Tag Archives: paranormal

Silver Wolf Clan

Book Review of Silver Wolf Clan, by Tera Shanley

I picked up a copy of Silver Wolf Clan, by Tera Shanley, when it was free on Amazon…in 2015.


Loving him will be legendary…if she can survive it.

What happens when monsters turn out to be real? One summer night while camping in the woods, Morgan Carter finds out in a big way. A tall mysterious stranger, Greyson Crawford, risks his life to try and save her sister from the vicious wolf attacking their camp. When he’s bitten and disappears into the night, Morgan can only assume the worst.

Greyson shows up a year later, and he’s a different animal altogether. His eye color shifts constantly and the rumble in his throat sounds more animal than human. She hasn’t any idea where he’s been all this time, but a good guess as to what he’s become.

Grey is determined not to let the darkness of his new existence affect Morgan and the little girl in her care. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Morgan but knows he should stay away and let her live a normal life. That’s easier said than done, though. A new danger pulls him from the shadows to keep her safe, and he’s no wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Can she accept what lurks just below his surface? More importantly, can she survive him?


This review contains spoilers.
.
.
.
This was SUPER cliched. Every aspect of it has been done and done better. What’s more, a lot of it irritates the living daylights out of me.

Let’s start with the fact that there are 4 women in it. 3 of them have been subject to violent male attacks. (And all we know is that no attack is mentioned for the fourth.) So, women are all victims. The hero is forced to rescue the heroine from a random rape. Because of course heroes always have to save their loves from random rapists. That’s what happens if a woman goes out alone, you know? (Can this particular plot point die already?)

The single adult, non-mated woman is evil. Because of course single women can’t be trusted, especially if they’re sexy. They’re obviously all jealous, evil bitches who will kill because they can’t get the man they want. (As if there are no other motivations for women than men.)

Then, when the heroine is turned into a wolf she is special, because of course she is. But not just normal, cliched special. But extra cliched special. She’s special because she’s the only female wolf who can have breed children. (Nope, I’ve neverread that plot before and it’s not just the unexplored norm of a female character. *sigh*) So, of course male werewolves will forever be trying to forcibly claim her (a euphemism for rape). And of course so far, no one has bothered to tell her, because this is her mate’s problem, not hers apparently, since it’s his responsibility to protect her, not hers.

And those are just my issues around gender. How about how little sense it made to let the evil, untrustworthy person walk out with the biggest secret in werewolfdom? Nope, I can’t see that coming back to bite them in the ass…nope, not like that’s just a totally stupid and unbelievable act that is setting up a totally predictable rest of the plot. *sigh*

It needs some editing assistance too, to catch things like terms being dropped into use and never defined. We’re told, for example, that Grey let his wolf go and became a “Ripper” (capitalized). Then someone else says, “thank goodness you’re a Ripper.” So, apparently this is something Grey and other wolves knew about, a known characterization, but it is never defined for the reader. I had no idea what a Ripper was supposed to be.

While I’ll grant that Grey was a sweetheart and I liked the addition of a child, I have NO interest in any more of this series. It hit just about every I-hate-these-PNR-tropes button I have. And honestly, to have so many too-often used tropes in one book is just a sign of bad writing.

Book Review of Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, by Marta Acosta

I picked up a copy of Marta Acosta‘s Happy Hour at Casa Dracula when it was free on Amazon (mostly because I’d earlier bought paperback of the third book in the series, The Bride of Casa Dracula, not realizing it was part of a series.)

Description from Goodreads:
Latina Ivy League grad Milagro de Los Santos can’t find her place in the world or a man to go with it. Then one night, at a book party for her pretentious ex-boyfriend, she meets an oddly attractive man. After she is bitten while kissing him, she falls ill and is squirreled away to his family’s estate to recover. Vampires don’t exist in this day and age — or do they? As Milagro falls for a fabulously inappropriate man, she finds herself caught between a family who has accepted her as one of their own and a shady organization that refuses to let the undead live and love in peace.

Review:
There were several things to appreciate about this book. There was a decent amount of humor. There was a heroine with a backbone. There was diversity; the main character is Mexican-American for example. There was appreciation for voluptuous bodies, without shaming people who are thin. But there were also things that annoyed me. It’s written in first person, which I hate. Names are dropped into almost every line of dialogue, and it makes the writing feel more amateurish than it deserved. The attraction between the heroine and hero is instant and feels unexplained, as I didn’t at all feel any spark. Previous relationships are unintentionally ambiguous. There’s cheating, more than once on a partner. The book calls out Latina stereotypes and then turns around and uses them. Nothing of note happened for most of the middle (a lot of shopping) and then the whole last quarter felt contrived and too convenient. And, despite her Ivy League education, when a solution is needed, it’s her sex appeal, not her brains she falls back on to resolve the problem. I have the rest of the series and I liked this one enough read it. But I didn’t love it enough to jump right into book two. I’ll step away for a while first.

Anointed

Book Review of Anointed (The Cantati Chronicles #1), by Maggie Mae Gallagher

I found a signed copy of Maggie Mae Gallagher‘s Anointed at a secondhand store. We all know how I love signed books, so I bought it.

Description from Goodreads:
My name is Alana Devereaux. I enjoy the simple things in life, walks in the park, sky gazing, and ripping a demon’s heart out though its chest. I am a demon slayer, the last of my kind, and I have been sent back through time to save your world.

How am I doing so far? My time travel went haywire, all the signs I needed to stop the prophecy have passed, and the only way I can save my world is by keeping yours from ending. Then there’s Gaelen, most days I want to deck him. He hides his true motives and if it was not for the intel he had, I would be rid of him. Any day in my life without a demon attack is a good day; I haven’t had a whole lot of those lately. The only problem is, if I don’t stop the Mutari, this world will burn.

Review:
So, this was not very good. I won’t go so far as to say horrible, but not very good. It’s full of plot holes (and a pretty problematic paradox), both the heroine and hero are unlikable, assumptions are made and not supported, and there is no real conclusion.

It was not liking Alana or Gaelen that really clinched it for me. Her entire personality is contrary, angry, full of bluster, and distrust. I promise, authors, a female character can be touch without being so prickly as to be nothing but solid unpleasantness. He is abusive and possessive. Somehow these two horrible people fall in love with each other, though I never saw why or how…or really when. It just suddenly was.

Plus, I want my badass female characters to be badass. Alana was at best inconsistent. Taking on 60 demons one minute and not able to beat 6 men the next. She was constantly making threats she couldn’t or wouldn’t, certainly didn’t follow through with. She was constantly demanding information she was never given and she was constantly given orders she didn’t like, but followed. In the end, she felt like a child rebelling against a parent, but doing as told.

Then there was the author’s use of rape. It a much overused method authors use when they want to make sure readers know a man is really bad. Not just bad, but really bad. And they (the authors) prance out the rape threats. It’s so overdone as to be boring and totally infuriating. Rape should be so much more than a plot device!

Speaking of plot devices, there were far too many major coincidences. Alana developed abilities as needed and, at one point, when locked in a room (by someone who was going to rape her, but was conveniently interrupted by a knock at the door and had to leave) she found he’d dropped the key on the floor! Yes, the author went there.

So, I said it was bad, but not horrible. In writing this review, I think I talked myself into saying this book is horrible. I will not be continuing the series.