Tag Archives: romance

conduit

Book Review of Conduit, by Angie Martin

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ConduitAuthor, Angie Martin sent me an e-copy of her novel, Conduit. I’ve also seen it on the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
How do you hide from a killer when he’s in your mind?

Emily Monroe conceals her psychic gift from the world, but her abilities are much too strong to keep hidden from an equally gifted killer. A savvy private investigator, she discreetly uses her psychic prowess to solve cases. When the police ask her to assist on a new case, she learns the killer they seek is not only psychic, but is targeting her.

The killer wants more than to invade her mind; he wants her. Believing they are destined for each other, he uses his victims as conduits to communicate with her, and she hears their screams while they are tortured. She opens her minds to help the victims, but it gives him a portal that he uses to lure her to him. With the killer taking over her mind, she must somehow stop him before she becomes his next victim.

Review:
I have to admit that this book just didn’t work for me. It might for some readers, to each their own.

I have been trying to come up with the right word to describe this (and writing like it), because I encounter it a lot. Maybe someone knows and can help me out. We all recognize a Mary Sue and Gary Stu (sometime Marty Stu), but what do you call it when the whole book–plot, narrations, characters, etc all have a Mary Sue feel to them. Pat, maybe?

I actually have a litmus test for this, even if I don’t have a title for it. My test is hugging. But what could hugging have to do with anything, you might ask? Well, it has been my experience, in reading several hundred books a year for several years that when you encounter a book in which there is lots and lots of hugging the author is using this small action as a weak demonstration that the MC is an open, good person, makes meaningful connections with people, etc. Similarly, it shows how comfortable those people are with him/her (usually her). Now, I’m a bit of a hugger in real life, coming from the touchy-feely hippy family that I did. But I don’t hug my BFF, my ex-boyfriend, my friend’s uncle, his cop partner and the nurse who cares for my mother in the nursing home. More importantly, all those people don’t come up and hug me.

But it’s not just about hugging. The hugging is almost always accompanied by a certain innocent narrative tone, in which small things (like a hug) are made big deals of. It’s like a pearl-clad, mary jane wearing, pastel sporting teenager swooning over their first kiss while the married 40-year-old, with the kinky nightlife that’s forced to listen to it thinks, ‘God, it really just isn’t that big a thing.’ Any romance in these sorts of books are always heavily descriptive, possibly purple, and almost all tell as the narration beats the reader over the head with how awe-inspiring one person or the other is, how meaningful the small unimpressive events are, and how in looooooove they are.

The fact that this book falls within this pat(?) grouping is a guarantee that I’m not likely to enjoy it, as I almost never enjoy these books. But this book also annoyed me in other respects. I hated that as soon as Emily got together with Jake she let him start making all her decision. I didn’t like their insta-love and, even worse, their insta-relationship, which was only compounded by their insistence on waiting to have sex until their relationship was more established. I don’t know, ‘I’m ready to let you rule my life’ and ‘I’m ready to die for you’ seems pretty established to me.

I didn’t like that the author gave Emily a rich, high-power, nice guy ex, who was still madly in love with her, just to show she was a desirable commodity. I didn’t like that Emily had all this important information that she never shared with anyone. I didn’t like that she pulled the cliché, TSTL, ‘I’ll go off and save the day by myself and require rescue’ shtick a bagazillion other TSTL heroines have pulled. I didn’t like that the villain was the same old, seen it a 100 times, man obsessed with a woman he wants to own for no discernible reason. I didn’t like that people made un-followable intuitive leaps of logic that lead them to plot points. And I didn’t like the deus ex machina-like way the characters were easily able to learn just what they needed at just the right time to save the day. Too easy!

The one thing that saved this book for me was Leo and his wife. I adored their relationship. It really is a stand alone book. The editing seemed pretty clean, I don’t remember many cock-ups and to the right reader this might be a hit.

Old Loyalty, New Love

Book Review of Old Loyalty, New Love (L’Ange, #1), by Mary Calmes

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Old Loyalty, New LoveI recently bought a number of Mary Calmes e-books, as they were all on sale for a dollar. Old Loyalty, New Love was one of those books. (At the time of posting, I noticed it’s still listed at $1.00)

Description from Goodreads:
When jackal shifter Quade Danas was banished from his pack for being gay, he spent years in the military escaping his father’s prejudice before returning to civilian life as a bodyguard for Roman Howell, the teenage son of a very rich man. After Roman is in an accident that leaves him physically scarred and emotionally distant, Quade is the only one who can get through to him. As Roman becomes a man, he realizes what he wants—his bodyguard by his side and in his bed. Unfortunately, Quade can’t seem to see past the kid Roman once was to the man he has become, certain Roman’s feelings are merely misplaced gratitude. But Roman knows a lot more than Quade realizes, and he’s used to persevering, no matter how many impediments life throws his way. He wants the chance to prove to Quade that he’s strong enough for a jackal alpha to call mate. 

Despite the decades Quade has been away, and the heartache of his father’s rejection, his inborn loyalty to the pack remains, and his abrupt departure left the jackal shifters without an alpha heir. As a psychopath shifter staking claim as alpha draws Quade back home, and Quade feels compelled to heed the call, he may be forced to make a choice he never anticipated. But doing so means he must leave Roman behind… unless somehow they find a way to make loyalty and love work together.

