Tag Archives: fantasy

Natural Magick

Book Review: Natural Magick, by Kathi S. Barton

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natural magick

I purchased a copy of Natural Magick, by Kathi S. Barton.

Description from Goodreads:

Dominic Marshall is sick to death hearing about Pete. The way the women keep going on about him Dominic swears that the first time he sees the guy he’s going to punch him in the nose, then drain him. There is no way in Dominic’s mind that any one person could be that great.Piccadilly Bartholomew or “Pete” to everyone who knows her is in trouble. She had to do some work for the man she’d just broken into his ‘secure’ computer system by telling him not only how she did it, but also show him how to fix it. In the mean time, she meets Duncan to help him with a computer purchase.When Pete has to deliver the twins of Sara’s in a restaurant, Dominic decides to claim her as his mate and make her his. Pete thinks Dominic is nuts and has no problems telling him so.Her family finds her and has decided to come and fetch her home. With her powerful magic and their black magic they are going to breed her with the most powerful being alive. But they didn’t expect a pack of werewolves, several thousand vampires and the Queen of Magick to be with her.Sparks, steamy sex and magic bring Diminic and Pete together and their combined strengths. But will it be enough to take on someone as powerful as a former King?

Review:

The first paragraph of the description is great and it made me want to read this book immediately. I put it off for a long time because I haven’t actually read the first two books. I finally gave in and was able to follow the story well enough. But I think I probably did miss out some. The story here does stand on its own, but the events of the previous books are referenced and all of the characters are only vaguely described. I assume fuller descriptions were previously given and what was here was only meant as a reminder. That detracted from my enjoyment a little, but no one to blame on the one but myself.

Pete was a fun character. I appreciated her straight shooting, no nonsense attitude. Dominic was just your average PNR vampire alpha mate. (Though he wasn’t actually THE alpha vamp here. Aaron was.) There wasn’t much about him that stood out for me. He was completely made up for in the character of Duncan though. Duncan was the light of this book. I adored him. I don’t know what species he was supposed to be, but I still wanted to hug him to death.

Everything in the book moves quickly, too quickly, unbelievably quick. Pete gains the trust and admiration of everyone she meets immediately. She does one job for a company and so impresses them that they purposefully overpay her and offer her a stellar full-time job. Dominic knows she is his mate within seconds of scenting her. One moment he and Pete are having their 2nd somewhat civil conversation, the next they’re lip locked and racing for the bedroom. One paragraph he’s apologising for the pain caused when he breaks her hymn, the next she is bent over a chair screaming “f_ck me harder”…and within a week they’ve moved on to what some would call kinky fetish play. She has to confront her mother, stepfather (essentially) and seven brothers. Then dispatches all nine of them in about two pages, despite never previously fighting with her abilities.

It was very apparent early on, from the tone and everyone’s hearts and flowers acceptance of Pete that this was not going to be a book in which anything bad was allowed to happen to the heroine. That’s just what it proved to be, a litany of happy outcomes. Kind of takes some of the enjoyable tension away when you know the outcome from the beginning. But if you’re the type that really likes a lot of mushy affirmations and a predictable HEA this is the book for you. (I know that sounds snarky, but I was being serious.)

Lastly and on a side note, I would just like to point out for the record, and I know I’m probably being pedantic by mention it, but the cover has NOTHING to do with the book. Not once does Pete or anyone else carry a sword and while the dogs are cute, her mate is a vampire not a werewolf. I’m just sayin’.

 

Cry Baby Hollow

Book Review of Aimee Love’s Cry Baby Hollow

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Cry Baby Hollow

I grabbed Aimee Love‘s Cry Baby Hollow from the Amazon KDP list recently.

Description from Goodreads:
There are things we all know about werewolves:
-The only way to become a werewolf is to be bitten by one.
-They only come out on the full moon.
-They can only be killed with a silver bullet.
-They are not real.

But when Aubrey Guinn comes to Eastern Tennessee to help Vina, an aging family friend, werewolves are the furthest things from her mind. She is preoccupied with more mundane concerns, like keeping Vina’s ingrate step-children from putting her in a nursing home, avoiding the advances of her handsome but dim witted neighbor, and keeping her mailbox away from the good old boys baseball bats. It isn’t until Aubrey finds the body of a local boy, gruseomely murdered, that she begins to see that life in the country is anything but slow, and werewolves are far from what Hollywood had led her to expect.

Review:
Cry Baby Hollow was a surprisingly good read. I say surprisingly because there are so many werewolf books on the market these days and almost all of them seem to be small variations of the same story. This one is not one of those. For one it isn’t about some dimwitted heroine falling hard for another testosterone crazed alpha wolf. Thank you sweet baby HeyZeus for variety. I would hesitate to even call this paranormal romance, except that it does have paranormal creatures in it and there is some romance. Either way it’s a lot of fun, if a little slow at times.

Ms. Love has created an interesting story, with engaging characters and some true regional humour. I can say that too. I happen to be from Tennessee. There was a lot of genuine southern culture depicted here, but there were a few inevitable stereotypes too. Sadly, there’s often a grain of truth in even them so I can’t fault the book for that.

