Tag Archives: Indie

Review of Lani Diane Rich’s Time Off for Good Behavior

Leave a reply

Time Off For Good BehaviorI grabbed Lani Diane Rich‘s novel Time Off for Good Behavior from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Expressing anger is healthy.

Wanda’s gonna live forever.

For Wanda Lane, life has been one long string of screw-ups. Her abusive ex-husband keeps threatening to kill her, she just lost her crappy job, and a head injury (sustained while diving off the witness stand to attack an obnoxious attorney) has left her hearing phantom music no one else can hear. It isn’t until she hits the rock bottom of her bottle of scotch that she begins to wonder if maybe — just maybe — the problem is her.

On her pothole-ridden path to becoming a decent human being, she makes friends with Elizabeth, a single mother looking for her own solid ground; Father Gregory, the patient priest who counsels Wanda, even though she’s not technically Catholic; and Walter, a Jimmy-Stewart-ish lawyer who is smart, sexy and single… and so far out of Wanda’s league that she thinks he must have been sent from God as one last punishment for her past transgressions. Can an angry, lost woman find her way back from failure, or are second chances the stuff of myth?

Wanda’s gonna find out.

You may want to move out of her way

Review:
I have to say I really enjoyed Wanda and all of her Idiosyncrasies. Honestly, the woman is just a little crazy for most of the book and the situations she finds herself in are patently absurd. So you do just kind of have to role with it to a certain extent. I think her terse relationship with Father Hard-Ass is my favourite. There is so much witty sarcasm, what someone else called snark, in this book that I couldn’t help but be constantly amused.

True conversation:
My husband sauntered into the living-room chuckling.
Me: “What?”
Him: “Nothing. I’m just laughing at you sitting there grinning to yourself.”
Me (waving my Kindle at him indignantly): “But it’s funny.”
Him (shaking his head knowingly): “I’m sure it is.”
Me (lovingly to his departing back): “Bastard”

Yep, that’s how it goes. Wanda’s journey of self-discovery is one I think a lot of women can relate to. If we’re all as lucky as her and can finally come to not only understand but accept ourselves life will surely improve. Of course, she is helped along by a whole cadre of new friends and one AMAZING new love interest. Yes, Walter (aka Jimmy Stewart) is just far too good to be true. So, of course, it’s impossible not to love him. It only took me an evening to read the book and I’m glad I gave it the time.

Grace Through Blood

Book Review of Grace Through Blood, By A. Jay Lee

Leave a reply

Grace Through BloodI grabbed A. Jay Lee‘s vampire novel, Grace Through Blood, from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Welcome to the Nightlife of the Palmetto City.

With an Arch-Demon masking itself as a serial killer, a NCSI agent hounding a Navy SEAL for crimes he didn’t commit, a clan of lycanthropes living secretly among the masses, and overseeing it all a congregation of pious vampires believing that they have ‘Divine Right’ over the city, the nights were wild enough. Add in one young woman with special abilities and in possession of a holy relic that threatens the existence of all vampires, and the stage is set for a dangerous mix of action and steamy sex over the course of hot, humid nights in this ‘Holy City’.

Jamie Grace wants nothing more than to lead a normal life, but her ability to see a person’s soul through an aura that radiates through every living person makes this wish impossible. Soon after arriving in her new home of Charleston, South Carolina, she encounters what appear to be humans that have no aura.

Jamie soon learns that the mysterious creatures are vicars of the Sanctum Damnatus and unfortunately they are as troubled about her existence as she is with theirs. Complications ensue when the vampire that has been sent to kill Jamie falls in love with her. With her would-be assassin turned protector, Jamie finds herself on the run from both the Damnatus and an Arch-Demon from Hell. Tangled with Christian dogma and biblical lore and set in this historic coastal Southern city, Jamie must find out whom she can trust and begin the journey of learning what she truly is in this first novel of the Holy Damned Saga.

Review:
Grace Through Blood had a really interesting premise in which vampires fill a specific role in God’s divine plan for the salvation of mankind. That’s all well and good. Here’s the thing for me though. There is a difference between using the Cristian mythology as plot material, and actual religious fiction. Dan Brown writes mysteries using Biblical material, but I don’t think many people would call his work ‘religious.’ I quite enjoy one, but not the other.

