Tag Archives: PNR

Alaskan Fire

Book Review of Sara King’s Alaskan Fire (Guardians of the First Realm #1)

Leave a reply

Alaskan FireI grabbed a copy of Sara King‘s Alaskan Fire from Amazon’s KDP list. 

Description From Goodreads:
Blaze MacKenzie is a freakishly-tall heiress who just discovered that her ‘parents’ actually found her abandoned as an infant in some bizarre human sacrifice in the woods. Along with that nasty little bit of information came a six hundred thousand dollar check, a strange golden feather, and the ability to move to the Alaska Bush and begin her dream-life living off the Grid.

Unfortunately for Blaze, life in rural Alaska isn’t as peaceful as she expected. Among her many startling discoveries is that her sexy new handyman, Jack Thornton, has already ‘claimed’ the territory that her new lodge is sitting on …

Further complicating matters, Jack makes it clear to Blaze that there are a good many things that go bump in the Alaskan night, and when a pack of werewolves goes rogue and starts killing or turning everyone along the Yentna River, Blaze and Jack find themselves in a fight for survival in this magic-soaked Land of the Midnight Sun.

Review:
I generally enjoyed Alaskan Fire. I found Blaze and Jack endearing. I found the two of them together hilarious…vulgar, churlish, and occasionally infuriating, but all in a really funny way. They curse like sailors, call each-other names, sass each-other constantly and basically fight for 400 pages. But they also support and protect each-other at the same time. The bathtub scene was especially sweet, if a little disgusting.

Between Blazes’ size and strength and Jack’s comparable shortness and large swath of helplessness, I found the whole reversal of gender roles a nice addition. So was the fact that Jack was a wereverine instead of a werewolf. It’s interesting that King decided to make her male lead the less glamorised species. I don’t know that I’d read a book about what Blaze is either. (I’m trying not to spoil it.) So it was something different.

I did occasionally want to gag at Blazes’ tendency to revel in being protected when she was so obviously a capable woman. It felt very much like she was choosing helplessness over competence at times. I had similar feelings about the sex scenes (though there really weren’t many of them) and how much she wanted to be dominated…and how often the reader is reminded of how ‘male,’ masculine,’ ‘manly’ Jack is. Surely there are more creative ways to say Blaze thought his strength was attractive.

The book did seem to go on and on…and on and on and on. The book is roughly 550 pages long and there really isn’t any more to the plot than your average PNR, which is usually between 250 and 350 pages. I actually started to laugh toward the end as I passed ending after ending, only to find another chapter leading to what could have (really probably should have) been the conclusion. By which I mean scenes that would traditionally be the end of a PNR book. There are four or five of them consecutively. Plus, after the first appropriate place to wrap up, the book’s feel changes dramatically. It went from angsty and angry to hearts and flowers almost instantly.

The feeling of endlessness was also exacerbated by the fact that throughout the book any and everything took forever and a day to actually happen or happened more than once–the second and third escape attempt, for example. There were large chunks of downtime–the whole Brad and the rain section, almost all of the farming/building scenes, etc. And there was A LOT of ranting on about heritage breeds and such. Now I completely agree with the message in all of it, but it was played just a little heavy handedly…or maybe repeated too frequently.

All-in-all I’m glad to have read it, would happily read the sequel, Alaskan Fury, if it fell in my lap, and will keep my eyes open for more of Sara King’s writing. I think the book could do with a fairly ruthless pair-down to tighten the plot up, but I still enjoyed it.

Addendum: You can see my review of book II here. 

Review of A.C. Warneke’s Awakening

Leave a reply

AwakeningI grabbed a copy of A.C. Warneke‘s Awakening from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
THE QUEEN HAS BEEN DEAD FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS

IN A MOMENT OF FIERCE PASSION…

Celeste Hamilton is having one last adventure before her real life begins: a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe with her best friend. On her last days in Paris she meets the mysterious Adamanteros Vespari and he makes her feel reckless. She comes alive beneath Adam’s touch, burning for his possession.

ADAM MAKES A FATAL MISTAKE…

Her craving for Adam threatens to consume her and Celeste knows she cannot stay or she’ll cease to exist. Slipping out of his arms in the middle of the night, she makes her escape before she loses herself in him completely. But the world she returns to is no longer familiar and her friends aren’t what they seem.

