Tag Archives: fated mates

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Book Review: A Devious Descent, by A.A. Powers

I purchased a copy of A Devious Descent from the author, A.A. Powers.

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When light fades and shadows play, the realm eater comes to take you away.

Frankie Hart thought she was as human as they come—until her brother vanishes, and she unravels a truth that shatters her world. Not only is she half-demon, but she is also the key to a prophecy that could either save or obliterate the human realm.

Zarreth, a demon from the Dark Realm, takes it upon himself to hunt Frankie and prevent the prophecy from unfolding. However, the longer he watches her, the more he becomes drawn to her in ways he can’t understand. His obsession grows when Frankie’s search comes to a dead-end, and she turns to Zarreth for help. Could she be his fated mate?

Together, Frankie and Zarreth must navigate a world where allegiances shift, and enemies lurk at every corner. Will Frankie succumb to the darkness inside her and become the instrument of destruction foretold? Or will their bond be enough to keep the darkness at bay?

my review

This was pretty lackluster. I mean it was fine, just kinda milquetoast. Despite my copy being over 350 pages, not very much actually happened. (I say my copy because it’s double-spaced—who does that—and I’m assuming not all are.) I liked the characters well enough. The world seems like it could be interesting. There’s some humor in there and some easy LGBT representation. I appreciate the cross-gender platonic friendships, even if the author seemed to feel obligated to make the friend gay in order to see it as a possibility. But the story itself? Meh. It’s inconsistent. There are plot holes. The emotional elements are conveyed with the subtlety of a hammer. I didn’t feel the love (or even the lust) develop, so it felt unsupported. Characters do stupid things for plot progression when perfectly logical alternatives that make a lot more sense are available to them. The end is predictable, etc. I’ve certainly read a lot worse. But…yeah, meh.

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Book Review: The Rejected Shifter’s Required Bride, by Brigitte Delery

I picked up a copy of Brigitte Delery‘s The Rejected Shifter’s Required Bride during a freebie event last Christmas.

the rejected shifter's required bride

Promised to a stranger in an arranged marriage masked ball he wasn’t supposed to attend. Paired for life with a monster she doesn’t know how to tame. The last thing either expected to find was love.

Wolf shifter Malin Fenren of the Dark Claw Pack should have been celebrating his first days as a happily mated future Alpha. Instead, the woman he thought was his forever mate left him at the altar for someone else and his exciting future turned into something far more horrific- a fate where he turns into the worst kind of monster he could imagine before succumbing to his own destruction. In a last ditch effort to save him from a quick decline into madness and death, Malin’s parents swap him in for a spot in the Mate Masquerade, where volunteers from each supernatural community are paired in arranged marriages with strangers to maintain peace between them all.

As part of the often-maligned human community, Isabella Thompson stepped up as a volunteer for this year’s Mate Masquerade in exchange for payment of her father’s debts. She doesn’t quite know what she’s gotten herself into, but if it saves her sisters from poverty and destitution, she’s going to make the best of things. Getting paired with a monster who might kill her at any moment was a risk she’d have to take. But falling for her assigned mate definitely wasn’t part of the plan.

This paranormal fantasy romance book was originally part of the Wicked Arrangements collaboration and is now part of the Mate Masquerade series. Each book in this series features an arranged marriage masquerade ball where participants are paired and expected to wed and bed a stranger by the end of the night.

my review

The cover is atrocious. The editing is hit or miss, often miss. The plot is pretty predictable, and the necessity of the mate-ball being a masquerade makes little sense. (It’s my understanding that this was initially written as part of a multi-author shared world involving the mate masquerade.) Despite all of that, I enjoyed this. Isabella is immensely practical, and I love a practical heroine who will just get on with what must be done. Malin is just incredibly sweet and trying to hold it together to do the right thing in what is, for him, a very challenging situation. And the sister offers a little comic relief. All in all, it makes for an endearing read.

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Book Review: Bite Marks, by Jenika Snow

I received a copy of Jenika Snow‘s Bite Marks in a monthly Supernatural Book Crate.
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Adryan

I was ruthless, brutal. A sociopath by all accounts. The leader of the American Vampire Clan, a male who all feared because I was merciless.

And then I found my mate. Kayla. So fragile. Breakable. So human.

I’d make her mine, and she’d hate me for it. I wanted to give her pain with pleasure, wanted to break her skin and lick up the blood I spilled… take Kayla into me like she’d take me into her.

I’d have her surrendering to my needs. I’d give her my body but wouldn’t be able to give her my heart.

How could I when it wasn’t something I had to offer, when I was nothing but a coldhearted killer?

So when the threats come to my front door, it’s time to show my female she’s mated to the most dangerous vampire in the world.

my review

Everyone seems to like Jenika Snow’s books. To each their own. But I bought several of them at some point and have yet to find a single one I particularly enjoyed. This was just drivel, as far as I’m concerned. You know how people say a nice guy won’t need to tell you he’s nice, a wealthy man won’t need to flash his cash, and a true hero doesn’t need to tell you he’s a hero? There are any number of such phrases. This is all I could think of as Adryan told everyone over and over and over again how merciless, strong, psycho, vicious, deadly, etc., he is. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Or that’s how it felt. It was as if he had to keep insisting on the fact rather than just showing himself to be scary. It felt inflated and desperate. Meanwhile, Kayla had no personality at all.

The plot was a single predictable blip, and the writing itself is unimpressive. Plus, the villain turns out to be the only LGBTQ+ character, which is hella problematic, IMO. I think I still have one Snow book on my shelf somewhere. But I also think it’s time to just accept that her writing is not for me. bite marks photo


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