Tag Archives: paranormal

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Book Review: Love Bites, by Cynthia St. Aubin

I picked up a copy of Cynthia St. Aubin‘s Love Bites when it was an Amazon freebie recently.

love bites cynthia st. aubin

A girl’s gotta eat—and so do her three cats. Recently divorced art history grad student Hanna Harvey has just fibbed her way into a job as the assistant to dangerously drool-worthy art gallery owner Mark Abernathy. For Hanna, working in the field she desperately loves provides the perfect opportunity to begin putting her life back together. Soon her cheese budget is in the black and her feline life partners are no longer eyeing her like a six-foot can of Fancy Feast.

But when her boss’s lady friends start turning up dead, Hanna finds herself in the cross hairs of a murder investigation. Even worse, hunky homicide detective James Morrison fears hers might be the next body he discovers.

With the “help” of the gallery’s quirky cast of resident artists, Hanna will have to hunt down the truth about Abernathy’s dark secret—before it hunts her.

my review

I’m going to start with a complaint. The title has no relevance to the story. Sure, it’s pithy and sharp, but there is no love or romance in the book. The main character hooks up with one guy and there’s a another that she’d like to, but there is no romance or even thoughts of love. Nor is there anyone who is love-averse such that the term Love Bites might be inferred to be in the pejorative. I understand the author has a naming convention going on with the series (Love BLANKs), but a title of Love Bites has no relevance to the story in this actual book.

Ok, moving past my admittedly pedantic complaint…I enjoyed this. I thought it was a lot of fun. I appreciated Hanna’s sense of humor and the banter between her and most everyone. Sure, there was a lot of “no one would actually say that in that situation,” but I’m not reading an urban fantasy book for the realism of it. Hanna and crew made me smile.

And while I might comment that there’s no love in the story yet, I did very much liked that Hanna was allowed to have a hook up (even sans love interest), enjoy it, and I didn’t have to sit through any passages of shame (be it from her or anyone else). She was just allowed to be a sexual adult and I appreciated the simplicity of it.

The book does end just about the time the plot looks like it might be moving past set-up. But I’d be happy to leap into the next book.

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Other Reviews:

https://storytellersbymarlou.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/love-bites-by-cynthia-st-aubin-book-review/

https://www.dreamcomereview.com/arc-review-once-upon-a-werewolf-by-cynthia-st-aubin/

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Book Review: Bleacke’s Geek, by Lesli Richardson

I picked up a copy of Bleacke’s Geek (by Lesli Richardson) as an Amazon freebie, after seeing it recommended in a fantasy readers’ group I’m in. It was still free when I posted this review.
bleacke's geek

When girl meets geek, the fur’s gonna fly.

Dewi Bleacke is a no-nonsense Prime Alpha wolf. As head Enforcer of the Targhee pack, she’s in charge of Florida. Her assignment is to kill a dirtbag who sold his daughter. She doesn’t expect to find her handsome, albeit geeky, soulmate in the process.

Dr. Heathcliff McKenzie Ethelbert lives a quiet, boring life. A professor at USF, he has no girlfriend, no car, and is a devout vegetarian. So when a mysterious woman with mocha eyes literally drags him out of his booth and then proceeds to have her way with him, it’s not his average night out. When she follows their sexy interlude by abducting him after killing a man, he suspects life has just taken a drastically odd turn.

Now Dewi, her partner Beck, and her surrogate father Badger, have to educate her new “grazer” mate on the ways of the Targhee wolves. “Ken” does his best to fit in. But an old killer lurks in the shadows–the wolf who murdered Dewi’s parents. Can she keep Ken safe, or will her mate prove to everyone that he’s a lot more than just Dewi Bleacke’s geek?

my review

This was recommended by someone in a fantasy readers’ group because a member had asked for books in which strong women protect nerdier guys. I loved the idea and when I saw it was free on Amazon I picked it up and read it soon after. The problem is that, while it fits the description of strong woman protecting nerdier guy, it doesn’t actually subvert the patriarchal, women as the weaker sex script and suffers greatly for it.

Let me be clear. If I pick up a book about an female alpha werewolf falling in love with a nerdy, vegetarian university professor, I want her to be the stronger party. I want it to actually subvert, not just flip the gender dynamic. Bleacke’s Geek doesn’t even try.

