Tag Archives: fantasy

Review of Zaria & Zauran (Neuripra, #2), by Poppet

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Zaria and ZauranLast week, I reviewed Poppet‘s Phoebe & Seithe. Afterwards, I was left in indecision since I have a book that I thought might be next in the series, but wasn’t certain because they have recently been repackaged, retitled and republished. To my delight, the very next day, Zaria and Zauran came up on the KDP free list. I grabbed it, even if it might actually be the same as Zauran under the new cover & title. (Though I really do wish for some clarification on how the series relate. I know I can’t be the only one out there that has some of the old and new books and isn’t sure how they line up…or if they line up.)

Description from Goodreads:
In an ancient battle between the neuri of Belgrade and the Vampyre, Zaria is caught in the middle. 

She is hopelessly drawn to Darise but then the neuri Zauran kidnaps her, changing everything. It couldn’t be more complicated. Darise offers unconditional love, Zauran offers rabid passion, throw in the rest of the family and you have mayhem. Then betrayal catapults Zaria into Zauran’s life just when a king returns to cause anarchy. 

Božena is a poisoned thorn in Zaria’s side, and her world comes crashing down as violence, betrayal and death, threaten to rip her from love. A king’s key is the bridge between Zaria and happiness, but for some the intervention comes too late.

Review:
The actual writing here is good and I really appreciate the interesting locations chosen for the stories. This one was set in Belgrade, Serbia. (The previous one was set in Table Top Mountain, South Africa). I also occasionally liked some of the characters. (I’ll get to the ‘occasionally’ issue in a moment). Venix was awesome. Zauran finished up as wonderful. I eventually liked Ryan. Even Sveta had admirable moments. There were definitely parts of this book worthy of praise.

The book felt fractured, however, like it didn’t really know where it wanted to go when it set off on its journey so it ended up wondering aimlessly and then finishing at some previously undetermined location. One romantic arc was established and then discarded for another, for example. Actually, at times it felt like the story had been conceived and originally written as at least 3 different short stories, that were later stitched together into a book. I’m not claiming this to be the case. How would I know? But The way the book introduced new characters and took a fairly drastic left turn at 43%, then did it again at about 60%, combined with the tendency to randomly recap on occasion and the passage of large chunks of undocumented time between sections of the story gave the book that kind of feel. It felt like it would be easy to cleave it into 3 pieces without the loss of consistency. In fact, just the opposite is true. It felt like these three pieces didn’t belong in the same whole, despite containing some of the same characters.

Characters had drastic personality changes (thus my only occasionally liking some of them). One attempted rapist suddenly turned contrite and gentle. A previously loving man turned philandersous and eventually violent and so on. While these inconsistencies were annoying, they were also difficult to accept, as it meant the reader was left feeling betrayed by some characters and/or having to accept that previously despicable characters were suddenly the good guys. Whiplash anyone? Had these been separate stories it wouldn’t have felt so disruptive, but in one book they felt artificial. Especially since the impetus for change wasn’t always clear. I have no idea what happened to Darise, for example.

What’s more Zaria often came across as simply too stupid to live. She took everything said to her at face value and as absolute truth, with no further thought on the matter. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a likeable character and all, but she didn’t come across as too bright.

Lastly, and this paragraph contains a spoiler, some of the truths established in book one seemed to be discarded or contradicted here. For example, in Phoebe and Seithe it was clearly stated that only a person’s ‘chosen’ could redeem him, but Zaria manages to redeem Darius, despite not being his chosen. And Darise didn’t seem to have been condemned as a red eye, even though he killed someone.

All in all, I enjoyed the book but I spent a decent amount of the time confused by it. I’d be happy to finish the series out, but it’s not topping my favourites list.

So, here I am again, finished with Zaria & Zauran. I happen to have Sveta, #1 of the Neuri series (which is the follow-up series to Pravus, as I understand it). Is it the same as Bozena & Sveta (Neuripra #3)? I’m betting it is, but I’d hate to waste my time reading it if it isn’t. Arggg! Congratulations Poppet on being picked up by Thorstruck Press, but could you throw out a clarification for those of us struggling here? Please? I just want to know I’m reading the right books in the right order. I don’t actually care what the title/series is or what the covers look like.

