Tag Archives: PNR

Review of Claiming Ana (Triple Star Ranch #1), by Brynna Curry

I received an Audible code for a copy of Claiming Ana, by Brynna Curry.

Description from Goodreads:

The child of a gypsy and fey, small-town veterinarian Dr. Anastasia Brannon has always hidden her magic for fear of ridicule. A red-hot encounter with the new PI in town makes their attraction impossible to deny. Throwing caution to the wind, she indulges her desires but keeps her secrets close.

A man with a shady past and secrets of his own, Howl Raven uses his feral talents and tracking skills to make a living, doing his best to lay low and hide the curse that haunts him every month. So far, so good…until an uncontrollable shift outside the full moon leaves him the victim of a werewolf hunter.

When she finds the enigmatic investigator wounded in the woods near her cabin during a storm, Ana provides medical care on instinct. She may be the only one who can banish the wolf from Howl’s blood, but at what cost?

Review:

This was not great. It started out well enough by introducing several interesting characters that then play essentially no role in the book at all. (I assume they are only there because they’ll have their own future books.) The love is instant, the plot is thin and the ending anti-climactic. Basically, had the author taken the time to develop this into a full-length novel (where she could have fleshed characters, plot, and the world out) it could have been pretty good. But she didn’t. Instead, it’s barely 75 pages and the reader feels all that it lacks.

On a side note, I really wish American authors would get on board with the fact that Gypsy is considered a slur and an insult and shouldn’t be used casually. I realize that that message hasn’t been as widely heard on this side of the Atlantic and it has developed a different meaning that many are reluctant to give up. But many who can claim the heritage have been fairly vocal that they wish it not to be used.

The narrator (Teddy Hoffman) did a pretty good job, outside of the occasional tendency to get a little overly dramatic.

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.