Tag Archives: romance

Fire Rising

Book Review of Donna Grant’s Fire Rising, part one

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Fire RisingI got a copy of Donna Grant‘s Fire Rising from NetGalley. This doesn’t qualify for my Taking Care of My Own Challenge, but since it was short I decided to get it out of the way.

Description from Amazon:
Sammi’s world has been blown to bits—literally. With her pub up in flames, she escapes to Dreagan, the only place she will be safe. Her plan is to recover quickly and leave quietly. What she doesn’t count on is meeting the dangerously desirable and enigmatic Tristan…

Tristan is instantly drawn to the woman seeking refuge at the Manor. Dazzled by her stunning beauty and intrigued by her silence about her past, Tristan knows he will not be able to let this woman go, no matter what the cost. And when Sammi slips away from Dreagan, Tristan is compelled to follow…

 Review:
Ok, I have to admit to a foul up when requesting this book. I saw the big old number 1 on the cover and erroneously believed it to be the first in a series. I WAS WRONG! A) It’s part one of a four part serial (that’s what the number one refers to), so it’s not even a complete book. The complete book is due out in June 2014. B) It’s part of the Dark Kings series, which is a spin off the Dark Warriors series, and the Dark Warriors series is a continuation of the Dark Sword series. (Yea, that took a little investigating.) Sooooo, maybe I shouldn’t feel bad about the fact that I was so lost.

But even though the cover and write up probably could have been clearer about its placement within an extensive preexisting world (dozens of books), I can’t really blame it for my mistake. I’ll admit there were a lot of characters I obviously should have known and didn’t, as well as a whole society and species who’s specifics I also didn’t know. (Seriously, I never even got a description of a dragon out of the deal!) This effected my enjoyment, obviously. However, I decided to try and review it without consideration for this fact. Because, again, not the books fault.

The thing is, even if I allow for not knowing the history I still wasn’t particularly impressed. Everything moved incredibly fast. I mean so fast I never had time to develop a connection with ANY of the characters, or become invested in the outcomes of events, or basically care about anything. It almost felt more like an outline of a story than a truly fleshed out one.

Then there was the romance. It’s just as fast as everything else. It’s your basic PNR, ‘he laid eyes on her and lightning went through his body’ kind of thing with no depth of any sort. So, again, there was nothing there to make me care about it.

Now, I adore dragon shifters. They’re one of my favourites varieties. I liked that the characters had obvious Scottish brogues and the actual mechanical writing/editing was fine. But I feel like this book depends heavily on a readers familiarity with and love of PNR tropes to satisfy them, i.e. if readers always love insta-love, they’ll like it here too, no explanation therefore needed. Or readers always love a arrogant, protective man, so they’ll recognise those traits here and love Tristan for it without too much description. Well, while I recognise those tropes, I don’t love them and I don’t think their identifiability exonerates the author of the responsibly of providing clarifying information. All in all, I finished feeling pretty apathetic about the book. I didn’t hate it, but I’m not rushing out for the rest of the series either.

Promises

Book Review of Promises (Coda Books #1), by Marie Sexton

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PromisesI downloaded Marie Sexton’s novel,Promises from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Jared Thomas has lived his whole life in the small mountain town of Coda, Colorado. He can’t imagine living anywhere else. Unfortunately, the only other gay man in town is twice his age and used to be his teacher, so Jared is resigned to spending his life alone. Until Matt Richards walks into his life, that is. Matt has just been hired by the Coda Police Department, and he and Jared immediately become friends. Matt claims he is straight, but for Jared, having a sexy friend like Matt is way too tempting. Facing Matt’s affair with a local woman, his disapproving family, and harassment from Matt’s co-workers, Jared fears they’ll never find a way to be together-if he can even convince Matt to try.

Review:

I very rarely read romance sans some sci-fi or fantasy element. Be it M/F, M/M, M/F/F, or any other variation, I generally end up gagging on all the feel good factors or declarations of love and/or dedication. I usually NEED something else in the plot to distract me from all that…that…those hearts and flowers. Having said that, it’s probably not surprising that this book’s been on my TBR for almost 9 months. But after randomly seeing a couple favourable reviews of it recently, I decided to give it a chance.

