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Book Review of Shannon Mayer’s Celtic Legacy series

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I grabbed all three of Shannon Mayer‘s Celtic Legacy books from the Amazon free list. They also represent book 6, 7 & 8 of my Taking Care of My Own Challenge.

Celtic Legacy

Description:
The bonds of family are stretched to the breaking point as legendary monsters, a deadly prophecy, and soul swallowing fears threaten to destroy them. Magic, secrets, sensuality and mind numbing terror all rolled into one to keep the pages flying.

Review:
Even having finished this book, I’m undecided about how I feel about it. There seems to be an interesting plot developing. It’s well written. The dialogue seems natural and it flows fine. Though there are a few editing issues, most notably a whole passage that seems to have been pasted in twice.

But…BUT I hated the wimpy coward Quinn was portrayed as, even while she was supposed to be a prophesied saviour. It made her feel inept, like she couldn’t do anything unless there was a man there forcing her to do the right thing (the thing she wanted to do, but couldn’t on her own). Meh, that SOOOO doesn’t do it for me. Though, in fairness, I’ll give it props for being a little more realistic than the heroine who fearlessly rushes into danger.

I also didn’t feel like I got to know any of the characters very well…at all. The reader isn’t given any opportunity to learn about them, their past, or their personality, especially Bres and Luke. They are essentially characterless. Thus, Quinn’s eenie-meenie-minie-moe routine between the two elicited no emotion from me. I didn’t care who she chose, as I knew neither one of them.

I was a bit bothered by the fact that she was suddenly ‘with’ Luke and determined to stay loyal, when I couldn’t say when they made any sort of commitment to one another. A kiss is the most they shared. Further, she just seemed to gravitate toward whichever man she was physically nearest at the time, as if she had no actual volition of her own. All of this with no real, definitive explanation beyond, ‘the prophesy says it’s so.’

Similarly, since I didn’t feel like I knew any of the characters I didn’t feel like I really grasped why anyone did anything and therefore the plot felt a bit like a group of random people running about doing random things. Now, I’m not calling it plotless, far from. But you just never really know anything anymore than you know anyone…if that makes sense. If I didn’t have a basic understanding of light and dark fae I probably wouldn’t have even understood the plot in to begin with.

I’m also a bit confused about the intended audience. Quinn is 25. I’m not under the impression that this is supposed to be a YA book/series, but at times it felt very much like it is. Things like a kiss being given enormous importance or juvenile questions like, “Do you want to be my boyfriend?” Wha…what? Really?

Lastly (and this is a complaint I seem to make a lot lately), I don’t understand why it’s broken up. This is not a stand alone book, but as each is only ~150 pages, there is plenty of room for them to be comfortably combined.

All in all, despite my apparent negativity, it’s an interesting (if rushed) start to the series, but I won’t really know what I feel about it until I see how the series comes together. On its own, all it is is an interesting beginning and, honestly, that’s not really enough.

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Description:
When evil begets evil, a choice is forced on Quinn, the one person who can see the danger. Does she save the ones she loves, or does she save the world from Chaos?

As the realms of Fae and human collide, Quinn’s future has never looked so grim, or so damn impossible.

Review:
This book picks up exactly where book one ended, further making me question why they are broken into three volumes. While it’s quite action packed (Quinn spends the whole book running from one task to another) the reader is still denied any real depth of character. I also found myself wondering how Quinn managed to continue to best better fighters with skills she has only just acquired and had no time to practice or perfect.

The different threads of the story do start to come together here. And though I found the final twist quite obvious (and wondered how no one was supposed to have seen that one coming) it was still gratifying to get there. (I wonder if I’ll feel the same way about the obvious ending I think I see coming too.)

Again, writing and dialogue seem fine and the editing was better than in book one.

16055884Description:
With Chaos free in the world, Quinn finally faces the truth. She must kill the one she has spent her life trying to protect in order to save the world. But with leader of the Tuatha against her, her own brother seeking her blood and the world in upheaval, Quinn may not see the day that prophecy has claimed will come to pass.

At least, not without a sword that no longer exists.

Review:
Dark Fae picks up exactly where Dark Isle ended and it continues in much the same vein as the previous books. Quinn is sent around on mini-quest after mini-quest, sacrificing herself and saving those she loves. Without doubt, Quinn’s love is the strongest aspect of this book. However, I’m not entirely certain we see why her sister deserves it so much. Additionally, Quinn continues to win battles despite being out manned, out skilled,  and overpowered. I question the believability of it.

She did finally develop a backbone, though. That was appreciable. I liked seeing her strike out on her own, make her own decisions and act on them.

