Tag Archives: magic

Murder Most Witchy

Book Review of Murder Most Witchy (Wendy Lightower Mystery #1), by Emily Rylands

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Murder Most WitchyI downloaded a copy of Murder Most Witchy, by Emily Rylands from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
The Lightower family has been hunting down paranormal phenomena in the small town of North Harbor for generations. Unlike the rest of her family, Wendy Lightower has never dreamed of chasing evil witches or unearthing magical secrets. Her greatest ambition in life is to be a full-time librarian and leave her witchy roots far behind her. But when a murder is committed in her very own library, Wendy cannot ignore that there is no natural explanation for the killing. If the killer is to be caught, she must call on family and friends alike to solve the magical murder. 

When she chose books over boogeymen and libraries over lycans, Wendy thought she would finally be able to live a ‘normal’ life. Now, her library is no longer the sanctuary she imagined it to be, and there may just be a killer hiding in the stacks.

Review:
This was cute but a little on the slow side. While I never quite achieved boredom, it never grabbed me either. The murderer was obvious from the beginning, though thankfully not as obvious as the red herrings might have been. Unfortunately, even they were so obvious as to be too obvious and therefore easily dismissible.

The characters were fun but not deeply developed and a little on the cliché side. The outline of a love-triangle felt unsupported and annoying (especially since I couldn’t figure out why she even considered one of the men). There was no significant world-building. So, while it was entertaining it all felt very much like fluff.

The writing itself was straightforward, though the occasional abrupt shift in POV was jarring. There did seem to be a need for some further editing. I caught a lot of small mistakes, little things like the ‘witch trails’ instead of witch trials. Perfectly readable, but also distracting.

All in all, not a bad book but not great either. Kind of a witchy, cozy mystery. I’d read the second if I found it free, but I’m not rushing out to buy it.

Review of The Circus of the Damned, by Cornelia Grey

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Circus of the DamnedI received an ARC of Cornelia Grey‘s The Circus of the Damned from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Magician Gilbert Blake has spent his entire life conning drunkards in the seediest pubs in the darkest towns, careful to hide the true depths of his power. But when he spends a little too much time in Shadowsea and the infamous slumlord Count Reuben gets wind of his abilities, hiding within the Circus of the Damned may be Gilbert’s only chance at survival.

But there’s more to the Circus than meets the eye. Every time a performer dies, a new one must take his place, or the entire circus suffers the consequences. And while the handsome ringmaster Jesse isn’t one to coerce unwilling performers into giving up their souls to the devil, a recent death in their ranks makes Gilbert exactly what they need.

Yet the longer Gilbert stays with the Circus, the more danger he seems to bring them. Being with Jesse is more than Gilbert could have hoped for, but as Count Reuben’s men continue to search for Gilbert and the Circus loses another performer, they all face running out of time long before the Devil claims his due.

Review:
CUTE! Just so stinking cute. This is the first Cornelia Grey book I’ve had the pleasure of reading, but you can bet your last flimsy dollar I’ll be on the lookout for more. Thumbs up.

Gilbert’s open appreciation of Jesse was a pleasure to read and Jesse wasn’t anything like I expected. I expected him to be the heavy, creepy circus master, but none of it worked out quite like I expected and I’m not complaining. Actually, I expected the whole thing to be dark, but it isn’t. It’s almost light and fluffy in a YA sort of way if you overlook the cursing and sex. But again, I’m not complaining. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

There was a quietly bisexual lead falling in love with a beautiful man, a cast containing a satisfying variety of age, gender, color, even species (I think), a few yummy, but in no way smutty sex scenes, some evocative writing, interesting side characters (though there are a lot of them), some light steampunk elements and a HEA ending. Plenty to recommend this novel to any number of readers.

My only complaint is that I never really felt like I got to know the characters in any depth. I got to know what was happening around them and what they did, but not them and I really wanted to. But that’s a relatively small criticism for something I enjoyed as much as I did this one.

Hainted

Book Review of Hainted, by Jordan L. Hawk

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HaintedI borrowed a copy of Hainted, by Jordan L. Hawk. (Thanks, S.)

Description from Goodreads:
The Good Guy: Haint-working runs in Dan Miller’s blood. Not everyone can help the restless dead cross over, especially when the haunting threatens the Living. But the death of his parents six years ago forced Dan to give it up in exchange for raising his brother and sister, all the while struggling to keep their rural NC farm afloat.

So when the flamboyantly goth Leif Helsvin shows up on Dan’s doorstep looking for help with an evil necromancer named Runar, Dan’s first instinct is to turn him down. With two teenagers to look after, he’s already got all the trouble he can handle. Besides, the sexy Leif is too much of a temptation, and Dan is firmly in the closet.

The Bad Boy: Pierced, tattooed Leif never has sex with the same guy twice. It keeps things simple, especially since his oath to stop Runar has him constantly drifting from one town to the next.

But this time, it looks like Leif is going to need help, in the form of the very down-to-earth Dan. Since Nice Guys are off the menu, Leif just has to keep his hands to himself for as long as it will take to stop Runar’s latest scheme. But as Leif finds himself drawn deeper into Dan’s life, he quickly realizes he’s not just in danger of breaking the rules, but breaking his heart as well

Review:
I don’t usually use star ratings on the blog. But I think it will help me explain my indecision on this one. If I were to star this book, I would be stuck between a 3 and a 4. It’s not quite a 4, but it’s better than a lot of books I’ve given 3s to. I think my seesaw-opinion comes from it being a fine book, but grating on my personal nerves.

It is well written and well edited; no complaints on that front. I’ll definitely be looking for more of Hawk’s writing, but Dan and Lief just annoyed the living daylights out of me almost every-time one of them opened their mouth.

I did appreciate the twist on the characters, on who’s the strong one and who needs the healing. Well, they both need healing, but the bad-boy character isn’t usually the one written as fey-like and fragile and it gave the book a bit of something different. And I did like both characters. I also thought the side characters were very well done. Taryn was awesome, Bea was stable and dependable, Virgil gave everything a little friction, even Corey and Marlene added a little something to the mix.

However, the book is repetitive. We’re told the same information multiple times, very close together. I think if Dan blamed himself for not saving his mother one more time I might have tossed my kindle over the back of the couch. (This also made his sudden repressed memory and the strength he garnered from it at the end unbelievably convenient.) Similarly, Lief’s constant ‘if he knew the truth’ mantra grew old pretty quickly.

I was also absolutely sickened by the sex=love and instant endearment laden relationship—you know, the way the characters instantly start calling each-other baby and sweetheart and saying things like ‘I’ll love you forever.’ Especially since Dan simultaneously held onto the ‘he’s leaving next week.’ It was pretty clear that had fallen off the table. Plus, if I’m honest, Lief’s ex-prozzie, ‘I’m into toys and plugs and everything else’ attitude didn’t really fit the tone of the rest of the book.

Then there was the fact that I was confused about the haints. They’re supposed to be ghosts, but lets be real, they’re zombies. And I didn’t set out to read a zombie book. This wasn’t help by the fact that I found the action scenes fairly mild and almost always brief.

The whole set up also felt a little wobbly because Runar seemed to discover what he came to Ransom Gap for after he came to Ransom Gap. I can’t really explain this without a spoiler, but once he arrived he discovered something he wanted to find and went about searching it out as Dan and Lief tried to stop him (that’s the non-romance part of the plot). So, what brought him there in the first place?

So, in the end, it was a fine book. It really was. I didn’t even dislike it. I liked a lot of it. But there were just so many small annoyances that they started to reach a bit of a critical mass by the end.