Tag Archives: paranormal

Husk

Book Review of Husk (Plague Demon Chronicles #1), by D. P. Prior

Husk

I picked up a copy of D. P. Prior‘s Husk: Hunt or be Hunted when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
They call them ‘husks’, the demons that cross the Farfall Mountains, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. 
No incursion goes unmet; otherwise the cancer would spread until the whole of Aethir was consumed by nightmares. 

That’s why the Maresmen were formed—trackers and warriors charged with holding back the tide. Each of them is different, uniquely suited to the task in hand, but one thing they hold in common: they are half-breeds, part human, part husk; and they are bound by an inviolable rule: 

Hunt the husks, or be hunted themselves. 
Jebediah Skayne has been hunting husks his entire adult life, but there’s something different about the trail leading to the fishing town of Portis on the shores of the Chalice Sea: no spoor, no footprints; nothing save the unmistakable feeling of wrongness. 

Finding a husk in Portis would be near impossible for someone who didn’t have the sixth sense, but the instant Jeb arrives, all trace of the incursion vanishes. Forced to rely on more mundane methods of investigation, he starts to uncover a town rife with corruption, where a man will kill you for looking at a woman the wrong way; a town that’s seen its share of incursions from the land of nightmares before. 

As events start to slip from his control, he realizes the husk he’s come to kill is one step ahead of the game, and it holds a secret that will shake his world to the core.

Review:
Meh, mediocre but not all out bad. There is an interesting world here, the idea is certainly engaging and the writing isn’t bad, but the book drags as the main character spends too much time in his head and too little doing anything of significance. There are several surprise deaths that I thought were there just for the shock value. It was predictable and ultimately I didn’t feel it wrapped up well.

Plus, I had an issue with Jeb’s character.  I don’t know, maybe this is a personal quibble, but it seems to me that if his mother is a sucubus (a seducer of men)—as opposed to having an incubus father, I guess—his staunch heterosexuality seems a little contrived. Similarly, yes, his attitude toward sex and woman is given a context, but in a very real sense it feels a lot much like the author just gave him an excuse for pretty standard disrespect toward woman and women’s sexuality. Jeb uses them for sex and tosses them away like garbage (literally in some cases), often still begging for more of his magic prick. Perhaps this was meant as an exploration into the male sexual psyche, but I’m thinking not.

It’s like the prewritten male fantasy. Maybe because of this. Maybe because of the very male gaze. Maybe because all women are reduced to what they can contribute to the male protagonist—sex or food/drink. One is literally reduced to a walking womb whose only purpose in life is Jeb, her son. Maybe just because of Jeb’s narrative voice, but the book simply feels very male to me. So maybe I’m just not the intended audience, in the end.

Edit: I’ve decided to add links when I get flack for reviews. This one seems to attract people who want to tell me how I should review or speak to other commenters.

Book Review of Trust (Running With Alphas #1), by Viola Rivard

Running With AlphasI picked up a copy of Viola Rivard‘s Trust: Running With Alphas from Amazon when it was free. It is part of my Alpha reading challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Just when she thinks her life can’t get any worse, Taylor meets alpha wolf Alder – the most caring, gallant, and handsome man on the planet. On the run from the police, there’s no way she could possibly get involved with him. But somehow she does anyway.

Alder seems to be convinced that the two of them are going to live happily ever after in his mountain territory. But between looming pack wars, her dicey past, and his twin brother – the most obnoxious, sadistic, and handsome man on the planet – Taylor has a feeling that her new life among werewolves may be just as complicated as her human one.

Review:

This was surprisingly cute, which was a bit of a shock when I was expecting trashy erotica. But no complaints on that front. I have a soft spot for big alphas who shepherd, tend and fret over their mates, trying to feed them and such. Alder is just such a shifter, so he was a winner for me. I liked Taylor too, but Alder carried the book for me.

I did think the plot was a little shaky. You never find out the details of what Taylor is running from and I don’t get the feeling we ever will. It’s just a frame to hang the romance on. The characters were pretty shallow. The chemistry between the two wasn’t really shown. The mishap with Hale was predictable, there is a cliched female enemy and it’s a cliffhanger. But all in all, I was more pleased than I expected to be.

The Alpha Meets His Match

Book Review of The Alpha Meets His Match (Shifters, Inc. #1), by Georgette St. Clair

The Alpha Meets His MatchI picked up a free copy of Georgette St. Clair‘s The Alpha Meets His Match on Amazon. I believe it is perma-free.

I’m reading it as part of my Alpha Review challenge. I’m reading all the books on my shelves that include the word Alpha. I did Omegas a few weeks ago and it seemed like the thing to do to follow it up with Alphas.

