Tag Archives: Paranormal romance

Book Review of Tenaya Jayne’s Forbidden Forest

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A quick note before I get on with this review: For all of you who have sent me review requests, I haven’t forgotten you. Nor am I purposefully ignoring you. I’ve been through the list each time I picked a new book to read. It’s just that I still read for fun and nothing on my request shelf currently appeals to me. This doesn’t mean it won’t tomorrow though.

Forbidden ForestOK, on with the review of Forbidden Forest (Legends of Regia, #1), by Tenaya Jayne. It’s free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
Born in shame. Cast from society. Shape Shifter/Elf hybrid, Forest must fight for any respect she can get. Targeted in her youth by a vampire noble who placed an illegal slave mark on her, she is forced to obey him, no matter what.

Slipping the grip of her master and abandoning the prejudice of Regia, her native world, Forest takes a job on Earth, guarding the portal, using her skills as a warrior to enforce Regia’s laws. Now, called home for a black ops mission, Forest must put aside her own prejudice to transport the vampire prince, Syrus, through enemy territory in a time of war. 

Prince Syrus, mage and master of the Blood Kata, wants Forest more than he’s ever wanted anything. In spite of their mutual mistrust, their attraction cannot be denied. Through the danger of their mission, and the secrets they both keep, it doesn’t matter what they feel. Forest is forbidden.

 Review: 
Ok, for the record I’m writing this review while T’ed off because I’ve just had a bit of a shock to the system. Yep, it was the sudden and unexpected “The End” that I ran up against. The story doesn’t frickin’ end. Seriously, what good does half a story do me? Why do authors keep doing this? It pisses me off every single time.

So, looking past the lack of ending (I can do this, really), I thought that the story was pretty good. It was predominantly a love story, since the whole ‘gotta get Syrus through the Wolf Forest’ just seemed to be an excuse for the two of them to be thrown together. Very little actually happened in regard to the supposed dangers and many of the solutions felt miraculous since we were given so little of Forest’s history ahead of time. (She knows her way around the living maze of a forrest because she grew up near there. Oh, ok, didn’t know that. She is mysteriously protected because she befriended a ghost at some earlier time. Oh, that’s nice for them. Can bluff her way out of Philippe’s clutches because she’s traded with him in the past. Great. etc)

So even though I thought some things went a little too smoothly for the pair I did enjoy their back and forwards banter. I like how fragile Syrus could seem at one moment and then badass the next. I like how strong Forest was supposed to be, even if she did little more than cry and fall apart in actuality.

To recap, I was pleased with the general story. There is obviously a lot more going on, with political intrigue on the horizon and the whole Leith situation yet to be resolved. But I had a hard time settling into the story for a few reasons. The rather abrupt switch from modern Austen to medieval Regia threw me for a loop. I then kept spinning since the language was undisputedly modern and there were a lot of modern earth wares popping up as smuggled items. (See here, we have to eat out Lucky Charms by torchlight and wear a sword with our Levis.) The history between Forest and Leith is just barely sketched out but immensely important. I needed to know more about it. And finally I just basically needed to get to know Forest more. It’s not that her character is shallow or anything, but we’re told that there is a lot more to her than we see and it would have been nice to get if those detailed. Then of course, on the other end of the book, after finally settling into the story it just up and ends on you.

Book Review: Dark Lover & Lover Unleashed, by J.R. Ward

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This is a bit of an awkward catch-up post. I reviewed J.R. Ward’s  Dark Lover over on Goodreads but never posted it here. I, then, didn’t bother reviewing the rest of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series until I reached a later book where I felt I had something in particular to say. That was Lover Unleashed. So, I’m gathering the two posts here after the fact.

black dagger brotherhood covers

About Dark Lover:

The only purebred vampire left on the planet and the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who killed his parents centuries ago.

But when his most trusted fighter is killed — orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate — Wrath must put down his dagger and usher the beautiful female into another world.

Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of the Brotherhood and blood frighten her. Yet his touch ignites a dawning new hunger one that threatens to consume them both…

Review:

Dark Lover is PNR, as it should be. The romance smolders, but the sex doesn’t cross into pornographic or blot out the plot with its frequency. There is enough to keep you titillated but not enough to make you lose interest if you are the type who likes a little more story.

I have to admit hulking, leather-clad alpha males aren’t my ideal idea of sexy, but they work here. These men are rough around the edges but have just enough vulnerabilities (not that they would acknowledge them) to make the reader feel for them, along with the female lead, Beth. The book does have some of the more annoying PNR qualities, instant unexplained attraction, the leader who has been so respected that he falls in love with the first woman to speak bluntly to him, etc. But these are genre norms, not true complaints about the book.

I have the second in the series sitting on my bedside table and can’t wait to start it. Ward is a definite go-to for PNR fans everywhere.

About Lover Unleashed:

Payne, twin sister of Vishous, is cut from the same dark, seductive cloth as her brother. Imprisoned for eons by their mother, the Scribe Virgin, she finally frees herself – only to face a devastating injury.

