Tag Archives: #indiefever

House of Stone

Book Review of House of Stone, by Vaughn R. Demont

Leave a reply

House of Stone

I borrowed a copy of Vaughn R. Demont‘s House of Stone. Thanks L!

Description from Goodreads:

A modern knight, a noble quest, and a magical sword. What could go wrong?

Welcome to the City, where gods run nightclubs, goblins hire out as mercs, sorcerers work their magic, the Fae hold court over every neighborhood…and humanity is blissfully ignorant of it all.

For minor Fae noble Richard Stone, life is going well. He has a decent fiefdom (okay, it’s a slum), a budding acting career (okay, so it’s porn), and one of only five magical swords in the City. An arranged marriage is barely a blip on his worry meter—until his family blade loses its magic. The shame of it puts his noble standing in jeopardy.

To regain his status, Richard needs help. Fortunately, his new bride is a sidhe knight and his servant Simaron has, er, his back. Together they embark on a quest to find the demon who slew his father, investigate a conspiracy that goes to the highest echelons of Fae nobility, and discover a secret family legacy that could ruin his House.

All while keeping up appearances to a society that demands perfection. And they say a noble’s life is easy…

Review:
I have been entertained. Honestly, there are times that’s the highest praise a book can garner and now is one of those times. From the first page to the last, Richard amused me with his irreverent narrative, ignoble commentary, and ironic observations. This is without mentioning his capacitous ability for internal and emotional growth. I enjoyed him when he was a shiftless cad in the beginning and when he was a noble hero at the end. 

However, I also found this same personal growth problematic, in that it largely invalidated he and Sim’s pre-established love. Richard changes so much from the beginning to the end as to be almost a new man. Sim is shown to be a lot more (and different) that Richard ever knew. I ask then, how they were to have known one another enough to love beyond their lust? They were not yet (or yet known to be) the men they would love the other for being. It felt a little hollow to me.

I also thought that Richard (and to a lesser degree, Rem) were the only wholly fleshed out characters. The rest were likeable enough (or unlikeable when appropriate), but I never felt I knew them particularly well. 

Regardless of my few irritants here and there, I was happy throughout. Demont shows a real talent for timing and dramatic disclosures. I especially appreciated that he could drop a verbal bombshell or subtle joke and leave the reader to furrow out the meaning. Something is lost in a joke if the punchline has to be explained to you. I also was pulled in by the idea of elves being the stuff of dreams. I’ll definitely be seeking out more of Demont’s writing.

As an aside (and personal niggle), if you’re going to describe a sword in a book and then have, presumably, that sword on the cover, they should match. That’s not the Azure Blade as described in the book and I’m annoyed by the discrepancy.

Aside number two: If you follow this link to Mr. Demont’s webpage, you see that he’s crowdsourcing to go to a conference. Wouldn’t it be nice to reward a good writer for his skill and his willingness to put a request out that doesn’t come with any type of expectation. No, ‘I’m asking (read demanding) so the universe (you) must provide,’ but rather a polite ‘would anyone be willing to help.’ Anyone? I’d love to see this guy provided for by a host of strangers. It’d be a great way to let him know his writing it appreciated.

Pixie dust

Book Review of Pixie Dust (Karli Lane, #1), by Laura Lee

Leave a reply

Pixie Dust

I picked up Laura Lee‘s Pixie Dust from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free (probably permafree).

Description from Goodreads:
*A lonesome fairy with no clue how to wield her powerful magic.

*A ruggedly handsome warlock torn between his past and his present.

*A five hundred year old, sinfully sexy vampire who’s obsessed with solving the mystery of a particularly interesting bartender. 

Karli Lane is the only fairy left on the planet. Vampires had driven her race to near extinction, causing the others to return to their homeland over twenty years ago. Orphaned at a young age, she was forced to hide her identity in a world full of exposed supernaturals. 

Facing her upcoming immortality, her life has become a complicated mess. A new employer and a gruesome murder bring two incredibly complex men into her life, making matters worse. She finds herself riding a non-stop emotional roller coaster while trying to figure out who she is, how to control her powers, and most importantly, how to stay alive.

Review:
Weak, very weak; that’s my assessment of this drivel. That’s right I said it. I usually try really hard not to say insulting things. I know it’s extremely hard to write even a weak book. I do. I’m sympathetic. But just about every aspect of this book and its main character grated on me.

Starting with the ridiculous attempt at regionally hip dialogue: “True dat, Bitches!” Ugh. This followed immediately by the cookie cutter caricature of a slutty BFF. I’m not slut shaming here. Eri seems really comfortable in her slut role, even giving instructions to dress sluttier, etc. More power to her. But as a character, she was beyond unidimensional. There simply wasn’t anything else to her (or anyone else).

Then the movie comparisons started…and never stopped. It’s a poor way to describe something or provide familiarity, but also a pet peeve of mine. Both because I no longer own a television or bother with Hollywood (so I often don’t get the references and kind of resent the assumption that everyone will) and because it dates a book quickly. Plus, it just clutters up the narrative.

