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Book Review of Toni LoTempio’s No Rest for the Wicca

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I grabbed Toni LoTempio‘s PNR novel, No Rest for the Wicca, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free. I’ve included two covers because I intend to address them later in the review. The grey is from Goodreads, and the red is from Amazon.

No Rest for the Wicca No Rest for the Wicca

Description from goodreads:
Communing with the dead is an everyday occurrence for PI Morgan Hawkes. A half-Wiccan witch who can commune with spirits of those caught between worlds, Morgan uses her talents to exorcise the trapped ghost or demon as part of the Paranormal Investigation Squad – until a string of murders with a voodoo slant prompts the Special Forces Agency to ask for her assistance. Someone’s killing pureblood witches- and the SFA’s convinced Morgan’s heritage (her father was a voodoo priest) could be instrumental in solving the mystery. Teamed with dashing SF agent Cole St. John – an Inheritor Vampire that sets her blood racing – the two of them fight their attraction for each other as they race to stop a madman from unleashing a demonic force upon the world.

Review:
I got a couple of good chuckles out of No Rest for the Wicca. Morgan was a fun character who managed to pull off the tough snark without pushing it over into the suicidal diarrhea mouth so many such characters have. I enjoyed her, her desire do the right thing, her intelligence and her backbone, maybe not so much her tendency toward alcoholism and self-destructive behaviour. But a few quirks make a character more interesting.

I also enjoyed the mystery here too. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to figure out, but it wasn’t super obvious either. However, Morgan didn’t seem to have to do much investigating to solve it. She just needed to present herself, and people handed her all the information she needed. As an example, she met one of the suspects once (never even had a conversation with him, she was picking up a dropped pencil), and he offered her an assistantship. Now, anyone who’s been to university and tried for an apprenticeship knows this isn’t at all realistic, but even in fiction, it’s a little too easy of an in. What’s more there was one particular side-character who essentially laid every clue she could need at her feet with almost no prompting and without suspecting why Morgan would be asking such questions. Too easy!

As was the fact that the main villain, who managed to spend years carefully planning the whole thing, suddenly lost all composure and got sloppy as soon as Morgan came on the scene. How do heroines do this to bad guys so often? I’ve never figured this out, no matter how often I read it in novels.

A lot has already been made in previous reviews of the whole half-wiccan/half-voodoo thing. So I won’t go on about it, but I’ll admit it threw me for a loop too. At one point, the half-vampire compares the two of them as the same, but I’m still lost as to how someone who is half biologically something (a species) can be the same as someone who is half socially something (a religion). In the end, I just had to tell myself I’ve read tons of fantasy with elves, fairies, witches, sorcerers, vampires, werewolves, etc, as races/species, and it works. So, if LoTempio wants to call them Wiccans instead, I can force that in the same vein.

There was a light romance as a subplot. However, IMHO it really needed to be played up more and made a more important part of the plot or dropped. Half-assed as it was, it’s just a distraction. Granted, Cole was sexy (except for the whole ‘My Dear’ thing that totally didn’t match his character and was exceptionally annoying), and I liked him a lot. But the romance didn’t seem to contribute anything to the story. I was left wondering what that was about. Plus, the whole 25-year-old virgin was ridiculous, considering how easily she gave it up. It felt like a needless attempt to conform to outdated social dictates of acceptable behaviour (good girls remain chaste).

There were some serious editing issues. There were missing words, misspelled words and passages like this one: “He swung his long legs out in front of him. “What I’m proposing is this—“ he swung his long legs out in front of him. “You and I go…” How many legs does this man have? It was distracting, but the book was still readable. I don’t think it was bad enough to pass the book up for.

