Tag Archives: novella

Captured

Book Review of Captured (Fallen Siren 0.5), by S. J. Harper

Leave a reply

CapturedCaptured, by S. J. Harper, is a perma-freebie on Amazon. That’s where I picked my copy up.

Description from Goodreads:
Join FBI Agents Emma Monroe and Zack Armstrong. She’s a Siren. He’s a Werewolf. Their mission is redemption.

Emma Monroe is a Fallen Siren, cursed by the gods and banished to Earth for her failure to prevent the kidnapping of Persephone. She’s had many names and many lives, but only one mission: redemption. Now she works for the FBI and is on temporary assignment in Charleston. Solving this next missing persons case could be the key to ending her ancient curse—unless the temptation that’s her new partner gets in the way.

Zack Armstrong is a Werewolf. Tall, dark, and dangerous, he currently works for one of the bureau’s elite Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams. In many respects the man is every bit as mysterious as his secret and perilous past. But there are two things he’s certain about, that he’s going to get his man and his woman.

When Zack finds himself suddenly shy a partner and a third child goes missing in Charleston, Emma goes from consultant to CARD team member in the space of a few hours. The abductions of the first two boys ended in murder, an outcome that neither Zack nor Emma can abide. As they race against time to track down the kidnapper and rescue the latest victim, they find themselves fighting something just as treacherous—a growing attraction that can’t be ignored or denied. 

Review:
Meh, this series looks like it might be all right, but I’m afraid this prequel was a poor showing. I liked the characters, which is why I’m willing to give the series the benefit of the doubt, but this book was dull. They spent the whole time driving around rehashing interviews (not even doing new ones, but re-interviewing people) and eating. There was no real tension and solutions either came too easily or off page. Plus, the paranormal aspects of the plot were underdeveloped to say the least (basically non-existent). This is basically a police procedural with less action and depth than your average Law & Order episode.

Book Review: Full Exposure & Five Dates, by Amy Jo Cousins

Leave a reply

Technically, these two Amy Jo Cousins novellas, Full Exposure and Five Dates, are just a little too short to normally be granted a review page (I usually say nothing less than 100 pages). But I read them together, so I’ll make a single post out of two slightly too-short books with equally short reviews and call it a day.
full exposure and five dates

Full Exposure:

There’s more than one way to be a rock star.

Evan Pak is a card-carrying geek (he even has the job to prove it), but when his photographer brother invites him to tag along on a photo shoot with rock star Riley Flood, he figures it will be two days of ogling and eye-rolling and nothing more. But the reckless bad boy is nothing like he expected, and Evan is mesmerized by the mix of cocky and sweet he sees in Riley. When a spontaneous idea ends with Evan stripping down under the hot lights for an intimate portrait for Riley’s next album cover, Evan is absolutely sure their connection won’t end when the lights are turned off. Especially since Riley can’t seem to keep his hands off the tattoos Evan hides under his clothes.

Even a spoiled rock star wants to give up control sometimes, if only for a weekend. The world is full of people who want things from Riley and the demands on him never stop. Evan knows exactly how to turn off the noise in Riley’s head and it starts by putting him on his knees.

Together, they will push each other higher and farther than either one of them have ever gone before. It’s easy to take risks when there’s a time limit on the game. But when their time is up, what comes next if they don’t want the game to end?

My review:

I’ve not read many ‘Don’t Read in the Closet’ stories, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Plus, if I’m honest, I tend to avoid books that are less than 100 pages long. That’s kind of my random, ‘I consider this worth my time’ length. But AJC posted a teaser of this somewhere and it did its job. It made me want the rest of the story. I’m glad about that because I really quite enjoyed it.

Five Dates:

Helping his sister Lucy raise her kid has put Devin’s love life on hold. When he loses a bet to her and the penalty is to go out on five dates with men she’s chosen from Guys4Guys.com, he thinks that’s bad enough. Finding out she used a thirteen-year-old picture of him to score a date with a young guy who looks like a rock star? Epically bad.

Jay thought he wanted to fall for an older man. But his last boyfriend left him feeling humiliated and determined to stick to guys his own age. When he realizes he’s been conned into a date with exactly the kind of man he’s sworn to avoid, he’s ready to walk away on the spot. Only Devin’s swift apologies convince Jay to accept dinner to make up for the deception.

“The date doesn’t count for the bet unless you get a goodnight kiss.” After one not-a-date dinner with Jay, Devin isn’t worried about his sister’s rules. He just wishes he could convince Jay to go out with him for real. Jay wants no part of Devin, but Devin wants every part of Jay . . . so he asks Jay to help update his look for the rest of his dates. But once Jay’s made Devin over into the perfect date, will he be able to let him go?

Review:

I thought it was cute and really enjoyed the beginning. But the latter half didn’t work so well for me. Devin goes and does something out of character to move the plot along, and the conclusion comes about because someone basically changes their mind about something. But the underlying issue was neither addressed nor solved. It felt rushed and unsupported. However, the writing was wonderful and I liked both characters a lot.

