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Book Review: Kiss of Smoke, by Amy Pennza

I purchased a copy of Amy Pennza‘s Kiss of Smoke from the TikTok shop.

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What was supposed to be a dream vacation just turned into a nightmare. It’s not every day you board a private jet for an all-expenses-paid trip to Scotland with your two gorgeous bosses. And it’s not every day you spot your fiancé kissing another woman across the terminal.

The man I was ready to marry has been cheating on me for a year. Dumped and humiliated, the best I can do is get on the plane and lick my wounds. Fortunately, my bosses are more than willing to help…and in more ways than I ever imagined.

But Lachlan and Alec can’t possibly be interested in me. They’re in love with each other…right? Scotland is cold this time of year, but these Scots are bringing the heat in ways I’m not sure I can handle.

And as they continue fanning the flames, it’s clear they’ve been hiding more than their attraction to me. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Now I have to hope I don’t get burned.

my review

Oh, what a disappointment. I really wanted to love this, but I just didn’t. Some of the issues are first-book-in-a-series syndrome, setting the world, introducing the magic system, etc. However, it’s mainly that the book felt poorly balanced in two ways.

First, it’s about 85% sex, which is fine. Except that the author didn’t seem to recognize that it’s an erotic novel and kept trying to insert plot points. Unfortunately, they felt random and ill-supported, since it’s otherwise an erotic fantasy novel. The end result is that the book neither excelled in plot nor erotica, as it could have if it had chosen one or the other.

Second, this is a polyamorous relationship in which the two men are an established couple trying to find a female mate to bring into their bed. You feel this a lot. From start to finish, this was Lachlan and Alec, plus Chloe. At no point did I feel like she was equally as important in the relationship as the two of them. This comes out in the sex scenes, especially. There are a lot more of just the two of them than the three of them, and none with just her and one of them. They are a couple outside of her; she is not a couple with either of them outside of the other, and they never form a balanced trio, in my opinion.

Lastly, though not a matter of balance (and this is a spoiler), I really disliked the solution to the sticking point over her humanity. One of the men does not think a human is good enough to be a dragon mate. Meanwhile, she is experiencing significant issues with self-worth. Instead of writing a solution in which her self-confidence is improved and he comes to appreciate humans, kiss of smoke photothe author instead threw in a sudden and random “Oh, she’s not human after all,” which did nothing to solve the underlying problems.

All in all, this was a flop for me. I appreciate that some of the author’s random attempts as plot made obvious attempts to normalize some contentious real-world issues of contemporary America. But that wasn’t enough to save this for me. I was hoping for a new series to dive into. But I will be stopping here instead.


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Review: Kiss of Smoke by Amy Pennza

 

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Book Review: Of Dragons and Cruelty, by Catherine Banks

I purchased a copy of Catherine BanksOf Dragons and Cruelty through Etst.

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She’s no avenging angel; she’s a Vengeance and she’s out for blood.

Fighting, sex, comradery, food, and drink; these are the things that the warrior women known as Vengeances enjoy.

While locked away for a minor crime, Jenecca’s kin are attacked and slaughtered before she can break free to rescue them.

She’s the last living Vengeance.

The only thing on her mind – in her very being – is revenge upon the man who murdered her sisters, but to enact her plan, she must travel to an entirely different dimension.

Turns out, she’s not so great at landings and finds herself right in the middle of a dragon shifter den.

Now, Jenecca must battle not only against the slayer of her kin, but against her heart and the ticking clock on her revenge.

Throw in the difficulties surrounding her when the men from her past rise up to seek revenge alongside her and seek her heart, and Jenneca might have more than she can handle.

Can she maintain her sanity? Or will it be too late for the last Vengeance?

my review

This honestly just isn’t good. It is neither plot nor character-driven. Nor is it something like erotica that would acceptably be void of plot and character growth. It just plops the reader down in a random world with random characters who are never truly introduced and then sets the main female character off doing random things and collecting random men (who happen to of dragons and cruelty photobasically be the only people she meets).

The reader gets no sense that there are any rules to the world or their magics. It’s inconsistent, and things often don’t make sense. The men are bland cardboard cutouts who fall in love on sight. The heroine feels like author-insert and is the prettiest, strongest, wittiest, etc., that every male wants. And she is, frankly, intolerable. I mean, really spoiled and unlikable. Overall, I only finished it because it was short, and I wanted to count it toward my reading goal.


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Book Review: Fire’s Daughter, by India Arden

I received a free Audible code for a copy of India Arden‘s Fire’s Daughter.

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Confronting a gang of dangerous rebels is one thing. Falling for them is another.

You can’t turn on the news nowadays without getting bombarded by stories about the Rebels. They look so scary on TV – blowing things up, knocking things down, terrorizing the declining city of Corona, and making sure even the rubble doesn’t go unscathed.

My father is the reigning Arcane Master of Fire. Since he’s a prominent figure in both politics and magic, it only makes sense that my family is a target.

Still, I never expected to encounter a Rebel leader in person. I never imagined I’d be drawn to him, either. And I most definitely never dreamed I could lose my heart to them all.

The Rebels:

Ember: The leader

Sterling: The healer

Zephyr: The thinker

Rain: The dreamer

And Aurora is the heart of the group, pitted against her own family in this enthralling series.

my review

I actually DNFed this and then later came back and finished it because I was short on my yearly reading goal. (That is the only reason, not because I was enjoying it.) Look, I might have liked this when I was too young to read critically. But now, I am pretty disgusted by it. I’d call this Fundamentalist fiction. You have a smart, capable woman who has all the power in her own hands, but she happily (because it’s inferred to be the right thing) hands it all off to men who will take care of her but have no power to do so without the sacrifice of her power to them. And she turned pretty useless once they came into the picture. Plus, the whole thing is just so ridiculously ham-fisted. I have the rest of the series, but I will not be finishing it.

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