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Book Review of The Pack or the Panther, by Tara Lain

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The Pack or the PantherI bought a copy of the Pack or the Panther, by Tara Lain.

Description from Goodreads:
Cole Harker, son of an alpha werewolf, is bigger and more powerful than most wolves, tongue-tied in groups, and gay. For twenty-four years, he’s lived to please his family and pack—even letting them promise him in marriage to female werewolf Analiese to secure a pack alliance and help save them from a powerful gangster who wants their land. Then Cole meets Analiese’s half-brother, panther shifter Paris Marketo, and for the first time, Cole wants something for himself. 

When Analiese runs off to marry a human, Cole finally has a chance with Paris, but the solitary cat rejects him, the pack, and everything it represents. Then Cole discovers the gangster wants Paris too and won’t rest until he has him. What started as a land dispute turns into World War Wolf! But the bigger fight is the battle between cats and dogs.

Review:
Goodness, I’ve had rotten luck lately in the book department. I’m not one of those ‘find fault with everything’ readers. I promise I’m not. But this one ticked very few boxes in my ‘likely to love it’ listing.

The writing itself is fine. It seemed pretty well-edited, and Cole is to die for. He’s an endearing mix of big, tough alpha wolf and tongue-tied, flustered cutie. Oh, and there are some cool side characters. I liked Cole’s best friend, Lindsay, though it was pretty darned convenient that he had so many connections and could do all the save-the-day type things he could. But I liked him. And it was pretty awesome that Cole’s mom is so kickass on her own. But that’s where my praise ends. 

I hated Paris. He was like some amped-up caricature of a sassy, slutty (in the fun way, if you know what I mean) bottom. He was selfish, and a lot of his issues weren’t well explained. He seemed to be damaged in some way but claimed to have had a happy life. 

Then there was the sex. OMG, the sex. It was just wrong in so many ways. It was effortless, crude, rushed, and the things they said…cringe. I’m embarrassed for them, and that’s before I factor in the howling. No, it didn’t do it for me. I didn’t find it arousing AT ALL.

Then there was the sappy, ‘everyone apologises and tells them how great they are’ ending. I mean, it’s great that Cole’s parents finally came around, but that whole scene in the new house was hard to swallow—like trying to drink straight agave. Not happening. And the twist at the very end? It made no sense. Why keep that hidden throughout the whole book? I can think of a number of times that ability would have smoothed already difficult situations.

So, on the whole, this is a failure for me. There were things I appreciated, and, again, the writing ok. But on my ‘personal preferences’ list, it didn’t score well.

Savage Hunger

Book Review of Savage Hunger, by Shelli Stevens

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Savage HungerI grabbed a copy of Shelli Stevens’ novel Savage Hunger from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Being the daughter of a world-renowned scientist, Sienna Peters has struggled to carve out her own career in the field. But her world is sent spinning when she discovers a secret species being held in the lab where she works, and the horrible things being done to them. Compelled to do more than hand off an information-packed jump drive to her father, she sets out to free the creatures.

The minute his team enters the compound, federal agent Warrick Donovan knows their mission will have more trouble than they bargained on. Unfortunately, trouble comes in the form of Sienna Peters, the younger sister of his close friend. Now not only does he need to save her pretty ass, he needs to discover just how involved she is with the imprisonment of the shifters.

Sienna knows she should trust no one–not even the man she might still love. But as the danger escalates and past passion ignites, her heart has other ideas. Even when the shroud of mystery is ripped off more than one stunning truth…The man who vows to protect her may be her biggest threat.

Review:
This book has a cool cover (that really doesn’t represent the book at all), but that’s about it. I suppose a lot of it comes down to personal preferences in the books we read, but this one made me grind my teeth. Everything from odd uses of male and feminine as descriptors. For example: “…but instead a surge of confidence at the feminine awareness in her eyes.” What the hell is “feminine awareness?” Or when the characters say, “I love the way you feel,” she murmured. “So hard. So…male.” Which was why they worked well together. Why, because he’s a man and she’s a woman? Is that really all it takes to fit together? Remind me to grab the next man that passes me on the street, then. To the fact that as soon as they had sexy-time for the first time, Warrick was all of a sudden “baby” this and “baby” that was annoying. 

But mostly, I didn’t like the fact that I was bored silly for most of the book. Seriously, it was a fairly consistent pattern of 5-6 pages (or some similarly long time) of angsty, “I want him/her, but can’t have her/him blah, blah, blah,” a paragraph or two of plot-related action, another series of pages about how sexy Sierra is or Warrick is or how they wished they could be together or not. All multiplied by about a million. 

Plus, there’s just no joy here. Every-time the characters engage in anything that should be a moment of bliss–sex or cuddles or basic kindness–it is immediately followed a fight, anger and mooooore angst (mostly because Warrick is a total jerk). This left no light moments. 