You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna hold off on reading Sveta. Maybe like Zaria &  Zauran, Bozena & Sveta will pop up on the free list and then I’ll be certain I’m on the right book. Yeah, that makes sense. Right?

Into the Darkness

Book Review of Into the Darkness, by K. F. Breene

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Into the Darkness

I grabbed K. F. Breene‘s Into the Darkness from the Amazon Free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
I’d always been different. I saw objects in the night where others saw emptiness. Large, human shaped shadows, fierce yet beautiful, melting into the darkness. I collected secrets like other women collected bells; afraid to fully trust lest my oddities be exposed.

Until I saw him. He’d been gliding down the street, unshakable confidence in every step. It wasn’t just that he was breathtakingly handsome with perfect features. Something about him drew me. Sucked my focus to him and then tugged at my body. As his eyes met mine, I was entrapped.

No one had noticed him. He’d been right there, just beyond the light, but only I had perceived.

I had to know if he was real. Or maybe I really was crazy. And even when my secret box was blasted wide open, dangers hurled at me like throwing knives, I couldn’t stop until I unraveled his true identity.

I just had to know.

Review:
I quite enjoyed Into the Darkness. Despite it’s humour, it will likely only appeal to a certain few, though. A number of other reviewers have pointed out that it isn’t a book for the faint of heart. It does include a little guy on guy action, but I think the problem is more the issue of  consensuality. What qualifies as consensual could be a whole sub-theme of this book. There is only one fully, unquestionably consensual sex act in it (and there’s plenty of sex). But there aren’t any flat out rapes either. It’s all a little muddled by manipulated emotions and falsified wants. If you’re sensitive about such things I imagine it would creepy you out. Neither the M/M aspect nor the questionable consent issues bothered me. But they are certainly there.

I should probably say a bit more about sex. Sex is graffiti in this novel. It’s everywhere and largely pointless after a while. If the book had been longer I wouldn’t’ have had an issue with this. But as it’s so short, the redundant sex cut into the time for plot and character development. IMO, the book either needed to be longer or the sex needed to be pared down once the Vampires’ Pheromonal effect was established.

I quite liked Sasha. Often when heroines are mouthy it comes off as forced and/or almost suicidal in their insistence on verbal sparring. Shasha pulls it off though. I enjoyed her defiance. Charles was hilarious and Stefan was a true hardass. I loved the fact that he never went all soft and gooey eyed.

My only true complaints are that the whole thing does get a little ridiculous at times and it’s a serious case of ‘girl with magical power that she doesn’t know she has or how to use, but it still mysteriously manifests itself whenever she needs.’ Well, isn’t that convenient? It’s not particularly believable, even in fantasy, and is also a bit of a personal pet peeve.

On finishing the book I immediately went looking for a sequel. One’s apparently due out in March. I’ll be looking for it. I will note that it’s not a stand alone book. It’s not a super cliffhanger, as are so common now. It ends at a logical point, but none of the threads wrap up. None. If I had realised this ahead of time I probably wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place.

Immortal Becoming

Book Review of Immortal Becoming (The Enlightened Species, #1), by Wendy S. Hales

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Immortal BecommingI grabbed Wendy S. Hales‘ Immortal Becoming (The Enlightened Species, #1) from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Shane Einar is a five hundred year old Volaticus Elven warrior, sworn to duty and honor. His species has inhabited the earth since the beginning of time. The sources of vampire, elf and fairy myths, Volaticus are in reality something altogether different. He never expected to meet Jess Reed. A female living amongst humanity completely unaware that she is Hulven, a human/Elven hybrid race of Volaticus, or that she is on the cusp of Becoming into her Elven traits.

Shane should turn Jess over to the Symbiosis of Species Council, SOSC. His attraction to her along with her ability to enrapture him with a smile bars him from it. He rightly suspects that this female is his bloodmate. 
Jess had always been psychic, a painful and confusing fact of her life. With Shane’s loving support she learns to control her abilities and discovers the psychically enlightened species that share this world. 

Together they sacrifice the power of their bloodmating in the battle to save females from breeding cages under the control of an Elven rogue.

