Tag Archives: PNR

Book Review of Touched and Death Rejoices, by A. J. Aalto

Leave a reply

I grabbed A. J. Aalto‘s novel, Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files, #1) from the Amazon free list. I then borrowed a copy of book two, Death Rejoices and snatched a copy of the short story Cold Company, which is perma-free.

TouchedDescription from Goodreads:
The media has a nickname for Marnie Baranuik, though she’d rather they didn’t; they call her the Great White Shark, a rare dual-talented forensic psychic. Twice-Touched by the Blue Sense–which gives her the ability to feel the emotions of others, and read impressions left behind on objects–Marnie also has a doctorate in preternatural biology and a working knowledge of the dark arts. She is considered without peer in the psychic community. 

Then her first big FBI case ended with a bullet in one shoulder and a chip on the other, a queasy heart and a serial killer in the wind, leaving her a public flop and a private wreck. When the FBI’s preternatural crimes unit tracks her down at a remote mountain lodge for her insight on a local case, her quiet retirement is promptly besieged by a stab-happy starlet, a rampaging ghoul, and a vampire-hunting jackass in tight Wranglers. Marnie figures the only real mystery is which one will kill her first. 

Too mean to die young, backed up by friends in cold places, and running with a mouth as demure as a cannon’s blast, Marnie Baranuik is about to discover that there’s no such thing as quitting time when you’re Touched.

Review:
I really quite enjoyed this one. Yes, it got completely ridiculous after a while. Yes, Marnie’s use of juvenile word’s like “ginormous” or “poopyhead’ almost drove me to distraction, as did Harry’s nonsensical old-English-speak. Yes, some bits of it were a tad predictable. Yes, I finished up with questions remaining. But yes, I roared with laughter and just basically had a good time with the story and the characters. What more can I really ask for? I know this is a painfully short review, but I’m off to start book two.

Death RejoicesDescription from Goodreads:
Marnie Baranuik is back, and this time, the Great White Shark of psychic investigations has “people skills” and a new assistant who seems to harbor an unhealthy curiosity about Harry, her revenant companion. Together, they’ve got a whole lot of questions that need answering. Is an ancient vampire hunting in Denver? Who is stalking Lord Dreppenstedt? How do you cure a slipper-humping bat, ditch an ogre, or give a demon king the slip? And what the hell was she thinking, swearing off cookies?

Teaming up with her sexual nemesis, Special Agent Mark Batten, and their long-suffering supervisor, Gary Chapel, Marnie discovers that vampire hunters aren’t easy to rescue, secrets don’t stay buried, and zombies sure are a pain in the ass to kill.

Review:
Marnie and her menagerie continued to crack me up in this book. I’ll admit that I found her antics a little over the top here though. Where in book one she was mildly self-depreciating and would concede to mistakes or causing chaos, here she seemed to brag about and revel in it. As a result she eventually started to convince me, the reader, that she really must be as much of a ditzy ‘silly little poppet’ as she claimed to be. I’m not really into stupid heroines. Plus, Diet Dr. Pepper! Really?

Additionally, I wasn’t able to successfully get my head around her ability to simultaneously commit herself to Harry, but also still lust over Mark. I needed some closure, either in the form of choosing one over the other or a ménage à trois. The situation was untenable and by the end its continuation started to forced and unnatural.

Despite a few grumbles on my part (Harry’s ridiculously antiquated English-ese, for example) I just plain enjoyed myself with the book. It’s fluffy and fun. Sometimes that’s all I’m looking for.

Beyond the veil

Book Review of Beyond The Veil (The Veil Series, #1), by Pippa Dacosta

Leave a reply

Beyond the VeilAuthor, Pippa Dacosta sent me a paperback copy of her newest novel, Beyond the Veil.

Description from Goodreads:
“They say I’m half demon, but I like to think of myself as half human, especially as the demons want me dead.” 

Charlie Henderson is living a lie. Her real name is Muse and her attempt at a normal life is about to go up in smoke. 