Also, the plot is really pretty weak in general. I mean, Sierra is hunted by the organization for having a jump drive that proves their nefarious deeds (and “jump drive” is used about a 1,000 times, BTW). Sure, OK. But then it turns out the whole thing is legal–contracts are signed, etc. So, why hunt her down at all? What’s more, the big bad guy is just some random person who plays no real role in the book, you never get to know, and whose motives are never disclosed. Meh. 

Plus, everyone acts like Sierra is soooo stubborn to not give up the information she has. But a highly trained, hardened para-military group pretty much just politely asked her to tell them and then backed off when she said, “No.” What? Really? So unbelievable. 

Lastly, and just as important as the boredom, is the basic predictability of it all. At 50% through, I posted a status update that said, “So, we all know how this is going to wrap up and end, right? Right.” And I did. Everything worked out just the way I expected it to. 

For those readers who love a story that is almost entirely based on two people working their angsty out, drooling over one another, and moving toward sex, this is a good book for you. For those who need a little more plot or who have a low BS tolerance, maybe not. The mechanical writing and editing were all fine, one way or the other, though.

Hainted

Book Review of Hainted, by Jordan L. Hawk

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HaintedI borrowed a copy of Hainted, by Jordan L. Hawk. (Thanks, S.)

Description from Goodreads:
The Good Guy: Haint-working runs in Dan Miller’s blood. Not everyone can help the restless dead cross over, especially when the haunting threatens the Living. But the death of his parents six years ago forced Dan to give it up in exchange for raising his brother and sister, all the while struggling to keep their rural NC farm afloat.

So when the flamboyantly goth Leif Helsvin shows up on Dan’s doorstep looking for help with an evil necromancer named Runar, Dan’s first instinct is to turn him down. With two teenagers to look after, he’s already got all the trouble he can handle. Besides, the sexy Leif is too much of a temptation, and Dan is firmly in the closet.

The Bad Boy: Pierced, tattooed Leif never has sex with the same guy twice. It keeps things simple, especially since his oath to stop Runar has him constantly drifting from one town to the next.

But this time, it looks like Leif is going to need help, in the form of the very down-to-earth Dan. Since Nice Guys are off the menu, Leif just has to keep his hands to himself for as long as it will take to stop Runar’s latest scheme. But as Leif finds himself drawn deeper into Dan’s life, he quickly realizes he’s not just in danger of breaking the rules, but breaking his heart as well

Review:
I don’t usually use star ratings on the blog. But I think it will help me explain my indecision on this one. If I were to star this book, I would be stuck between a 3 and a 4. It’s not quite a 4, but it’s better than a lot of books I’ve given 3s to. I think my seesaw-opinion comes from it being a fine book, but grating on my personal nerves.

It is well written and well edited; no complaints on that front. I’ll definitely be looking for more of Hawk’s writing, but Dan and Lief just annoyed the living daylights out of me almost every-time one of them opened their mouth.

I did appreciate the twist on the characters, on who’s the strong one and who needs the healing. Well, they both need healing, but the bad-boy character isn’t usually the one written as fey-like and fragile and it gave the book a bit of something different. And I did like both characters. I also thought the side characters were very well done. Taryn was awesome, Bea was stable and dependable, Virgil gave everything a little friction, even Corey and Marlene added a little something to the mix.

However, the book is repetitive. We’re told the same information multiple times, very close together. I think if Dan blamed himself for not saving his mother one more time I might have tossed my kindle over the back of the couch. (This also made his sudden repressed memory and the strength he garnered from it at the end unbelievably convenient.) Similarly, Lief’s constant ‘if he knew the truth’ mantra grew old pretty quickly.

I was also absolutely sickened by the sex=love and instant endearment laden relationship—you know, the way the characters instantly start calling each-other baby and sweetheart and saying things like ‘I’ll love you forever.’ Especially since Dan simultaneously held onto the ‘he’s leaving next week.’ It was pretty clear that had fallen off the table. Plus, if I’m honest, Lief’s ex-prozzie, ‘I’m into toys and plugs and everything else’ attitude didn’t really fit the tone of the rest of the book.

Then there was the fact that I was confused about the haints. They’re supposed to be ghosts, but lets be real, they’re zombies. And I didn’t set out to read a zombie book. This wasn’t help by the fact that I found the action scenes fairly mild and almost always brief.

The whole set up also felt a little wobbly because Runar seemed to discover what he came to Ransom Gap for after he came to Ransom Gap. I can’t really explain this without a spoiler, but once he arrived he discovered something he wanted to find and went about searching it out as Dan and Lief tried to stop him (that’s the non-romance part of the plot). So, what brought him there in the first place?

So, in the end, it was a fine book. It really was. I didn’t even dislike it. I liked a lot of it. But there were just so many small annoyances that they started to reach a bit of a critical mass by the end.