Tag Archives: PNR

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Book Review: Blood Sugar, by Michaela Haze

I picked up Michaela Haze‘s Blood Sugar as an Amazon freebie.

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They call my family a cult.

I’m not allowed to tell anyone what happens behind closed doors.

Our Sect worships the Old Gods. Our little community is surrounded by the Never Forest. A place neither Here nor There.
“The people that can dance with the dead will make their homes with the Demons.”

My family can do wondrous feats. Animate corpses, and see the future through the eyes of the dead.
I can do none of those things.

But the Gods have set their eye on my virtue.
There is one for each of the Seven Sins.
And I am theirs.

my review

I went into this with pretty low expectations. It was an Amazon freebie, and let’s be honest, those are pretty hit or miss. But Blood Sugar was a hit. I really enjoyed it. Now, admittedly, it wasn’t at all what I expected. Don’t—like me—go into this expecting steam and a bunch of growly alpha a-holes. That isn’t what you’ll find.

In fact, there is very little sex in the book, and what there is is past the 75% mark and pretty mild. And while the Sin’s might be a little stand-offish at times, they aren’t a-holes. These men are broken and sweet, even if they don’t always show it. Ophelia is the growly one, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that switch. She’s also capable, loyal, and broken herself.

Now, fair warning, though there is no on-page rape, a TW for it is probably appropriate. It plays blood sugar photoa fairly large part in the plot. I probably wouldn’t have read the book if I had known that, since I try to avoid rape in the books I read for fun. But in this case, I can honestly say it’s incorporated into the plot, not a cheap device (which is one of my most common complaints when it is used in a book).

The book isn’t perfect. It could use another editing pass, and there are several times that villains are defeated; all of them are anti-climactic. As was the ending, in that it just kind of ended with a bit of a bang but no wrap-up. Despite that, Haze just went on my author-to-watch list.


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Book Review: Desire Aforethought series, by Kyra Alessy

I picked up a copy of Kyra Alessy‘s Demons and Debts as an Amazon freebie and then purchased Debts and Darkness and Darkness and Debauchery.

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An Autistic woman being hunted. An Incubi MC who can help. But will their price be more than she can pay?

When I was fourteen, a woman I called mom was murdered … and it was my fault.

I’ve been on the run ever since, but someone’s chasing me. I don’t know who they are or what they want. The only thing I’m sure of is that I need to keep moving or more people will die.

They’re going to find me again. They always do.

The human authorities are useless. The supernatural cops, even worse. My only hope is the Iron Incubi MC, the biggest, baddest, meanest supes around. I’m sick of running and I’m desperate enough to make a deal even if it costs me everything I have left.

Oh, and I’m neurodivergent. Autism means my brain works differently. I can keep it together in the day-to-day and mask my hundreds of quirks when I’m around others for short times, but now the five human-hating Incubi who I went to for help have me prisoner at their ‘clubhouse’, i.e., mansion in the middle of nowhere.

So, what happens when five hot as sin s€x demons lock up a human girl who sucks at all the bedroom stuff, doesn’t cope well with change, and definitely can’t mask her ASD 24/7?

I’m Jane Mercy and I have no f**king clue, but I don’t think it’s going to go well for those gorgeous-enough-to-be-underwear-model SOBs … especially when my stalkers come for me …

my review

I’m just going to review the whole series together since that’s how I read it…or binged it, rather. I really liked the first book, Demons and Debts, liked the second book, Debts and Darkness,  OK, and was fairly meh on the third one, Darkness and Debauchery. This left me finishing the series feeling disappointed. But on the whole, it averages out pretty well.

The two things I appreciated most about this series were the tone of the writing (which was well-edited and easy to read) and the heroine. I adored Jane. She’s snarky and self-contained. I mean, I liked the heroes well enough, too, but Jane was my shining star. And it was largely her sense of humor and inner dialogue that made the tone of the book work so well.

The reason my enjoyment of the series diminished the farther along I went, however, was that I felt like it lost some of the spark that kept the first one so interesting. The men were true alpha a-holes in the beginning. There’s no pushing her away for her own good or cruel to be kind, etc. These men did not care about her. And Jane was forced to navigate that, which created a delicious tension. (There’s not a sex scene until past 75% either.)

By book two and certain book three, the men had changed. They’d come to love and simp for Jane, which is fine, but the books lost a lot of the tension as a result. Plus (and these and big ones for me), by book three—where I would have expected to finally see the romance develop between the characters—Jane spent almost all of with one of the men, and the rest were separate. The plot also devolves into cliched SA territory that I did not enjoy reading even a little bit. I just too often find such plotlines overused and lacking in creative thought. I call them the low-hanging fruit of plotlines. Meh.

Lastly, I was disappointed with the spicy scenes. There was very little in the vein of foreplay or emotional connection. It’s all very focused on what went in where and when. So, it didn’t particularly light me up.

All in all, however, I’d happily read more of Alessy’s writing. I enjoyed more than I didn’t.

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Book Review: Wilde City, by Evie Marceau

I won a copy of Evie Marceau‘s Wilde City…on Instagram, I think.

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One job application turns into me falling for my wickedly hot *fae* boss…

When Willow answers a mysterious nanny ad, she’s shocked to learn the employer is the handsome and reclusive billionaire Severn Wilde—and even more surprised when he reveals himself to be a fae prince in disguise.

Willow never dreamed that the fae bedtime stories her mother told her as a child were real. Now, Severn grants Willow the fae sight, allowing her to see the hidden magical world of the Gifted Ones. But as wondrous as his realm is, rival fae courts, witches, and shifters make it fiercely dangerous. Willow and the children she’s been hired to care for are targeted by Severn’s Los Angeles-based rivals and their merciless leader, who will stop at nothing to strike Severn where it hurts most—those closest to him.

Swept up in a dangerous new world, Willow discovers that the greatest risk of all might be falling for her arrogant, cold, achingly handsome employer—the one person she can’t have.

Review (with spoilers)

I’m not going to go so far as to say this book is bad. The writing is perfectly fine. But I will say there’s absolutely nothing new or interesting here.

Young, innocent virgin is hired by hundreds-of-years-old, powerful paranormal. By virtue of (literally) nothing more than her ability to say no to him when no one else in his life can, he becomes enamored with her. And, despite never previously choosing love or a relationship, he does so for her. (Because she’s special.) Based on seemingly nothing but his beauty and toxicity, she falls in love with the walking red flag. She is then kidnapped by his enemy, who she also Wilde City coverfeels drawn to for reasons. There the book ends.

See, there’s nothing new, which makes it predictable. And since it was originally written for Vella, it is full of filler and thus far longer than need be, on top of it.

The interests of a reader who hasn’t read as widely in the genre might have been held more than mine. But I was just kind of bored by it. So, I’m calling this a ‘Meh.’


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