Tag Archives: paranormal

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Book Review: I’m in Love With Mothman, by Paige Lavoie

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I won a copy of I’m in Love With Mothman from the author, Paige Lavoie. I read it as part of my Mothman Challenge. In fact, it was part of why I created the challenge in the first place.

im in love with mothman

22-year-old Heather is suffering from an epic case of burnout.
So, just like any other young influencer, she
abandons her social platforms. Check!
gathers up her best flowy dresses. Check!
and moves to a desolate cabin. Check!

Heather imagines spending her #unplugged days traipsing through the woods and tending to her garden. However, her cottagecore fantasy is turned upside down when a wounded cryptid crashes into her roof-and her heart.

With no help from her internet followers, and the local monster-hunter growing suspicious, Heather’s quiet life in the wilderness has suddenly become a little more complicated. To make matters worse, she thinks she might be falling in love with the brooding winged man in her living room.

my review

This was surprisingly sweet. It’s heavy on consent and acceptance (of yourself and one another). Heather is an online influencer, a vegetarian, a lover of sparkly and frilly things, who says “like” a lot. Which is a personality type that is stereotypically depicted as vacuous, not very smart, and/or mean. So, it was nice to see an author invert this and make her the lovable main character. Moth is adorable. Big and potentially scary, but also just really, really cute. The book is fairly low-angst, especially in the romance department, and it wraps up nicely before leaving a hook for the next book. Which I’d be happy to read. Though I hope the author does a little better with copy edits in book two.

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Other Reviews:

Beauty’s Library: I’m in Love With Mothman

Book Review: I’m in Love with Mothman by Paige Lavoie

 

 

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Book Review: Aspen Pack #1-2, by Carrie Ann Ryan

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I’m fairly sure I picked up Etched in Honor (by Carrie Ann Ryan) as an Amazon freebie. I read it on my Kindle. Hunted in Darkness, however, I won at some point.

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About Etched in Honor:

I thought I’d lost my fated mate until he shows up years later. Only with no memory of me. Or us.

As Beta of the Aspen Pack, I was forced to watch our former Alpha turn to dark magic and destroy the bonds of our people.

I nearly died trying to save us, but I broke the biggest taboo: I told the others that cat shifters existed and almost lost everything in return.

Now we have a new Alpha, a new future, and a dangerous and mysterious enemy threatening our stable balance. And a new Tracker.

The man who looks like my dead mate.

My Review:

Honestly, this just wasn’t very good. The writing is super sloppy and very repetitive. I seriously think that if everything that was said more than once was said a single time, the whole 300-page book would literally be 25 pages long. The copy-editing might be fine, but a content editor would make a grand difference here.

The thing is, though, that it has interesting characters, a world with a lot of potential, and an intriguing plot idea and romantic pairing. But it is extremely obvious that this is a spin-off, and so many characters are introduced from other books (even up to the end), and important past events are mentioned that at no point did I feel settled into this plot. The whole thing feels like a protracted prologue. As if it were a recap reminding readers of what happened before getting into a new story, when this is supposed to be the new story. The bad writing I might have forgiven. But combined with being too enmeshed in other series to stand on its own, it was more than I could forgive.

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About Hunted in Darkness:

I knew I wanted her the first time I saw her. Only problem? She can’t be my mate.

I’m a son of a traitor and former Alpha and I know it’s the legacy people see.

But I must be the Alpha of my Pack and protect them from the new threat to our world: Vampires.

Valac and the others are still in the shadows, and we must find their lairs before we lose more than we already have.

Only every time the enemy attacks, Skye puts herself in jeopardy. I’m the dominant wolf, but she’s the one with the most to lose.

She’s the Pack princess. The daughter of legends.

And I know she’s not my mate.

But I want her. I need her. And now I must convince my wolf. Or break the most sacred rules of the moon goddess.

Again.

My Review:

I think Carrie Ann Ryan’s books just aren’t for me. I read this, despite disliking book one, because I hoped the series was suffering first-book syndrome and it would get better. It did not. What’s more, I disliked Hunted in Darkness for much the same reasons I disliked Etched in Honor. The writing just isn’t very good. It is almost entirely dialogue or internal monologue with very little description. There are far, far, far too many references to other books, characters, story lines, etc. I never felt like I could sink into this story because I was so often reminded I was missing others. The book-level romance suffers from artificial obstacles, while the series-level arc moves very little, and calling the villains caricatures is being generous. All in all, to each their own, but I won’t be continuing the series.

Other Reviews:

The Reading Cafe: Aspen Pack

 

 

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Book Review: In the Light of the Moon, by Noelle Upton

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I do an author alphabet challenge every year, where I try to read a book by an author whose surname starts with every letter of the alphabet. U is always one of the harder letters to come up with. This year, I purchased an e-copy of Noelle Upton‘s In the Light of the Moon.

in the light of the moon cover

Sylvie, a twenty-eight year old undergraduate student, has recently moved to Antler Pointe following the death of her father. She’s committed to finally finish her degree in English and to learn her family craft under the tutelage of her grandmother. One night, while closing up at her part-time job, Sylvie stumbles upon an injured man. After helping him on his feet, and watching him shuffle off into the night, Sylvie goes into her last year of college with an enthusiasm to finally set her life back on track. What she doesn’t expect, however, is to quite literally run into the man she helped, now fully healed. He’s curt and suspicious of her but is committed to settle the debt of her kindness.

Orion is a literature professor who has settled in his hometown after years of trying to find his place. After a disastrous attempt, Orion has resolved himself to live a quiet life on his family’s land with nature and books for companions. It isn’t until a witch with kind eyes saves him, caring for and generously gifting him with her smiles, that he starts to hope that he may not need to remain alone.

But there is something sinister happening in Antler Pointe, and while they’re eager to explore a peaceful life with one another, Sylvie and Orion are quickly swept up in a string of disappearances that culminates in a bloody showdown. In the Light of the Moon is a paranormal romance with a fall backdrop where witches and shifters meet, fight, and love. All under the light and shadows of a living forest that calls to both groups with very different songs.

my review

This was super cute. If you are looking for a sweet, fairly low angst romance, this will fit the bill. Sylvie and Orion are so very careful with one another, and there is nothing toxic in their relationship. Honestly, it might be a little too easy. But it is heartwarming and soft. There’s also excellent diversity and representation in the book. And I very much appreciate that older characters have active internal (and love) lives without being made into a joke or bit.

While I generally enjoyed the book, I do have complaints, however. The biggest one, for me, is how little paranormal is in the paranormal romance. You see nothing of it beyond Sylvie learning salves “from the book” until the 30% mark. And even past that, it’s definitely in the background, cropping up for the climactic action but not the focus. There’s no real description or explanation of werewolf 3-form biology, for example. The reader just has to figure it out from genre norms. I thought the authorial treatment of Orion’s mother was cliched, and the book also feels a little long.

All in all, however, I was happy with it and will be reading more of Upton’s work. in the light of the moon photo

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