Tag Archives: PNR

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

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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

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I picked up an e-copy of Juliet Lyons‘ Dating 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.

the vampire's curse

Book Review of The Vampire’s Curse (Things in the Night #1), by Mandy Rosko

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I think I picked my copy of Mandy Rosko‘s The Vampire’s Curse from Smashwords. Though if I’m honest, I’m not 100% sure.

Description from Goodreads:

With this kiss… In a city that cannot be found on any map that is inhabited entirely by witches, warlocks, vampires, and werewolves, Kyle McKane is seeking a cure for a curse that turns him into a blood hungry vampire during the night, and leaves him an exhausted, sleep deprived human during the day. …she will cure him… Jackie Moore is probably the worst witch in the city apart from her ability to heal wounds and illnesses with a touch of her lips. She rarely sees outsiders and is stunned to come face to teeth with Kyle when he finally succumbs to his hunger and attempts to bite her. …whether she wants to or not… Instead she grabs him by the ears and kisses away his curse before he can sink his fangs into her. The problem is that the cure is only temporary until Kyle turns again the next night, and then goes out in search of Jackie so that she can cure him again, whether she wants to or not.

Review:

This simply wasn’t all that great. But more important in terms of my personal review, it didn’t push any pleasure buttons for me. So many times I stopped and asked myself, why do authors do that. Why do they never truly punish the villains? Why do they use the protagonist’s capacity to forgive to prove how good they are, even when the person doesn’t deserve (hasn’t done work toward) forgiveness? Why do they think sappy backstories make them forgivable? Why do they give the male half of a mystical pairing special powers, but not the female? Why do they make female characters so wishy-washy and internally uncertain? Why do they set the bar so low for male characters that they get credit for being wonderful for doing almost nothing? Why do they make twist so damned obvious? Why do some authors make the ultimate villain literally the only other named character in the book (not too hard to figure out when there is only one person on the board)? So many times I found myself asking why did this author have to ruin this book this way. Plus, it took me 3 whole days to finish it. So, it felt like it went on forever.