Like the previous books, I still didn’t feel like we got to know the characters well. I kept waiting, but it just wasn’t to be. I also thought the story wrapped up really predictably. EVERYONE had a happy ending. Even most of the evil characters were somehow excused and forgiven. For me, it was a little too schmaltzy, but I have a pretty low schmaltz threshold to start with.

All in all, it was a satisfying ending to an interesting series. The whole thing could do with some fleshing out, but I still enjoyed it.

Whisper Cape

Book Review of Whisper Cape, by Susan Griscom

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Whisper CapeI grabbed Susan Griscom‘s Whisper Cape from the Amazon free list. This is review number four of my Taking Care of My Own Challenge.

Ridiculously Long Description from Goodreads:

Escape to a world where the impossible becomes possible. WHISPER CAPE is a town of secrets and Addison MacKenna soon becomes tangled in a web of them. Plagued with nightmares of her father’s sudden and brutal death, Addie struggles with her anguish and refuses to believe his demise was accidental. 

Fighting to shake off one of those devastating early morning nightmares, Addison finds it even harder to escape from the vision of a man lying on the side of the road—a man she may have just killed. When she frantically tries to locate him, he seemingly disappears, just the beginning of strange occurrences in her life. She also cannot ignore the weird sensations in her own body. Suddenly, the impossible seems possible, but is that a blessing or a curse? 

Believing that her continual and worsening nightmares are both the key to her own new abilities and the clue to her father’s death, Addie knows she will not rest until she has the answers she craves. As she strives to cope with her new remarkable talents, someone else learns of her abilities—a disgruntled maniacal psychopath with his own agenda that involves eliminating Addie. The only one who can protect her, instruct her in the use of her powers and teach her how to destroy the murderous monster is the same man who makes Addie’s heart race and her blood heat with passion. The same man she’d left for dead. 

Cael Sheridan may be arrogant and mysterious but he’s also undeniably gorgeous. A member of a secret society, he is sworn to protect the woman he believes to be the daughter of his recently murdered mentor. In the process, he finds it impossible to resist her magnetic sensuality, complicating his efforts to shield and guide her as she learns to manage her newly acquired skills. At the same time, Addison has much to teach him about trust and commitment. Fate has brought them together, but will it make them stronger or destroy them both in end?

Review:
I have to be honest, I hate giving bad reviews but I’m thrilled to be done with this book. I was beginning to think I might never reach the end and it really wasn’t ringing any bells for me. Mostly because I disliked the heroine, Addie, and didn’t particularly care for the hero, Cael, either.

Addie was pitiful in almost every sense of the word. In the first 1/4 of the book she had nightmares, almost ran someone over and drove off a cliff, bumped her head into a metal sign so hard she almost fell onto jagged rocks, fell over a cliff and almost died (Seriously, who falls off a cliff that they know they’re standing on because they don’t pay attention to where they put their feet?), got buzzed off two beers and head spinning, passing out drunk off three. The trend only continued after that, tripping into Cael’s arms, staggering on her big girl high heals, etc.

It all made her feel like she couldn’t take care of herself. And not only because of her ridiculous accident proneness, but in little things like her tendency to forget to eat and the crying (even crying herself to sleep at one point). She’s either very child-like or just basically inept and a failure as an adult. I’m going with the latter, since at 26 she had only just gotten her first apartment on her own.

Then there were passages like this, “…the spell of his kisses rendering her helpless. His hands were so sure and knowledgeable…” Yes, that’s obviously a statement that needs to be considered in context, but that’s also essentially the ongoing dichotomy here. She’s helpless and he’s sure. Everyone knows more than Addie. Everyone is more capable than Addie. Everyone looks out for poor fragile, naive Addie. Gag. Helpless women (especially ones who are contradictorily made out to be strong and capable, despite what is shown) drive me up the wall.

Cael, was just…well, I don’t know how to say this less bluntly, but just too predictable. Almost everything, no matter how ridiculous, was seen a mile in advance or a PNR trope. For example, deciding Addie would be better off without him and trying to push her away by being verbally cruel in order to make her believe he doesn’t care for her (for her own good, of course). A) stupid and makes no sense. How is hurting her protecting her? B) a regular, and no less hated for it, PNR event.

Addie’s limp-ragness was the main reason I disliked the book, but a close second was that I kept asking, ‘where is the antagonist?’ No, seriously, he shows up for about a page at 75% (where we see a quick cliché baddie monologue along the lines of  “oh, they’ll pay…blah, blah, blah”) and then for about 3 pages at 95% (where he is defeated with painful ease) otherwise he’s just a cut-out for Cael to protect Addie from while 98% of the book is dedicated to their lightning-speed romance or sex. What more, he had ample access and opportunity to kill, kidnap, maim, rape, or whatever Addie before the big reveal and climactic fight. So, why didn’t he?

