Tag Archives: paranormal

Book Review of Bacchus (Phantom Warriors #1), by Jordan Summers

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BacchusI grabbed a copy of Jordan Summers‘ erotic sci-fi novel, Bacchus, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Bacchus is a desperate Phantom warrior. Saddled with the quest to find a sexually compatible female race for his people, he stows away on a ship bound for planet Earth. There he discovers a world teeming with women, but there’s only one way to determine if any of them are a biological match. He must pick one and mate with her. Sex sounds easy enough or it would be, if Bacchus weren’t from the Blood Clan. Where on Earth can he find a woman who doesn’t freak out at the sight of three-inch fangs?

Dog breeder Carrie Rittner has had a rough year. Between a broken engagement and her emotionally distant brother, Buzz, she’s ready to throw in the towel. The last thing she needs is a sexy ‘psychiatrist’ trying to charm her pants off.

It’ll take more than Bacchus’ chemically charged pheromones, dominant nature and forked tongue to convince Carrie that they’re made for each other. He will have to release all his animal instincts and give her the ultimate love bite.

Review:
Ah man, it took me forever to choose a book to read. Nothing struck my fancy. I’d had a hum-dinger of a day and was feeling the lingering after-effects of a torrential crying jag. I was emotionally wrung out, both physically and psychologically—the puffy eyes, the sniffly nose, the hollow, washed out sensation left in the wake of the intense flood of adrenaline (or whatever) that drives an angry, hurt, psychic upheaval.

This is where I was when I tried to pick out a book to read and nothing seemed to appeal. I finally settled on this one because it looked ridiculous enough to drag a chuckle out of me and, failing that, maybe a little hot sex would improve my mood. (Certainly, it would have in real life, if only hubs hadn’t been the focal point of the problem in the first place.) It should be noted, of course, that I didn’t go in expecting serious and high brow literature, which is good because I sure didn’t get it.

Even starting this book with no more expectations than to get to laugh at the always pleasantly cheesy ‘Mars Needs Women’ trope I wasn’t satisfied with this read. Ok, yes, it had all the elements and some of them were presented in such a flat way as to be funny. (You know, like when someone says something patently ludicrous with a straight face.) But there was just no depth to anything in this book. And, again, I’m saying that even having opened it not expecting much.

For example, and this is a bit of a spoiler, so be warned: Bacchus arrives on a ship bound for earth (so his planet already has access to earth, so no idea why he’s the first to mate an earth women and why he has to sneak to do it), he randomly chooses a man on the beach to absorb his memories so he can understand earth customs. He then falls in love with the memories of this random man’s sister. He then goes to her house, looks in the window and falls into insta-mating-lust, he meets her and within about 2-3 hours they’re in bed, he’s imprinted his DNA into her and they’re off to his home world. Once there, since she was a herpetologist on earth she was able to immediately become the clan healer.

Seriously, on a planet of 7+ billion people (assuming there hasn’t been a population increase) and a galaxy of who knows how many he meets his destined, biological mate through the first human he interacts with! And, am really to believe that space fairing, blood-dependent, bipedal, humanoid aliens with minor snake-like characteristics are actually closer to reptile than human and there are so few differences that no one on their original home-world was better suited to fill the healer role than a non-practicing earth herpetologist? WTF?

So I didn’t get any fun searching for his mate scenes or getting to know that mate ones either. Just BAM, there she is. And the mating included as transfer of memories, so no need to get to know one another either.

Sex was just as abortive. His pheromones made her pliant and aroused, so no need for for-play (despite his massive cock, apparently). It was basically, stick it in and slam it home, BAM, we’re done here.

Then there were all the just plain creepy things that happen. He spies on her through her windows, then slips into her house and watches her undress and shower. Creeeeepeer. Then he used his pheromones to make her willing, remaining just this side of dub-con based on his intent and wish to have her come willingly. And come on, getting aroused over watching two dogs mate is just weird.

So, I was looking for a fun, cheesy, erotic sci-fi romp. This had the cheese, but failed on just about every other front. Writing was passable; editing could use a little work.

