Tag Archives: PNR

atlantis rising

Review of Atlantis Rising (Warriors Of Poseidon #1), by Alyssa Day

I received a copy of Atlantis Rising when I signed up for Alyssa Day’s newsletter. Curious of Jack’s (the hero in Dead Eye) origins, I gave it a read.

Description from Goodreads:

Eleven thousand years ago, before the seas swallowed the Atlanteans, Poseidon assigned a few chosen warriors to act as sentinels for humans in the new world. There was only one rule-desiring them was forbidden. But rules were made to be broken…

When she calls…
Riley Dawson is more than a dedicated Virginia Beach social worker. She’s blessed with a mind link that only Atlanteans have been able to access for thousands of years. Being an “empath” may explain her wistful connection to the roiling waves of the ocean, the sanctuary it provides, and the sexual urges that seem to emanate from fathoms below…

He will come.
Conlan, the High Prince of Atlantis, has surfaced on a mission to retrieve Poseidon’s stolen trident. Yet something else has possessed Conlan: the intimate emotions-and desires-of a human. Irresistibly drawn to the uncanny beauty, Conlan soon shares more than his mind. But in the midst of a battle to reclaim Poseidon’s power, how long can a forbidden love last between two different souls from two different worlds?

Review:

This is the second Alyssa Day book I’ve read and they’ve both suffered in the same manner (this one far worse than the first, Dead Eye). Both had an interesting plot that was then shoved into the background in favor of endless repetitions of how awed the hero is by the heroine and her innate goodness. Had Day flipped this around I probably would have loved this book. As it was the whole vampires try to take over the world, Lost City of Atlantis rising to save humanity is a subplot to he’s hot and tortured and she’s kind enough to heal his heart. There isn’t enough of the first to carry the book and the latter isn’t strong enough to support all Day heaped onto it. By the end, I was desperately ready to be finished with the book.

Having said all of that, I did like the characters. I appreciated that, while Conlan was bossy, he wasn’t an alpha-asshole about it. I liked that he communicated when he was struggling with control and I liked that Riley had some agency.

When I picked this book up, I didn’t realize it was initially published in 2007. I’m always wary of any PNR that’s more than a decade old. The industry codified a lot of tropes I despise. Despite that, though this wasn’t a winner for me, I didn’t hate it as much as I could have. And that’s a plus, right?

Review of Seer (The Titanomachy #1), by S.E. Welsh

I received a copy of Seer, by S.E. Welsh through Netgalley.

Seer s.e. welsh

Description from Goodreads:

Seeing the future is hard, but facing it will be explosive

A Seer has surfaced—but she’s blind!

Chloe Santos is an immortal with a whole world of problems. The victim of an attempted murder that left her blind, horribly disfigured, and stuck with powers everyone thought eradicated, it’s safe to say she’s at a low point in her life. But then she’s blackmailed into investigating a kidnapping with links to her past. It could put herself, and everyone she cares about, in danger.

Including her Warrior Soulmate.

Phobos has a millennia of blood on his hands. As the son of Ares, he’s done horrific things in the name of keeping the continued existence of immortals a secret. Only all of that changes when he meets his Soulmate.

Allegiances shift, trust is thin and Chloe has to decide if she should risk everything to make the world a better place. Even if that means sacrificing her own chance at happiness.

Review:

This was not a winner for me. It has several plot holes. I felt the plot was unfocused and meandered too much, and lastly, the whole thing was just steeped in rape. It was this last point that kept me from being able to enjoy the story. Seemingly every older female has a history of horrific rape, the heroine is repeatedly put into the position to psychically relive those events with them, and the verb rape is even used to describe things. As in, “she raped my mind” to describe someone psychically forcing themselves into the main character’s mind.

I didn’t even think the sex scenes were well done. Especially given the Readers Advisory that reads, “This Paranormal Romance contains a strong-willed goddess and her protective Warrior Soulmate who don’t appreciate the term ‘vanilla’ when it comes to the bedroom.” Here’s the thing, the characters really were very vanilla in the bedroom. Granted, they had one brief bout of anal sex (about three paragraphs long, tacked onto the end of another sex scene, having no emotional impact at all). But that’s hardly transgressive or particularly kinky. The sex was blase to the extreme. It definitely did not live up to the titillation of that advisory.

All in all, the writing was readable but the plot and story lacked that something special to make it more than just words on a page.

Review of Dating the Undead (Bite Nights #1), by Juliet Lyons

I picked up an e-copy of Juliet LyonsDating the Undead when it was a freebie, way back in 2017.

Description from Goodreads:

Silver Harris is done with clingy men—maybe men altogether. But when she shares a toe-curling kiss with a sexy Irish vampire on New Year’s Eve, she decides maybe it’s human men she’s done with. Silver turns to the popular vampire dating site, V-Date. When the undead gentlemen come calling, soon she’s in over her head. And her mysterious hottie is nowhere to be found…

Logan Byrne can’t get that sassy redhead out of his head—or that kiss! When his boss assigns him to spy on V-Date members, he meets Silver again. Turns out, the police are recruiting humans to snitch on vampires through the dating site. As the snark and sparks fly, feelings between Silver and Logan grow deep. Logan isn’t sure he can go through with his mission to make Silver forget everything she knows about vampires…and betray her.

But in the tight-knit London community of centuries-old vampires, history and grudges run deep and dating the undead can be risky business.

Review:

Meh, not bad but also not anything to write home about either. I truly did enjoy that Silver and Logan’s relationship seemed to be based on joy and, though the sex scenes weren’t graphic, it was apparent that the two of them were genuinely enjoying themselves. Sex doesn’t always have to be some big, brooding, important thing. It can be laughing and teasing and light too. I appreciated that. I also appreciated that Logan wasn’t some big, uber-important alpha vampire. He was as close to a normal guy as a vampire can be. I didn’t dislike Silver. But it’s hard to get too excited about a girl who says about herself that her only hobbies are going to parties and shopping. I was a little limp about her. Plus, she didn’t have a single female friend other than a stepsister she could tolerate and an elderly neighbor. Every other female in the book is either catty or a villain. (Why do authors do this?) All in all, I’m not sorry to have read it and I would read another in the series. But I’m not rushing out to buy them all either.