When a half-demon assassin walks into her life, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Muse must return to the one man she hoped never to see again and ask for help. The Prince of Greed isn’t known for his charity. The price is high, but the cost could tear her apart. 

Trapped between the malevolent intentions of a Prince of Hell, an assassin with ulterior motives, and all of demon-kind, Muse must embrace the lure of chaos at her core; the demon inside her, in order to survive.

When your ex is the Prince of Greed, you’d better be ready to raise hell.

Review:
If I was inclined to use stars on this blog, I would call this a solid 3, maybe a 3.5. It was a pleasant distraction. I enjoyed reading it, but it left me wanting in a lot of aspects.

First, there is very little character development. The book jumps right into the action. While this is fun, it didn’t give me any time to get to know Muse or anyone else. Plus, a lot of Muse’s history is referenced as the book progresses. I mean, like, a whole book’s worth is hinted at—major drama. This left me feeling like I couldn’t possibly be reading the first book in the series or that this is actually the first in a spin-off series. It isn’t, as far as I know, but it sure felt like it. So much is skimmed over, or the reader is just told it happened. I was duly informed that Muse had a tragic past, but that wasn’t enough to make me feel for her or that history. 

This was all complicated by her tendency to have whiplash changes of opinion with no evidence of an impetus for change. As an example, she spent much of the beginning of the book telling herself she can’t/won’t go back to Akil, that he’s dangerous and she has to keep her distance because he can get under skin easily. She’s very adamant about this. Then he shows up and says, ‘Come to a party with me,’ and she not only goes, she tells herself she deserves to have fun and relax. It was a very abrupt change of attitude toward him and nothing seemed to have happened to give her a reason to suddenly be less wary around him.

The same tendency toward thinness could be claimed for world-building. There isn’t much. We’re told demons exist and live on the other side of a ‘veil,’ that’s about it. I’m assuming the universe is otherwise the same as ours, but I don’t know. Nor do I know the time frame. It could be years in the future or today. I’m not sure. 

I also thought the sex was out of place. It wasn’t at all graphic. It just popped up regularly at inopportune moments. It left me feeling like Muse had no control over herself. It didn’t matter whom she was with, she was lusting after him. As she’s a woman with a history of slavery, including sexual slavery, I developed the surely erroneous impression that her body responded to any powerful man available with no regard for her own wishes. I’m afraid she felt a little like a whore in this respect (and I’ve purposefully used the more inflammatory word here) as if she was so accustomed to servicing men that she did it without conscious effort or even apparent knowledge that she was following an established pattern. I’m fairly sure this wasn’t the author’s intent, but it’s still the impression I garnered. 

Lastly, it had a bit of a deus ex machina ending (pet peeve, grrr), and a lot of important information was skipped over between the final chapter and the epilogue. I needed more details to believe it…actually, that’s true of the whole book, but especially the ending. 

All-in-all, the author has a really interesting idea here. A lot could be made out of Muse’s slavery, subsequent strengths, and appreciation of the mundane. But I think the book felt rushed. Too much was only sketched out or simply leaped over. I was never able to get enough of a feel for the characters to understand their motives and actions, leaving everything feeling random and unpredictable. 

It is well written and, other than a few missing words, well edited. Plus (and I know this is a strange thing to mention), I like the size of the book. At 8×5 inches, it’s bigger than a mass-market paperback but not as big as the ~9×6 I’ve come to associate with self-published books. While it wasn’t a faultless read, it’s worth picking up. As I said, I had complaints, but I also enjoyed the ride. 

Review of Zaria & Zauran (Neuripra, #2), by Poppet

2 Replies

Zaria and ZauranLast week, I reviewed Poppet‘s Phoebe & Seithe. Afterwards, I was left in indecision since I have a book that I thought might be next in the series, but wasn’t certain because they have recently been repackaged, retitled and republished. To my delight, the very next day, Zaria and Zauran came up on the KDP free list. I grabbed it, even if it might actually be the same as Zauran under the new cover & title. (Though I really do wish for some clarification on how the series relate. I know I can’t be the only one out there that has some of the old and new books and isn’t sure how they line up…or if they line up.)

