Tag Archives: Paranormal romance

Treasure Tide

Book Review of Deniece Greene’s Treasure Tide (The Coins #1)

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Treasure Tides

I downloaded Denice Greene‘s PNR novel, Treasure Tides from the KDP list. At the time of posting this review it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Becki Stephens is living the dream in a beach house along the coast of South Carolina. A diving expedition leads to the discovery of more than sharks’ teeth when she discovers a crate on the ocean floor…Becki’s world is about to change in ways she never dreamed possible. Her crate holds secrets she may not be able to handle, and a man who steals her heart the first moment she sees him… walking naked through her living room!

Review:
Before I say anything more let me say that I liked the story of this book. I want that said first because I also have a boatload of complaints, but while I might grouse about certain things I don’t want them to overshadow the basic fact that I liked the book well enough. 

It had a fun premise and a couple interesting twists in the plot. It also had a lot of strong male characters who considered it important to protect the women in their lives. And who can’t approve of that? Most of those women were children, nieces and sisters but a few were of the mating sort. I appreciated this about Kurt, Landon and Royce. They took their fatherly roles seriously (even if they weren’t strictly fathers of the girls/women under their care). It was nice to know that the girls were so loved, but it got old quick. Contradictorily, I liked that they were the type to try and be paternalistic and overly protective, but hated that they were allowed to indulge in the behaviour at the same time.

The main heroine, Becky, would have been easy to relate to if her character hadn’t so persistently chipped away at any respect I had for her. I started out thinking she was a spunky woman. Then she went and fell into a passionate kiss with the frighteningly large naked stranger she found in her living room roughly 45 seconds after meeting him, told the same naked man he couldn’t stay the night and then relented because she was afraid of a little thunder and lightning. (Really? How very cliché.) She ruined perfectly strong coffee with unprecedented amounts of cinnamon creamer and whipped cream from a can (eww) and she allowed all of the men in her life to order her around.

I would ask why, but it was perfectly in keeping with the infantile persona applied to her. She stuck her tongue out at people, threw tantrums, cried at the drop of a hat, liked to play in fountains, jumped too quickly to conclusions, apparently loved sweets (since she was constantly buying or making them), and could relate far too easily with her 12,14, and 16 year old cousins. At one point her mother was even supposed to have described  her as  ‘reaching for her independence.’ She’s 22! If she hasn’t yet reached for and found at least a little independence there’s a problem. If I’m honest all of the women were a little weak, weepy, and in need of male protection–even when described as strong. Eventually it started to feel just a little condescending.

In the end I gave up liking Becky. Joanne fared a little better. I liked her alright, at least she was portrayed as victim instead of a child. But still, there it was, the fragile broken women in need of a big strong man to protect her. Then there was Natie. She didn’t need to be protected at least…nope, she needed to be rescued. But that’s apparently a story for another book. Other that being a lead in for a sequel she seemed to have no purpose in this book what-so-ever.

None of that is my main complaint, however. What irritated me most of all was that just about everything in this book was said at least two times. To call it repetitive just doesn’t seem accurate enough. Everything from narrative descriptions of the team Royce heads, to explanations of familial relationships, to Becky’s hatred of mornings, to Royce and Becky’s instant lust/instant hate/instant love/instant hate/instant comfortable couple holding hands on the porch swing like they’ve known each other for 20 years is repeated ad nauseam. (And that’s just on the first day.) It does smooth out 50 or so percent of the way through, but by then I was just about ready to give up. 

Lastly, there were some formatting and editing issues. I’m always reluctant to mention formatting in case it’s actually my device that is at fault instead of the file, but in this case there didn’t seem to be any sort of paragraph identification. Neither indentations nor hard returns between paragraphs were regularly present. That made it a little hard to read at times and I don’t think my Kindle could cause that. 

I want to conclude as I started. I had a lot of grievances with this novel, but it was still a fun story. I did like some of the characters. Yes they were almost all male, but that means that there were characters I liked. Landon especially seemed to resonate with me, as did Trevor and the ‘gentlemen’. (I don’t want to give anything away.) Plus it’s set in Charleston, SC, a city with a lot of interesting architecture and history. You gotta love that. It’s also a really clean read. There isn’t anything any racier than a deep kiss. 

The Ghost and the Graveyard

Book Review of Genevieve Jack’s The Ghost and the Graveyard

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The Ghost and the GraveyardI grabbed Genevieve Jack’s The Ghost and the Graveyard from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Left destitute by an unscrupulous ex-boyfriend, Grateful Knight takes her father up on his offer to live rent-free in a house he hasn’t been able to sell. Desperate to make a new start, Grateful tries to overlook the property’s less desirable features, like the graveyard that stretches to her back door. On the bright side, the unbelievably gorgeous cemetery caretaker, Rick, is dead set on helping her feel at home. She vows to take things slow, considering her recent disastrous relationship, but is baffled when she literally can’t keep her hands off of him.

