Tag Archives: #indiefever

Book Review of Trust (Running With Alphas #1), by Viola Rivard

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Running With AlphasI picked up a copy of Viola Rivard‘s Trust: Running With Alphas from Amazon when it was free. It is part of my Alpha reading challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Just when she thinks her life can’t get any worse, Taylor meets alpha wolf Alder – the most caring, gallant, and handsome man on the planet. On the run from the police, there’s no way she could possibly get involved with him. But somehow she does anyway.

Alder seems to be convinced that the two of them are going to live happily ever after in his mountain territory. But between looming pack wars, her dicey past, and his twin brother – the most obnoxious, sadistic, and handsome man on the planet – Taylor has a feeling that her new life among werewolves may be just as complicated as her human one.

Review:

This was surprisingly cute, which was a bit of a shock when I was expecting trashy erotica. But no complaints on that front. I have a soft spot for big alphas who shepherd, tend and fret over their mates, trying to feed them and such. Alder is just such a shifter, so he was a winner for me. I liked Taylor too, but Alder carried the book for me.

I did think the plot was a little shaky. You never find out the details of what Taylor is running from and I don’t get the feeling we ever will. It’s just a frame to hang the romance on. The characters were pretty shallow. The chemistry between the two wasn’t really shown. The mishap with Hale was predictable, there is a cliched female enemy and it’s a cliffhanger. But all in all, I was more pleased than I expected to be.

Perdu

Book Review of Perdu (Redire de Vampyrus, #1) by Raeden Zen

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PerduI’ve had Perdu (by Raeden Zen) for quite some time, having picked it up from the Amazon free list over two years ago.

Description from Goodreads:
Ruth and Eugene Flowers desired the American dream: two kids, a big house, and a dog. But it wasn’t meant to be–at least not initially. When a surprise package literally fell into their laps, however, the Flowers would finally get their wish (sort of). Soon, it all goes awry, as mysterious deaths followed by a disappearance permanently disrupt their lives. Meanwhile, many years later, a grown-up Valerie Green, a nearby neighbor’s daughter and high-school sweetheart of their son, Zan, hits it huge in the Big Apple, first landing at Columbia University, then at the New York Pioneer, the hottest online periodical in the city. When she is forced to cross the path of hotshot FBI special agent, Dr. Devean Rasr, she doesn’t realize she is also wading much deeper into the biggest, most dangerous, and most challenging killing spree in the history of NYC.

Review:
This book is a mess. There’s no identifiable main character. It has no consistent timeline. Characters make absolutely unfollowable leaps of logic. Clues conveniently pop out of nowhere. The villain is a character that literally isn’t in the novel until the reveal and then isn’t in it after, so a nobody. There are several info-drops, most of which is pointless information that is never utilized. There is constant head hopping. Characters appear and disappear as needed. No one have believable emotions. The dialogue is stilted. The love is unfounded and baseless. Pretty sure I have nothing positive to say about any of it….Ok, it was short and I like the cover.

Colorado Wild

Book Review of Colorado Wild (Colorado Heart #1), by Sara York

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Colorado WildI downloaded a copy of Colorado Wild, by Sara York, from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
When love sneaks up on you, shoot for the heart.

Billy Bradford has a secret, and it’s bigger than the fact that he’s an assassin. When Tucker Hayes, Billy’s straight best friend, is injured on a mission, Billy acts in haste, kissing Tucker. Shocked by the act, Tucker runs. But desire is stronger than convictions, leading Tucker to hunt down Billy.

The other guys on the ranch are oblivious to Tucker and Billy’s actions as they investigate a new target. Grant Stovall is hung up on his ex, but Roger Burk, their new operative, catches his attention and one small touch isn’t enough.

Meet the cowboys of Wild Bluff Ranch in the first book of the Colorado Heart Series, Colorado Wild.

Review:
Wow, um, wow. That’s about the most coherent thought I can manage on this book. It’s totally illogical, overblown and unfocused. I mean, despite what the blurb suggests, it doesn’t even have a main character. What do you do with a book that doesn’t have a main character or couple? What do you do? (As an aside, that blurb is totally inaccurate anyway.) There’s no plot. The characters do everything from pine for one another to assassinations to buy a horse that randomly gets bitten by a snake. There’s insta-lust and a relationship that goes from 0 to 4,000 in about a page. There is endless agonizing over if the characters are a couple yet and if they’re gay or not, all in artificial and exaggerated ways. There’s pointless past trauma that is too much to be believed.

There is telling, telling, telling about how wonderful and significant and ‘I’ll be with you forever even though we’ve been a couple for 2 days’ the characters feel, all adding up to basically nothing. Nothing that happens is believable. None of the emotions read as believable, not even the lust (though that’s not really an emotion, I suppose). These men are supposed to be super elite soldiers and assassins, but they agonize over everything like teenager, and I don’t just mean the emo stuff (though that’s non-stop from page one) but if a teammate gets injured or is doing his part of a mission out of sight or killing. All the things a highly trained soldier would take in stride (and we’re told they do) they are shown to whinge about. And the technical aspect of these soldiers? “…are you sure this little black box will disrupt them?” Seriously, that’s how they talk about their tech!

Nope, this was a total strike for me; almost nothing to recommend it as far as I’m concerned.