 Review:
This review pretty much sums up what I feel about Calmes books, but I’ll try and give my opinion of this one.

I swear to God Mary Calmes books are like crack. I know they’re all the same. I know objectively I should hate them because I generally hate all the tropes that make them up, but somehow they also manage to push some primitive button in my brain and I often guiltily enjoy them, despite my intellectual objections.

Having said that, this one was basically a fail for me. While I liked the idea of the friend/employee to lover idea I didn’t like the way any of it played out. I didn’t like that Roman needed to be horribly scarred and suffering from a sensory disorder in order to be compatible with Quade. I didn’t believe that if Roman lusted after Quade since he was 16 and, even knowing Quade loved him for years, that he’d wait until he was 27 to suddenly divulge his love and then pursue Quade so aggressively. I didn’t like that Roman basically became a weepy, giggly woman as soon as they’d had sex. I hated that Quade was all about Roman wanting to submit, when this was never integrated into the plot. I didn’t believe a whole pack of families would allow even an alpha to pimp their daughters out. I hated the cult of Quade, the way everyone fell to their knees in worship of his alphaness just for standing in their presence. I thought it ridiculous that Quade’s ex and ex-BFF would have waited 11 years and then expected him to step back into their lives. It wasn’t at all believable. And worst of all I didn’t like that, like, 90% of this book was just rehashing the same argument over and over and over again.

Nope, Calmes may be like my crack, but in this one, I think I got a bad batch.

psycop partners

Book Review of Partners (PsyCop #1-2), by Jordan Castillo Price

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Psycops: PartnersI’ve had Partners, by Jordan Castillo Price on my wish list for a while. My husband recently bought it for me. (See, I knew there was a reason I married that man.)

Description from Goodreads:
Featuring two PsyCop novels, Among the Living and Criss Cross, this volume will leave you on the edge of you seat, wanting more.

In Among the Living, Victor is a PsyCop, also known as a member of the Paranormal Investigation team. He’s not popular with the living, as most people consider him a little odd, but the ghosts of violent crimes can’t wait to tell him all about their deaths. His new case pairs him with Jacob, a non-psychic who works in sex crimes. Victor and Jacob have a history, and as they work together to solve a set of serial crimes, they begin to explore the possibilities of a future. The case is like nothing they’ve ever experienced, and soon Victor finds that he’s the only one who can solve the crime, and save Jacob’s life. If he’s not too late.

In Criss Cross, Vic figures life is pretty good. He’s got his lover, Jacob. He’s got some time off to go fishing, and his new partner in the Paranormal Investigation Team buys the coffee. Naturally, nothing that good can last. When Vic starts to see ghosts everywhere, things go very wrong, resulting in a trip to his doctor, who says he’s got problems. Vic’s friends tell Jacob he has to leave for Vic to get better, sex is starting to get dangerous, and Vic’s abilities are getting out of hand. Can he and Jacob figure out what’s happening in time to save Vic from becoming a pawn in a dangerous game?

Review:

Among the Living
I am a total sucker for M/M cop stories. I just am. I admit it. And I found Vic and Jacob a wonderful combo—one so willing to pursue and one barely keeping up with the idea of being pursed, but not resisting either.I also liked that the language was real and not glossed for PCness. How do I express this? At one point, for example, Vic states that a room was full of black boys. But as a reader you understood that this was nothing more than a physical description of the people inhabiting the room. There was no judgement inherent in it or slight intended and thus Vic could skirt the ‘is it PC to say this’ question. It got around the overly scrutinized way many Americans’ sphincter clenches in fear every-time someone dares describe a racial minority. (Please don’t get me wrong, in the same way I appreciated the book’s frankness, I don’t mean to trivialize or demean the very real stresses that still exist in America. But after several years living abroad, I’ve come to appreciate that not only our utter inability to even talk about the subject, but also our unwillingness/inability to allow the language around race to become normalized and uncharged is prohibitive and I was impressed by the authors willingness to allow the color of a character’s skin to be as normal and non-angsty as hair color. Plus, there simply were characters of color.) Similarly, Vic’s observation of his own and the victims’ gayness felt natural and non-titillated.

While I enjoyed the mystery, I was bothered more than once that Vic had information that the other detectives needed but he never provided. And I thought Lisa’s contribution made the whole thing feel a little too easy.

All in all, though, I really quite enjoyed it.

Criss Cross
Again, I quite enjoyed this story by Price. I’ll definitely be looking to finish the series and keeping my eyes open for others. I found Vic and Jacob hot together and Jacob is just so wonderfully accepting and understanding. He makes me swoon.

I did think Vic came across as pretty wimpy for a lot of the novella, though I understand he was kind of experiencing constant trauma. I also thought  it was all a little predictable. I had it figured out quite early and I thought the plot line (as in who was the bad guy, etc) was one I had read many times before, even if not necessarily with the psychic aspect. And, for being the elite of the bureau they sure don’t seem to vet their officers very well.