Book Review of Claire Cray’s Hidden Talents series (#1-7)

Leave a reply

I downloaded the Hidden Talents series, by Claire Cray, from the Amazon freebie list. (Well, I paid $0.99 for the seventh, but the first six were free.)

Description from Goodreads:
Talents: Born with physical and psychic abilities beyond human understanding, these flawed forces of nature burn desperate paths through their own shadowy world ruled by sex, power, and madness.

Hidden Talents

Review:
The book started stronger than it finished. It began with one predominate POV and then, about half way through, added new POVs into the mix. This was both jarring and, I think, weakened the story, as the reader had no real connection to those characters yet.

This was exacerbated by the narrator’s tendency to casually throw in information that the reader hadn’t yet been given. For example, at one point Jin had twice asked another character for his name and been given a fake one in response. Then in the next paragraph that character was referred to by his true name. I was confused on two fronts, who was this new character suddenly introduced and then, once I figured out that it was the same character Jin was asking for a name, I was left wondering when Jin figured it out. This sort of thing happened more than once. I understand that Jin is a telepath and he’s likely supposed to have read this information from the person’s mind, but the reader isn’t and it’s confusing.

Late in the novella the plot also started to expand and the reader was given a lot of history that felt very baseless and confusing. I felt as if I had missed a first book somewhere. Then it just randomly ended. I can’t even call it a cliffhanger as there is no single event left uncompleted. It really just felt like I had read the first few chapters of a book and then set it aside for the night.

Where it ended felt completely random. As the author has written at least seven novellas in the series, I cannot for the life of me figure out why it was broken up so and not just a novel. If it wasn’t permafree I’d call it a scam to make more money and I’d be really P.O.ed if I’d paid for something that felt so halfhearted.

Having said all that, the writing is good. Jin has a pleasantly sarcastic voice and personality (even if he does skate the edge of too irreverent to believe). Sky and Ken have an interesting history and I like that the author isn’t afraid to allow trauma to have happened to children. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want any child to have to suffer, but a lot of authors are afraid to go there and it’s unrealistic. Children who grow up in abusive environments get abused. Pretending otherwise (even by virtue of refusing to cast an author’s eye in that direction) is a weakness in my opinion.

I’m not sure what I think of the Mike/Dylan/Jen portion of the story, however. I think that’s where things started falling apart for me. It felt tacked on and the reader is just told this, this and this happened in the past. Meh.

All in all, I’m looking forward to the next instalment and I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I could see the series going either way, either getting really good or spiralling into such a weakly supported tangle as to become unreadable.

Minus TideReview:
I think this one was actually an improvement on the first. It was more consistent. I enjoyed getting to know some of the characters more; Jin continued sarcasm and the Sky/Ken drama. Plus, Mark and Jin’s night together was hot. Again, like the first volume, I have no idea why the book ended where it did or even why this is a series of novellas instead of a single book. It’s very obviously a single story. I anticipate feeling the same way at the end of each novella.

Look SharpReview:
I think the series is getting better as it goes along…or maybe I’ve just gotten to roughly the middle of the “book” this series of novellas obviously should have been. You know how a book often picks up in the middle, once you’ve met all the characters and the plot is established enough to progress without needing to interrupt itself with explanations? Yep, that’s where the story is at this point.

I am finding that I would like a little more world-building. I’m confused about characters’ ability to die and come back. How does that work? What about the bodies? Plus, if people so readily come back from the dead, why is everyone mourning Luke’s death? Similarly, I am befuddled about people’s ages. Everyone seems to be in their mid-twenties or younger, but a couple have been together (like, together-together) for 8-9 years. Jin is 22, Ken is younger while Mark and Lip are older. The rest I don’t know about and I don’t know how much older or younger those characters are than Jin. So, I don’t know how to visualise them. I am still enjoying the story, however.

OK, I’m going to stop reviewing these individually. This is patently one single story and trying to review each volume is starting to feel like I’ve stopped every 10 or so chapters to write a partial review. It’s becoming ridiculous.

I’ve now read up to book seven. Luckily, in the Note From the Author, at the end of Get Higher, she mentioned “two more books.” So, at least I now know how much more to expect. I know I’ve harped on about it, but the fact that this story is broken up into (apparently) 9 separate volumes is one of only two real complaints with ‘the series.’ The second is how much history is glossed over, considering how important it is to the events of the book’s present. This sadly includes a lot of the character development and worldbuilding. The reader really is left to just kind of catch up where they can as the events unwind.

I like those characters we get to know. (We don’t get to know all of them, even when they play a significant role in things.) Jackson’s decidedly Machiavellian plan is starting to come to fruition and it’s interesting. The sex is often hot. I especially liked the way Jin all but worships Ken.

Pending the next two books come out soon enough that I even still remember that I read the first seven, I’ll be finishing the series out. (Will probably still be grumbling about the serialisation though.) I’ve enjoyed the sarcasm and the narrative voice a lot. The writing and editing is pretty good (especially for freebies) and I like the gritty feel of it all.