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Book Review: Zeus, by Carly Spade

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I accepted a review copy of Zeus, by Carly Spade, through Literary Bound Tours.
zeus cover

A god-king disguised as a criminal defense lawyer…

Zeus/Zane, King of the Greek gods, holds the world in his palm in both his mortal and godly form… until Hera leaves him, forcing him to uphold Gaea’s clause: There must always be a Queen, or he loses his title and part of his power along with it. Time is short. Too bad the one woman he has his sights on wants nothing to do with him. Or does she?

An empath criminal prosecutor…

There’s nothing Keira Bazin dislikes more than defense lawyers. So when she discovers Zane Vronti, one of New York’s finest, has been brought in on her newest murder case, it’s anything but good news. Tensions flare as the two immediately butt heads, but there’s something about Zane she can’t put her finger on. His emotions are the strongest she’s ever felt–borderline overwhelming. Power. Lust. Command. Can she fight her growing attraction for him? Does she want to?

my review
Meh, this was fine, I suppose. The writing/editing worked. There wasn’t really anything wrong with it. But I find that I didn’t love it. I didn’t particularly enjoy the beginning, because Zeus was just so smarmy. I liked the middle well enough, as he dropped some of that act. And then I disliked the end (just about everything after the wedding) because it was just too pat. She suddenly knew how to use her powers with no adjustments. She stepped into her role as goddess and queen (over significantly older, more experienced gods/goddesses) with no notable insecurity of learning curve, etc. And, IDK, I guess it just departed too far from the known Zeus of mythology. All in all, it was fine. I just think maybe I wasn’t quite the right reader for the book. But, hey, if you like the show Lucifer, I bet you’d like this a lot.

zeus photo

Other Reviews:

Elle Cheshire: Zeus, by Carly Spade

 

 

Review of Seer (The Titanomachy #1), by S.E. Welsh

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I received a copy of Seer, by S.E. Welsh through Netgalley.

Seer s.e. welsh

Description from Goodreads:

Seeing the future is hard, but facing it will be explosive

A Seer has surfaced—but she’s blind!

Chloe Santos is an immortal with a whole world of problems. The victim of an attempted murder that left her blind, horribly disfigured, and stuck with powers everyone thought eradicated, it’s safe to say she’s at a low point in her life. But then she’s blackmailed into investigating a kidnapping with links to her past. It could put herself, and everyone she cares about, in danger.

Including her Warrior Soulmate.

Phobos has a millennia of blood on his hands. As the son of Ares, he’s done horrific things in the name of keeping the continued existence of immortals a secret. Only all of that changes when he meets his Soulmate.

Allegiances shift, trust is thin and Chloe has to decide if she should risk everything to make the world a better place. Even if that means sacrificing her own chance at happiness.

Review:

This was not a winner for me. It has several plot holes. I felt the plot was unfocused and meandered too much, and lastly, the whole thing was just steeped in rape. It was this last point that kept me from being able to enjoy the story. Seemingly every older female has a history of horrific rape, the heroine is repeatedly put into the position to psychically relive those events with them, and the verb rape is even used to describe things. As in, “she raped my mind” to describe someone psychically forcing themselves into the main character’s mind.

I didn’t even think the sex scenes were well done. Especially given the Readers Advisory that reads, “This Paranormal Romance contains a strong-willed goddess and her protective Warrior Soulmate who don’t appreciate the term ‘vanilla’ when it comes to the bedroom.” Here’s the thing, the characters really were very vanilla in the bedroom. Granted, they had one brief bout of anal sex (about three paragraphs long, tacked onto the end of another sex scene, having no emotional impact at all). But that’s hardly transgressive or particularly kinky. The sex was blase to the extreme. It definitely did not live up to the titillation of that advisory.

All in all, the writing was readable but the plot and story lacked that something special to make it more than just words on a page.

Fantasy Lover

Book Review of Fantasy Lover (Dark-Hunter, #1), by Sherrilyn Kenyon

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I borrowed an audio copy of Fantasy Lover, by Sherrilyn Kenyon through Hoopla. It’s narrated by Carrington MacDuffie.

Description from Goodreads:

It might sound like a man’s favorite fantasy — to live forever, destined to be the lover of thousands of women. But for Julian of Macedon, it’s a nightmare. Once he was a proud Spartan general, now he’s a love-slave, his essence magically held captive in a book, cursed to spend all eternity pleasing women. Then, one day, Grace Alexander summons Julian to fulfill her passionate dreams — and sees beyond the fantasy to the man himself. Long years as a sex therapist, listening to other people’s bedroom problems, has taken a lot of the fun out of the physical side of love for Grace. She’s remarkably understanding about Julian’s situation — and that’s disconcerting for all concerned. With or without sex, the rules of the enchantment cannot be changed. Julian is hers for the next month. And, as their time together slips by, Julian and Grace find more to share than sympathy and conversation — and they begin to wonder if love might be within their grasp. That leaves only one question. Is love enough to break a 2,000-year-old curse? 

Review:

A while back I read Deadmen Walking. It’s one of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s newer book and the first one by her that I’d read. I thought it was awful, which surprised me since so many people like her books so much. Another reader commented that she loves Kenyon’s writing, but agreed Deadmen Walking isn’t the best. She recommended I try Fantasy Lover instead. The reason I never read Kenyon before is that I was baffled by all the overlapping series and didn’t know what to read first. So, with a recommendation on where to start I picked this one up at the library. 

I didn’t hate it. I won’t say I loved it. But it was a sight better than my previous Kenyon experience. The book has a certain self deprecating humor I appreciated and poor tortured Julian was too sweet for words. But I also thought Grace too prim for a sex therapist, wondered why her Ph.D. best friend was running a tarot stand, thought no one reacted reasonably (or at all) to literal gods popping up in their lives, and I got desperately bored with 300+ pages of sexual angst but no actual sex until the conclusion (and then it was abrupt and without any foreplay at all). 

Some of what irritated me just comes from the fact that the book is 15+ years old and the norms of the PNR publishers of the time are ones I find irksome now. Grace’s whole personality seems to be based on being giving, caring and generous, for example. Because of course a woman is, right? But still, I didn’t hate it and that’s something.

The book talked enough about Kyrian that I’m curious about him. But I’m also not particularly interested in having to read another one. So, I don’t know which way I’ll go, maybe read the next book, maybe not.

Edit: A search of my reviews shows that Deadmen Walking wasn’t actually my first attempt at a S.K. book, Dragonmark was. However, I didn’t finish it. So, I’m not going to change the wording of this review.