Tag Archives: PNR

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Book Review: Stolen by her Wolves, by Kaylin Peyerk

I received an Audible code for a free copy of Kaylin Peyerk‘s Stolen by her Wolves.
stolen by her wolves audio cover

As one of the final surviving members of a brutal shifter clan, I’ve been chained and imprisoned for my entire life by my human uncle for the sole purpose of keeping other humans safe from me.

At least that’s his excuse.

Solitude and pain are all I’ve known, so when four men show up claiming to be my saviors I’m not exactly receptive to the idea. Sure, I’m grateful that they’ve busted me out of my own personal brand of hell, but that’s about as far as the gratitude goes. Now I have no money, no pack, and nowhere to go unless I take them up on their offer to transport me safely to Newhaven, a sanctuary for omega wolves deep in the woodlands of Alaska.

With no other choice left, I take it while vowing to keep my distance for the week-long trip. But as time passes my guard falls, leaving me conflicted and suddenly vulnerable to the charismatically handsome group of men. Will I make it to Wolfhaven without falling for them, and do I really want to?

This is a reverse harem wolf shifter romance with themes of abuse trauma, overcoming it, and learning to trust the ones you love.

my review

*Sigh*

I suppose this was ok. The writing is fine. The idea of the found family pack bond is fun. That two of the mates are also involved is nice. The inclusion of the fae connection is interesting. Alyssa Rogge did a fine job with the narration (even if everyone sounded a bit on the young side). And I very much appreciate that Peyerk didn’t include rape in the torture Talia endured. It wasn’t needed for the story, and I appreciate that it wasn’t there just for shock.

Unfortunately, the book just didn’t light me up in any way. I feel like we don’t really get to know the MCs very well, the beta and sub-alpha especially. They all just kind of merged into a mate-group blob. There’s one fairly bland sex scene with one mate that kind of springs out of nowhere. So, the romantic aspect is a bit of a dud.

There are several inconsistencies, contradictions, and instances of people suddenly knowing things they hadn’t been told and had no way of discovering. But mostly, even though this book is almost 300 pages (5+ hours of audio), it feels like an extended prologue or introduction to a series rather than a book of its own. Basically, nothing happens.

And here I’m going to have a little rant, not so much about this particular book but about the state of the genre or industry in general. I cannot truly express how tired I am of reading books that don’t end—not cliffhangers, but books that are just part of a story with no wrap-up or conclusion—that just are basically the first 3rd, or 5th, or 15th of a story.

I think this started with Amazon and the free book craze. Authors now write a teaser first book to give away as a freebie, and it often has an open ending to tempt the reader to buy the next one. But as a reader, I am so sick of these books. I would 100% rather just pay for a complete story and skip the teaser bit. The problem is that you never know what book is one until you’re already finishing it. I’m tired, so very tired, of giving my time to books that have no ending. So tired in fact, that I usually don’t bother finding the rest of the series (for fear the next book will be the same). So, I’ve started just considering these books wastes of my time. Can the industry move on from this now? I’m ready.

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Book Review: Dragon Assassin Academy, by T.M. Caruana

I accepted a free copy of T.M. Caruana‘s Dragon Assassin Academy for review.
dragon assassin academy

I lost my father in the last attack against the dragon shifters. Now the Academy Council wants me to go undercover to live amongst murderers in the hope that if I can kill their King it will bring peace.

Then, I meet my teacher, Billy.

Harder to fool.

Harder to stay away from.

If he discovers my secret identity, I’m dead!

my review

I hate to say this, but this book was a hot mess from start to finish. In fact, if I hadn’t accepted it for review (and therefore felt obligated to finish it), I’d have DNFed it by the halfway mark. As it was, I skimmed the last half.

I found it clunky and disjointed, somehow repetitive AND inconsistent, cliched, predictable, and then cliffhanger to top it all off. Plus, it felt like a lower YA book until the on-page sex showed up—IMO, it needed to be one or have the other, but both didn’t work. To list all the examples of why this didn’t work for me would feel like I was attacking the book. So, let’s just leave it at this is a decent first pass for a manuscript. But it needed more work to be truly readable, let alone enjoyable.

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Other Reviews:

Book Review | Dragon Assassin Academy: Year 1 by T M Caruana

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Book Review: Something Darker, by S.A. Price

I purchased a copy of S.A. Price‘s Something Darker from a local Indie bookstore called Spine.
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The one thing Syrus Alcot, the God of Death Osiris in the Egyptian Pantheon, wants in all the worlds is the woman he loved and lost returned to him. When he gave up his powers, and freedom for a life of service he was promised her return. That was over one thousand years ago. A member of a team of dark gods charged with keeping humanity safe, he leads a loveless existence in New York City, searching for the one thing that could bring his wife back to him, a lapis scarab that was lost to him ages before.

Gwen Stapleton, a mild mannered librarian, is unaware that she holds the key to not only Syrus’ happiness, but her own. Seemingly stuck in a hopeless relationship with a man she doesn’t love, she has no idea that a chance meeting in Alphabet City will start a landslide to her heart’s content. Because Gwen is the keeper of the scarab, and is everything Syrus has ever wanted… and hes not the only one.

An Ancient evil is waking, and its servants will stop at nothing to see it seize its rightful place as the new pantheon of earth. And in order for Syrus and his team to save the world, Gwen is going to have to accept him, and show that love does make all the difference.

my review
This was a total flop for me. I didn’t think to check the publication date before I bought it (it was published in 2012). Otherwise I would have passed on it. I know, from experience, that paranormal romances 10+ old or older are not a good match for me and Something Darker is a stellar example of why.

The norms, standards, and expectations of the romance genres have changed in the past decade. So, I am trying very hard to keep that in mind when writing this review. But there is just no way around how very much I did not enjoy this book, even if it’s style and content were the norm 10 years ago.

As I age, I am becoming less and less tolerant of women being treated as objects and walking sex dolls in my PNR. I cringe and sneer my way through scenes of faceless women panting to give head to men as they treat them like shit. Or sitting through scene after scene after scene of rape threats, or women being given to the henchmen to be gang raped. Or villains having rough sex with women they are actively disparaging, while she is shown to be getting off despite the abuse. Or the ‘heros’ (the ostensibly good guys) talking about all the pieces of ass, or flavor of the night, or treats, or presents, or other diminishing titles when talking about the nameless and unimportant women they are going to fuck and toss aside throughout the book, etc, etc, etc.

Generally, the heroine is the only woman shown to be worthy of respect. In fact, you can often tell that she’s the hero’s ‘One,’ because she’s the exception to the women are worthless objects (read garbage) rule and the only one seen or shown as truly human in the whole book.

And so, so, so, so, so much of Something Darker is all of the above. And I just slowly lost my will to continue. In fact, I skimmed the last several chapters just to get it finished.

Add to all of that, that the book really needed another round of edits and everything and everyone was underdeveloped and I was just ready to toss the book on the DNF pile. I finished it, but just barely and not happily. I will not be continuing the series.

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Other Reviews:

http://delightedreader.com/review-something-darker-by-s-a-price/