Tag Archives: fantasy

Review of You’ve Got Tail (Peculiar Mysteries #1), by Renee George

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I picked up a copy of You’ve Got Tail, by Renee George. I think I got it from an Instafreebie giveaway.

Description from Goodreads:
Sunny Haddock, an animal-loving vegetarian psychic, is stoked to leave California behind to start a new life in the Ozark town of Peculiar with her best friend Chavvah Trimmel. She ups the moving date when Chav goes missing, and Sunny high tails it to the small town. What Sunny doesn’t realize is that she’s moving into a community of were-shifters, and they don’t want a human resident. Especially one dumb enough to arrive a couple of days before the full moon—the only night of the month shifters have to take their pure animal forms.

When the gorgeous Babel Trimmel, Chav’s younger brother, (along with the sheriff, the mayor, and some other nice folk) suggests Sunny haul her U-haul and butt back out of town, she’s undeterred. Her psychic abilities might be out-of-whack, and blood makes her faint, but she’s not a quitter. Besides, she’s not about to go anywhere until she finds out what happened to Chavvah.

But Sunny has more to deal with than unfriendly townsfolk…like disturbing killer visions and the dog-like animal no one else sees that seems to be stalking her every move. To make matters worse, she is finding Babel to be more irresistible than crack on a donut.

Sunny needs to get her ability and her hormones under control if she wants to solve the mystery and save her best friend.

Review:
This review contains an oblique spoiler.

Corny but cute. All in all, I’ll call this a middle of the road read. I liked the characters but I I didn’t really feel the romance develop at all. Honestly, the writing was fine, but the plot left a lot to be desired.

The villain(s) are obvious very early on, one of them because it’s always this person in such books. I mean ALWAYS. Is there a crazy ex-girlfriend who is hostile for no apparent reason other than she’s not the heroine or in the heroine’s circle? Well, there you go. That’s you villain. ALWAYS. And as a woman that always makes me irritable. (I don’t need the constant ‘other women can’t be trusted’ lessons, thank you very much.) What’s more, very little of the book actually focused on the bad guys. So, I never really felt the tension. You literally never even meet some of them.

Anyhow, it was an ok fluff read. I didn’t dislike it but wasn’t floored by it either.

As a side note: Publisher, if you are going to draw your covers, could you please at least have your designers/artists read the description of the characters? I understand when using stock phots you can’t always find an appropriate match. But you drew Sunny and she’s clearly described in the book (several times) as having brown hair.

Sightlines

Book Review of Sightlines (The Community #3), by Santino Hassell

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I received a copy of Santino Hassell‘s Sightlines through Netgalley. I reviewed the first two book in the series, Insight and Oversight, earlier in the year.

Description from Goodreads:
Chase Payne is a walking contradiction. He’s the most powerful psychic in the Community, but the least respected. He’s the son of the Community’s founder, but with his tattoo sleeves and abrasive attitude, he’s nothing like his charismatic family. No one knows what to make of him, which is how he wound up locked in a cell on the Farm yet again. But this time, the only man he’s ever loved is there too.

Elijah Estrella was used to being the sassy sidekick who fooled around with Chase for fun. But that was before he realized the Community wasn’t the haven he’d believed in and Chase was the only person who’d ever truly tried to protect him. Now they’re surrounded by people who want to turn them against their friends, and the only way out is to pretend the brainwashing works.

With Chase playing the role of a tyrant’s second-in-command, and Elijah acting like Chase’s mindless sex toy, they risk everything by plotting a daring escape. In the end, it’s only their psychic abilities, fueled by their growing love for each other, that will allow them to take the Community down once and for all.

Review:
I hate to say this, but I think my love affair with Santino Hassell’s books is over. On the sites I’m forced to use a numerical start rating, I almost gave it 2 stars. The end dragged it up to a third, but it was a close call. I simply didn’t like it. I didn’t like the characters. I didn’t like the narrative style. I didn’t like the pacing. I. did. no. like. it. And if I’m honest, the last several books by Hassell that I’ve read have skirted this same edge. And it makes me so sad, I lovedhis early works. But all his characters feel the same now and here I felt Chase was taken to such a grumpy extreme that I couldn’t overcome it enough to enjoy his character. And Elijah was a shadow, barely there. As always, the mechanical writing is good but this book was a bust for me.

The Red Sword

Book Review of The Red Sword, by Michael Wallace

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I received an Audible code for a copy of Michael Wallace‘s The Red Sword.

Description from Goodreads:
Markal, an apprentice wizard, is thrust unexpectedly to the head of his order when his master is decapitated by a gray-skinned assassin. The order’s walled gardens have the power to restore their dead master to life, but only if the apprentices can protect his body long enough for their sanctuary to work its magic.

When a barbarian warrior named Bronwyn invades the gardens wielding a soul-binding sword and accuses the order of harboring a powerful sorcerer, Markal thinks she is another assassin come to finish the job. But Bronwyn is a paladin, a holy warrior from across the mountains, and her presence is a harbinger of a greater threat than Markal had imagined, a necromancer with the power to command the dead.

Together, they must join forces before the necromancer destroys Markal’s order and overruns Bronwyn’s homeland.

Review:
Honestly not bad and the narrator, Rosemary Benson, did an excellent job, which really enhanced the story for me. There was quite a bit of humor in the way the apprentices interacted. Each had a distinct voice. I really appreciated that there was more than one male/female platonic friendships. And the writing is pretty good, though I would call this YA fiction despite the characters ages.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with the story. I found a few aspects of it unbelievable and I would have like more explanation of the magic system. What’s up with all the bleeding, for example? But I only really had one major complaint. Or rather one, three pronged complaint. This is a bit of spoiler, be warned.

One of my favorite characters, and more to the point, an important character, the character on the cover died. This I could handle, except for three factors. One, it’s completely anticlimactic. She was basically just thrown away with no fanfare or importance. Her death was like three sentences in the background. This completely didn’t fit her importance in the story up to that point. Two, if you’re going to throw a character away as meaningless, I don’t think you can also put her on the cover of the book. Sorry. This annoyed me. Three, she was one of two female characters in the book (not counting the background servants). The book really did need her or at the very least another HER.