Tag Archives: Ink Spark Press

Book Review: Chosen by Villains, by Eva Chase

I believe I purchased my copy of Eva Chase‘s Chosen by Villains during a signed book author event.

Three brutal monsters came to my rescue. Now who’s going to save me from them?

Every beat of my heart is the tick of a time bomb, reminding me to squeeze as many thrills out of life as I can. Still, the last thing I expect is a horde of nightmarish monsters descending on me in the night, eager to tear me apart.

So when three more demonic figures leap out of the shadows to defend me, my choices are trust my unexpected champions… or die. Not exactly a tough decision.

The beastly men wrench me away from my home, claiming they’ll keep me safe. They say there’s something special about me—something the others want to devour and they mean to protect.

My monstrous saviors are just as brutal as the creatures they fought off, damaged in ways I’ll never understand. I can tell they’re hiding things from me. But the more we dig into the mysteries surrounding my existence, the more I catch glimpses of tenderness beneath their vicious exteriors.

And the touch of their fangs and tentacles makes me feel so shockingly alive, it’s hard to remember why I ever feared them…

Until I discover the real reason they’re protecting me.

Meh. This was a pretty bland read for me. To start with, I didn’t know beforehand that it is set in the same world as the Flirting With Monsters series. Maybe it’s a spinoff (the characters from that series make an appearance). I don’t know the specifics. I do know that there is so little worldbuilding in this book that if I hadn’t read the Flirting With Monsters series in the past, I would have been lost.

I do not feel that I got to know the characters. (Not that I really needed to. The men are clones of the men from Flirting With Monsters.) I did not feel any chemistry between the lovers. I don’t honestly think there was enough time for any to develop. The plot is simple and predictable. Mostly, it all simply coasted along at just good enough. Never did the book get good and grab my attention. But never did it ever get quite so bad that I decided to DNF. I was mostly just kind of bored with it. Meh, bland.

The writing and editing are fine. The cover is pretty (though I don’t think it matches the tone of the book at all), and I did appreciate all of the disability rep. Honestly, this is probably a case of just not the book for me. I’ve liked other Chase books a lot more.

Other Reviews:

The Heart of a Monster Series by Eva Chase

Book Review: Flirting With Monsters series, by Eva Chase

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I picked up a copy of Eva Chase‘s Shadow Thief as an Amazon freebie. Then, I purchased the compilation of the whole series (Shadow Thief, Twilight Crook, Dusk Avenger, and Dark Champion).

On a side note: I’ve just spent two and a bit days with no power (so, no internet). This means that it has been a few days since I finished these books, so they’re no longer fresh in my mind. Apologies if the review is a little sparse as a result.

When a sassy thief sets three demons free during a heist, she doesn’t count on them following her home—or insisting on repaying her with their protection. This gal isn’t looking for an entourage, even if it’s made up of sexy supernatural hunks. But when it turns out the monstrous men have a lead on the creeps who murdered her family, she’s all in.

Track down the baddies, hook up with a demonic hottie or two, and don’t get killed along the way. Piece of cake, right?

Since I read this whole series as a single entity, I’ll review it similarly. I thought that this series started out well. The writing is easy to read, and the plot whizzed alone. I enjoyed the sass and the easy devotion of the romantic partners. However, as time went on, some cliches crept in, characters started getting introduced and then dropped without explanation, and some sections started to drag. Honestly, I think the whole thing jumped the shark by an entire book.

I enjoyed book one, liked book two well enough, started to lose interest in book three, and only bothered to read book four in order to finish the series. None of it is bad. I just think Chase should have wrapped it up sooner than she did. (Plus, the epilogue was pat and predictable.)

Other Reviews:

Traveling Bookworm: Flirting with Monsters, by Eva Chase

Book Review: Crooked Paradise series, by Eva Chance & Harlow King

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I picked up an Amazon freebie copy of the Crooked Paradise series by Eva Chance and Harlow King. Well, technically, I picked up Scorned Princess on its own and later picked up a compilation with Scorned Princess, Perilous Lady, Ruthless Queen, and Lethal Empress.

A rebellious gang princess, four hot dangerous gangsters, one psycho stalker, and a revenge scheme that could destroy everything in Paradise Bend…

My arranged marriage should have forged an alliance between my fiancé’s gang and my father’s. It turns out my fiancé had other plans. Like slaughtering my entire family the night before the wedding.

I make it out alive, left with nothing but a thirst for vengeance. To crush the prick who betrayed me, I have to turn to the biggest pricks of them all.

Hot, cocky, and dangerous, Wylder Noble and his men rule Paradise Bend. If I pass their brutal tests to prove I deserve their help, my ex doesn’t stand a chance.

But there are deeper troubles stirring in my hometown. While I try to figure out whether I’d rather kiss or kill my infuriating allies, I’ve got a deranged psycho leaving gruesome presents at my window. Outsiders are invading our streets, preparing for war.

If they think our little county will be easy pickings, they couldn’t be more mistaken. The Nobles are far from noble when tackling a threat, and I’m no damsel in distress.

Before this is over, someone’s going to bleed. And this time, it won’t be me.

Since I have this as a compilation/omnibus, I read all the books back to back. So, I’ll just review them in the same manner; as a single entity. (All the books end on cliffhangers until the end, anyhow. So, it’s really one story in the end.) And I was pretty meh on that one story if I’m honest. I’ll say upfront that the writing and editing are fine. I was just incredibly bored. There is a lot of filler, and by the third book (when a frankly unbelievably unbelievable twist allows them to win against incredible odds), I was skimming. I think this might have made a really good duet. But stretching it out to a 1000-page quartet thinned the plot to the point of transparency.

I did like that the men in the group were not all physically prime. Gideon’s inclusion was especially nice, as was Rowen’s softer, artistic side. But the villains were cliched, the plot dragged and became predictable (except for the Hail Mary/deus ex machina solution that miraculously presented itself when needed most and makes no sense in context—didn’t see that coming for obvious reasons), and the baby-makes-six epilogue felt incredibly out of place in a series in which condom use had been assiduous.