AND AWAKENS SOMETHING DEEP WITHIN CELESTE…

When Adam comes back into her life she finds that she was lost before she was even born and with his she is finally found.

LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

Review:
Awakening was a fun enough PNR read and a slightly off-centre take on the whole vampire lore. (The Apocritae aren’t actually supposed to be vampires, but close enough.) Warneke created an interesting dilemma, threw out a fairly massive red herring, and actually wrapped the book up before the end–something that seems to be becoming a rarity.

I quite liked a lot of the characters. I especially liked Auberon. I felt really wretched for him. I have no doubt the payoff will come in the next book, Reawakening, and I’m fairly confident that I know how that will happen. I just wish someone would drop the hint to him. Seeing him suffer so nobly was almost painful. Oddly, Adam and Celeste were probably my two least-liked characters in the book. They were far too wrapped up in one another for there to be much room left over for anything else. Their meeting was a stunning example of insta-love/lust and so there wasn’t really any need to get to know each other, so the reader didn’t really get to know either one either. On top of that, I’m not really a bit of a fan of literary hearts and flowers, so their and the narrator’s constant reminders of how in love they were started to tick me off. I got it and could have done without being reminded of it 15 thousand more times.

I do have to say I find it unlikely that Celeste would have really triumphed. I don’t want to post a spoiler, but suffice it to say that her opponent, the overall baddie, could have and really should have killed her at any time. Celeste, after all, was much weaker, untrained, and far too naive. But like so many super-villains, pride and the need to talk until the end drug the whole thing out far longer than was realistic.

Awakening is apparently a sequel to Blight, but I didn’t know that until after I had finished this one. Having read Blight might have given me a clearer understanding of the Apocritae society better. I had no problem following the plot, but until I realised there had been a previous book I intended to comment that the basic world-building seeming a little light. Despite not reading the prequel, I still enjoyed the book. It seemed pretty well written.

Book Review of Bria Hofland’s 42nd & Lex

1 Reply

42nd & Lex

I grabbed Bria Hofland‘s PNR novel, 42nd & Lex from the Amazon KDP free list.

Description from Goodreads:
A divorce lawyer by trade, I have been soured on love for years. I haven’t had a date in months and now my childhood best friend—you know the über pretty and together one—has hired me to handle her divorce. If she can’t keep a man then there is no hope for me. Then a chance meeting on an elevator changes everything. Lucan O’Reilly is good looking, wealthy, and has an apartment to die for. He always seems to know just what’s on my mind. The perfect man, actually. But is it all too good to be true…

“Shh, I’m ready to tell you,” he whispers and with that I hear him speak a word in my mind. Vampire. Unfortunately, this is the least of my concerns for a new relationship fraught with secret ceremonies, blood hungry enemies, and saving Lucan’s soul. 

Review:
This wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I thought it would be a hot paranormal, if not erotic, romance. It wasn’t. There were a few incredibly mild sex scenes, but the sizzle level was along the lines of ‘we made love until morning.’ Meh.

I did enjoy Abri though. She was a feisty heroine who knew her own mind and didn’t easily bend to the overprotective nature of her literary mate. Said mate, Lucan, was a pleasant surprise in and of himself. He was kind and considerate and even sexy. What he was not was any sort of overbearing alpha male. It was nice to see that mould broken. He was exceedingly wealthy though. (I guess an author can’t be expected to break them all.) An annoyingly large portion of the book was dedicated to showcasing his money–his cars, clothes, jewellery, fancy restaurants, high price real-estate, etc. All of which he, of course, showers her with. After a while it just felt like a plot prop.

The book could do with another round of edits. There are a lot of missing words, mostly pronouns and particles. There are also a few word choice issues. The repeated use of the word least when lest is meant, for example. The story was still perfectly readable, enjoyable even, but it would be hard to miss the mistakes.

All-in-all I found it a sweet little romance novel with a few weak attempts to broaden the plot. The whole Serge drama fell a little flat with me. He didn’t feel like enough of a threat to warrant as much attention as it was given. The whole vampire reveal seemed a bit ho-hum. No one seemed bothered in the least by it. Even the scary high council just felt like cheery geriatrics. Be that as it may, it was still a fun little read.