Finally, a note on covers, and I promise I’m not trying to be mean. I’ve seen two Kindle covers for this book, and they’re both ATROCIOUS, but more to the point, don’t match the book. The first being the grey one with a woman with straight blond streaked hair and scary long fingernails. But the character is described as having curly black hair, and as she’s quite active, I can’t see the nails working out. So, who’s on the cover? The second is even worse (though a more attractive cover, I’ll admit). It’s the red one with the scantily clad woman in lingerie waving a deck of tarot around. However, the main character is described as a virgin, and as there is only one rather mild sex scene, how exactly does that erotica-like cover match the book? It doesn’t, and it is doing a disservice to the author. I would suggest one of the cartooned covers like one sees on H.P. Mallory‘s, Rose Pressey‘s, or Robyn Peterman‘s books. I think it would match the genre better. Only my opinion, though, of course, and I mention this so that others who know the genre will more accurately know what to expect.

So, I finally thought…it was a fun read. It had a few issues, but nothing that would prevent me from recommending it to PNR/UF readers.

Hope’s Daughter

Book Review of Hope’s Daughter (The Ambrosia Sequence #1), by Melanie Cusick-Jones

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Hope's DaughterAuthor, Melanie Cusick-Jones sent me an ecopy of her book Hope’s Daughter.

Description from Goodreads:
Life should be simple for Cassie.

For the small population of Earth survivors who live on the Space Station Hope everything they do is planned and scheduled, down to the cyclical food menus, their roles in the station, even how many children they have.

Despite rigid controls directing her life, Cassie feels more out of synch than ever and worries she won’t find a place for herself within the station community. Perhaps that’s because she’s hearing things inside her head that can’t possibly be real. Or maybe it’s the regular elopements of her peers, heading off to a romantic future in the Married Quarter of the space station, whilst she’s never even been attracted to a boy – no matter how hard her best friend Ami pushes them at her. Then there are the odd questions her work placement partner Balik keeps raising. His questions are just as troubling for her as his distracting smiles and eyes that seem to see inside her.

As Cassie draws closer to Balik she finds that everything else in her life begins to shift. He tells her things that call into question the system they live within. She can’t believe he is right, but at the same time she finds it hard to deny the sincerity of his ideas. Could there be a connection between Cassie’s problems and Balik’s questions? The truth will drag them both to a terrifying and deadly conclusion beyond anything they could have imagined.

Review:
I really rather enjoyed Hope’s Daughter. It is a romantic YA sci-fi novel. However, the emphasis should be very strongly placed on romantic. For much of the book it is the primary focus. In fact, the plot doesn’t really travel far from the romantic for a good 50% or so of the book. There are just sci-fi hints dropped in amongst the romance. It’s also a very YA romance—lots of angst and self doubt and then lots of complete dedication to that same love. But it’s still enjoyable.

I adored Balik. He made a marvelous male lead. I vacillated on Cassie. Sometimes I loved her and other times I kind of wanted to slap her, mostly during her internal waffling moments. We spend a lot of time in Cassie’s head, listening to her self-doubts. Most of which are unfounded. Together, however, they made a strong dynamic duo that I was more than happy to follow.

The plot itself is an interesting one. However, I had two personal complaints on that front. One, there were a lot of convenient solutions to problems presenting themselves. It would be hard to go into details without spoilers, but answers seemed to come to Cassie instead of the other way around. Two, I had a hard time believing the twist with her ‘father.’ It required an unexplained and otherwise impossible change in someone that just didn’t feel plausible to me. I get what the author was trying to do here in showcasing the power of love, etc. But it rang pretty false for me. Neither issue really detracted too much from my basic enjoyment of the book though.

It had a fairly slow start and there are a number of info-dumps, but it reads well, keeps you interested, and leaves you open to more. All in all, I’d be more than happy to recommend this book to young sci-fi lovers.

Fashionably Dead

Book Review of Fashionably Dead (Hot Damned #1), by Robyn Peterman

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Fashionably DeadI grabbed Robyn Peterman‘s Fashionably Dead from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Amazon:
Vampyres don’t exist. They absolutely do not exist.

At least I didn’t think they did ‘til I tried to quit smoking and ended up Undead. Who in the hell did I screw over in a former life that my getting healthy equates with dead?