Manuel Manello, M.D., is drafted by the Brotherhood to save her as only he can – but when the human surgeon and the vampire warrior meet, their two worlds collide in the face of their undeniable passion. With so much working against them, can love prove stronger than the birthright and the biology that separates them?

Review:

I told myself that I wasn’t going to write a review of every single Black Dagger Brother novel. ‘Cause, honestly, that would basically boil down to I liked this one more or less than the previous ones. The writing is essentially the same, as are the plots or each, just focusing on another Brother. But I feel compelled to post a small rant about this one. It was such a prime opportunity….completely lost.

Here, in Payne, we had the possibility of a female with the strength, character, and pedigree to join the Brotherhood. Sure, Xhex fights alongside the men, but she is primarily the Shellran of a Brother. That’s her role. Payne was painted as a true warrior, and I was really hoping for a little bit of strong-willed female ass-kicking. What did we get? She may be on the cover, but Manny is the main character. The book is about him, and Payne’s involvement is only in relation to him. She is incidental.

While I always enjoy Ward’s writing (I have made it to the 9th book, after all), I’ve liked some of the BDB books more than others. This one disappointed me in general and more because I had such high hopes for a good female character.

Review of Covet, by J.R. Ward

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Covet

I picked up J.R. Ward‘s Covet (Fallen Angels, #1) from my local library. If I’m honest I more than picked it up, I was on a waiting list for it. Needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to this one. 

Description from Goodreads:

Seven deadly sins. Seven souls to save. This is the first battle between a savior who doesn’t believe and a demon with nothing to lose!

Redemption isn’t a word Jim Heron knows much about-his specialty is revenge, and to him, sin is all relative. But everything changes when he becomes a fallen angel and is charged with saving the souls of seven people from the seven deadly sins. And failure is not an option. 

Vin DiPietro long ago sold his soul to his business, and he’s good with that-until fate intervenes in the form of a tough-talking, Harley-riding, self-professed savior. And then he meets a woman who will make him question his destiny, his sanity, and his heart-and he has to work with a fallen angel to win her over and redeem his own soul.

Review:

Oh, I just can’t tell you how disappointed I am right now. I was so very, very excited about reading this. I adore the Black Dagger Brotherhood books (most of them anyway), and Lassiter really piqued my interest, so a whole series based on the Fallen Angels…how could it go wrong? Well, I found out, didn’t I? It could go wrong in any number of ways, and Mrs. Ward seems to have found most of them. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still love her rather unique writing style–all full of la-di-das and unique grammar structures that sound so very right for the characters. But the story…the story was a serious letdown. Let’s start with the fact that Lassiter, the fallen angel who shows up in the latter BDB books to introduce this spin-off series, isn’t even in the book. That’s right, the very character who introduced readers to fallen angels was left out completely. How is that possible?

Next, the use of the noble whore falling in love with the flawed but redeemable billionaire businessman (and visa-versa) is about as cliché and trite as they come. Overused doesn’t even begin to cover it. Plus, I got really tired of all of the prostitute bashing disguised as Marie-Terese’s pangs of conscious. Yes, I concede that it is generally a mirror of society’s unfortunate opinion on the matter, but it was harangued on endlessly. 

Then there is the insta-love. Now, Ward is known for insta-love scenarios, so this isn’t really all that surprising. But here, it felt more extreme than normal since both characters had to break character to actually fall instantly in love. Marie-Terese had to abandon years of careful caution and Vin had to develop a heart he previously lacked suddenly. Even if I was willing to accept this cosmic shift in both of their mentalities I then had also to accept their sudden effusive natures. The ‘I love you,’ ‘I trust you,’ and ‘thank you for believing in me’ were flying off the shelf left and right, despite the fact that these people had known each other for collective hours. I couldn’t see for all the sappy hearts and flowers they were giving off. Gag.

I was also left wondering if Vin and Marie-Terese’s drama or Jim’s situation was the primary plot of the book. I honestly couldn’t tell. There is a serious problem when I finish a book and can’t tell who the main character was. Now, I liked Jim a lot. I liked his anti-hero personality and rather grey goodness. I liked his wingmen, Eddie and Adrian. I liked their mission, etc. But they felt incidental to Vin and Marie-Terese falling instantly in love, and I don’t think that was supposed to be the case. 

Lastly, I’m totally lost on the pantheon of these books. Since Black Dagger Brothers showed up in the background on occasion (Butch’s Red Sox hat in the last pew of the church service, running into Phury outside his NA meeting, her working for Trez, etc) I’m assuming this is the same general universe. So, how exactly do the BDB’s goddess and the Angel’s God fit together? I’m stumped. 

Since I generally love Mrs. Ward’s actual writing, I’d be willing to give the second book in this series a try to see if, given a different plot, I might like it better. But this particular book left me cold. Left me less than cold, it left me feeling like I had wasted time on. And all of it was only exacerbated by the fact that I had such high hopes going in. I really expected to love it. Such a letdown.