Just about the time I’d ground my teeth and persuaded myself to stick with it. I was blindsided by a series of instant and baseless attitude and character changes. One second two characters are cocky and hating each-other, the next throwing themselves at one another in sexual heat, then suddenly all shy and hesitant. So, enemies to lovers to touchingly sweet love in about an hour. Oh, and this happened more than once.

About that touching, all consuming love…There were two of them, for starters. And while I love a little ménage here and there, this wasn’t that. It wasn’t even a love triangle. It was just two men who for no apparent reason suddenly fell madly in love with one woman (on sight), were willing to do anything for her, and apparently didn’t even mind the other. Hmm, I guess maybe that could have been a little further developed…maybe at all.

Even more confounding than the sudden, obsessive love of two sexy, powerful men who didn’t know her from Eve was the question of why/how the vampire managed to overcome the bloodlust that plagued EVERY VAMPIRE THROUGHOUT DOCUMENTED HISTORY as if it was nothing at all. No explanation provided or even attempted. And if that wasn’t enough to make me gnash my teeth, the question of why she would put herself into the position to find out he wasn’t going to kill her immediately is. Hello stupid!

But stupid was a running theme for her. For example, being a fairy is supposed to be some big secret she’s kept her whole life, but her slutty BFF knows and she’s only been Karli’s BFF for a year or so. Which means Karli couldn’t have waited long to tell her the oh-so-big secret. She then easily (accidentally) revealed herself by displaying her powers to someone she just met. Shortly thereafter, she walked into a possibly dangerous situation and orders 3 double shots of vodka. Guess being clear headed isn’t important or anything.

Could she really be that stupid? Yep, ’cause next Ms. Clutso sliced herself open in front of a vampire and let him lick it clean. (You know those vampires who almost exterminated her entire race for their blood, yeah, them.) Really. Not too careful, our MC. She basically approached Too Stupid To Live territory and camped out there.

Then there was the juvenile shouting, yelling, screaming, etc. Maybe this is just a symptom of the verbs the author chose to use, but it made everyone (but especially Karli) feel overly dramatic and tween-angsty. Especially since more often than not the circumstances didn’t call for all the extra emotion. For example, she Karli didn’t want to have a conversation with Vance (a perfectly reasonable one, BTW), so she screamed at him, slammed doors, tried to throw him out and eventually threw herself into idiotic danger with a smirk. Someone just go ahead and shoot this woman for me, please.

Add to all that the obvious attempts to add pointless titillation and I’m darned near toasted. As an example, one night after meeting Karli the detective asks her to accompany him to seek out a suspect (obviously proper police procedure, that). He then takes her to a sex-bar. This was pointless for anything but to showcase her apparent naiveté and allow for a whole boatload of sexual snippets. It was also almost too cliché (and over-used in PNR) to bear.

Plus, in an atmosphere of complete sexual nihilism there isn’t a single non-hetero act to be seen and the whole scene seemed oddly male-centric, making even the women seeking their own pleasure feel like sex workers instead of equal-part satyric. Seems unlikely and mildly insulting.

This theme of pointless titillation continued in the make out sessions that leapt out of no where, but never actually went anywhere. This irked the hell out of me because they were so jarring, but also because it made the book feel very stop-start. Not to mention there was a whole heck of a lot of internal monologue-like fantasies, posturing, and petting and NO ACTUAL SEX. Seriously?!

Then I had to tolerate all of Leo’s pet names: sweets, my sweet, dearest, my dear, love, my love, etc. (There were an endless supply of them.) This drives me crazy in general. I find them belittling. But here they were especially annoying since he and Karli had no relationship yet for him to so casually, use them. It felt false.

The writing itself was fine. I found it a little repetitive at times, as reader saw events and then characters relate that event to others. There were also a number of infodumps that made things feel clunky. But beyond my basic loathing for first person points of view the writing wasn’t too bad.

To wrap this sucker up, I disliked this book. I hated the main character. I found her a weepy, bratty, juvenile woman. I probably would have liked the men if they’d been developed at all and if I understood where their obsession for Karli came from. But they weren’t and I didn’t. But as much as I disliked it all, it’s almost all personal preference sorts of material. The nuts and bolts are there and another reader might (does, since there are plenty of great reviews of Pixie Dust out there) really enjoy it. Just not me, not me at all.

Book Review of Evenfall Vol. 1 Director’s Cut (In the Company of Shadows #1 part 1), by Ais & Santino Hassell

Leave a reply

Evenfall

I downloaded Asis and  Santino Hassel‘s Evenfall (In the Company of Shadows) for free from its website.

Description from Goodreads:
In a post-apocalyptic future, the Agency works behind the scenes to take down opposition groups that threaten the current government. Their goals justify all means, even when it comes to their own agents.

Sin is the Agency’s most efficient killer. His fighting skills and talent at assassination have led to him being described as a living weapon. However, he is also known to go off on unauthorized killing sprees, and his assigned partners have all wound up dead.

Boyd is not afraid to die. When his mother, a high-ranking Agency official, volunteers him to be Sin’s newest partner, he does not refuse. In fact, his life has been such an endless cycle of apathy and despair that he’d welcome death.

