Tag Archives: paranormal

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Book Review: The Monsters & Miseries series, by A.K. Koonce

I picked up a freebie copy of A.K. Koonce‘s the Monsters & Miseries series omnibus (Hellish Fae, Sinless Demons, and Spiteful Creatures) from Amazon.

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There’s a dark secret inside of me. A monster clawing to get out.

I was thrown out of the fae world because of it. But I’m back now. Three brooding demons and a sinful incubus returned me to my sweet little homeland. And I’ll finish what I started all those years ago.

Sure, maybe my delicate fae features are twisting into spiraling horns and demonic eyes, but that won’t stop me from righting my wrongs.

The Queen of Hell might possess my body but the deadly vengeance in my blood is my own. The Prince will die by my hand for what he’s done.

All I have to do is make sure the creature at the back of my mind doesn’t kill me first.

my review

This was a bit of a whimpering fizzle for me; so much potential utterly wasted. The series started out well enough but then seemed to start spinning its wheels and repeating itself. It felt very unfocused.  Whole elements of the plot disappeared and then reappeared with no explanation (I’m thinking Catherine); the characters were caricatures rather than characters; the editing needs another pass; the ending was a cop-out, and all the “fuckings” drove me nuts.

Let me address this last one first, before anyone mistakes me for a pearl-clutcher. I curse like a sailor. I have no problem with foul language in books. But the use of fucking in this book is overwhelming. It barrelled right the fuck into redundant territory and kept fucking going. I got monsters and miseries photoso tired of reading it. It just became a stutter in the narrative. But worse, every fucking character used it in exactly the same fucking way, which meant it did nothing to differentiate characters. They all sounded exactly the fucking same.

Lastly, and most importantly, there isn’t enough story here to carry 500+ pages and nowhere near enough sex to be called porn-without-plot. So, I was bored. Others’ experiences may vary.


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Book Review: Blood Sugar, by Michaela Haze

I picked up Michaela Haze‘s Blood Sugar as an Amazon freebie.

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They call my family a cult.

I’m not allowed to tell anyone what happens behind closed doors.

Our Sect worships the Old Gods. Our little community is surrounded by the Never Forest. A place neither Here nor There.
“The people that can dance with the dead will make their homes with the Demons.”

My family can do wondrous feats. Animate corpses, and see the future through the eyes of the dead.
I can do none of those things.

But the Gods have set their eye on my virtue.
There is one for each of the Seven Sins.
And I am theirs.

my review

I went into this with pretty low expectations. It was an Amazon freebie, and let’s be honest, those are pretty hit or miss. But Blood Sugar was a hit. I really enjoyed it. Now, admittedly, it wasn’t at all what I expected. Don’t—like me—go into this expecting steam and a bunch of growly alpha a-holes. That isn’t what you’ll find.

In fact, there is very little sex in the book, and what there is is past the 75% mark and pretty mild. And while the Sin’s might be a little stand-offish at times, they aren’t a-holes. These men are broken and sweet, even if they don’t always show it. Ophelia is the growly one, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that switch. She’s also capable, loyal, and broken herself.

Now, fair warning, though there is no on-page rape, a TW for it is probably appropriate. It plays blood sugar photoa fairly large part in the plot. I probably wouldn’t have read the book if I had known that, since I try to avoid rape in the books I read for fun. But in this case, I can honestly say it’s incorporated into the plot, not a cheap device (which is one of my most common complaints when it is used in a book).

The book isn’t perfect. It could use another editing pass, and there are several times that villains are defeated; all of them are anti-climactic. As was the ending, in that it just kind of ended with a bit of a bang but no wrap-up. Despite that, Haze just went on my author-to-watch list.


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Book Review: Desire Aforethought series, by Kyra Alessy

I picked up a copy of Kyra Alessy‘s Demons and Debts as an Amazon freebie and then purchased Debts and Darkness and Darkness and Debauchery.

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An Autistic woman being hunted. An Incubi MC who can help. But will their price be more than she can pay?

When I was fourteen, a woman I called mom was murdered … and it was my fault.

I’ve been on the run ever since, but someone’s chasing me. I don’t know who they are or what they want. The only thing I’m sure of is that I need to keep moving or more people will die.

They’re going to find me again. They always do.

The human authorities are useless. The supernatural cops, even worse. My only hope is the Iron Incubi MC, the biggest, baddest, meanest supes around. I’m sick of running and I’m desperate enough to make a deal even if it costs me everything I have left.

Oh, and I’m neurodivergent. Autism means my brain works differently. I can keep it together in the day-to-day and mask my hundreds of quirks when I’m around others for short times, but now the five human-hating Incubi who I went to for help have me prisoner at their ‘clubhouse’, i.e., mansion in the middle of nowhere.

So, what happens when five hot as sin s€x demons lock up a human girl who sucks at all the bedroom stuff, doesn’t cope well with change, and definitely can’t mask her ASD 24/7?

I’m Jane Mercy and I have no f**king clue, but I don’t think it’s going to go well for those gorgeous-enough-to-be-underwear-model SOBs … especially when my stalkers come for me …

my review

I’m just going to review the whole series together since that’s how I read it…or binged it, rather. I really liked the first book, Demons and Debts, liked the second book, Debts and Darkness,  OK, and was fairly meh on the third one, Darkness and Debauchery. This left me finishing the series feeling disappointed. But on the whole, it averages out pretty well.

The two things I appreciated most about this series were the tone of the writing (which was well-edited and easy to read) and the heroine. I adored Jane. She’s snarky and self-contained. I mean, I liked the heroes well enough, too, but Jane was my shining star. And it was largely her sense of humor and inner dialogue that made the tone of the book work so well.

The reason my enjoyment of the series diminished the farther along I went, however, was that I felt like it lost some of the spark that kept the first one so interesting. The men were true alpha a-holes in the beginning. There’s no pushing her away for her own good or cruel to be kind, etc. These men did not care about her. And Jane was forced to navigate that, which created a delicious tension. (There’s not a sex scene until past 75% either.)

By book two and certain book three, the men had changed. They’d come to love and simp for Jane, which is fine, but the books lost a lot of the tension as a result. Plus (and these and big ones for me), by book three—where I would have expected to finally see the romance develop between the characters—Jane spent almost all of with one of the men, and the rest were separate. The plot also devolves into cliched SA territory that I did not enjoy reading even a little bit. I just too often find such plotlines overused and lacking in creative thought. I call them the low-hanging fruit of plotlines. Meh.

Lastly, I was disappointed with the spicy scenes. There was very little in the vein of foreplay or emotional connection. It’s all very focused on what went in where and when. So, it didn’t particularly light me up.

All in all, however, I’d happily read more of Alessy’s writing. I enjoyed more than I didn’t.

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