Tag Archives: PNR

Review of Roxanne Rhoads’ Hex and the Single Witch

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I grabbed Roxanne Rhoads‘ novel Hex and the Single Witch off of the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:

Anwyn Rose is descended from a long line of powerful witches yet she can barely cast spells young witchlings have mastered. She has one functioning witch gift, the power of knowing, which she puts to good use as a Detective on Flint’s Preternatural Investigation Team (aka the P.I.T. Crew).

It’s a new era in Vehicle City, supernaturals are running the town. The P.I.T has their hands full with paranormal crimes. Top priority is a serial killer, who appears to be a vampire, draining young women in the city.

Anwyn is on the case with her sexy partner Detective Mike Malone. 
Complicating things is her relationship Galen, a vampire who looks more guilty than innocent, although Anwyn trusts her instincts even if her power is on the fritz.

Mysterious spells, compromising situations, and a possible demon on the loose make it hard to focus on the case, but Anwyn has to make things right before the human police execute the wrong vampire.

Review:

Anwyn Rose is a witch and a member of the Preternatural Investigation Team of Flint, Michigan. She is partnered with a steamy hunk of a man whose smarmy harassment seems to hide a delicious, Carmel-soft core and is tentatively sticking her toes into the supernatural dating realm with an emotionally damaged, possible dangerous, sex-on-a-stick vampire. Things regularly heat up. This is PNR, bordering on erotica. Yum

What I like about Anwyn and her situation is that she is an adult. While she worries about the course of her relationships and how it might affect her work, she never has to bother with the juvenile, ‘What is this strange feeling I have,’ does he like me back,’ ‘How could he love someone like me?’ She understands her own lust, knows what she wants, and is willing and able to recognise the same in her partner. It is refreshing to not have to wade through all that angst. She is also really funny.

Though not HE, I appreciate that the author is willing to acknowledge that immortal beings or morally corrupt demons aren’t really going to care much about traditional mores against same-gender encounters. There aren’t a lot of them in the book and they are brief sighting really, but they occur as easily and unobtrusively as any other…and are damn hot. By the same token, demons are involved, so reasonably so is a little bit of sexual deviance that can be a little on the uncomfortable side.

Poor Flint, Michigan is in trouble. Some sort of ‘big bad’ is coming and Anwyn and her team are trying to figure it out. She manages to solve a few hiccup-type problems in this book and make a little headway into the hex issue, but definitely doesn’t solve THE problem. I guess I’ll have to wait for the sequel for that. It also felt like the immediate Devlin/Galen/Roarke issue resolved itself far too easily. All-in-all it was an enjoyable evening’s read.

Book Review of Zoe Forward’s Dawn of a Dark Knight

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I grabbed Forward‘s PNR Dawn of a Dark Knight off of the Amazon free list. 

Description from Goodreads:

In the shadows of our world, a secret band of warriors fights to protect us. They are the last line of defense against an evil no human can stop.

An ancient nemesis has resurfaced. Duty demands that Ashor Vlahos, Scimitar Magi commander, recruit a magical healer to fortify the remaining eight magi. The gods’ choice is the woman who helped him escape torture a decade ago. Ashor couldn’t have imagined a better punishment for his vow-breaker homicidal incidents than for the gods to bind him irrevocably to the only woman in the universe he cannot have. The soul-searing desire she ignites in him is strictly forbidden.

Kira Hardy, M.D. is a brilliant, hardworking internal med resident with big secrets. But when Ashor asks for aid after a brutal daemon attack, she is sucked into his dangerous, secret world. Enslavement to the magi, no matter how hot they are, may be an unattractive life plan, but being targeted for death by their enemies is less tolerable.

She must trust the sexy, tormented Ashor to keep her safe while he must deny his ultimate desire and keep Kira at arm’s length lest he bring destruction down on them both. As a centuries-old evil catches up to them, they face a crucial decision–follow the gods’ rules or follow their hearts.

