Tag Archives: PNR

Guarded

Book Review of Guarded (The Silverton Chronicles #1), by Carmen Fox

I bought a copy of Guarded, by Carmen Fox.

Description from Goodreads:
When everyone’s existence depends on the lies they tell, trust doesn’t come easy. 

Ivy’s neighbors have a secret. They aren’t human. But Ivy has a secret, too. She knows. As long as everyone keeps quiet, she’s happy working as a P.I. by day and chillaxing with her BFF Florian, a vampire, by night. When a routine pickup drops her in the middle of a murder, her two worlds collide. While Florian knows how to throw a punch, deep down he’s a softie. His idea of scary? Running out of hair product. It’s time Ivy faced facts. Even with a vampire on stand-by, one gal can only kick so many asses. 

For help, she must put her faith in others. A human, who might just be the one. A demon, who will, for a price, open the doors to her heritage. And a werewolf, who wants to protect her from herself. 

Torn between these men, Ivy must tread carefully, because one wants her heart, one wants her body, and one wants her dead.

Review:
Sigh, mechanically the writing and editing in this book seem fine. Unfortunately, in my opinion the plot is totally useless. The book is all over the place, but more to the point, I hated it.

As a romance it fails on SO MANY levels. Let me put it like this. She has a condition that after her 25th birthday (because apparently magic knows your b-day, y’all) she literally lusts after every man she sees, even though she actively doesn’t want to. She then goes on to try and date one man, have sex with another (several times), almost have sex with a man in an alley, and love a man. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do any two of those things with the same man. That’s right, she’s trying to date one man, while having sex with another (and lusting over everyone) and then on the last page, last paragraph basically we’re told she loves another. WTF? There was no development on that. But what kind of satisfying romance do you think a book can have if the heroine trying to give her body to every man she meets,?

But, for me personally, the biggest issue is that this idea that women can’t control their own sexual urges is an old, painfully patriarchal one. It’s one of the reasons why they can’t be trusted to own and have authority over their own bodies. We still fight this stupid idea to this very day, in real life. And the book had the perfect patriarchal ending, she pretty much ended up with a man who had the power (extra power she gave him) to control her. She goes against her own natural inclinations to be with him. You know what, author, write historical if you want to write this kind of trite. I ended the book steaming.

The whole thing was only made worse by there being exactly 3 women in the book, other than main character and some background victims (who were raped, because of course they were). Two were characterless sisters, basically just names to fill in the cast. One was the cliched jealous harpy who will probably sell the heroine to the villain in future books, because that’s what the jealous harpy always does in such books.

I bought and read this book because, somewhere along the way I ended up with an audible copy of book two (Bound), and wanted to listen to it. Now, I’m kind of regretting both.

Blood Guard

Book Review of Blood Guard (Mission #1), by Megan Erickson

I received a copy of Blood Guard, by Megan Erickson, through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Tendra: One minute, I’m a bartender in gritty Mission City; the next, I’m whisked away by a vampire named Athan who tells me that I’m the lifeblood of his clan. It sounds unbelievable, but he’s got evidence I can’t deny. Turns out, Athan belongs to an underground society of vampires who feed only on humans with their consent. Their enemies have no such qualms, and they want me dead. The only thing standing in their way is strong, sexy Athan. And the closer we get, the more tempted I am to let Athan feed. . . .

Athan: How could I have known when I snatched this snarky, beautiful human off the streets that she would change mydestiny? As a loyal soldier, I must deliver Tendra to our future king—my brother. Empowered with the blood of ten generations of the Gregorie breed, she is fated to rule as our queen. But there’s something between us that’s so intoxicating, so carnal, I can’t help wanting Tendra for myself . . . even if it’s treason.


Review:
Sooo, I was not impressed. I swear I’ve read this book before. I’m not throwing out the big P word or anything. Good lord, nothing like that! But it just felt like a common plot, with a pretty common heroine and a fairly common hero and noting about it felt particularly new or fleshed out. When you really boil it down, this was a bog standard paranormal romance with nothing (good or bad) to make it stand out in any way.

What’s more it was about as subtle as a sledge hammer. Nothing had enough time to develop or for me to become invested in it. The book isn’t bad. It’s just not overly good either. But for a quick, you’ll-know-exactly-what-to-expect kind of read it’ll fill the bill.

Dark Protector

Book Review of Dark Protector (Paladins of Darkness #1), by Alexis Morgan

Last year, I found several autographed Alexis Morgan books at a second-hand store. They were signed “To Mom and Dad.” I was totally taken with the mystery of how these books came to be at a charity shop, so I bought them and made them my own.

This is not one of those books. It turns out that they were the second, third and fifth in the Paladins of Darkness series. (I bet there had been a copy of this one too, but either someone had already bought it or it was just lost in the thousands of books available.) I bought this one, Dark Protector off Amazon so that I could read the three signed ones I’d already bought.

Generally, regardless of what I might or might not think of the books, I love the mystery around them.

Description from Goodreads:
Devlin Bane: Born a Paladin, he is a member of an ancient band of warriors locked in a centuries-old war against evil.

His destiny: To die over and over again to protect mankind from the Others, only to be revived each time by his mortal Handler.

But his fierce strength and courage cannot save him from gradually becoming one of the monsters he was born to destroy.

Dr. Laurel Young, who has spent years training to become a Handler, must remain detached from her patients. But each time she revives the darkly compelling Devlin Bane, he claims a little more of her soul and incites in her desires that grow wilder and wilder — even as he inches closer to losing his humanity.

As the war against the Others grows more desperate, Laurel and Devlin can’t help but give in to the fierce hunger that’s sizzled between them for so long. Now they’ll face the ultimate battle together — to save a dark, passionate love that goes against every rule as they join forces to fight an enemy who is closer than they ever imagined….

Review:
Soooo, this was not good. But not good in a the-genre-has-grown-up sort of way. This book is from 2006 and just like bodice rippers are out of style in the romance genre, I think the sort of plotting in this book has gone out of style in the paranormal romance genre. We readers just expect so much more now than a thinly defined Other enemy of paranormal origin, a characterless alpha hero and a sweet little thing heroine. Maybe this would have been enough when there weren’t a lot of other PNR books around, but not anymore.

The enemies from across the ill-defined border are literally just called Others and the reader learn almost nothing about them except that they’re evil in some way that effects the environment. But even this little bit of information is compromised at the end and maybe wrong. (A “twist” I saw coming from the beginning.) The hero has no history or character beyond alpha-asshole warrior man. The heroine has a little more, but not much. The romance is instant, except that they’ve known one another for three years. So, I still have no idea why they suddenly had this sudden, irresistible attraction to one another. And the book has a bad case of sex=love. They have sex and suddenly they’re in love. The villain? Totally obvious (as is the bigger villain that is carrying over to the series). [Spoiler] If you are told the bad guy is a guard and only one guard in the whole book shows up more than once and is given a name, that’s the bad guy.

All in all, the mechanical writing and editing is fine. This was apparently Morgan’s first book and there are tons now, so I’m willing to give her another chance, maybe with something a little more recent. Plus, I do have three more Paladin of Darkness books to read.