Unfortunately for me, Grace Through Blood turned out to be Cristian fiction, which I can’t say I was expecting. That left me cold. I just don’t enjoy being preached to in the books I read for fun. I realise some people will think this is a ringing endorsement for the book. There is a large Christian market out there. I’m just not part of it. I finished the book though. And when God wasn’t saving the pure souls of those who called on him in blatant scenes of proselytism it was pretty good.

It did tend to drag a bit and felt a little too long. I think the sex scenes could have been nixed to address this. This would have tightened the narrative up a bit and shortened the novel as a whole. But they also just felt out of place IMO. I read a decent amount of sexy PNR. I even enjoy the occasional spot of erotica now and again, so I have no problem with sex in my fiction. However, in this particular case I don’t think it contributed to the plot, was contrary to the tone of the rest of the novel and therefore distracting.

I assume there is more to come in this series as a number of heavy hints were dropped about the lineage of both Jamie and Grant, but no answers provided. I kind of wanted to scream about that, but oh well. If you enjoy vampires and christian fiction this is an interesting blending of the two. Lee does a good job of turning a number of Biblical passages to support the new vampire mythos and the writing itself is pretty good. I just probably wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place if I had a better understanding of what type of book it is.

Once Bitten

Book Review of Trina M. Lee’s Once Bitten (Huntress, #1) and prequel shorts

Leave a reply

Once Bitten

I grabbed a free copy of Trina M. Lee‘s Once Bitten from the KDP list. It is currently still free on Amazon and at Smashwords.

Description from Goodreads:
Alexa O’Brien has never been like other people. A hunter of supernatural rogues, she is a werewolf with unusual but extraordinary power. Power that draws her to Arys Knight, the mysterious vampire who awakens her dark side. What they create together is dangerous and binding, forcing her to question the source of her abilities. It threatens not only her remaining humanity, but her relationship with fellow werewolf, Shaz Richardson, as well.

When Alexa’s womanizing former lover and the Alpha of her pack is framed for murder, he draws public attention that could earn him a death sentence unless she steps in to help him. Alexa would love to watch karma at work but as the body count rises, long buried secrets are exposed. She’s forced to face the painful truth that not everyone is who she thinks they are.

Review:
I have pretty mixed feelings here. There were some parts of this book I really liked, for example the fact that Lee let her main characters be bad. So often PNR heroines miraculously resist all evil temptation. I really appreciated that Alexa gave in to hers and admitted that she enjoyed watching Arys too. It added an element of edgy realism that I enjoyed. I also loved both Arys and Shaz. Unfortunately I hated the situation they found themselves in. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be, but I found it painfully uncomfortable. I really wanted her to choose one or for the three of them to become a happy Ménage à trois.

I generally enjoyed the story, but I have two main complaints. One, it felt like there were four main story lines that ran parallel but never really intersected. There was Alexa and Arys’ situation. There was her and Shaz’s budding romance. There was her night job with Veryl and there was the whole mystery with Raoul. Any one of them probably could have been a book on its own. Well, maybe the love triangle would need to be combined, but you know what I’m getting at. The Raoul situation seemed to be the main storyline, so any time Alexa ran off to fight a random demon or psychotic ex-lover I found it distracting. It essentially felt like it had nothing to do with the rest of the plot. Plus the events required the introduction of random characters who then simply disappeared, Lilah for example.

Two, there was a lot of presumed knowledge. Alexas is described as a werewolf with extra, vampireish abilities. But these are never really described. I have no idea which of her powers were the unusual ones or why she had them. Similarly, I never really understood her and Arys’ metaphysical draw. I certainly understood the effect, but not the why, how, or even what of it. I would have really liked a more in-depth description.

I did enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong. There were just a few things that niggled at me. I have the prequels to read and will consider continuing the series.

Huntress

Stunner

I also grabbed the prequels Huntress and Stunner, at least one of which is available free at Amazon & Smashwords. You can follow the links to see my reviews at Goodreads. I thought they were both ok, but not stand-alone stories. They would make little sense to someone who hadn’t read Once Bitten.