Review:

My first thought on reading Dawn of a Dark Knight is that the cover doesn’t match it. IMO it needs one a little more like those of J.R. Ward‘s or Elisabeth Naughton‘s, something that screams PNR because that is what this is. Like the Black Dagger Brotherhood or the Eternal Guardians the men of Dawn of a Dark Knight, the Magi, are a bonded group of hard as nails, hot as fire, destined for one woman defenders of the innocent. And like other such books in the genre the sexual tensions run high and the sex smolders, but my favourite part is the males’ interactions with one another. They fight to the death for one another, but also rag each other constantly. They laugh at each other’s pain and wheedle anyone with a perceptible weakness, all in good fun of course. This made for plenty of funny moments.

Though side characters I also loved Kane and Markus, especially Kane. Next to the two main characters I think he was my favourite in the book. I expect he will play prominent role in future books in the series, but of courses that is only my speculation…or hope. 

It did feel a little bit like after fighting her destiny the whole book, Kira suddenly and for no apparent reason (other than that she should have already) finally gave in to it. I couldn’t identify a single causal event or moment. Maybe there didn’t need to be, but I found myself thinking, ‘Hey, when did she change her mind?’ There were also a few noticeable editing mistakes, but nothing that irritated me enough to put me off reading further. 

Since Wild Rose Press  only just released this one I don’t know when a second is expected, but I’d be happy to read it when it is out. 

Review of P.L. Parker’s The Chalice

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Some time ago I won a copy of P.L. Parker‘s The Chalice from Laurie’s Thought and Reviews.

Description from Goodreads:
Decimated by the savage Deg’Nara and teetering on the brink of extinction, the last surviving males of the once great Chiagan-Se embark on a quest to salvage what is left of their civilization. They send their remaining seeker ships into the void, searching for genetically compatible females. Time is running out, but in the far reaches of the universe, on an obscure and primitive planet, a match is discovered.

One thousand panic-stricken women awaken two hundred years in the future, captives aboard an unmanned alien spacecraft bound for parts unknown! How had they gotten there and why? 

The males thought they came willingly. The females believed they’d been kidnapped. Full of hopeful expectation, the Chiagan-Se prepare for the arrival of their new mates. Terrified and furious at the inexplicable abduction, the women prepare for combat! And when the two sides meet, the battle commences.

Even though I won a copy of The Chalice way back in June, I put off reading it because I honestly hate the cover. It makes me think of bad Swedish porn. (No offense against the Scandinavian porn industry. I’m sure they have some good porn too.) And come on, lets face it, the plot-line of a ship full of females bound for a the arms of a wholly male populace is rife with the possibility of cheap bow-chica-bow-wow moments. It could easily go bad very quickly. But I wanted to support the author and appreciate the winnings so I gave it a chance.

I made it 45% into the book before there was even a hint of a kiss and a good 250 pages before there was a sex scene. (It was only the first of two and fairly mild to boot.) Relief, not porn then. What it was instead was funny. Now, I don’t mean the trying to take itself too seriously, forcing you to laugh derisively at it funny. No, I mean the genuinely and intentionally humorous type of funny. Danesha, or ‘Dread’ was a whole ball of fun all by herself. Never have I encountered such a bitter and pessimistic character that makes you love her so much. No matter how dire the circumstances you could count on her to think of something worse and lighten the mood. Then there was a little bit of slapstick and all of the basic misunderstandings that one would expect to encounter when two sentient species are forced to interact. I laughed out loud a lot.

Some of the characters were a little stereotypical. Dread was after all a foul mouthed African American from the Detroit ghetto who was always ready for a fight. Then there was the stiff lipped Englishwoman who always kept her cool, the whinging Irish woman who kept wailing ‘I dinnae nooo,’ the busty blond Swede, and the placid Japanese ninja-type. They were a lot of fun though. A little more thought seems to have gone into the male cast. Parker painted them as contradictorily strong, hot-blooded warriors who also happened to feel like lost little boys. I really enjoyed seeing the women take charge. I also enjoyed that there was a plot outside of the romances. In fact I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the smoldering bits. I especially wanted to see how Shagal won his mate over…or was won over. Hard to tell on that one.

On the downside, to say the book head hops would be an understatement. It not only leaps unexpectedly from one person to the next, but from one scene to the next. One moment you are in Kara’s head on a transport shuttle, then the next you are with Tegan on the bridge of the ship, with nothing to indicate you have moved. I often had to reread passages or just keep going until I found a clue to reorient myself by. It was a challenge. Despite this I was pleasantly surprised by the book and look forward to reading more of Parker’s writing.