Tag Archives: paranormal

Spell Struck

Book Review of Spell Struck (The Witchblood Dossiers, #1), by Nicole J. Fawcett

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Spell StruckIn December of 2012, I downloaded Nicole J. Fawcett‘s Spell Struck from the Amazon free list. I read it as part of me TBR reading challenge (reading books I’ve own 2+ years).

Description from Goodreads:
Rhiannon Grey is a detective in a hectic police headquarters. She’s also a witch, in a society that’s learned not to think too highly of the supernatural, and her boss is a two thousand-year-old vampire. Rian has discovered the hard way that trouble is always just around the corner.

This time, trouble is called Griffin King, a fifteen year old runaway whose strangled corpse is found floating in the river. He’s not the first street-kid to vanish recently, or to turn up later, very dead. When Rian starts to suspect he was a witch, too, and that his magic led to his death, her investigation turns into a personal crusade. 

No one seems terribly concerned about the fate of a few disappeared urchins, though. And when a series of brutal murders starts panicked speculation about a nest of vampires, Rian’s boss has other things on his mind.

But Rian won’t be distracted. Not by bureaucracy, not by murder, and certainly not by her dysfunctional private life. Her family think she’s going to end up dead; her friends think she’s going to end up dead lonely; and her lovers are dead frustrated . . .

Reading:
This is a perfectly passable, but basically uninspiring PNR. Rian wavered between being strong and smart and being the child-like joker of the detective team (certainly never quite as slick, together and leader-like as any of the men who were ostensibly her equals).

She went back and forward between kicking butt in a fight and tripping over her own feet, especially when scantily dressed such that the UST was artificially amped up. (Because she forgot to put a robe over her panties and crop top pyjamas while self-consciously sharing a hotel suite with a man she’s attracted to. Sure, that kind of thing happens all the time, right?)

She also oddly needed a two thousand-year-old vampire to teach her how to use magic, despite coming from and being raised in a long-standing, powerful family of witches with Fae connections, had a tendency to run off and do TSL stuff when she was unhappy, suffered a minor mental break-down out of nowhere and instigated what will obviously be a love-triangle in future books. So, there were definitely parts of this book I distinctly disliked but for the most part, I enjoyed it. I was especially fond of Cato, Safi and Marco.

The writing and editing was fine. Though there was a habit of putting a space between the beginning quotation mark and the first word of a quote (like this, ” bla, bla, bla”). I’ve seen people do that before, so maybe it’s a standard somewhere but it drove me crazy. Otherwise, I have no real complaints about the writing/editing. (Oh, except that the title makes no sense when, not once in the whole book, did ANYONE sling, craft, chant, speak or even get struck by a spell. In fact, we’re kind of told magic doesn’t work like that. Maybe I missed something.)

I enjoyed the book enough to pick up a sequel if I saw it on sale, but not enough to buy it at full price. (That’s a legitimate way to rank a book right?)

Tortured Skin

Book Review of Tortured Skin (Paul Isaac – Vampire #1), by James C. Gillen

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Tortured SkinIn January of 2013 I downloaded a copy of Tortured Skin, by James C. Gillen, from the Amazon free list. I read it now as part of a TBR reading challenge in which I’m making an effort to read books I’ve owed more than two years.

Description from Goodreads:
When Paul Isaac, vampire executioner, is confronted by the master vampire of the city and poisoned with a virus that will not only kill him, but cause him to rise as one of the undead, he must decide whether to do the bidding of the powerful vampire to save his own life, or stop the sadistic killer that threatens to leave the city with more unfortunate victims. Packed with crucifixes, stakes, and a Magnum filled with ultra-violet bullets, Paul uncovers a sinister club that caters to the dark side of pleasure and pain that might not only be the key to his survival, but also push him closer to the killer’s identity. In order to stay alive, he must learn to face his inner darkness and trust in things that just might be less monstrous than himself.

Review:
While reading this book I went back and forwards about whether I was enjoying it or not. The writing was fine, as was the editing. My problem was that I chose it because another reviewer said, “Interesting series – fans of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series and Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series will find similar elements and should like this one.”

But over and over I thought, “What the hell, this is nothing like Laurell K. Hamilton or Kim Harrison. They both write Urban Fantasy that borders on and sometimes overlaps with PNR. This is Urban Fantasy that borders on and sometimes overlaps with Horror. Not the same AT ALL!”

But then it hit me. Tortured Skin is LKH and KH-like fiction for men! What it lacks in any romantic subplot it makes up for in violent bravado. I think a third of the book is just Paul making threats at people or people threatening him and AT LEAST half the book is him enacting those threats or surviving other’s violence toward his person.

Did I like it? Not particularly, but then I’m not a man. I went in expecting a male version of Anita Blake or Rachel Morgan and got a vampire hunting Dirty Harry instead.

The thing is that a lot of the trash talk, violence and cold-heartedness that I appreciate in female characters, as a twisting of gender norms, just comes across as asshole-like on a man. Paul is not a likeable guy. He doesn’t even pretend to try to be and I disliked him as a result.