I’m glad I did. It’s very sweet in its own way, without being nauseatingly sappy. These men aren’t the sort to spout off about their undying love, though they’re not too tightlipped to admit it either. I appreciated that. I adored Jared’s voice as a narrator and practically swooned over Matt’s earnestness. Though that same honestness, combined with his readily expressed excitement left him feeling a little like a wide-eyed child at times. But I just wanted to grab him up and squeeze him to death then too, so it’s all good.

Seeing Jared and Matt struggle through their own issues was a bit of a blessing. Now, I don’t know where it falls on the realism spectrum. I suspect a long way from real. But it also didn’t force any “yeah, rights!’ out of me. Which left me able to fully immerse myself in the story and pretend it really did represent life somewhere out there.

I deem this one definitely worth picking up and I would be thrilled to read more of the Coda series and/or writing by Marie Sexton.

Book Review of Aftermath, by Cara Dee

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AftermathI grabbed Cara Dee‘s M/M romance, Aftermath from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Austin Huntley and Cameron Nash are like night and day. One is a family man, works in a nice office, drives an expensive car, and is content to be content. The other one is an antisocial car mechanic with a short fuse.

Some things don’t change. Others definitely do.

After surviving a five-months long kidnapping together, they struggle to return to normalcy, all while realizing that they’re more drawn to each other than they ever could’ve imagined.

Review:
I generally enjoyed this book. It wasn’t anywhere near as dark as I expected. I loved the narrator’s and the men’s voices (not to mention the characters themselves). The dialogue was believable. It was well edited and there were some pretty hot sex scenes. Yum. I seriously considered giving it five stars, based purely on my enjoyment level. But in the end, I decided it didn’t really deserve a full five. So, I’m going with a four star rating.

What held my rating back a bit was that some aspects of it weren’t very believable.  For example: the previously straight man, having his first sexual experience with another guy, takes charge and knows EXACTLY what to do, where everything is, and has no awkward fumbling at all. Really, wouldn’t’ he need at least a little direction or be at least a little nervous? Nope, he’s balls to the wall confident and competent.

The relationship seemed rushed too. I get that the men had been in close quarters together for 5 gruelling months, but it felt like they just woke up one morning and decided to love each-other and then both seamlessly did just that with no discussion or difficulties. It made for some great ‘Ahh’ moments, but should it really be so easy?

I loved Cam (Austin too, but Cam stole the how for me), but his Aspergers didn’t seem to contribute anything. Most of his behaviours could have been explained by the anxiety disorder, so a secondary diagnosis seemed surplus to requirement. 

I also thought that the author wimped out on the abductions a little. A sadist kidnaps 10 men, cuffs & cages them, beats the living daylights out of them, half starves them, but doesn’t molest a single one in any fashion. I’m not saying I wanted a rape scene in there anywhere, but (fiction being what fiction is) if 10 women had been kidnapped in this book they’d all have been ravished within an inch of their lives. Half of them would probably be impregnated and the reader would probably have had to sit through every agonising detail of it all.

The book does a good job of describing the men’s struggles to come to terms with the fact that they, 10 vibrant men, had been overpowered and abducted by a single madman. This was hard for them to accept, as it felt like a loss of manhood. But The fact that they only had to endure physical and mental abuse felt artificial, like there was some notable line of beyond this point go only the truly depraved that the author didn’t want to be associated with. But, honestly, she created a depraved bad guy. He needed to go there IMO, so that the characters could fully face the perceived loss of  their masculine position. Just my opinion, of course, and it does somewhat suggest that all violent offenders must also be sexual offenders, which is of course a fallacy, but in this case I think the book would have been stronger for it.

Lastly, I’m not a huge fan of the sappy hearts and flowers endings. This one definitely had one. Really, the epilogue had no other purpose than to cram the happily ever after down the readers throat. I could have done without it, or at least without it being quite so overpoweringly cheerful.

All in all, I’m well up for reading the next in the series. I loved the characters, I especially appreciated that at 33 and 40 they were full-fledged adults. I thought the writing was crisp and the story was sweet (even if not particularly plausible). Definitely not a waste of my time.