Tag Archives: PNR

Book Review: Her Soul to Take, by Harley Laroux

I purchased a copy of Her Soul to Take by Harley Laroux.

Leon
I earned my reputation among magicians for a reason: one wrong move and you’re dead. Killer, they called me, and killing is what I’m best at. Except her. The one I was supposed to take, the one I should have killed – I didn’t. The cult that once controlled me wants her, and I’m not about to lose my new toy to them.

Rae
I’ve always believed in the supernatural. Hunting for ghosts is my passion, but summoning a demon was never part of the plan. Monsters are roaming the woods, and something ancient – something evil – is waking up and calling my name. I don’t know who I can trust, or how deep this darkness goes. All I know is my one shot at survival is the demon stalking me, and he doesn’t just want my body – he wants my soul.

I bought this before getting stuck in an airport with a significantly delayed flight. Which means I read most of it in one sitting. It served its purpose well on that front. It kept me amused. (Hope the people sitting to my left/right weren’t too shocked reading over my shoulder.)

I’ll fully admit the whole S&M kink isn’t one I particularly gravitate toward (I’m just a little too attuned to sex scenes that tread too close to gendered abuse in today’s climate.), and the ‘love’ here is expressed mostly through sex rather than any meaningful conversation or relationship building. But I did feel the author at least made the kink fit (Often, you can feel that the writer only included one or another kink because it’s on trend.), and the heroine was unabashedly into what she was into. So, there didn’t need to be the dreaded training scenes. (God, I’ve read so many training scenes. How different can any author really make them? I’m so entirely bored by them.) So, even if not a favorite, I felt the power dynamic and use of S&M worked here.

What I am into is a desperately obsessive, he-falls-first male lead. Leon is a demon, and the obsessive way he hyper-fixates on Rae feels like hedonistic, demonic behavior. It fits. It’s a weak basis for a romance, but it’s a strong base for why a historically murderous demon doesn’t murder one particular woman and protects her instead. A reader does just have to take it on romance-trope-faith that he is being legitimate and not simply enacting a deception in order to steal her soul, which, outside of romance-trope-faith, is the far more likely reality of the scenario presented in the story. Honestly, this little niggle always lurked in the back of my mind as I read. But I am as familiar with romance-trope-faith as any other romance reader. So, I persevered and overcame.

Rae (or Velma, as many other reviewers have called her, and they are right to do so) is likable enough. She’s not particularly smart about some things, but she’s also not TSTL either. Leon was the real shining star for me, but Rae gave him enough reflective light to do so.

I also really enjoyed the Lovecraftian horror aspect of the plot. The solution was fairly obvious, the human villains were a little cliched, and the fact that their demise happened off-page (obviously enacted by the characters and likily the plot of the next book), felt jarringly anti-climactice. Overall, however, I’ll be reading that next book and will happily seek out more of Laroux’s writing.

Other Reviews:

Her Soul To Take | Review

Review | Her Soul To Take

Book Review: Monsters of Ashwood, by Ariel Dawn

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I picked up a copy of Ariel Dawn‘s Voices in the Dark as an Amazon freebie, and then purchased a copy of Whispers in the Woods.

A haunted house. A protective gargoyle. A past that controls the future.

For Jenna Hellsing, the sleepy little town of Ashwood, Oregon seems to be the perfect place to hide and start over, to quiet the demons, even if it’s in a house haunted by shadows… but the darkness isn’t ready to let her go.

As Jenna attempts to navigate her new life, will she be able to resist the voices of the past? Especially the ones she hears in the dark?

Degal’s heart is colder than stone. After all, he’s been separated from his mates for more than a century. The broody gargoyle has only one focus: To protect the legendary Ashwood Manor.

When a fearless young woman buys his home, can Degal find a way to ignore the undeniable bond he feels?

I’m going to give this duology a single review since I read the books back to back, and they form one continuous story. Honestly, the two books combined are less than 350 pages, so I don’t know why the author bothered to break them in two. I know there’s the sell-more-books aspect. But finding standalone Why Choose romances is like finding a treasure. I wish more authors would write them, and here I see a perfect opportunity to do so squandered.

I have mixed feelings about this series. In one sense, I liked it a lot. I liked that the men of the harem have a real, deeply felt, and openly expressed relationship with one another. I liked the characters themselves. Since I finished book one and then bought book two, I obviously enjoyed spending time with them.

BUT I was hoping for so much more than this series delivered. There are some aspects of the story that seriously disappointed me. (This will be spoilerish, by the way.) I found the heroine bland. Honestly, among the three men’s history and established relationship, she felt very much like a late addition tag-along rather than a truly important addition. Honestly, I’m not even sure she felt like the main character of the book. Degal, in terms of page time and development, and Shadow, in terms of group dynamics, fit the bill a lot better.

But mostly, the author made some choices I thought were super cliched and predictable. At the tail end of book one, I had a premonition of where the story was going and made this note:

I’m going to be so disappointed if this book/series goes in the reincarnated lover direction. Let her be important as herself, not as Virginia 2.0. Please!

Well, to risk repeating myself, I was disappointed. It wasn’t straightforward reincarnation, but it’s close enough to fit the bill. I want a heroine that the men love FOR HER, not for what (or who) she is a reflection of.

The villain was incredibly obvious. It’s the only named character with no other obvious character role (best friend, work colleague, lover, etc.), and his motivation was one we’ve all seen a billion times before. It’s serious low-hanging fruit in the plotting department. I have to say the same about the FMC’s history of rape. *Yawn* So overused as to have been leeched of all emotional impact. Again, it’s low-hanging fruit plotting. It’s evidence of either incredible laziness or an author who has yet to mature and learn to imagine plot points for themselves instead of choosing them from pre-scripted cultural story arcs.

As a side note, I’m quite tolerant of purple prose. But if you are not, this might not be the book for you. It could also do with another editing pass. All in all, this wasn’t horrible. I like it well enough. But it left me with several unanswered questions and could have been so much more than it is.