I also discovered a whole new pet peeve in reading this book, books that don’t give you a description of a character and then drop things in willy-nilly. This book never gave a single, solid description of Paul (though I know what every outfit and woman’s figure looks like) but at ~10% tattoos were mentions. At ~20% a goatee was mentioned. Then, at ~45% his bald head was mentioned, by which point it was far too late to try and alter the image I had created in my head for the character and I found myself jerked out of the story.

The same could be said for the world building. It’s pretty sketchy. Religious icons worked against vampires, but they didn’t have to ask permission to enter homes. I never came to terms with which myths were being used and which discarded. For example, after the werewolves and vampires being enemies for the whole book, the author introduced a vampire’s ability to call on and control werewolves at the 90% mark. What?

Lastly, I never quite understood the point of the coverup that led to the events of the book. Vampires killed people left and right, so why the individual deaths in question were so important was a mystery to me. It left me skeptical of everything.

All in all, while this wasn’t a winner for me, I think guys (who are more prone to appreciate an overly macho, emotionless hero) will probably quite enjoy the book.

Book Review of Blood Lust & Love and Blood (Blood Ties .5 & 1), by Jessica Gibson

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Jessica GibsonI grabbed the Blood Ties series, by Jessica Gibson, from the Amazon free list. I read them now because the first one, Blood Lust, was the last book in my Blood Lust reading challenge, in which I read four books with that same title.

Description of Blood Lust:
Ronan has lived for hundreds of years. In all of his years there has only been one for him. What will he risk to get back what is his by right?

Review:
The problem here wasn’t so much the writing as that there isn’t anything to it. It’s basically just vampire attacking woman after woman and stalking another woman altogether. As a means of letting you know how little there is to this story let me make examples of frequently used words, which are emblematic of repeated scenes.

Both drop/dropped and ground are used 10 times. As in he dropped her body (14 times) to the ground. That doesn’t count the ones he tossed in trash cans or at his feet, etc. Throat is used 14 times, as in he tore (6 times) her throat out/up/etc. That’s separate from the times he sank his fangs (12 times) into a neck. And his favourite method of getting them alone to callously kill them is to take the women walk/walking. It’s used 19 times. Finally, blood was used 50 times. Yes, I’ll concede that it’s a vampire story, but the darned thing is only 23 pages long!

As a prequel, I suppose it does introduce Ronan, who I assume is the villain in the following novella’s but as a story this is pointless.

16247779Description of Love and Blood:
Bronwyn Fitzgibbons was young and reckless. It was easy for Ronan to steal her human life and make her a vampire. She ran, but she never forgot him–or how he made her feel.

Rider saved Bronwyn from the new life she loathed and the new self she detested. His love restored her sanity. 

Now Ronan is back to claim her. She struggles like hell against him, but she cannot deny the overwhelming power of her maker. Will Bronwyn surrender to the one who could possess her utterly? Or can she find the strength to choose the one who loves her as she is?

Review:
Would it make sense if I said Jessica Gibson knows how to write, but apparently doesn’t know how to write a book? I mean, mechanically the sentences flow fine. Grammatically the work is perfectly readable. But the story, oh fuck, the story is a damned mess.

For one, let me ask how you feel about love triangles. I hate love triangles. This means that a book that is essentially stripped of all plot except a love triangle is not a good thing in my world. The first 50% of this book is absolutely nothing more than Ronan and Rider (yes, their names are that similar) fighting over Wyn and Wyn playing them both. Then at around 50% new characters are introduced and we’re off to fight a werewolf war with a bunch of characters that didn’t exist two pages earlier. What!?

There is absolutely no development of ANYTHING in this book—no plot development, no character development, no world building, no romantic developments or character growth. Nothing. And new characters, that play no part in the book, are introduced all the way up to 85%. (The book ends at 92%, so lets just say up until the end.)

Lastly, (I could rant on and on and on, but I’m going to limit myself here) this book is clearly labeled as book 1. I’ve even read the prequel, useless as it was. But if you handed me this book without a cover, my first question on finishing it would be, “Where are the first three books?” There is so much missing information that I would assume this was several books into a series. All the characters know one another and have 4 years of history. Then there is all of the Ronan drama (20 years worth) and the ‘romance’ with Rider (15 years worth), not to mention the werewolf drama (5 years worth). Heck on that last point, we never even learn the name of the woman they go to war over! Oh, and Fae are in there somewhere too. WTF!

If you want to read an outline of a SERIES, feel free to pick this ‘book’ up. If you’re interested in a book, with a solid, well-paced (or simply paced) story, avoid this thing like the plague. And I hate to say that, because I’ve rated books/authors with similar mechanical skill far higher than 1 star, but man oh man, this book (despite being more readable than some other indies) just doesn’t cut it in the story department.

I actually have the next in the series (Blood and Sacrifice) and, at only 88 pages, I considered just reading it. If I don’t read it now, I never will and it will just turn into detritus on my kindle. But I just can’t bring myself to do it.