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Book Review of Night Watch (Em Ridge, #1), by Linda Hall

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Night WatchAuthor, Linda Hall sent me an e-copy of her novel Night Watch.

Description from Goodreads: 
Desolate Maine shores… Murder… And peace slipping away on the outgoing tide… 

For yacht delivery captain, Em Ridge, having a billionaire’s daughter go overboard on her first captaining job is not a good beginning. The sailboat is new, state of the art, her crew on this trip include two close sailing friends. But an unknown fourth, who can’t even tie a bowline, and the unruly owner’s daughter turn the idyllic trip into an adventure not wanted. 

Two years ago Em buried her husband, her soulmate, her sailing buddy, and with him buried a secret. As hours on the open seas slide by, secrets are resurrected that tie Em’s past to a present, awash with murder and deception. 

Will Em’s career go overboard? Will the investigating detective help her or hurt her? Any why does the best boat delivery captain on the east coast pull at her heart strings? 

The oft foggy coast of Maine holds secrets it does not want to give up, and a lot of bodies can be hidden in The Pine Tree State’s largest city.

Review:  Slightly spoilerish
Honestly, this was almost a five star read for me. The writing is marvellous. The setting is sublime. The character’s love of the ocean is palpable and the mystery, while not hard to figure out, was engaging.

There were only a few things that kept it from being five star worthy for me and most hinge on simplicity, by which I mean simple plot devices. For example, the whole premise of the mystery is that a girl is murdered on a boat, while out to sea. There were only five people on that boat, including the dead girl. Despite this minuscule pool of suspects, Em is never included as one. Instead she’s permitted unprecedented access to case information and even asked to assist the detective. What? Why?

Here’s another one, Em needs information about her husband’s death in order to put things together, then, without being asked or any communication between them a medical examiner decides to start looking at the 18 month old closed case again and sending her information. What? Why would he do that? It’s too simple a solution to a plot necessity.

The big one, though, the one that literally made me set the book aside and play with my social media for an hour, because I didn’t want to have to read any more of it, was Em’s blind spot regarding a certain character’s trustworthiness. She meets up with him for the first time in 10 years, having crewed with him only once before (so they have no relationship, not even a nod as you pass friendship) and because he’s nice to her, she starts having ‘growing feelings’ for him within a day.

But everything about him is suspicious and Em sees that, but she still trusts him in the face of OBVIOUS clues to his ill-intent and tells him everything, even going so far as to pass items to him that people are killing over. And there is no feasible reason she should, none. Nothing in this particular part of the story is believable. Every-time she ran to him and confided everything to him, I asked why and wanted to give up on her. In the end I just had to accept the story needed her to trust him to progress, but that’s not a good enough reason.

There were also a few times things stretched a bit thin. For example, at one point Em finds a clue saying, “The key is somewhere only Em will know.” But when you find out where it is, Em doesn’t know of it and she only learns of it by coincidence. Hmmm

The book also has a cliché, ‘Now that I have you at my mercy, let me tell you everything, answer all your questions and then conveniently botch killing you.’ ending that doesn’t feel all together natural. Plus, she doesn’t so much solve the mystery as stumble into the answer.

Despite these complaints (and some thin characterisation), the book is very good. I enjoyed the fact that Em (with the exception of her interactions with one man) is smart and self-assured. I loved the setting. I liked the non-development of a non-relationship that slipped in at the end, but you can still sense is ‘something.’ They felt very broken but real in the last few pages.

All-in-all, I had a few complaints, but am calling this a general success. I’ll be keeping my eyes on Mrs. Hall’s work for sure.

Book Review of Wanted: Dead or Undead (The Zombie West Series #1), by Angela Scott

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Wanted: Dead or UndeadI downloaded a copy of Angela Scott‘s Wanted: Dead or Undead from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Trace Monroe doesn’t believe in luck. He never has. But when a fiery-headed cowgirl saunters through the saloon doors, wielding shotguns and a know-how for killing the living dead, he believes he just may be the luckiest man alive. Trace wants to join “Red’s” posse, but she prefers to work alone—less messy that way. 

In order to become her traveling companion, Trace has to agree to her terms: no names, no questions, and if he gets bit, he can’t beg for mercy when she severs his brain stem. He agrees, knowing only that Red is the sharpest shooter he’s ever encountered. The fact she’s stunning hasn’t escaped his attention either. 

What he doesn’t know, is that Red has a very good reason to be on top of her game. She not only has the answer for how they can all outlive the plague taking over the wild, wild west, she is the answer.

Review:
I was seriously disappointed in this book. Not because it’s badly written, it’s not. But because it contains so many elements that I dislike in a book. So, while not everyone will share my opinion, as everyone has their own hot buttons, this book was a fail for me.

You see, the blurb led me to believe that the heroine, Red, was a strong, kick-ass, take charge kind of girl. And she was in the beginning, right up until the point at which she started to fall in love. After that, she became progressively weaker, more often confused, more frequently in need of care, less capable of defending herself, drastically more easily moved to tears, more willing to be told what to do as opposed to instruct others and much more likely to make stupid, ill-thought out, life threatening decision based on misinformation and jumped to conclusions that could have been avoided with a mere conversation. She basically became a weepy, Too-Stupid-To-Live girl in love. Why does this happen so often in YA/NA literature?