When things in Grateful’s house start moving on their own another man enters her life, a sexy ghost with a dark secret. Magical forces are at work in the tiny town of Red Grove and they’re converging on Grateful. Solving this ghostly mystery won’t be easy and with the caretaker becoming increasingly jealous of her spectral relationship, Grateful may be forced to choose between the ghost and the graveyard.

Review:
I really quite enjoyed this book. That’s despite it being told in the first person present tense, which I generally hate and involving both a love triangle and insta-lust, which usually drive me crazy. The book somehow managed to overcome all of its handicaps and provide an enjoyable read. And it did it with surprising ease. The magic irritation-nullifying ingredient? Humour. The Ghost and the Graveyard is funny. Yes, yes it’s hot and steamy too, but that wouldn’t have been enough to overcome my dislike for the parts that make up its whole. I needed Grateful’s quick wit and sarcastic internal monologue for that. She’s a great heroine. She manages to stay strong and sure of her own sense of self in the face of some fairly severe identity shake-ups. She might have gone weak at the knees in the face of Rick and his awesome sex appeal, but she was never weak-willed. I respected that.

Rick was a surprisingly complex hero. He was simultaneously strong and fragile, loyal and of a little untrustworthy. I’m sure (in my own imaginings) that there will be a lot more to him and his backstory in the future books. I liked Lucas too. He was like a lost puppy, but I was a little tired of his whinging by the end of the book.

I was a disappointed that the book didn’t quite wrap up by the end. Don’t get me wrong it ended OK, but only one small part of the larger whole was solved. There were a lot of loose threads about. I’m always left wanting when that is the case. It’s a shame the next book isn’t out yet.

The Nightlife Las Vegas

Book Review of Travis Luedke’s The Nightlife: Las Vegas

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I recently read Travis Luedke’s The Nightlife: New York, so when I saw the sequel (Las Vegas) come up free on the KDP list I was all about grabbing it.

Description from Goodreads:
Vampires, Aaron Pilan and his master Michelle, live by one rule — no bloodslaves. EVER. Aaron breaks that rule when he meets Anastasia. All Anastasia wants is to be loved and cherished, but the predatory men she’s attracted to bring her only pain and abuse. Escaping one train-wreck relationship for another, she finds happiness with Aaron and Michelle as a bloodslave, a ‘pet’.

When Aaron uses his telepathy to win thousands at the gambling tables, he attracts the deadly attention of the Colombian Cartel and Aaron and Michelle are ‘disappeared’. Addicted to the bite of her vampire lovers, Ana is desperate to find them. But, Las Vegas isn’t ready for vampires mixing heroin, sex and vengeance. Ana is trapped in the spiraling chaos.

Review:
I really loved The Nightlife: New York and anticipating liking this one just as one. Such was not the case, however. Luedke’s writing is just as crisp and wonderful here as it was in the first, but a lot of what I really appreciated about the first book didn’t carry over into this one. Most notable was Aaron’s innocence. This was one of my favourite aspects of The Nightlife: New York. It seemed to have been replaced in The Nightlife: Las Vegas by The Predator. While I liked The Predator’s protective nature and general badassness it was no substitute for the nice-guy feel that was lost.

Similarly, there was a lot of sex in this book. There was plenty in the first one too and I have no problem with sex (and Luedke can write one hot scene), but here it started to crowd out the plot a little bit. A good 30% of the book passed between meeting the antagonist the first time and him taking any action toward Aaron and Michelle. There was very little in the intermediate 30% but sex of every imaginable sort. Plus it all felt a little one sided. Michelle, Aaron, and Ana are all about reckless abandon, but apparently only with girls. Never once is another man brought into the mix. There are countless women and just Aaron’s ‘sole penis,’ four on one at one point. Even Michelle seemed to prefer a female partner. It didn’t feel very natural.

As one should probably expect of Las Vegas it all takes a bit a turn toward the depraved too. No longer are the pages full of Aaron’s appreciation of Michelle’s beauty and sexuality or lines like, “Being in love was the biggest turn-on he’d ever known.” Instead they are littered with what every power-hungery scumbag would like to do to ‘that piece of ass,’ ‘whore,’ ‘tramp,’ ‘slut,’ etc (sometimes in quite shockingly lewd detail). At the conclusion of The Nightlife: New York I praised Luedke for writing a male oriented PNR that women could relate to. This one just felt like some sleazy, male fantasy run amok. I didn’t find this to be an improvement. It felt like something indefinable had been corrupted.

The ending was fairly predictable, but the addition of the new character Michael intrigued me. I’d be interested in knowing where that plot line goes.