Tag Archives: KDP

Book Review of Rachel Francis’ Life on Fire

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Life on FireYesterday, as I was trolling my TBR list, muttering to myself about how I could have so very, very many books and still not pick anything to read, my daughter reached over and said, “How about that one? It looks interesting.” Well there you go, decision made (and proof positive that covers matter).

Rachel Francis‘ PNR novel, Life on Fire, was downloaded from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Anna grew up in the peace of Caroline, a small East coast town barely warranting its own school district. When that serenity is shattered by murder, no one feels safe. One, two, three attacks and no end in sight, Anna falls into a deep depression, spurred onward by the sudden departure of her best friend.

It’s then she notices the strangers around town. Anna enters a world of magic when she comes face to face with two of the newcomers, leaving her changed forever. Saving her hometown may be second only to keeping a centuries old war from boiling over.

Review:
Life on Fire takes the same old, same old and spruces it up enough to be interesting. Anna is a regular, small town girl until her life is endangered and she awakens to her inherent, and previously unknown, paranormal powers. These powers are of course the most powerful there can be. But not to worry, there is an emotionally damaged hotty available to fall in love with her and help her through the transition. She in turn will of course sooth his injured soul in a way no one has been able to before. As well as effortlessly help and earn the admiration of everyone around her.

I’m being trite I know. I did say the same old plot was livened up a little bit though. It’s the characters that add the spice. Wendrick is a wonderfully conflicted character, by far the best in the book IMO. He carries his own heavy burden of ability, responsibility and basic guilt for what he is. David and Rosalyn have an interestingly tempestuous relationship, and Anna has a strong, loving family. Anna was my least favourite of the bunch. In a book that walked the standard genre line so unwaveringly it was the small divergences that kept it from being boring and Anna didn’t stray too far from the standard PNR heroine. She therefore didn’t hold my interest very well. I didn’t hate her or anything. She was just kind of a null for me.

Her and Wendrick together were pretty good however. This isn’t exactly a case of instant-love, or rather I think the author tried to pull it back from insta-love. It’s pretty quick though. And even if not quite instant, the love between Anna and Wendrick solidifies with very little outside influence. He is inexplicably drawn to her and she pretty much goes on a systematic campaign to make him her own. There isn’t really any falling in love as much as finally accepting the love.

Though the main character is 22, this reads like a YA book. Anna still lives at home with her parents. Wendrick is several hundred years old, but acts like a stroppy teenager. David sulks through the whole first half of the story and Anna has dealt with one of her best friend’s crushes for years. There is one mild, largely inexplicit sex scene. It’s the only reason I hesitate to call this YA.

My main complaint is that the dialogue is incorrectly formatted throughout the book, such that a spoken sentence is often on the same line as the response of the person spoken to. Creating confusion about who is actually speaking after all. A made-up example (cause I’m too lazy to go find my kindle and pick out a real one): ”Sit there.’ John sighed, but sat.’ In this case John would be the person spoken to, not the speaker. It’s obvious on a second glance, but it takes that second glance and disrupts the flow.

For an easy, mindless couple hours of entertainment Life on Firefits the bill.

Mist on the Meadow

Book Review of Karla Brandenburg’s Mist on the Meadow

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Mist on the MeadowI grabbed Karla Brandenburg‘s Mist on the Meadow from the KDP free list. 

Description from Goodreads:
For her twenty-fifth birthday, a family legacy is passed on to small town pastry chef Marissa Maitland as a Kundigerin, which means she has come into secret psychic power. She will know things about people at the brush of a hand, and use this to help them—but she cannot talk about being Kundigerin without suffering pain.

Named executor of his grandmother’s estate, Wolf Harper must find something called a “Kundigerin” before he can sell the place. If he could sell his remaining family too, he would. Keeping the family business afloat is his priority, in spite of his uncle’s bad management putting them in the red.

Wolf runs into Marissa—literally, at an icy intersection—and is enchanted by her beauty. One bite of her baked goods bewitches him and enflames a passion Marissa shares. But Marissa blurts long-buried details about the car accident that killed his parents, and knows far too much about the problems at Harper Electronics, neither of which she will explain. Should he be afraid of her?

Review:
This was a pretty good read. I really liked some aspects of it–Marissa’s family & friends, her work ethic, Wolf’s self-inforced control issues, the writing. I especially liked the way Wolf’s slightly crazed, desperate behaviour countered the traditional masculine role without making him feel wimpy and the fact that Chuck may not have gotten his comeuppance, but he didn’t get off scott-free either if you look at the karma of his life. However some things irked me.