The Wolf Within

Book Review of The Wolf Within (Purgatory #1), by Cynthia Eden

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The wolf withinI downloaded a copy of Cynthia Eden‘s The Wolf Within from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
FBI Special Agent Duncan McGuire spends his days–and his nights–tracking real-life monsters. Most humans aren’t aware of the vampires and werewolves that walk among them. They don’t realize the danger that they face, but Duncan knows about the horror that waits in the darkness. He hunts the monsters, and he protects the innocent. Duncan just never expects to become a monster. But after a brutal werewolf attack, Duncan begins to change…and soon he will be one of the very beasts that he has hunted.

Dr. Holly Young is supposed to help Duncan during his transition. It’s her job to keep him sane so that Duncan can continue working with the FBI’s Para Unit. But as Duncan’s beast grows stronger, the passion that she and Duncan have held carefully in check pushes to the surface. The desire that is raging between them could be a very dangerous thing…because Holly isn’t exactly human, not any longer.

As the monsters circle in, determined to take out all of the agents working at the Para Unit, Holly and Duncan will have to use their own supernatural strengths in order to survive. But as they give up more of their humanity and embrace the beasts within them both, they realize that the passion between them isn’t safe, it isn’t controllable, and their dark need may just be an obsession that could destroy them both.

 Review:
This is one of those books I refer to as ‘meh reads,’ because that’s my response to them. Meh. Nothing really horrible about them, but nothing particularly good either. I’d say this was designed simply to appeal that lizard, hind-brain we all seem to have. It’s all growly, über alpha precariously contains his inner beast for the benefit of the simpering female who’s caught his eye. Meh. Seen it all before.

I’ll give Holley points for having the moxie to say what she wants. But she also seemed perfectly content to let her brother control every aspect of her life. Meh. Not a total wet noodle, but not a wonderfully strong heroine either.

The plot had a few twists to it, but they didn’t work well for me. They felt abrupt and more like new plot arcs than twists. Meaning, it felt like, ‘ok, finished that bit up, now we’re going to race off in this direction now.’ Not boring but not natural.

Plus, many of these new arc directions were predicated on shifting character traits. The previous super evil, murdering bastard was suddenly the wounded victim. The good brother was suddenly the manipulative director, wait, no, he’s the real hero, wait, no, he’s obsessively possessive. Again, not boring but not natural either.

Every obstacle set up was overcome almost instantly, even the final climactic one. There was very little build-up or time for tension to heighten before solutions were found or bad guys defeated, etc. Meh.

The same middle of the road, shoulder-shrugging indifference can be applied to the sex too. There was no foreplay to any of it. It’s claim to eroticism seems to have been based solely on Duncan’s intense, animalistic need. Meh. One such scene might have been nice, but when that’s all we get…Meh.

So, again, it wasn’t a wholly bad book. It was just clumsy and obviously designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It needed more character development, world-building and plain old substance.

As a side note: I think that cover model has to be one of the most over-used men in the indie publishing world. I’m so sick of seeing him!

Bound By Blood lupton

Book Review of Bound By Blood (The Garner Witch #1), by P.A. Lupton

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Bound By BloodBook four of my own little personal Bound By Blood book challenge, where I set out to read all five books on my shelves called, you guessed it, Bound By Blood, is by P. A. Lupton. I grabbed it some times ago as a freebie on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
FBI agent and psychic, Brianna Reece, descends from an ancient and powerful bloodline of witches, only she doesn’t know it. But now that legacy has come back to bite her—literally.

In the shadows of night in Denver Colorado, a serial killer is hunting women, and FBI agent Brianna Reece is hunting the killer. Unlike any case she’s worked before, Brianna can’t ignore the prickling at the back of her neck when she glimpses the resemblance she shares with the victims. The investigation begins to touch even closer to home when it is revealed that all of the victims were also psychic.

Complicating matters further, Brianna is captivated by the FBI’s prime suspect Nathan Donovan. Though she senses he is hiding something from her, the attraction she feels for him is compelling, and unlike anything she’s ever experienced. Through a chance twist of fate, Nathan learns of Brianna’s ancestry and is forced to divulge secrets to Brianna that will change her life forever.

When she learns that the killer is an evil vampire, and he’s now set his sights on her, Nathan alone holds the key to awakening her dormant powers. Now he must race to teach her how to control her emergent gifts before she becomes the next victim.

