Tag Archives: PNR

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Book Review: Graced, by Amanda Pillar

I picked up Amanda Pillar‘s Graced, late last year, as an Amazon freebie.
graced cover

In a family of psychics, Elle Brown is a failure and she’s just fine by it. Especially since being gifted means being a target, and Elle has enough on her plate trying to keep her little sister safe from the surrounding vampires and shifters.

Clay is a shape-shifter who was just meant to be passing through town. But when the enigmatic Elle Brown crosses his path, he’s unable to turn away; even though pursuing Elle could result in a death sentence – for the both of them.

Be prepared for the sparks to fly in this plot driven forbidden romance! Graced is an urban fantasy and paranormal romance genre-merge that provides a whole new spin on the vampire and werewolf legend.

my review
I’ll be honest, I almost DNFed this early on. The beginning was very rough for me. I thought the plot and world chaotic and underdeveloped, and the characters unlikable. But past the halfway mark, once the four characters came together, I thought the whole thing hilarious and enjoyed the heck out of it.

I’m not entirely sure I was meant to find everything I found funny, funny. And maybe I should feel a little bad about laughing at some of it. But I enjoyed it enough to consider buying book two, and would have if it followed the same group. I wanted more of the sarcastic, family-bickering dynamic the group formed by the end. But I also think that’s one of the book biggest weaknesses (other than the rough start)—just as the book finally gives you what you’ve wanted all along, it ends and the next book is about someone else entirely.

And while I thought the four people clearly forming a found-family was fun, I didn’t understand the purpose of there being two couples (and it was two separate couples, not a poly group). According to the blurb, Elle is very clearly the main characters and her romantic partner is Clay. Which leaves Dante and Anton’s romance feeling like extra and the plot feeling stretched and diluted.

Speaking of Dante, I super resent that I spent most of the book appreciating the asexual rep, only to have the suggestion sneaked in, at the end, that he might like sex after all, now that he found His Person. Outside of side-eyeing that, there were characters of multiple races, ages, and orientations and no obvious -isms involved, which I was able to appreciate all the way until the end.

All in all, like I said, I wanted more by the end. So, I finished this happy enough to forget about how it started.

graced photo copy


Other Reviews:

I find it really amusing that between my review and the three below, this one book has four different covers and (at least) three separate blurbs; all of them giving disparate vibes. Heck, they don’t even all focus on the same characters. Every review I found had a different version of the book. I feel like I should keep searching, just to see how many I come across. LOL

Review: Graced by Amanda Pillar

Graced by Amanda Pillar – A Book Review

Review: Graced by Amanda Pillar

 

love spells full moons and silver bullets

Book Review: Love Spells, Full Moons, and Silver Bullets – by Cameron Allie

I accepted a review copy of Love Spells, Full Moons, and Silver Bullets from the author, Cameron Allie.
love spells full moons and silver bullets
What do you do when your ex boyfriend’s werewolf boss wants to feast on the mortal you’ve sworn to protect?

Quinn was unaware of the love potion her meddling cat dumped into her tea, so when Ian Hannigan ends up injured on her property, she thinks she’s dealing with another mortal, not the man who can help mend her heart. Her life becomes a balancing act as she attempts to keep him safe, while hiding secrets better left buried.

In a realm filled with things that go bump in the night, Ian didn’t expect to find security and happiness in the arms of a green skinned witch, yet for the first time since his parents tragic car crash, he’s found some measure of peace. The rumours he hears in Clayridge aren’t pleasant, but Ian knows there’s more to Quinn than what people would have him believe. If he’s placed his trust in the wrong hands he’ll be paying with more than just his heart. He’ll pay with his life.

my review

I think one of the hardest things to quantify when reviewing a book is when there is just too much of it. Even if you like the characters, think the plot is interesting, and the writing is good, there sometimes comes a point when you have to admit that there is just too much of it. And that’s the case here, with Love Spells, Full Moons, and Silver Bullets, in my opinion. The book is 462 pages long and feels like it should have been, at most, 300.

