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Guarded

Book Review of Guarded (The Silverton Chronicles #1), by Carmen Fox

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I bought a copy of Guarded, by Carmen Fox.

Description from Goodreads:
When everyone’s existence depends on the lies they tell, trust doesn’t come easy. 

Ivy’s neighbors have a secret. They aren’t human. But Ivy has a secret, too. She knows. As long as everyone keeps quiet, she’s happy working as a P.I. by day and chillaxing with her BFF Florian, a vampire, by night. When a routine pickup drops her in the middle of a murder, her two worlds collide. While Florian knows how to throw a punch, deep down he’s a softie. His idea of scary? Running out of hair product. It’s time Ivy faced facts. Even with a vampire on stand-by, one gal can only kick so many asses. 

For help, she must put her faith in others. A human, who might just be the one. A demon, who will, for a price, open the doors to her heritage. And a werewolf, who wants to protect her from herself. 

Torn between these men, Ivy must tread carefully, because one wants her heart, one wants her body, and one wants her dead.

Review:
Sigh, mechanically the writing and editing in this book seem fine. Unfortunately, in my opinion the plot is totally useless. The book is all over the place, but more to the point, I hated it.

As a romance it fails on SO MANY levels. Let me put it like this. She has a condition that after her 25th birthday (because apparently magic knows your b-day, y’all) she literally lusts after every man she sees, even though she actively doesn’t want to. She then goes on to try and date one man, have sex with another (several times), almost have sex with a man in an alley, and love a man. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do any two of those things with the same man. That’s right, she’s trying to date one man, while having sex with another (and lusting over everyone) and then on the last page, last paragraph basically we’re told she loves another. WTF? There was no development on that. But what kind of satisfying romance do you think a book can have if the heroine trying to give her body to every man she meets,?

But, for me personally, the biggest issue is that this idea that women can’t control their own sexual urges is an old, painfully patriarchal one. It’s one of the reasons why they can’t be trusted to own and have authority over their own bodies. We still fight this stupid idea to this very day, in real life. And the book had the perfect patriarchal ending, she pretty much ended up with a man who had the power (extra power she gave him) to control her. She goes against her own natural inclinations to be with him. You know what, author, write historical if you want to write this kind of trite. I ended the book steaming.

The whole thing was only made worse by there being exactly 3 women in the book, other than main character and some background victims (who were raped, because of course they were). Two were characterless sisters, basically just names to fill in the cast. One was the cliched jealous harpy who will probably sell the heroine to the villain in future books, because that’s what the jealous harpy always does in such books.

I bought and read this book because, somewhere along the way I ended up with an audible copy of book two (Bound), and wanted to listen to it. Now, I’m kind of regretting both.

Storm Raiders

Book Review of Storm Raiders (Storms Of Magic Book 1), by PT Hylton & Michael Anderle

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I received an Audible copy of Storm Raiders (by P. T. Hylton & Michael Anderle) for review.

Description from Goodreads:
In a time when magic rules the sea, she only trusts her sword.

Abbey has always been an outsider in Holdgate. While the people of her adopted city dominate the seas with their weather-controlling storm magic, she prefers the work in her father’s blacksmith shop.

Besting any foolish enough to question her skills with a sword.

But when her father is falsely accused of murder, she has to sneak aboard a stormship and take to the seas in a quest to clear his name.

Teaming up with a young storm mage and a no-nonsense Captain, Abbey sets off on a swashbuckling adventure.

She’ll soon learn that the legendary Storm Raiders–a terrifying group of seafaring pirates–are all too real.

Set on the foundation laid by the Kurtherian Gambit Series, Storm Raiders tells an entirely new story in the Age of Magic–and of the heroes and villains who battle for control of its destiny.

Review:
Generally enjoyable and I thought Gabra Zackman did an excellent job with the narration.

The good: I liked Abby and Dustin. I liked that she’s pretty much badass and he’s more than willing to let her go forth and kick butt, while he takes a step back. I thought the writing was quite readable and the world, future Earth, is interesting. Though that same world seems to be part of a larger series in which several authors are creating stories. (I didn’t realize that until I got to the Authors’ Notes section at the end.)