Somewhat spoilerish ranty review
This is one of those books that when someone asks you how it was you stop, think really hard and can still only come up with “meh, it was OK.” And it is. It’s OK. It’s not good by any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t quite call it bad either. And I can’t come up with any one big issue I have with it, just a myriad of small annoyances that eventually put me off as a reader.

Things like the fact that the heroine, a psychic FBI agent, follows no procedural protocol at all and never suffers any consequences. In fact, her boss doesn’t even seem to exist. She starts investigating the case before she’s officially assigned to it, or even started her job for that matter. Then she’s immediately on the ball and working cases as if she’s worked there for years, even though it’s supposedly her first day. No need to meet the co-workers, get assigned a desk, learn the ropes, etc for Reece apparently.

But even more than that, she is assigned her first case as a member of the Denver FBI office and then it miraculously ends up all being about her. It’s not even like the killer comes after her. It really feels like she’s been randomly assigned a case, all ‘Yo, Reece, you’re up in rotation. Next case is yours,’ like and then suddenly it’s a personal vendetta against her and her family. Um, until a week earlier, she didn’t even live in the state and the murders had been going on for months (years, but no one knows that yet), so how realistic is that little twist? I think the author swapped plots about halfway through the book.

Plus, I never understood some of the basic groundwork of the plot. For example, if your whole family was being hunted down would your first thought be to scatter (disperse your power base) and bind the powers of your children, while not tell them about the dangers. Yep, that’s logic–if we pretend the danger doesn’t exist and make sure you can’t defend yourself if by chance it does, we’ll all be safe in the end. How does that even make sense in the first place?

Then there is the incredibly schmaltzy love. A lot of the book is dedicated to Reece and Donovan fawning over eachother. It’s an insta-love and it’s all so saccharine sweet. They go from I’m intensely attracted to you but you’re a suspect in my case, to I’ll love you forever, move in with me, in no time at all. Too fast, to forced, too much of the same. I got sick of all the kissing and fade to black sex.

Then there is the history of sexual assault that seemed to contribute nothing to the plot. This is a person button for me. A history of rape (or attempted rape in this case) can be important to a plot. I’m not arguing it can’t, but when it’s not an integral part of the plotting why include it? It neither elicits sympathy from the reader nor proves the woman’s resilience or strength. It was essentially pointless as far as I can see.

Then there were the multiple deus ex machina events. Every time Reece found herself in danger (including her attempted rape) she got out of it by developing some new, never suspected or attempted power that she miraculously wields to the detriment of her attacker.

Well, isn’t that convenient. Almost as convenient as the fact that she’s able to keep conscious and taunting her nemesis after he’s drugged her, stabbed her repeatedly (almost gutting her at one point) and beaten her about the face. It is, however, admittedly less convenient than the fact that her attempted sexual assaulter was still able to chase her through the woods and catch her after she kicked his knee to the side and broke the bones. I’m fairly sure that even with the adrenaline and endorphins of shock, someone with a broken leg wouldn’t be chasing her down and still trying to rape her.

Then there was her ridiculous bravado in the face of otherwise certain defeat. This is another personal annoyance for me. Why do some characters get to mouth off to authority figures who would squash anyone else for being so impertinent and get away with it? Granted, the bad guy isn’t an authority figure, but she never shut up with her snarky comments, even when he tortured her and still he never killed her. Then she meets the all powerful council who literally could squash her like a bug and, knowing nothing of the rules or etiquette, mouths off and challenges them, again with no consequences. Suicide by mouth, I call it, but always, somehow, with a stay of execution. I don’t get it or like it.

Then there is the classic, “Hi, I’m the villain you’ve been chasing. Let me monologue my ill-intent for a while.” And that same villain was fairly predictable in the end. No big surprises there. The villains’ need to go on and on about themselves is almost as bad as the endless and obvious info-drops throughout the book.

I will say that, with the exception of a too frequent use of names in dialogues and a few too many adjective and adverbs in the speech tags (this rarely works well for a first person narrative) the writing was pretty good. I have the re-edited version and though I noticed a few missing words and spaces, it wasn’t as badly edited as some of the early reviews say. I probably wouldn’t even bother mention it if it hadn’t been an obvious issue in the earlier edition.

So, for the right reader, one who doesn’t mind a lot of affectionate down time with the characters, for example, this will probably be a real winner. For me, it wasn’t.