I did have a few gripes though. While I loved Aubrey’s sharp tongue and quick wit, it didn’t always feel realistic. Old women like Vina can get away with being so acerbic, younger ones haven’t earned the social right yet. On more than one occasion I laughed at some cut down or defiant act of Aubrey’s (’cause they are funny and fist pumpingly “right on”), then thought, ‘what a bitch.’ She was just too quick to jump onto the offence. Plus, since you are given so little of Aubrey’s history upfront it felt a little like all of her considerable skill came unearned. Of course she’s supposed to have spent 10+ years in the Navy. No doubt she worked hard for them, but you don’t feel it.

I loved, loved, loved Joe, but there’s a fairly drastic change in his personality about halfway through the book and I was a little disappointed in that. It was predictable really, but I still much preferred his Good ‘Ol Boy self to his cleaned up self. I also wondered why he knew the area so much better than Aubrey if he’d been vacationing there for 10 years, but she’d been visiting her whole life. Seemed a little backwards.

Lastly, some important events were strangely glossed over: almost anything bedroom related, Aubrey’s days in the hospital which marked a sharp change in the tone of the book, her first training with Vina and pals that allowed her to fight on an even playing field with the baddy. All of them are game changers to the plot, but none of them are given to the reader. Their absence tended to make the events following them feel like abrupt shifts even when they really weren’t.

These are all fairly minor complaints in the grand scheme of things though. I have no hesitation about recommending Cry Baby Hollow book. It’s well worth reading.

A Hint of Frost

Book Review of Hailey Edwards’ A Hint of Frost

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A Hint of Frost

I Grabbed a copy of A Hint of Frost, by Hailey Edwards, from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
When the head of the Araneidae clan is found poisoned in her nest, her eldest daughter, Lourdes, becomes their clan s new maven. If her clan is to survive, she has but one choice: she must marry before her nest is seized. All she needs is a warrior fierce enough to protect her city and safeguard her clansmen. Such a male is Rhys the Cold.

Born the youngest son of an impoverished maven, the only things Rhys has to his name are his sword and his mercenary reputation. His clan is starving, but their fondness for the flesh of fellow Araneaeans makes them unwelcome dinner guests. Torn between loyalty to his clan and fascination with his future bride, Rhys s first taste of Lourdes threatens to melt the cold encasing his heart.

Amid the chaos of battle, Lourdes s sister disappears and is feared captured. Lourdes and Rhys pursue their enemies into the southlands, where they discover an odd plague ravaging southern clans as it travels north, to Erania. Determined to survive, Lourdes will discover whether she s worth her silk or if she s spun the thread by which her clan will hang.

Warning: This book contains one mercenary hero with a biting fetish, one determined heroine who gets nibbled, and an answer to the age-old question, What does dragon taste like? Matricide and sibling rivalry are available upon request. The house special is revenge, best served cold.

Review:
It was that silly little warning at the end of the description that made me want to read A Hint of Frost and I was pleasantly surprised by it. Yes, it’s has many of the fantasy PNR tropes, but it has enough in it’s favour to keep it for feeling like just another rehash of the same old same old. Yes, there is an instant attraction between Lourdes and Rhys, but it wasn’t quite insta-love which was nice. Plus, Lourdes has accepted her situation and the necessity of mating Rhys so there isn’t all the bitchy hero blaming that so often goes on in such books. I appreciated having two mature characters in a difficult situation who didn’t take it out on one another. Yes, Lourdes is sheltered and virginal, but she doesn’t act like a fragile flower and is more than willing to acknowledge her own desires. I especially liked that in the sexy scenes (there isn’t a lot of actual sex) the language used to describe her thoughts, feelings and actions were almost identical to those usually attributed to males in other PNR novels. She wanted to mark him, claim him, pleasure him, etc. It’s usually the female who is the passive participant in these scenes so I got a real kick out of seeing that turned on it’s head.

The book is full of beautiful prose and I really enjoyed Edwards writing style. There is also something else I’m trying to put my finger on that I liked. There were a number of times in which I remember reading a passage and vaguely acknowledging that certain characters’ thoughts or actions went against what normal PNR characters would do (despite my allegations of the use of tropes, which might be largely unavoidable anyway). But it wasn’t blatant, small things like Lourdes acknowledging and apologising for an error that another PNR heroine would insist she had every right to. Or being observant enough and aware enough of her own body to admit attraction when other PNR females would flounder around in the ‘he can’t possible be attracted to me’ or ‘what is this strange flutter I have’ for a while. It was more a general feeling given to the characters than anything I can find many firm examples of, but it was nice.

Now I was completely unprepared for the human/arachnid blend going on in this book. People with spinnerets in their fingers and venomous fangs….not completely cool with that. Sorry but spiders are high on my totally freak me out list. Luckily they only had two arms and two legs or I wouldn’t have been able to make it through. But it did make for an interesting addition to the world building. It allowed there to be different subspecies in a sense. Some clans being more or less venomous than others.

All in all I enjoyed the read. It’s the first in a series and there are a few arcs that are obviously only meant for carry-through, the Yellow Death for example. It served almost no purpose in this book, but appears (from the book descriptions) to be a major occurrence in the future books. There is no cliffhanger at the end of this one though. This book wraps up nicely. I’m learning to appreciate that more and more.