Review:

**mild spoiler**
This book has a ton of great reviews and very few bad ones. I guess I’m in the minority, but I found myself constantly annoyed at with it. The writing was simplistic, but passable. So, that wasn’t the issue. It was the characters and some aspects of the plot that made me alternatively scoff, roll my eyes, groan, growl and cringe and almost never laugh, smile, or blush. I just didn’t particularly enjoy reading it.

Important things, like the kidnapping of a relatively major character and the fight around it were glossed over quickly while other, less important things (Jorie’s low iron level drama, for example) were described in excruciating and never-ending detail.

I’m also fairly sure it’s meant to be PNR, not erotica, which means that the focus shouldn’t be more heavily centred on the characters’ sexual relationship than the rest of the plot. But, as much as I love a steamy sex scene or two (dozen), here the amount of time dedicated to the Jess and Shane’s sexual attraction (not necessarily actual sex, but thoughts, actions, words, etc related to their attraction to one another) eclipsed the story.

Plus, it had one of the most ridiculous virginal sex scenes ever. Please! So unrealistic. I don’t demand realism in my fantasy, but I do expect not to spend the whole time so distracted by the lack of realistic emotions, actions, reactions, etc. that it ruins the experience. The sex didn’t really improve after that, either. As example, at one point Jess gets two swats on the butt and is then said to be ‘close to orgasm.’ Really two slaps on the bum (15 seconds worth) is all she needs? She then literally orgasmed on entry (another 15 seconds). Ugh.

I was further infuriated by Jess’ version of post-coital pillow talk. The cliché sexually molested foster child disclosure…seriously, can authors not think of any other history for female characters? I swear I’ve read this same scene, or some slight variation of it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. I’m so sick of it. Both because of the repetitive nature of encountering it so regularly and because it’s often irrelevant to the rest of the plot. I consider it a cheap attempt at character development by giving the girl a tragic past and generally think poorly of most authors who use it. Not always, sometimes it’s important. This wasn’t one of those times though. It contributed nothing of importance to the story, so why include it?

Plus, Jess chose to disclose this little gem of history right in the middle of an otherwise happy scene with a man she’d known for mere hours. As if this wouldn’t be a total downer, or she wouldn’t worry about it being too heavy for their infantile relationship, or she wouldn’t be embarrassed. As if this was a perfectly natural thing to bring up at that point in time, with that person. It was not! It was ridiculous. Predictable. Unnecessary. It didn’t even flow naturally. She wasn’t supposed to have been having a flashback or have been reminded of it by the sex. She just blurted it out of nowhere. Again, why?

Shane, predictably, wasn’t put off by any of this. He just went on thinking how amazing/strong/etc she was. This was a theme for him. Love will do that to a guy, I guess. But the thing is, for most of the book, I didn’t see Jess do anything noteworthy to earn this respect. She cried at the drop of a hat, was too stubborn, and had a tendency to just accept anything put in front of her with little to no critical thought.

As I mentioned, most of the writing is fine. There are some editing issues, but they aren’t too distracting. What was though were the thousand-year-old immortals who talked like teenagers. I don’t just mean using modern slang. That would be bad enough, but things like referring to another as Mom (even though the point was made elsewhere that due to their long lives they generally call their parents by name). Hearing a 3000+ year old man call, ‘The yard is clear, Mom.’ was just WRONG on so many fronts.

The book has an interesting idea. If the world-building had been a little more robust it could have been really good. Ms. Hales obviously has done a lot of thinking about the different species, the political system, the biology etc. The outline is there. But it’s fairly complex and since not enough time is dedicated to explaining it, the reading is left confused by it. But it would be unfair to not point out that there is a really interesting world being developed here.

I have the rest of the series and I imagine I’ll read them at some point, but not right not. According to the blurbs, the heroine in book 2 has been used for a blood/breeding slave for decades (repeatedly raped and impregnated), the heroine in book 2.5 is saved from a gang rape by the hero and in book three we’re back to the breeding slaves (rape, rape, rape, anyone else see a theme in here?) Since, as I’ve mentioned, rape as an easy plot device isn’t something I enjoy, I can only take so many books BASED on female victimhood in a row. I guess I’m just odd like that. So, I need a break from the series before I can finish it out. (Though I have to admit the temptation of Gil and Innanna…)