In the newly revised Director’s Cut of Evenfall, the first volume follows these two cast-offs as they go from strangers to partners who can only rely on each other while avoiding death, imprisonment, and dehumanization by the Agency that employs them.

Review:
Note: If you want to skip all of my circumstantial psycho-babble just skip down to the ***.

I first encountered Evenfall on Goodreads. A number of reviewers that I follow had read the book, with fairly mixed and extreme reactions. Those who loved it seemed to LOVE it and those who didn’t, really DIDN’T. There were very few mid-level reviews (at least amongst those in my update feed). I ignored it for a while since it’s a work in progress, with no final version yet available (and at almost 1500 pages I was hesitant to commit). But I was curious and since the whole thing is available for free, I decided to give it a go.

I was intrigued from the start. My interest was definitely piqued. (Hey A & S, BTW, for your next editing round you might want to search all your peakeds and change about half of them to piqued. Just a friendly FYI, since the forward said this still isn’t a final version either. Though, I imagine it could be called pretty close.)

So, here I am sitting on my patio, lounging with my Kindle and cuppa when a friendly message from Julio hits my inbox, essentially saying, “Hey you do know a newer version JUST came out, right?” “Wha—?” I think. “I just downloaded this sucker.” But he was right and the newer version is no slight variation. Apparently, Book I was has been cut in half and about 100K words dropped! So, yeah, even with my tendency to stubbornly stay a course once started, it was worth updating my version for.

This means I got to read the 25 or so pages of each book and got an idea of how the two compare. (There is a reason I’m outlining all this, BTW.) The original version was much wordier. When imagined stretched over ~1500 pages and then compared to the condensed version I can easily see how 100K words could be carved out without significantly effecting the story. So even though a trick of the mind made the newer, slimed down version momentarily feel too skinny when read back to back with it’s heftier brother, no one need worry that too much was lost in what I imagine must have been a fairly ruthless editing round.

Ok, you’ve got my backstory. You see where I am as a reader—curious, already invested, committed to finishing what I started, my fear that I would be tangibly missing out on something by reading a different version than I sat down with assuaged, but also facing the very real possibility that I would love the book (3% was enough for me to know this was as likely as not), have the remains of the series on my Kindle but knowing I would do best by it to delete them and await their reedits too. Because having read those first few pages of the original version of this book was enough to know the new editions would be worth waiting for.

This is the emotional soup I settled in with as I read this book and I think with a lesser book it would have been enough to ruin it for me. (Yeah, I know I’m an emotional reader. I don’t always separate my reading experience from the value of a book itself. So, sue me. At least I’m honest about it.) Despite all that though, I basically loved the book.

***

I’ll fess up that seeing two broken men prop each-other up (be it romantically or just as, you know, bros) is my absolute favourite plot device. (I could call it a trope, but that feels insulting.) So, I was predisposed to love Hsin and Boyd from the beginning. They are both definitely broken and both definitely becoming the other’s support column. Did my heart just flutter? I think my heart fluttered.

But I also loved their contradictions too. Boyd is presented as the weaker of the two. But while he’s certainly physically weaker and possesses far less skill that Hsin, functionally he shows a surprisingly ability to just get on with things, which is a strength of sorts. It was the outwardly impenetrable Hsin whose occasional fractured fragility peeked through that carried the day for me, though. Loved it. LOVED IT!

I did have a few problems with them though. I didn’t think either age worked well. Boyd acted too old for a 19-year-old and Hsin too young and inexperienced for a 28-year-old. Yes, I see that Boyd needed to be young to have not yet had the years to get over his trauma and Hsin needed to be older to have the years behind him with the agency. So, I see why they are as they are, but neither felt realistic for me.

Nor, did it feel believable that the Agency would take such an untried youth on for such an important role. If these missions were so important, difficult and dangerous as to require skill of Hsin’s level, what competent agency would send a barely trained newbie out? This is especially questionable since there was no reason to believe Boyd could control Hsin, which was ostensibly his sole actual duty. It was a fairly major weakness of the plot, but overlookable for the enjoyment of the story.

Perhaps my skepticism originates in the fact that I never could believe either survived in the social isolation they’re said to have. And this is probably largely because the whole post WWWIII, dystopian America is mentioned but plays so little role as to be forgotten by the reader. More than once I reached a scene in some desolate street and had to remind myself of the temporal setting. If I had a stronger sense of the place, time and environment that created these men (Boyd especially) I might have had a different reaction.

I did really appreciate that the men’s partnership is a bit of a slow burn. You’re able to see and understand the causes of their change of opinion and actions/reaction. This makes the end result so much sweeter. I was especially prone to melt whenever Hsin showed his feelings, as opaque as they often were.

So, my final say? I could take or leave the political intrigue, BUT I fell in love with Hsin and Boyd. I will definitely be finishing the series out. However, I want to give it the most opportunity to shine. So, as difficult as it is, I’m forcing myself to stop here and wait for the newer editions to come out. (How I wish I hadn’t even thought to read the books until later this summer when the second half of Book I was already out!) I can’t speak for the epically long first edition that I almost read and a number of other reviewers have struggled so much with, but this one is most certainly worth picking up.