Tag Archives: romance

Caged: Love and Treachery on the High Seas

Book Review of Caged: Love and Treachery on the High Seas (Baal’s Heart #1), by Bey Deckard

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CagedI bought a copy of Caged, by Bey Deckard. I’ve had this for a while, but never got around to reading it. Recently, several people have recommended I give Deckard a chance, so I dug this out the TBR pile.

Description from Goodreads:
Sheltered and lonely, Jon’s life changes drastically when a strange ship sails into the harbour of his small port town one day. Trapped between the possessive pirate captain and his murderous first mate, he must learn to adapt or he will lose himself completely. An epic tale of love, treachery and revelation, this first installment of the Baal’s Heart trilogy brings you into the lives of three men so bound together by jealousy and lies that they must sail to the very ends of the earth to find forgiveness.

Review:
I found that I enjoyed this despite myself. These are not easy characters to like. One is a psychotic (possibly cannibalistic) serial killer, one is a remorseless situational murder and the third seems to be turned on by these traits in the other two. I can’t even call these guys anti-heroes. They’re just sort of the antis. But despite that, you do come to root for them in the end.

I thought the book was well-written and well-edited. There were some scrorchin’ sex scenes and a bit of a slow burn toward the intercourse in the beginning. It’s largely insta-love, but I appreciate that the virgin didn’t immediately become a über versatile sex kitten. I also like the direction the plot is going, so I think I’ll be picking up the sequel.

I did think the dialogue clunked on occasion (not often, but occasionally), and about 2/3 of the way in, there is a section with so much sex I eventually started skimming it. Hot, it may be, but sometimes enough is enough. It made the book feel overly long. I also would have liked a little more pirating out of my pirates, and Jon’s talents didn’t seem to be used as often as their ostensible importance would suggest. But for the most part, I enjoyed this and look forward to more of Deckard’s work.

Note: I also read the second book in the series, Sacrifice. I did not review it; I just put a note reading, “Still enjoyable, but not on the level of the first one for me,” on Goodreads.

Think of England

Book Review of Think of England, by K. J. Charles

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Think of EnglandI bought a copy of Think of England, by K. J. Charles.

Description from Goodreads:
Lie back and think of England…

England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.

Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all-too-obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.

As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.

As the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before…

Review:
Yep, you can add one more to the K.J. Charles fan list. I adored this. I liked that you really felt the time it was set in. Yes, it was unpleasant to read the slurs and class snobbery, but it also really brought home that THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY. And it was all very, very English; with the language and the food and the folly and the accepted Summer House rules. All very enjoyable.

I also very much enjoyed Archie and Daniel; Archie’s straight forward, what he would call unimaginative honesty with himself and those around him, Daniel’s masks and attitude and sharp tongue. I liked that Archie was just figuring a lot of stuff out about himself for the first time and refused to run from it. I loved the internal debates about if there is a difference between tossing a mate off and actually preferring men and what that means for an individual. (Sorry the whole ‘everyone does it in school/college/army’ trope is a little bit of a kink for me, I think. I ALWAYS wonder if it’s true and if so, what the etiquette around that would be.) I loved the subversion of the idea of prim, sexually repressed Brits of the time.

The writing is sharp and well edited (no surprise there) and it wraps up nicely in a stand-alone story.

Note: There happens to also be a free short story that follows the last chapter of the book. It can be found here.

fever blood moon

Book Review of Fever (Blood Moon Rising #1), by Lola Taylor

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FeverFever: Blood Moon Rising, by Lola Taylor, is a perma-freebie on Amazon. That’s where I picked my copy up. I read it as the 6th book in my Blood Mood Reading Challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
When the Blood Moon rises, the wolves come out to play… and find their mates. 

Danica has about given up on love. In a last-ditch attempt at finding “the one,” she agrees to a blind date through an online dating service. But instead of finding roses and romance, she finds someone intent on killing her. That is, until the mysterious, brooding Gage shows up to save her…. 

Gage is running out of time to find a mate. If the Blood Moon sets before he can find her, he’ll lose the rank of packmaster – and the peace within the pack – he’s worked so hard to obtain. When he saves a luscious blonde in the parking lot, he has no idea she is his mate – until he Marks her with his touch. 

Determined to keep her safe at any cost, Gage whisks Danica away into a hidden world full of lust, unlikely love, and treachery. Someone’s put a hit on his mate, and he’s hell-bent on finding out who, all while the Blood Moon looms closer, threatening to destroy his chances at true love forever. That is, if something – or someone – doesn’t kill the woman he’s falling for first.

Review:
*Sigh* It wasn’t Baaad. It just wasn’t very good either. Nothing and no-one had any depth or development. It was schmaltzy to the nth degree. The same gimmick (like her refusal to believe she wasn’t dreaming or the interrupted sex) was played over and over. Dangers popped up and disappeared without any true tension. In fact, nothing in the whole book had any kind of edge to it. Gage was the most beta alpha I’ve ever read (he did not inspire confidence) and Danica was just annoying and useless. This is basically just a collection of various werewolf tropes strung together with nothing to bolster it up or tie it together. I did like the brother Nik and some of the dialogue is funny, but all in all, not a real winner for me.