Description from Goodreads:
In an ancient battle between the neuri of Belgrade and the Vampyre, Zaria is caught in the middle. 

She is hopelessly drawn to Darise but then the neuri Zauran kidnaps her, changing everything. It couldn’t be more complicated. Darise offers unconditional love, Zauran offers rabid passion, throw in the rest of the family and you have mayhem. Then betrayal catapults Zaria into Zauran’s life just when a king returns to cause anarchy. 

Božena is a poisoned thorn in Zaria’s side, and her world comes crashing down as violence, betrayal and death, threaten to rip her from love. A king’s key is the bridge between Zaria and happiness, but for some the intervention comes too late.

Review:
The actual writing here is good and I really appreciate the interesting locations chosen for the stories. This one was set in Belgrade, Serbia. (The previous one was set in Table Top Mountain, South Africa). I also occasionally liked some of the characters. (I’ll get to the ‘occasionally’ issue in a moment). Venix was awesome. Zauran finished up as wonderful. I eventually liked Ryan. Even Sveta had admirable moments. There were definitely parts of this book worthy of praise.

The book felt fractured, however, like it didn’t really know where it wanted to go when it set off on its journey so it ended up wondering aimlessly and then finishing at some previously undetermined location. One romantic arc was established and then discarded for another, for example. Actually, at times it felt like the story had been conceived and originally written as at least 3 different short stories, that were later stitched together into a book. I’m not claiming this to be the case. How would I know? But The way the book introduced new characters and took a fairly drastic left turn at 43%, then did it again at about 60%, combined with the tendency to randomly recap on occasion and the passage of large chunks of undocumented time between sections of the story gave the book that kind of feel. It felt like it would be easy to cleave it into 3 pieces without the loss of consistency. In fact, just the opposite is true. It felt like these three pieces didn’t belong in the same whole, despite containing some of the same characters.

Characters had drastic personality changes (thus my only occasionally liking some of them). One attempted rapist suddenly turned contrite and gentle. A previously loving man turned philandersous and eventually violent and so on. While these inconsistencies were annoying, they were also difficult to accept, as it meant the reader was left feeling betrayed by some characters and/or having to accept that previously despicable characters were suddenly the good guys. Whiplash anyone? Had these been separate stories it wouldn’t have felt so disruptive, but in one book they felt artificial. Especially since the impetus for change wasn’t always clear. I have no idea what happened to Darise, for example.

What’s more Zaria often came across as simply too stupid to live. She took everything said to her at face value and as absolute truth, with no further thought on the matter. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a likeable character and all, but she didn’t come across as too bright.

Lastly, and this paragraph contains a spoiler, some of the truths established in book one seemed to be discarded or contradicted here. For example, in Phoebe and Seithe it was clearly stated that only a person’s ‘chosen’ could redeem him, but Zaria manages to redeem Darius, despite not being his chosen. And Darise didn’t seem to have been condemned as a red eye, even though he killed someone.

All in all, I enjoyed the book but I spent a decent amount of the time confused by it. I’d be happy to finish the series out, but it’s not topping my favourites list.

So, here I am again, finished with Zaria & Zauran. I happen to have Sveta, #1 of the Neuri series (which is the follow-up series to Pravus, as I understand it). Is it the same as Bozena & Sveta (Neuripra #3)? I’m betting it is, but I’d hate to waste my time reading it if it isn’t. Arggg! Congratulations Poppet on being picked up by Thorstruck Press, but could you throw out a clarification for those of us struggling here? Please? I just want to know I’m reading the right books in the right order. I don’t actually care what the title/series is or what the covers look like.

You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna hold off on reading Sveta. Maybe like Zaria &  Zauran, Bozena & Sveta will pop up on the free list and then I’ll be certain I’m on the right book. Yeah, that makes sense. Right?