Over half the book is just slice-of-life kind of stuff that really drags the plot down. It’s sweet sure, but it’s slow and, as a result, by the time the action finally happens in the last 15-20% of the book the reader (or this reader, at least) is ready to just be finished with it all. Plus, it creates a real sense of slow, slow, slow, rush, rush rush that is a pacing nightmare.

But the story is sweet, the characters likeable, and the writing/editing is quite readable. There are some show vs tell sort of issues, but it’s not unovercomeable. The story just drags on longer than it should and the pacing is off. None of it is enough to wholly ruin the story though.

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Other Review:

Review: Love Spells, Full Moons, and Silver Bullets – by Cameron Allie

 

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Book Review: Blood of the Pack, by Cassie Alexander

While it wasn’t on the blog, Sadie’s Spotlight’s Insta featured Cassie Alexander‘s Dark Ink Tattoo series (Blood of the Pack, Blood at Dusk, and Blood at Midnight). However, I didn’t get all of the books at the same time. I had book one, but not the tail end of the series. So, my plan to read all three and review them together, in a single post, crumbled to dust. I’m just too much of a mood reader to allow so much time between books in a series. But since I have read book one, I’ll post it’s review and give the other books their own post when I get to them.

blood of the pack

Angela, Dark Ink Tattoo’s owner, has a secret – she’s a werewolf who used to run with the Pack, a dangerous drug-dealing motorcycle gang that services Vegas’s seedier side. She’s been free for the past seven years, ever since her ex-boyfriend (and Pack leader) Gray went to prison – but when the Pack starts threatening her shop and son she realizes she’s on borrowed time.

Dark Ink’s best artist refuses to show up before sundown – because he’s a vampire. Vegas is the perfect place for Jack – it’s an endless buffet of strangers to bleed. The only thing that haunts Jack more than his hunger is Angela.

Welcome to Dark Ink Tattoo, Las Vegas’s premier 24/7 tattoo studio, where needles aren’t the only things that bite….

my review
Sooo, this isn’t a romance. It’s erotic fiction. Sex is the point and there is a lot of it. I’m not complaining about the fact. I’m just stating it, in case anyone needs or wants the knowledge/reminder before jumping into this series.

And while I’m also not complaining about this second point I’m about to make, it was more eyebrow raising for me. Angela and Jack are not the people between whom the sex is happening. In fact, they’re not even on page together at all, past about page 50 of the book! Maybe they’ll get together in future books; their separate plot-lines are definitely connected. But do not go into this expecting Angela and Jack as a romantic pairing (like I did).

The plots are interesting looking, if a little unimaginative. The rough, evil biker gang…even the rough, evil werewolf biker gang is hardly original. Anyone who reads in the paranormal genres will have encountered it before. But both plots hold together, even when only sprinkled lightly between innumerable sex scenes.

About the sex (since it’s the point, after all), I appreciate that Alexander gave us some variety in both partners and activities beyond plain old P-n-V. I won’t go listing them all, since that would ruin the fun of discovering the various pairings for yourself. But I liked that some peoples that you don’t often see in sexual setting are given sex lives here. And I loved that Jack is assiduous about consent and unwaveringly kind to his partners, even when the kink is rough or the sex meaningless.

I didn’t love Angela’s ‘I want to be used, dominated, and “put in my place” by a man’ sex as much as Jack’s various liaisons though. For her it wasn’t play, as it was for him, for example. It felt 100x more cliched and unoriginal. It felt, in fact, like a male character was allowed variety beyond societies assigned place for him (bisexual—if not pansexual—and allowed to have varied sex). While Angela (as a woman) is still only allowed the one male partner and the sex still has to meet societal (read porn’s) approved scenarios (ie: rough, with the appearance of being demeaning, or at least subservient). Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t hot. I’m just saying it didn’t feel anywhere near as fresh as it could have.

All in all, however, for a one-handed read, I enjoyed the book and I look forward to the next one.

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Other Reviews: