Tag Archives: PNR

Book Review: Grave Stakes, by Grave Grahme

I recently picked up a freebie copy of Grave Grahme‘s Grave Stakes on Amazon.

BRITT
I thought I’d seen everything.

A decade as a cop tends to make anyone cynical. Even a cop with great instincts.

Until I follow those instincts one night, and get my throat torn out.

That’s a new one.

Odder still, I wake up in the ER with no trace of the lethal injury. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled to be alive, but my memory is blank.

I’m going to find out what happened.

pnrI followed a man that night. I have a feeling he has answers.

Finding him might kill me.

ETIENNE
I was the king of the city. Untouchable.

Until a hired assassin tried to kill me.

My saving grace? A police officer caused a distraction allowing me to dispatch the assassin.

My mistake? Saving that police office. A woman who haunts me with the sweetness of her taste.

Someone is power-hungry enough to try to make me permanently dead. I need an expert to help uncover the source of the threat.

And I know just where to find a detective.

Whether she wants to help or not.

Meh. This was a fine read. I didn’t hate it. It didn’t light me up, either, though. I really liked that the heroine is older. I don’t think an exact age is ever given. But, she has some grey in her hair and has been in her job long enough to be the mentor instead of the mentee. I liked the archetypes that the men are filling. I liked the snarky tone, and the writing is pretty clean and easy to read.

But I also don’t feel like the book lived up to its own potential. The villain is paper thin and dispatched with no fanfare (super anticlimactic). I did not feel any connection between the romantic leads. The lust is instant and baseless. So, I can’t even say I felt the erotic chemistry.

There’s also a trigger warning for SA. So, I’m not complaining about that. But I also always assess if an SA is actually integral to a plot or if an author could have skipped it without changing the story any. And that is 100% the case here. It just wasn’t needed.

All in all, I’d be willing to read the next series. In fact, I’d like to. This one kind of felt like an extended prologue more than anything else. But alas, it isn’t out yet, and I’ll probably have forgotten about it by the time it is.

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Book Review: Finding Friday, by Quell T. Fox

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I picked up an Amazon freebie copy of Quell T. Fox‘s Finding Friday.

Cheating boyfriend. Check.
Broken down car. Check.
Crappy motel. Check.
Hot guys that want me to go on a road trip with them. Quadruple check.

I’ve never had much in my life, always been at the bottom of the barrel. I’m used to it. I get by with my looks and bubbly personality. I thought my life was going good, until I caught my boyfriend in bed with another girl. It was like a damn train wreck, ya know? I wanted to look away but I couldn’t stop watching.

Gross.

Things only start to look up when I decide- probably against better judgement- to join four random guys on a road trip. But not just any guys…hot guys. Like, really hot guys. Their annual vacation, my getaway from reality. Couldn’t be worse than what I’ve already been through…could it? I mean, what could go wrong on a road trip with four hot men?

The guys- Maddox, Lenny, Callan & Alec.
They’ve spent countless years searching, falling apart to almost nothing. None of them have much left to give, until they hit one lucky town. Friday is who they’ve been looking for, but how do they tell her? How do they tell her what they are…what she is?

Meh, I read this first book in The Road to Truth series to see if I was interested in the series. (I also have the omnibus.) I’m stopping here, though. I wanted to like this, and part of me wants to continue. But I realize it’s just the sunk cost fallacy rather than any actual enjoyment or connection or even curiosity about what happens.

I’ve finished this book and feel as if the plot has made no progress. I don’t know the characters at all, though I dislike some of them intensely. I have no understanding of the world or species particulars. Plus, the whole thing is in first person present tense, which means it is almost all dialogue and internal monologues. There is simply no subtlety or nuance to the writing.

All in all, as much as I hate abandoning anything partially completed (especially ending on a cliffhanger), I can’t take a further 5 books. I’m stopping here.

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Book Review: Hadley House, by Olivia Lewin

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I picked up an e-copy of Olivia Lewin‘s Hadley House as an Amazon freebie.

Life had gone to hell in a handbasket when I received news that my Uncle Felix had passed away and left me an inheritance. Fired from my dream job and days away from eviction, I took the inheritance as the blessing it was.

Unfortunately, it was only a blessing until I saw the house I now had in my name.

A falling apart hovel in the middle of a decommissioned graveyard. Bad enough, right?

It got worse.

The place is overrun by creatures that shouldn’t exist. An oversized orc. A pixie-demon with an attitude. A feral wolfman. A defective basilisk. And a ghost. Have I mentioned I’m terrified of ghosts?

I need to get the hell out of here, but it’s easier said than done when the house is keeping us all captive and the only way out is untangling a series of puzzles my uncle left for me. And the kicker; the worst part of it all?

I’m stuck in an infinite time loop that always ends in me dying and resetting the day to the beginning. I have no idea who’s killing me or why time is rewinding, but I have a bad feeling it’s an important part of the puzzle. I have an even badder feeling that the men have a lot to do with the happenings in Hadley House. The men who don’t remember who I am at the beginning of each cycle, the ones I know intimately, who don’t act like the monsters society makes them out to be.

I doubt I can make it out with both my heart and my body intact, but I’ve got to try.

This was entertaining enough; a little repetitive and padded in the plot, but I enjoyed it. I would have jumped into book two if it had been out yet. Having said that, I did feel like we (the readers) were denied the chance actually to get to know the men as characters. They remained pretty underdeveloped. And Hadley’s willingness and ability to forgive them was almost supernatural in and of itself.

I feel like I need to address the sex. I actually really loved that the men had been locked in with one another for a long time and were, therefore, just as comfortable having sex with one another as Hadley. But the orgey-level sex scenes played an odd role in the book. They were not particularly well-stitched into the plot. (They actually stood out as anomalies to the rest of the plot.) But this also isn’t erotica or porn without plot. This means it is a non-romance/non-erotic plot, shallow as it may be, and then the occasional full-on, multiple-partner sex scenes that felt strangely out of place.