Dewi is the only ever female Prime Alpha (the alphas’ alpha), stronger than even normal alphas and even more unable to submit to others. Excerpt…she’s really not. Dewi, sweet special Dewi, really just wants to submit to her weaker human husband (something no male prime would ever do, even to another alpha), cries a lot, and ALL the men in her life coddle and protect her. They keep information from her to keep her safe and unstressed. Information they tell Ken immediately so that he too can protect her from it.

I found the whole thing worse that being given a weak heroine. Here we were promised a strong one and then it was taken away. But I’m not supposed to notice.

Then there is the abuse problem. One of the things I complain about most in reviews is the easy use of abuse of women as a plot device. Here we have Dewi’s parents murdered, her mother raped in front of her first. Dewi almost killed as a child. Dewi kills a man who has sold his daughter into sexual slavery and has plans to do the same with the other two, she saves a woman whose husband has tied her up and is beating her, Ken’s mother is murdered in a bout of domestic abuse, and the man who killed Dewi’s parents shows up to rape and murder her. That’s a lot of unrelated cases of abused women in less than 200 pages. I think I’m justified in wondering if Richardson simply can’t think of a single other plot device to use, because that is some pretty weak storytelling.

Additionally, the ONLY other women in the book are faceless waitresses and the co-ed students in Ken’s class who go slutty and throw themselves at him as soon as he mates a werewolf. One of whom he can’t remember her name, but remembers masturbating to the memory of her triple Ds several times. (And this is a man I’m supposed to like?) So, every woman but Dewi is either a victim or sexually disposable, or a sexually disposable victim. This I can do without, especially from female authors. I simply expect more and better.

The writing and editing is competent, even if the author makes some odd stylistic choices. The first sentence of the book has no verb, for example. But if this is the authors idea of a good story I have no desire to read anything else they every write.

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Other Reviews:

Review: Bleake’s Geek

 

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Book Review: Throwing Shade, by Deborah WIlde

I purchased a Supernatural Book Crate book box and a signed copy of Deborah Wilde‘s Throwing Shade was included as one of the featured books in the August box.

throwing shade deborah wilde

She’s ditching her shapewear, owning her hormones, and letting her magic fly free.
Underestimate her. That’ll be fun.

It’s official. Miriam Feldman is killing it in the midlife crisis department. She’s mastered boredom, aced invisibility, and graduated Summa Cum Laude in smiling and playing nice in her post-divorce life. But when a drink with a “good guy” goes sideways, Miriam snaps, and in a cold dark rage unleashes a rare and powerful shadow magic.

To make matters worse, her best friend goes missing and Miri is thrust into a world of hidden magic, vampires, and a legacy of hatred aimed directly at her. Hard to say which is more dangerous, this spiderweb of supernatural power plays, the grumpy French wolf shifter she’s teamed up with, or Miri herself, kicking butt and rediscovering the woman who got lost along the way.

But lines get blurred in the shadows, and if she’s not careful, she could lose everyone she loves. She’ll have to turn her invisibility into strength and pray they never see her coming.

Forty isn’t the new twenty. It’s better.

my review

I enjoyed this quite a bit. I had a funny moment when I was about halfway through where I was thinking, “Urban fantasy set in Canada with a Jewish heroine and paranormals from Jewish mythos, it reminds me a lot of Blood & Ash and The Unlikable Demon Hunter? Who wrote those again? Deb…Deborah….?” At about this time I walked by the book on the table and caught a glimpse of the author and went, “…Wilde. Deborah Wilde. No wonder it feels familiar. It’s the same author.” I amused my self.

I have to admit to liking this book more than either of the other two by her that I’ve read. Not necessarily because it’s a better book. I think I just like the older heroine more. I liked Miriam. I really liked Laurent and the banter between the two. I liked Miriam’s relationship with her daughter and the world Wilde has created here. Plus, I liked the 40-year-old woman finally learning the fine art of giving no fucks about convention. She lets the snark fly.

I’m not a huge fan of the cover though. I know this isn’t really relevant to the book review, and I don’t dislike it. I just don’t feel like it matches the tone of the book. Sure, there’s reference to Miriam taking her heals off after work as a legal librarian. But nothing about her character paints her as quite the fashionista who would wear stilettos to work.

All in all, I’m hoping to read book two and three in the series at some point.

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Other Reviews:

Book Review: Throwing Shade by Deborah Wilde

Book Review: Throwing Shade by Deborah Wilde

https://wonderfullyweird88.com/2021/04/09/throwing-shade-magic-after-midlife-1-by-deborah-wilde/

Throwing Shade by Deborah Wilde