Description from Goodreads:
Coyote shifter Bobbi Jo Simpson, top investigator for the Enforcer’s Council, is finally closing in on the ultimate prize: The Chemist, who’s been poisoning shifters all across the country for years. She’s the best at what she does, so what could possibly go wrong? Try: just about everything. She’s forced to partner up with the most stubborn, infuriating werewolf private investigator on the planet, who also happens to be her fated mate. Throw in a wily human thief who won’t stop trying to help her, a surly lion shifter who may be the death of her, a computer genius who knows too much about her…if she survives this case, it’ll be a miracle.

Wolf shifter Jax Mackenzie has never been accused of being a nice guy – but being nice doesn’t get the job done. A wolf without a pack, he works the most dangerous assignments doled out by a private security company – and his latest case is a real killer. A fatal Rage virus is spreading among the members of an elite BDSM club, and Jax is determined to get to the bottom of the case.

To get what he wants, he’ll ruthlessly use his supernatural strength, his wealthy connections, and Bobbi, the beautiful coyote shifter who’s following him for reasons of her own. But the coyote is his fated mate – and possibly his mortal enemy. Now it’s not just Jax’s heart that’s at risk – it’s his life.

Review:
I’m gonna be a Ranty Ranty McRanty-pants on this one I’m afraid.

So, this book was a total, total, TOTAL fail for me. It just includes every weak woman cliché that drives me crazy—the good girl who wanders into the slums and almost gets gang raped (except that she’s rescued by the hero), the woman who is given free drugs until she’s so addicted she’ll crawl and beg and blow three men while being humiliated and beaten for her next fix, the strong, capable, independent heroine who secretly just wants to submit to the big strong man, the need to force a woman in a sexually compromising position that she secretly enjoys, sexual humiliation as character development, and of course, enough gang rapes to keep me disgusted well into next year.

Having finished it, I can confidently say that there is not a single woman in this book who isn’t a sexual victim of some sort. Not one. Every female non-main character is either a blithering sex slave, a prostitute throwing herself mindlessly at a man or a rape victim (often more than once of those at once). The two main characters have both been sexually abused. Forget the Bechdel test, this fails life and as sad as it is to say, I bet the author doesn’t even realize this is the shit she wrote. It’s just that much of a norm in America.

It’s like rape and abuse of women is some sort of authorial shorthand for ‘bad man’ or ‘bad area.’ Want the reader to know the neighborhood is not just dangerous, but really dangerous? Rape a random ‘good girl.’ Gang rape her, even better. Never males though, this gives a different message. Want to ensure your reader knows your villain is truly irredeemable? Have him rape women. Maybe make him a drug lord who can systematically gang rape whole harems of drug addled women. That’ll surely get the message across.  I DON’T WANT TO READ SHORTHAND! And what’s more, I do not want to read a parade of clichéd female misery and victimhood.

Literally, every time Vaughn’s perspective came up I gave very serious consideration to giving up on the book. Not just because he was such a vile character, but because his vileness was so poorly written. Sure, he did horrible things, but they were things purposefully designed to bluntly telegraph **I am an evil man,** rather than to develop any sort of believable evil character.

I’d see Vaughn and think, “Great, now I have to sit through another gang rape and more abuse lobbed at mindless, defenseless women. I get it, he’s bad. Can we move on now?” And you know what, I was right every freakin’ time. Scenes with Vaughn were universally abusive, derogatory, rape scenes. It shouldn’t be so freakin’ predictable.

At 37% into the book, I made myself a note of how unimpressed I was with this common use of women in books; how I didn’t expect to see a single female character that wasn’t a victim of some sort and that by the end the author would put the heroine in the hands of this rapist villain. If she just wanted to give the hero a chance to save her (because she wouldn’t save herself) he’d get there in time. If the author wanted to add the extra shine to his character, he wouldn’t get there until she’d been raped. Then he could be such a good man that he’s willing to love a sullied woman. PEOPLE, I SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PREDICT THE EVENTS OF A BOOK SO WELL AT 37% THAT I EVEN KNOW THE SUBTEXT THE AUTHOR WANTS ME TO READ FROM THEM! At least the author took the first option. That was a relief.

On a less horrendously offensive note, I was annoyed when the mission required the characters pose as a couple in a BDSM club. Of course, with no conversation, she’s automatically the sub and he’s the dom; because obviously women are submissive and men are dominant. Riiiight. Wouldn’t want to include anything that isn’t trite and predictable. How many times have uncomfortable female characters had to dress in slinky clothing and go to sexy clubs with men as part of an investigation in books? How many times have they secretly enjoyed it? I swear I’ve read this EXACT scene a dozen times. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve written this exact same question into at least one other review. It really does get old and it’s not even a little titillating. I’m just bored by more of the same.

And that’s the thing about this book. Everything in it has been seen before. If the rapes had been scaled back I probably would have just been annoyed instead of disgusted. But to have to read over-used, under-developed, badly edited, bog standard, poor PNR tropes on top of rape wallpaper? No, just NO, in big, fat, bold capital letters.