Tag Archives: romance

Book Review of The Complete Rylie Cruz Series, by Rose Pressey

1 Reply

The Complete Rylie Cruz Series

I grabbed Rose Pressey‘s first Rylie Cruz novel, How to Date a Werewolf, off the free KDP list. When I saw the compilation on sale for $0.99, I went ahead and bought it so I could finish out the series.
__________________

Description from Goodreads:

How to Date a Werewolf
Romance can be a hairy business–especially when you’re a werewolf.

As the owner of Get a Mate Dating Service, Rylie is more than happy to step in and lend a hand to lonely lycanthropic hearts all over town. No matter how hopeless Rylie might be in finding her own soul mate, she has a knack for helping others find theirs.

Convinced that she is stuck with a family curse, Rylie is positive she will never find her true love. But when drool-worthy Jack Chandler shows up at her door, Rylie wonders if maybe the curse is finally broken.

But Rylie’s life is about to become complicated courtesy of the after-dark crowd. When she begins receiving strange notes and harassment from a jilted client, events careen out of control.

Jack knows she’s more hassle than he can handle. What he doesn’t know is whether she’s seriously in trouble . . . or simply delusional.

How to Date a Vampire
Dating a vampire doesn’t have to suck.

Rylie Cruz is the owner of Get a Mate dating service. Her specialty is matching up paranormal folks. Thinking that a curse placed on her is finally broken, Rylie hopes that her love life is headed in the right direction.

Not so fast.

Rylie has finally convinced her hunky psychiatrist boyfriend, Jack Chandler, that
she isn’t crazy and is actually a werewolf. But after a little scuffle with temperamental vampires, Rylie must now convince Jack that he may be a part of the paranormal club.

How to Date a Demon
A Match Made in Hell

Rylie Cruz loves playing matchmaker. She even does it full-time at her matchmaking service, Get a Mate. Since she’s a werewolf, she feels that gives her expertise when dealing with the paranormal crowd.

When Rylie’s best friend, Jennifer Matthews, asks her to set her up on a date, Rylie is hesitant. Jennifer hasn’t had luck in the dating department lately.

But when a good-lucking man shows up looking for a date, Rylie thinks Jennifer might be his perfect match. The date turns to hell though when Jennifer displays outrageous mood swings and a new shocking fashion sense.

When Jennifer disappears, Rylie fears the worst. Things get even stranger when a mysterious demon hunter shows up looking for Jennifer. He claims he wants to help Rylie find her friend. Rylie’s boyfriend, Jack Chandler, is trying to save Rylie from the demon hunter, but she isn’t sure she needs to be saved.

Rylie has to find her friend before it’s too late and Jennifer’s swooped off for a staycation in forever damnation.

Reviews:

How to Date a WerewolfHow to Date a Werewolf
A cute, clean read that’s basically based on one woman’s attempt to find love amidst a series of embarrassing mishaps. I mostly enjoyed it, but I felt cheated by the way none of the things that made Rylie (and by extension me) mad were resolved. She literally went from ‘I’m sprouting fur I’m so angry’ to ‘it’s ok I don’t mind’ in 2.5 seconds flat, again and again. I mean her best friend seriously stabbed her in the back, repeatedly, and she instantly forgave her without so much as an apology for any of it. Now, maybe that makes Rylie saint-like, but it left me feeling like I’d missed a few pages and some important emotional closure.

I also thought that the werewolves’ forms weren’t very consistent. There were more than a few moments when I wondered about the physiology presented. Examples included werewolves in full wolf form able to pull a gun on someone, throw a bottle or carry a plate. Even if he was smarter than most dogs, I’m fairly sure my pooch’s lack of finger dexterity…or fingers would prohibit him from being able to do these things. So how could a wolf? All in all however, a fun little fluffy distraction.

How to Date a VampireHow to Date a Vampire
Another cute, clean read in the Rylie Cruz series. Like the first book, How to Date a Werewolf, this one is almost completely made up of half-truths, misinterpretations, and withheld information. I actually get incredibly frustrated with this type of plot device. I tire of it easily and this one started to feel really quite slap stick after a while. Why can no one just say “come with me, please, because…” Nope, it all has to be veiled threats and attempted intimidations which, of course, Rylie resists. Who wouldn’t? Similarly, Rylie is constantly being stalked or followed and never once does she just stop, turn around, and say, “What the hell do you want?” Of course, if such straightforward tactics were used the story would be 15 pages long, so maybe I do understand it after all.

Though I mostly enjoyed the story, I did feel that it ended abruptly. It wasn’t a cliff-hanger, but there were quite a few open threads and the ending felt clipped. I actually flipped back and forwards to ensure I hadn’t missed a couple pages. Lastly, I notice quite a few more editing mistakes in this one than the first. It was still perfectly readable, but they were noticeable. Despite that, it was a fun little bit of light entertainment.

How to Date a DemonHow to Date a Demon
Like the first two Rylie Cruz books, I’ll give this one three stars. But honestly it’s barely hanging in there with a low three, maybe even a high two. It might be because I read the compilation and therefore all three books back to back, but this one began to feel VERY formulaic. So much so that I’d swear Ms. Pressey cut and pasted passages from one book to another! Despite that, I still found disruptive inconsistencies in the story. For example, Jack is referred to as a half-vampire at the beginning of this book, but at the end of book two Quentin turned him from a half-vamp to a full-vamp to save his life. A big deal was kinda made of it. Then at the end of this book he’s referred to as a vampire. So, um, which is it? Or the way, in this book, Rylie’s curse is said to affect the “first daughter born to each man in the Cruz family,” but in the previous books it was the “youngest daughter.” So again, which is it? This kind of thing yanks me right out of a story. As do the typos.