The bad: I simply could not believe that there was such a large and long running conspiracy and no one knew about it. Which mean, I pretty much didn’t believe the underlying premise of the mystery and plot. Further, I don’t believe that even if such a large, long running conspiracy had been occurring two separate groups could undercover it in a day or two. That was all far too convenient and easy.

Personal quibble: I didn’t like the cursing. Now, I don’t have any issue with cussing in general. I, myself, curse like a sailor. But the book is YA and I would say on the lower side of YA. Not quite MG, but certainly I could see a tween reading it; which means the cursing seemed out of place. So, my complaint isn’t any sort of prissy, moralistic one, but stylistic. It felt like the author aimed for a certain audience, which genre-wise generally doesn’t include ‘dirty words,’ but then dropped a curse in every once in a while and then I didn’t know which age bracket he was aiming for after all.

Vanity in Dust

Book Review of Vanity in Dust (Crown & Ash #1), by Cheryl Low

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I won a copy of Cheryl Low‘s Vanity in Dust through Library Thing.

Description from Goodreads:
In the Realm there are whispers. Whispers that the city used to be a different place. That before the Queen ruled there was a sky beyond the clouds and a world beyond their streets. 

Vaun Dray Fen never knew that world. Born a prince without a purpose in a Realm ruled by lavish indulgence, unrelenting greed, and vicious hierarchy, he never knew a time before the Queen’s dust drugged the city. Everything is poisoned to distract and dull the senses, even the tea and pastries. And yet, after more than a century, his own magic is beginning to wake. The beautiful veneer of the Realm is cracking. Those who would defy the Queen turn their eyes to Vaun, and the dust saturating the Realm. 

From the carnivorous pixies in the shadows to the wolves in the streets, Vaun thought he knew all the dangers of his city. But when whispers of treason bring down the fury of the Queen, he’ll have to race to save the lives and souls of those he loves.

Review:
What a lovely cover that is. I wish the book lived up to it. It’s accurate and all, there’s a well-dressed, handsome man and he drinks lots of tea and eats lots of pastries, but I didn’t love the book as I loved the cover. Now, I didn’t hate it. And for most of the rather plodding, slow book I held out hope I’d end it happy. But I did not. Mostly because a very small mystery developed toward the end of the book and it was solved, but the larger mysteries were never even touched on. Not touched on in a way that makes me doubt they’d be solved in a next book or one after that.

I thought the world was interesting. Magic is basically a drug, it suffuses almost every aspect of the wealthy citizens’ lives, making them vapid and useless. And you see this in everything from their attitudes, to their sex to the tea cakes and torts that constitute food. It was a well-drawn world. I thought the writing a little purple, but still good. The pace was very slow, but it was atmospheric and I didn’t mind until I realized it wasn’t going to go anywhere important. So, some really good points for the book, but a few demerits too.

I was annoyed that the one thing that spawned Vaun to action was his affection ( won’t call it love) for a woman. The one woman he previously has never been able to have. I HATE this plot device. You have a man who has sexual access to every woman in the kingdom practically. He’s a man-slut (they all are). But one woman won’t sleep with him. So, she’s THE ONE. So, she sleeps with him. I’m always annoyed by this.

But on a more world-level scale I was not happy with the use of bisexuality. At first I was really thrilled to see that bisexuality seemed to be the norm. But it really was just presented as a way for characters to have more sex (twice as many options for sexual partners, you see), and not explored at all. But what’s more, it was all inferred. Like, the author was willing to allow for it, but not brave enough to show it. Granted, most of the sex was off-page, but there were plenty of ‘waking up in bed together’ scenes and they were all M/F, except one, and I didn’t sense sex had been involved so much as one man coming into the room in the morning to avoid being seen elsewhere. So, it kind of felt like a cheap use of bisexuality, instead of a representation of it. Similarly, if they were all so sexually debaucherous, why was prostitution still so shamed? More so than a child-like woman who trolls the rough side of town for her rape fantasies and is still considered the only “innocent Vym.”

All in all, I had complaints, but I would have rated this quite a bit higher if I felt the overarching mystery was touched on at all, instead of set up to hover over the book like a giant spider and then ignored. I probably will give book two a chance. If it looks like it is going to move the bigger plot along I’ll finish the series. If it remains focused on the smaller dramas, probably not.