Tag Archives: romance

steampunk cyborg

Book Review: Steampunk Cyborg, by Eve Langlais

I do this thing sometimes where I search Amazon Prime for the odd, extreme sales and let fate and random algorithms sell me a cheap, surprise book. Eve LanglaisSteampunk Cyborg came into my hand in this manner.
steampunk cyborg

When a friend drags Agatha “Aggie” Bowles to a romance convention, all she wants to do is find some new authors and a quiet spot to read. Instead of relaxing with a book, she ends up kidnapped by a steampunk cyborg.

Which is as exciting as it sounds.

Except for the fact he’s more interested in the cog hanging around her neck than Aggie herself. He’ll do anything to get his hands on it. Problem is other people want it, too.

Can this cyborg relinquish a priceless treasure for love?  

my review This was utterly ridiculous. In one sense I can’t really fault it for that. It’s absolutely not supposed to be anything else. This is written to be cotton candy enjoyment with no depth or subtly. But in another sense, I have to admit there just wasn’t enough here to keep me interested.

Oddly, if there was more sex in it, I might call it Porn With Plot, and thus say it’s exactly what it set out to be. But there’s really not much sex in it at all. The thing with Porn With Plot books is that you don’t expect much more than an outline of a plot to hang the sex on. The Porn is the primary component, the With Plot secondary. This has about the same amount of plotting, but not the sex, which leaves it feeling flimsy at best.

The mechanical writing and editing is pretty good though. It’s certainly readable. Just maybe not for me.

steampunk cyborg


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wings of fire

Book Review: Wings of Fire, by Stephanie Mirro

I received a free Audible credit for a copy of Wings of Fire, by Stephanie Mirro.
wings of fire

I wasn’t always the bad guy…

Once upon a time, I was simply Veronica Neill: daughter, sister, phoenix. But now I’m all alone, and life as the Falcon—an avian shifter and acquirer of fantastical things—is dangerously sexy and fun.

Some might even call me a thief, just never to my face.

But when my latest acquisition is stolen before I arrive and a gruesome murder is blamed on me, I’ve got a choice to make: 1) get taken in by the hotter-than-hell agent sent by the Death Enforcement Agency and let them charge me with a crime I didn’t commit, or 2) wait for my bloodsucking client to realize I’ve failed at the job he hired me for.

I don’t like either door, so I’ll take the window instead: track down the real killer and clear my name.

If I don’t solve this murder, and fast, then I might just be facing a lifetime in a grim prison—or worse, a lifetime of servitude to the man who hired me, a man who’s turning out to be more dangerous than I realized. And my kind lives for a very long time.

my review

I thought this was entertaining, but a little on the shallow side. Veronica tells us she’s badass because she’s trained her whole life to be. But you don’t really feel it. It’s just something we’re told and pops up conveniently when needed. Need weapons…oh look, she has a secret stash. Need to get around a security issue…oh look, her BFF is a hacker genius. Need to fight demons…oh look, she happens to have a demon fighting sword. Need to fight vampires…oh look she happens to have wood filled bullets. But nothing about her feels like a hardened, trained warrior or someone who has had to live the sort of life that would require it.

I liked the ‘love’ interest well enough, but he’s a cardboard cutout with the personality to match. The villain is evil for the most cliched reasons ever. I bet if I told you their gender alone, you’d be able to guess their motiviations. And I’d figured out the twist at the end very early one.

And lastly, on a purely personal pet-peeve sort of level, “Wings of Fire: A Kickass Urban Fantasy With Romance (The Last Phoenix, Book 1)” is pretentious. What the hell is that “A Kickass Urban Fantasy With Romance?” It’s not part of the title. That’s not where you’d put a tag line. It’s just this random assertion in an unexpected place.

I know that all sounds negative, and certainly the book could have been less cotton-candy like, but I did enjoy it for the mere escapism of it.

wings of fire stephanie mirro

the dragon of new orleans

Book Review: The Dragon of New Orleans, by Genevieve Jack

I picked up a copy of The Dragon of New Orleans, by Genevieve Jack from Amazon, during one of it’s freebie days.

the dragon of new orleans

New Orleans: city of intrigue, supernatural secrets, and one enigmatic dragon.

A deadly curse….
For 300 years, Gabriel Blakemore has survived in New Orleans after a coup in his native realm of Paragon scattered him and his dragon siblings across the globe. Now a jealous suitor’s voodoo curse threatens to end his immortal existence. His only hope is to find an antidote, one that may rest in a mortal woman.

A lifesaving gift…
After five years of unsuccessful treatment for her brain cancer, death is a welcome end for Raven Tanglewood. Her illness has become a prison her adventurous spirit cannot abide. Salvation comes in the form of Gabriel, who uses dragon magic to save her.

A harrowing price…
To Raven, the bond that results from Gabriel’s gift is another kind of captivity. Can Gabriel win Raven’s love and trust in time to awaken the life-saving magic within her? Or will his fiery personality and possessive ways drive her from his side and seal his fate?

my review

*Le Sigh* It’s not that this was bad, it was competently written and edited. But it’s just that everything in it has been done before…better in other places. This felt like nothing more than a cobbled together collection of tropes and often-read PNR scenes. At 10 percent into the book I made the following comment on Goodreads.

I have to ask AGAIN, is attempted rape really the ONLY plot point authors can come up with? At this point I’ve read essentially the same scene in SO MANY BOOKS that I consider it nothing but laziness on authors’ part & THINK LESS OF THEM FOR IT.

It’s not just that I don’t want to read ANOTHER rape scene, it’s that it’s been done so many times. Writing the SAME THING AS EVERYONE ELSE is boring & lacks creativity.

While this comment was directed particularly at the attempted rapebecause I am SO sick of authors reaching for this low hanging fruit to endanger their heroines so that the hero can step inthe point is also that I’m so bored with reading the same scenes in book after book after book. And Jack even sexually imperiled her heroine, not once but twice. Then even hinted at a third at the bar in Paragon. Geeze, get some new material, please.

But it wasn’t just the attempted rapes, the whole book gave me déjà vu, like I’d read it before. And I have, every scene, in about a thousand other books. There was nothing new here.

I appreciate that Jack made Raven fiercely independent and Gabriel weaker than most PNR heroes. But it wasn’t enough to rescue what was a structurally passable, but contextually blasé read. Plus, Raven became too strong too easily and I never really felt the romance develop.

dragons of new orleans genevieve jack