Tag Archives: Kim Fielding

Book Review of Brute, by Kim Fielding

I purchased of a copy from Kim Fielding‘s Brute from the publisher, Dreamspinner.

Description from Goodreads:
Brute leads a lonely life in a world where magic is commonplace. He is seven and a half feet of ugly, and of disreputable descent. No one, including Brute, expects him to be more than a laborer. But heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and when he is maimed while rescuing a prince, Brute’s life changes abruptly. He is summoned to serve at the palace in Tellomer as a guard for a single prisoner. It sounds easy but turns out to be the challenge of his life.

Rumors say the prisoner, Gray Leynham, is a witch and a traitor. What is certain is that he has spent years in misery: blind, chained, and rendered nearly mute by an extreme stutter. And he dreams of people’s deaths—dreams that come true.

As Brute becomes accustomed to palace life and gets to know Gray, he discovers his own worth, first as a friend and a man and then as a lover. But Brute also learns heroes sometimes face difficult choices and that doing what is right can bring danger of its own.

Review:
I thought this book was ok, but ultimately a bit of a disappointment. This is partly because I went in really expecting to love it and ended up just liking it, which is fine, really. Normally that would be enough, but when you have especially high hopes, ok feels far worse than it is.

There were several things I didn’t like about the book, but let me start by saying how much I did like Brute, Gray and the characters of the palace. Plus, I loved that the main characters are a bit older, both physically disabled (one a maimed, ugly, giant and the other blind, stuttering, and emaciated) and this is a really sweet read. I liked the book, but the following things were an issue for me.

I was uncomfortable with the power dynamic in a romance between a prisoner and a guard. Yes, the prisoner is the one who initiates the relationship. Brute is not supposed to have taken advantage of Gray in any way. You can tell that from the text. But I was still never comfortable with it. There are too many ways it could go wrong and too many ways that Gray’s psychological state surely was effected. I just couldn’t be comfortable with it.

The book is slow. It takes a long time for Brute to even meet Gray, and then a long time for anything to progress between them, and even once it does, there’s still a lot of book left. Because of this it did seem to drag at times.

I couldn’t buy how Brute’s life went from being so horrible in his village to being all hearts and rainbows as soon as he moved to the palace. Was there really not one kind person in his whole previous 27 years? Was there really not one jerk he encountered in the city? It was too stark a difference and honestly just felt clumsily done.

Lastly, everything was too easy. For over a year Brute and Gray were never once interrupted, never once caught doing anything they shouldn’t. Then there is the whole last adventure, which I won’t spoil, but it’s all too easy. Until, in the end, a happily ever after is just dropped in their lap without their even pursuing it. People suddenly let old hurts go and forgive each other before running off into the sunset.

All in all, a sweet read that I’m glad to have spent time with, but not the home run I had hoped for.

What I’m drinking: Hot almond milk with sorghum molasses, kind of like hot chocolate, but…you know, not.

Book Review of Good Bones (Bones #1), by Kim Fielding

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I downloaded Kim Fielding‘s Good Bones from Dreamspinner Press.

Description from Goodreads:
Skinny, quiet hipster Dylan Warner was the kind of guy other men barely glanced at until an evening’s indiscretion with a handsome stranger turned him into a werewolf. Now, despite a slightly hairy handicap, he just wants to live an ordinary—if lonely—life as an architect. He tries to keep his wild impulses in check, but after one too many close calls, Dylan gives up his urban life and moves to the country, where he will be less likely to harm someone else. His new home is a dilapidated but promising house that comes with a former Christmas tree farm and a solitary neighbor: sexy, rustic Chris Nock.

Dylan hires Chris to help him renovate the farmhouse and quickly discovers his assumptions about his neighbor are inaccurate—and that he’d very much like Chris to become a permanent fixture in his life as well as his home. Between proving himself to his boss, coping with the seductive lure of his dangerous ex-lover, and his limited romantic experience, Dylan finds it hard enough to express himself—how can he bring up his monthly urge to howl at the moon?

Review:
When I first finished Good Bones, my initial thoughts was, “Aww, that was sweet.” I was happy with the read. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how cliched the representation of the rural poor was in Chris—uneducated, goalless, ambition-less, loose, lonely, and apparently desperate to be someone’s wife or equivalent. The more I pondered it, the more it bothered me and the less pleased I was with the book. Not every country person, even poor country people, is the child of a single, alcoholic, drug addicted whore. Suddenly, the whole book looked a little cliched and shallow.

In this new light, though the story was still sweet in the end, I realized not much actually happened and, while Chris was shown to be wonderful, I couldn’t figure out what he saw in Dylan, who didn’t have much character beyond hipster-archetect-werewolf.

I liked the book well enough as a fluffy little read, but just don’t think too deeply about it.

Book Review of Rattlesnake, by Kim Fielding

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I bought a copy of Rattlesnake, by Kim Fielding.

Description from Goodreads:
A drifter since his teens, Jimmy Dorsett has no home and no hope. What he does have is a duffel bag, a lot of stories, and a junker car. Then one cold desert night he picks up a hitchhiker and ends up with something more: a letter from a dying man to the son he hasn’t seen in years.

On a quest to deliver the letter, Jimmy travels to Rattlesnake, a small town nestled in the foothills of the California Sierras. The centerpiece of the town is the Rattlesnake Inn, where the bartender is handsome former cowboy Shane Little. Sparks fly, and when Jimmy’s car gives up the ghost, Shane gets him a job as handyman at the inn.

Both within the community of Rattlesnake and in Shane’s arms, Jimmy finds an unaccustomed peace. But it can’t be a lasting thing. The open road continues to call, and surely Shane—a strong, proud man with a painful past and a difficult present—deserves better than a lying vagabond who can’t stay put for long.

Review:
I thought this was a sweet little story. It’s basically about two men falling in love, that’s it, nothing flashy or exciting, but it’s sweet. What saves it from being boring is that the two men in question are the type of men who rarely make it as main characters, a 43-year-old drifter/chronically homeless man and a 33-year-old crippled man with a traumatic brain injury. And the book proves that readers (or at least this one) don’t need infallible, godly gorgeous, alpha men as heroes. I adored Chase and Jimmy (Chase especially).

It is a bit of an insta-love, which is unfortunate, because it’s not really supported. I have no idea why Chase tried so hard to keep Jimmy around, but I’m glad that he did. I also thought it was a little on the predictable side. But again, it’s a fairly straight forward romance, so it wouldn’t have been overly realistic to have too many twists and turns. All-in-all, it was a book that made me happy to see the HEA (even if it did get a little sappy there at the end).