Brandenburg doesn’t seem to be bound by her own rules. One of the first things Marissa learns about being a Kundigerin is that she isn’t allowed to talk about it. However, throughout the book she seems to speak fairly freely about it. Granted she avoids the actual word, but she still reveals herself on more than one occasion. Additionally, it is quite explicitly explained that females are Kundigerin and males are Secret Keepers, but Wolf seems to have Kundigerin powers of his own. Plus, since Marissa doesn’t seem to know much about her abilities the reader doesn’t know much and as a direct consequence there were times (the final confrontation for example) where I only had a hazy understanding of what actually happened.

A more personalised dislike was the fact that I thought that the whole misunderstanding with the ex-girlfriend was pat and trite. I could have done without all of the resulting self-doubt. She knew how he felt about her, so why feel so insecure? And lastly, After the mystery wrapped up (a little too nicely if you ask me) and everyone who deserved saving was saved there were still several chapters of just plain mush. No romantic trope was missed. Wolf systematically worked through every ‘awww’ moment possible. So much for everything in moderation.

Having laid my irritants on the table, let me reiterate that I enjoyed the read despite them. Brandenburg is a talented writer who sculpts believable characters that readers can easily relate to. I think the plot escaped the bounds of the story a little bit, but there is still a gem in here that is worth looking at.

On a side note, though it makes sense in the context of the book, the cover doesn’t do the book justice. Overlook it and give it a try. 

Review of Witchy Business, by Eve Paludan & Stuart Sharp

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Witchy BusinessI grabbed Witchy Business from the Amazon KDP list. It’s written by Eve Paludan and Stuart Sharp and apparently presented by J.R. Rain. I’m not sure what to make of this ‘J.R. Rain presents…’ It reminds me of the old Masterpiece Theatre, “presented by PBS.” I don’t mean to make fun of it or anything. I mention it because I don’t know how to, or even if I need to, incorporate it into my review in any way. I don’t really know what it means. I’m guessing ‘edited by’ or ‘mentored by,’ but that’s just a guess.

Description from Goodreads:
What would you do with unspeakable power?

Elle Chambers is Edinburgh’s hardest working insurance investigator, and one who solves cases using unconventional means. Supernatural means. Elle is a witch–and a damn good one, too.

Assigned back-to-back cases, Elle must first find a missing bad boy who might or might not be a werewolf. Next, a simple missing artwork case turns out to be not so simple. What Elle is about to discover will change her life forever…and open her heart to the possibility of love.

Review:
I thought this was an alright read, though it didn’t really do it for me. I don’t even really know why, but I finished with a bit of a ‘meh.’ I did enjoy the way the book played with the normal hero/romantic partner character. Often in PNR (I’m thinking Ward, Frost, etc. here), the hero is muscle-bound, leather-clad, beefcake, and the antagonist is the smooth-talking, well-dressed, and sophisticated. Both character types are present in this book, but the heroine’s choice of mates is unexpected. The effect of this was that I spent the whole book waiting for the reversal, the point when the good guy suddenly reveals his betrayal and the heroine runs into the arms of the unexpectedly compassionate, stoic man on the side. This never happened. It was a fun little twist and proof that sometimes it’s not a matter of what’s written but what isn’t that can add the most spice to a story.

But I also felt that the whole thing rolled along a little too smoothly. N. goes to great lengths to meet Elle, but we never discover how he even knew about her to begin with. We never learn when, why, or how exactly he fell so deeply in love with her unless it’s just a matter of ‘we’re the only two like us, so we should be together.’ That seems pretty weak to me. There is definitely some insta-love on Elle’s part, however. Then there is Rebecca and Everett, who can blithely acknowledge Elle’s burgeoning feelings and tell her to arrange to kill that person in the same conversation. Seems a little unrealistic to me. Could they really expect compliance? Elle solves the missing art case, seemingly without any clues, and in the end, manages to resume her life despite the coven’s long-standing policy of eradication against her kind. Yep, everything is resolved just a little too easily.

On a side note, I also didn’t find the book to match the description very well. The bad-boy werewolf is already found when the book starts and he’s an overwhelmed lawyer with mother issues, not a bad boy at all. For most of the book, Elle is a decidedly weak enchantress, not the damn good witch described. (In this particular story, there is a divide between witches and enchantresses, so it’s not the same thing.) And she isn’t assigned back-to-back cases. She is an insurance agent who solves cases with a little magical assistance, though, and she is on the case of a missing piece of art. Maybe these are small details, but still…

Despite the above points, it was an entertaining enough read for an evening. The writing seemed fairly smooth and I didn’t notice many, if any, editorial mishaps.