Now I’m a Vampyre. Yes, we exist whether we want to or not. However, I have to admit, the perks aren’t bad. My girls no longer jiggle, my ass is higher than a kite and the latest Prada keeps finding its way to my wardrobe. On the downside, I’m stuck with an obscenely profane Guardian Angel who looks like Oprah and a Fairy Fighting Coach who’s teaching me to annihilate like the Terminator.

To complicate matters, my libido has increased to Vampyric proportions and my attraction to a hotter than Satan’s underpants killer rogue Vampyre is not only dangerous . . . it’s possibly deadly. For real dead. Permanent death isn’t on my agenda. Avoiding him is my only option. Of course, since he thinks I’m his, it’s easier said than done. Like THAT’S not enough to deal with, all the other Vampyres think I’m some sort of Chosen One.

Holy Hell, if I’m in charge of saving an entire race of blood suckers, the Undead are in for one hell of a ride.

Review:
I almost loved this book. It was almost a great humorous paranormal romance. It was almost a stellar read. It also almost didn’t get finished by this reader.

I feel like the author had a really fun idea, what could be engaging characters, a good sense of humour and some hot sex and then took it all, mixed in a bowl and multiplied it times ten until it was patently unpalatable. Seriously, the idea here is so good. The writing is too, but my god(dess), it’s all just taken soooooo far.

Astrid liked Prada…so she’s a Prada Whore and we’re reminded of it about 1,000 times. She becomes a vampire….then, through no effort on her part, becomes an ultra-vamp. She’s ‘The Chosen One’…then develops unbelievable and unbeatable power and skill that save the day repeatedly, despite her not knowing how she does what she does. (Don’t you just love when mysterious superpowers randomly pop up and rescue the heroine with no conscious decision on her part?) She not only can do a bit of magic here or there (when vamps aren’t supposed to be able to do any), she can shoot hundreds of silver bullets from her fingertips. She can destroy whole roomfuls of enemies (sometimes, but apparently not always, since at other times she just didn’t bother).

She’s chosen as a mate…by the most powerful vamp in the area. She gets hot around him…and then can orgasm repeatedly at a touch on her back. They have sex…and then when that isn’t wild enough for our heroine they throw in handstand positions and things that she thinks probably should be legal. Seriously? Sex and handstands, when she’s portrayed as not particularly sexually experienced.

She wants a family…then she gets one, and then another, and then another. Everyone can’t help but love her eventually. She’s funny and sarcastic…then it just becomes annoying in it’s suicidal banality. She can apparently say anything to anyone at anytime with none of the consequences other vampires would face. She gets a guardian angel…then a special fairy…then her best friend goes all super-power too. She’s too special for a girl who was just some normal Mary Sue a day earlier. She’s mated to the local ruler, daughter-in-law to the vampire king, daughter to the demon king, granddaughter to the king’s best friend, guarded by the most notable fairy to come around for 2,000 years, best friends with the fairy queen, and trained by a powerful angel who also has an important position. It’s all just too much…far, far, far too much.

Especially since I don’t know that I actually grasped why she needed all the special skills to accomplish the task ‘The Chosen One’ was meant to do. Actually, I wasn’t really even all that clear on what that was to start with. Maybe she’ll need to do more powers in the future, but as it stands much of her amazingness seemed surplus to requirements.

Further, the book is incredibly repetitive. It recaps itself at regular intervals, gives the reader the same information more than once and I just plain lost track of how many times I read, ‘What the fu…’ Scaled back, this could be a really good book. I mean it is funny. It is well written. The editing is pretty good. (I noticed a few errors, but far fewer than in a lot of indie books I’ve read.) But it’s completely unbelievable and after a while I just started groaning and rolling my eyes. Plus, it’s a freakin’ cliffhanger. At least it’s not a novella. It’s an appreciably long book, but still doesn’t have a conclusion.