As for the story itself, it was ok. I’m not calling it horrible or anything. But I was just so tired of it all. It began to remind me of the opening credits of a Benny Hill episode, Rylie randomly running from one place to another, usually with someone following her. (Just like in the first two books.) Meh. Then I reached the end and a cheesy cackling baddie who claimed, “You walked right into my trap.” Really? If that’s the case she should have realistically done that on about page 8 and saved me 240 pages of aimlessness. Plus, he/she was defeated really, REALLY easily. Meh.

This is a cute clean series, with a little romance in the first two (not so much in this one). But this one fell down for me. Again, meh. It’s the best I can say for it.

The Demons Wife

Book Review of The Demon’s Wife, by Rick Hautala

Leave a reply

The Demon's WifeI won a paperback copy of Rick Hautala‘s The Demon’s Wife on LibraryThing.com.

Description from Goodreads:
Claire McMullen is just an ordinary woman — until you look at her long, beautiful bright-red hair. She has a job she hates, a roommate she tolerates, and she spends her weekend nights bar-hopping, looking for her “Mr. Right.” One cold, rainy night she meets Samael — tall, dark, handsome and rich — and a romance blossoms. Claire thinks she may have found her soulmate — until Samael informs Claire that he’s actually a demon.

Can Claire trust a demon’s claims of true love—or is he just plotting after her immortal soul? Can a demon even feel true love, and if so…

What are the consequences of such a love for both Hell and Heaven?

Review:
This was an alright read, but I never really clicked with it. I thought Samael came across as flat and, even though Claire was strong enough to stand by her man, she far too easily accepted the lack of information. I did wonder more than once, ‘why Claire?’ The sudden love was never explained. I also found the narrative repetitive and thought that the ending started to feel very much like a piece of Christian Fiction. There were just too many cautionary passages on the dangers of allowing evil into your life and the power go agape.

I did think the idea of demonic redemption was an interesting one and Samael’s tail gave me all sorts of wicked thoughts. I also enjoyed Hautala’s writing style. So, while not one of my favourites, not a bad book either.

Book Review of Linda Boulanger’s Dance With the Enemy

Leave a reply

Dance With the Enemy

I grabbed Linda Boulanger‘s Dance With the Enemy from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
The time has come for Elenya to meet the man she’s belonged to since she was three, the man whose blood flows through her veins. In the midst of the maidens, the King’s warriors are released; each forced to find the woman chosen for him through her scent, resulting in a half-mad frenzy that heightens already aroused animalistic needs. Elenya is terrified, especially when she realizes what the warrior searching for her does not – that she’s been marked with the blood of her family’s enemy.

As the leader of the King’s elite forces makes his way toward her, she ignores the pull of the marking and darts out into the night … into his territory. She has to get to the Masters so they can right this wrong. A mistake must have been made. Surely fate would not force her to dance for a lifetime in the arms of her enemy. And if it did, would his blood flowing through her veins be enough to unite their hearts?

Mildly Spoilerish Review:
I thought that this book seemed fairly well written, if you like the sort of thing. I generally liked all of the characters and even the plot, in the broadest sense. However, there were just some very basic aspects of the story that I personally disliked. I acknowledge up front that these are personal preferences and plenty of people won’t share my opinion. Some will probably even be like, ‘are you kidding me?’ But I’m giving the book 3 stars, because though a lot of it made me cringe and grind my teeth I’m not claiming it’s a bad book in any fashion.

In some ways this is a fairly cookie-cutter piece of fluff. Young, innocent virgin is forcibly (in this case socially) claimed by a hardened warrior. His beastly heart is then melted by said maiden’s (and yes she is referred to as a maiden) genuine, open heart, fiery temper and guileless sensuality—absolutely predictable.

Where Boulanger tried to add a little variety was in the cultural necessities that brought Elenya and Tahbruk together. I can appreciate the effort here. It’s and interesting idea. But I hated the incredibly sexist patriarchy created. Women seemed to hold no value beyond breeders and whores—glorified whores, courtesans even, but whores all the same. This sexism was highlighted, at least partially, to provide a challenge to be overcome. Again, I get that. But I still had to read 300+ pages of it. Conversely, since the marking ceremony was exclusively for the nobility, I was left wondering how men who weren’t noble warriors, say a baker, found wives. This was never addressed.

Now, here’s the Catch-22 that meant I was just never going to be the right reader for this book. Part of the plot was that some of the characters thought these same ceremonies, leading to this mistreatment of women, were out-dated and needed to be abolished. A good thing, yes? No. Not for me at least. I mean it is, but…one of my literary pet peeves is watching socially or morally superior characters, especially outsider characters, declare otherwise accepted cultural practices wrong. It’s one thing for a whole society, or even a portion of society to be struggling for the improvement of the laws and practices that affect their lives. It’s another to see one person telling the same society it’s doing something abhorrent. How arrogant is that? Even if that character is correct by modern western standards, do they really have the right to judge others? And when such social change is easily affected the anthropologist in me wants to cry.

The, admittedly contrary, result was that I enjoyed neither the existing social setting of the book nor the stories attempt at improving society. It just struck me as baseless optimism. There was no social push for improvement, just one or two individuals who apparently decided everyone else was socially stagnant. What’s more, I could have done with a little more world building outside of the mating rituals. For example, many characters pray to the ‘good Lord’ but religion is never touched on. So who is this deity everyone keeps calling on?

Add those big personal no-no’s to any number of smaller irritants, like my dislike of seeing otherwise good men driven to dastardly deeds by the loss of a platonic love, and this book and I just never had a chance. Again, I’m not calling it a bad book. The writing was fine. I don’t remember any editorial issues. The sex wasn’t gratuitous, which was actually surprising since I started the book thinking it was erotica, and despite being the first of a series, the book actually ended. So, not a bad book, just a bad book for me.