Now some readers might read this book and think, ‘awww, she found a good man to take care of her, how sweet.’ Me? I read it and wonder where the girl who’d been taking care of herself went. I was MUCH more interested in her than the damsel in distress who was lucky enough to attract Trace’s affection and protection.

The book could have done with a bit more character development. I can forgive its lack of worldbuilding. Zombie novels don’t really need that much to be understandable. But these characters were hollow paper cut outs, with very little depth. The whole thing also felt very anachronistic (if I can use that word to say present things seeped into the past, as opposed to the other way around). Dialogue and personal values felt far too modern, as did money. People gambled in $50-100 increments and at one point someone bought a bag of cornmeal small enough carry for $100. That’s roughly $3,000 according to a handy-dandy online inflation calculator.

Also, the last quarter of the book is painfully cliché and predictable. The premise of the plot is a good one and the set up for the rest of the series seems interesting. And, like I said, the writing (and editing) is pretty good. But I won’t be continuing the series.

Noble Ark

Book Review of Noble Ark, by Colette Black

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Noble ArkI downloaded a copy of Colette Black‘s book, Noble Ark, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Mwalgi pirates, parasitic aliens who consume human spinal fluid, are boarding the Noble Ark. When Larkin Trovgar, a half-human member of the attacking alien ship, turns on his own people, saving Aline Taylor’s life, she feels duty-bound to watch over the impossible monstrosity. Despite his easy-going charms and virile physique, she’s determined to see him as she would any Mwalgi—nothing better than an animal. As Larkin’s presence brings out the best and worst in the human crew, and the Noble Ark is harassed by more Mwalgi ships, will Aline look past Larkin’s alien heritage to find love, or will mistrust cost her everything?

Review:
I think I probably enjoyed this more than it deserved, because when I started mentally tallying all the points I wanted to make in this review the criticisms outnumbered the compliments. But I still enjoyed it. Sometimes that just happens with a book. In such cases, I tend to go with my emotional response, even if not all together logical. So, the final takeaway is that I had fun reading Noble Ark.

The simple fact is that a lot of this plot is…*shakes head*…well, I couldn’t believe half of it. The amount of freedom of movement Larkin, an enemy hostage, is given is unprecedented.

But before I even get to that though, there is the fact that almost everyone on board the ship hates the Mwalgi, except for a few convenient people in Aline’s life who suddenly and inexplicably turn out to be Mwalgi sympathisers. Most notable of these are the family of her best friend and her therapist. Isn’t that convenient to the plot? The people most likely to bring her around to not hating Larkin are the only ones who don’t hate his kind to start with.

The necessity of putting Larkin in Aline’s room, instead of the brig is utterly ridiculous. Even if your father is the captain, especially if your father is the captain, there’s no way he’s risking your life like that just be cause you ask. NO WAY! There had yet to be any indication to anyone but Aline that he was anything but the blood-thirty monster all other Mwalgi are seen as.

Then he’s allowed to walk around with her mostly because, and I shit you not, her psychiatrist tells her to spent more time getting to know him. Sure, “Bring your enemy, alien hostage to your therapy sessions, where we’ll talk about all your personal trauma in front of him.” seems like a perfectly normal AND BELIEVABLE thing for a therapist to insist on. At the very least, that has to be a HIPPA violation.

What’s more, dehumanising the enemy during war times is the norm, not something her counsellor would be having kittens over in the first place. So, why does he want her to get to know him and see him as more human? No one, NO ONE, else is concerned with seeing the enemy as human. (For that matter no other Mwalgi in the book are presented as human, they’re all shown to be the evil monsters people believe them to be.)

Plus, when the few important characters who don’t see them as monstrous all give Aline the  ‘but we’re all human, really, it’s just our governments that are at war’ it felt forced and was unpleasantly sappy. It was the most juvenile part of the book and despite the books’ general lack of believability, one of the few time I found myself truly disappointed by it.

Another one was the games. I found it unlikely that Larkin would have been allowed to participate, convenient archaic rule or not and I find it even more unlikely that other participants would play with him. Realistically, most should have been traumatised by the sight of him.  Plus, they just lasted for flippin’ ever! I thought they might never end, detailing every single stage and points scored as the section did.

I also found the onboard baddie, David, shallow, uni-dimensional and too insanely focused to be as smart as he was said to be. This is very much a YA sci-fi romance. A lot, A LOT, more time is spent on board with Larkin, Aline and David that with enemy engagements. So, for most of the book this angsty teenage attempt at romance is the main focus.

Given that so much attention was paid to the onboard drama, a lot less attention was paid to the galaxy and general world-building. I was often confused on what the treaties and conventions that were obviously being ignored were meant to actually establish, who/what species were, how many types, was there a multi-world alliance of some sort, etc. This was a very real weakness.

Now, I did really appreciate that the author allowed bad things to happen. I don’t mean I like bad things, but in circumstances in which there can be no happy ending, the reader needs to know tragedy can strike. But many authors aren’t willing to go there and I’m glad Black did.

The book is well written and I didn’t notice any glaring editorial errors. Plus, like I said at the beginning, I really enjoyed the book. Larkin is a wonderful hero and, with exception of her extreme and annoying naivety concerning David, Aline was a strong fun heroine. There were some interesting tech and species described as well.  So, though I had a lot of complaints, I’d still recommend readers pick it up. You kinda gotta give up on reasonable believability and just go with the flow, but if you can do it, it makes for a pleasant read.