeknownst to his parents, was “cat” obsessed. And when someone is brutally murdering infecteds, Eli Winters, leader of the Church of the Divine Transformation, hires Roan to find the killer before he closes in on Eli.

Working the crimes will lead Roan through a maze of hate, personal grudges, and mortal danger. With help from his tiger-strain infected partner, Paris Lehane, he does his best to survive in a world that hates and fears their kind… and occasionally worships them.

Review:
Very enjoyable Urban Fantasy (and it is UF—the romance is already established and there is no sex). I was thrown for a loop when the book ended at 48% though. Nothing in the synopsis states that the book is actually two novellas. (So the last ~50% is the second story.) And while each is very good, I do like to know what I’m getting into.

The main character, Roan was a wonderfully jaded and sarcastic P.I. I enjoyed his love for his boyfriend, Paris. Similarly, I liked Paris’ opposite personality but equally heart-felt love. They made a wonderful pair. It was fun to get to know Roan from his own perspective and then get to see him from Paris’ point of view too. It felt kind of like a gift to be given the small insights Roan refused to acknowledge about himself.

The cast as a whole was also pleasantly diverse. The police chief is a woman, there are side characters of multiple races and ethnicities, Paris is bisexual (and Canadian), there’s a lesbian and Roan is gay. There’s even a disabled character in a wheelchair. I really liked encountering a more representative slice of American life.

The whole ‘kitty culture’ was an interesting twist on the shifter genre. It was nice to see the darker side of it. There is nothing glamorous about being infected. The characters also encounter the darker side of life in a real sort of way that avoids feeling like any of it was appropriated for mere titillation. It felt very intelligent, for lack of a better way to describe it.

I did think the narrative was a little repetitive. There were just some things, like how good-looking Paris was, that readers are told over and over and over again. The descriptions of people were extremely heavy too. It often broke the flow of the book to stop and read a whole page on someone’s appearance. And I didn’t care for all the music references. Mostly because I’m apparently not cool enough to get the significance of a band choice, so they held no resonance for me. Despite that, I’m hoping to get my hands on book two, which would be story three. See how confusing that is?

BloodlinesDescription from Goodreads:

The newly married Roan is struggling to balance his work with his home life as he grows increasingly distracted by his husband Paris’s declining health. One case with strong emotions attached takes up most of his time: finding the murderer of a missing little rich girl. It’s a family with secrets so toxic they’d rather no one investigate, and there’s no shortage of suspects. But despite the dangers and obstructions involved, Roan won’t stop… until he loses something infinitely precious as well.

Review:

Oh, it’s been a looong time since a book reduced me to a blubbering mess. But this book had me in such tears that, unprompted, my four-year-old brought me a handkerchief with which to dry my eyes and blow my nose. I was emotionally destroyed. Truth be told, I read the book knowing that would be the result but it was worth it.

Contradictorily, when not drowning in sorrow I found a lot of humor in this book. It was a dry sarcastic sort of humor, just this side of British, really, one of my favorite types. There were a lot of chuckles.

I did think the murder mystery wrapped up with sudden ease and it was definitely second to the emotional drama going on in Roan and Paris’ life. (Though, it’s meant to be.) But as in the previous book, I loved the characters and the gritty realism of the world they all live in.

I’m hoping I can find someone to lend me the third book. I want to keep reading, but even though I know it’s a reasonable price, I can’t allow myself to spend $6.99 a book, especially when I know I’ll just want the next and the next and the next. I’d bankrupt myself.

Book Review of Wanted: Dead or Undead (The Zombie West Series #1), by Angela Scott

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Wanted: Dead or UndeadI downloaded a copy of Angela Scott‘s Wanted: Dead or Undead from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Trace Monroe doesn’t believe in luck. He never has. But when a fiery-headed cowgirl saunters through the saloon doors, wielding shotguns and a know-how for killing the living dead, he believes he just may be the luckiest man alive. Trace wants to join “Red’s” posse, but she prefers to work alone—less messy that way. 

In order to become her traveling companion, Trace has to agree to her terms: no names, no questions, and if he gets bit, he can’t beg for mercy when she severs his brain stem. He agrees, knowing only that Red is the sharpest shooter he’s ever encountered. The fact she’s stunning hasn’t escaped his attention either. 

What he doesn’t know, is that Red has a very good reason to be on top of her game. She not only has the answer for how they can all outlive the plague taking over the wild, wild west, she is the answer.

Review:
I was seriously disappointed in this book. Not because it’s badly written, it’s not. But because it contains so many elements that I dislike in a book. So, while not everyone will share my opinion, as everyone has their own hot buttons, this book was a fail for me.

You see, the blurb led me to believe that the heroine, Red, was a strong, kick-ass, take charge kind of girl. And she was in the beginning, right up until the point at which she started to fall in love. After that, she became progressively weaker, more often confused, more frequently in need of care, less capable of defending herself, drastically more easily moved to tears, more willing to be told what to do as opposed to instruct others and much more likely to make stupid, ill-thought out, life threatening decision based on misinformation and jumped to conclusions that could have been avoided with a mere conversation. She basically became a weepy, Too-Stupid-To-Live girl in love. Why does this happen so often in YA/NA literature?

Now some readers might read this book and think, ‘awww, she found a good man to take care of her, how sweet.’ Me? I read it and wonder where the girl who’d been taking care of herself went. I was MUCH more interested in her than the damsel in distress who was lucky enough to attract Trace’s affection and protection.

The book could have done with a bit more character development. I can forgive its lack of worldbuilding. Zombie novels don’t really need that much to be understandable. But these characters were hollow paper cut outs, with very little depth. The whole thing also felt very anachronistic (if I can use that word to say present things seeped into the past, as opposed to the other way around). Dialogue and personal values felt far too modern, as did money. People gambled in $50-100 increments and at one point someone bought a bag of cornmeal small enough carry for $100. That’s roughly $3,000 according to a handy-dandy online inflation calculator.

Also, the last quarter of the book is painfully cliché and predictable. The premise of the plot is a good one and the set up for the rest of the series seems interesting. And, like I said, the writing (and editing) is pretty good. But I won’t be continuing the series.