Despite all the sex the book has a very YA feel. The way a big deal is made of Addie and Cael having sex, the ‘parent figures’ being seriously over-protective and everyone’s mental agony over being a ‘boyfriend’ or not. These are supposed to be adults? No, these felt like teenagers, with teenage issues.

I found the writing repetitive, in the sense that the reader is told the same thing over and over again, but also in that things happen and then the characters tell other characters about it or events are relayed from various characters. Like Darcy talking about why she and Jarod broke up and then Jarod telling Addie why he and Darcy broke up. Same story, why do I need to hear it twice? Then again, after hearing the story twice, why do we also need multiple reminders of it? (Like Darcy in the bath remembering it.)

I also found the dialogue often (but not always) stiff, occasionally losing contractions, saying names too frequently, or too often starting a comment with yes or please, for example. Whatever the reason, it didn’t feel natural to me. This lent an oddly formal feel to the book.

Lastly, random odd POVs are thrown in occasionally. Despite being side characters we see Darcy and Jarod’s POV. I didn’t understand why. Their small side-story didn’t contribute enough to the plot to necessitate (or excuse) breaking the set POV pattern for inclusion. So I often found myself wondering why I was watching them do whatever unimportant thing they were doing.

All in all, not a winner for me. Believe it or not I dropped a number of minor complaints because I thought too much more would start to border on cruelty.  The above is just my opinion and I apologise for not having more positives to sandwich in there, but by the time I finally finished I was just too far past objectivity to manage it. I disliked the book, but you’ll notice I’ve never claimed it isn’t a quality book or unworthy of being read. The book has an interesting premise and I know a lot of people enjoy it. Maybe you’ll be one of them, even if I wasn’t.

Keystone

Book Review of Keystone (Gatewalkers), by Amanda Frederickson

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KeystonesIt was over a year ago, but I downloaded Amanda Frederickson’s Keystone from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Charlie knew it would be one of those days. Saturdays are always crowded at the mall’s virtual reality arcade. But she never imagined it would end in being kidnapped by fairies and bitten by a vampire.

A pair of mischievous pixies have decided that Charlie is the hero who will save their world – whether she wants to or not.

Now, to get back to her own world she must rescue a kidnapped princess and find the broken pieces of an ancient artifact. It also couldn’t hurt to convince her guide that he doesn’t want to defect to the enemy horde. Staying alive would be a nice bonus too.

Yeah, it was one of those days. But this time, the monsters are real.

Review:
I’m going to give this book a numeral rating of 3.5. I don’t always, or even often write numbered reviews. But in this case, I think it will help clarify my torn response to this book.

Let me start this review by saying how disappointed I am in this book. It has a wonderfully spunky heroine, a sexy hero, a dangerous antagonist, an engaging quest-based plot, a lot of humour and a whole host of fun side characters. What it does not have is an ending. Worse than that, it doesn’t even pretend that it does. There is NO attempt at a wrap-up or winding down of the plot before breaking for the next book. The book just literally ends out of nowhere.

Now, it’s 200+ pages long, so it’s an appropriate length. But it still feels exactly like someone handed me the first 200 pages of a 400-page book and then denied me the rest. And a denial it is, since there isn’t a second book yet. Someone tell me why authors feel the need to publish half novels? Is it impatience? I enjoyed reading this, but consider it a COMPLETE waste of my time. I don’t like bothering with stories I’ll NEVER see the end of.

Of what there is…I really enjoyed the silliness here. There are a few funny pop references. The characters are witty and largely unflappable, the writing is pretty good and the story itself is interesting. Unfortunately, it’s a relatively complex one. There are a fair number of characters, some history and two different worlds, both of which are only minimally sketched out. For example, Charlie is apparently from some earth-like world in what resembles out near future. It’s not clarified, but it must be near enough for Twilight jokes to still be relevant, but far enough in the future for virtual reality arcades and ultra-pocket computers to be developed, not to mention open acceptance of garish hair colours.

I also thought that the romance was clumsily done. The reader isn’t given any clues about it until suddenly Charlie is endangered and something in Rhys ‘snaps.’ I thought they were a good match, but the author seems to have depended on the predictability of the relationship to situate it, instead of allowing it to develop.

I’m rounding the rating up simply because I did enjoy what I read and a three would be too miserly for the quality of the writing and the bones of the story. But a four is also more than it deserves for having set up soooo many threads and then just walked away and left them ALL hanging without conclusion. But since 1/2 stars aren’t allowed I was forced to choose one way or the other.