Tag Archives: romance

Charming Her Rogue

Book Review of Charming Her Rogue, by Dawn Brower

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I received a free audio copy of Charming Her Rogue, by Dawn Brower.

Description from Goodreads:

Lady Catherine Langdon is special, and not because she’s the daughter of a duke. She comes from a long line of individuals born with extraordinary gifts, and she is one of the few that has a variation of all three. On the brink of war she makes a decision that will irrevocably alter the course of her life—love or duty.

Asher Rossington, the Marquess of Seabrook, decided at a very early age that he would not live an idle life. His father forbade him from being a spy for the crown, but he chose to ignore it. Ash never regretted his choice, but wished he could have repaired his relationship with his father before he died. Now with the fate of the world in turmoil he has to make another hard decision—remain a spy for king and country, or go home and honor his father’s title.

The Great War brings Catherine and Asher into each other’s lives. Only time will tell if their destiny is to be together, or if they will ultimately serve a higher purpose.

Review:

Both the title and the book description are inaccurate.Wildly so. I kind of even question it’s classification as a romance. At least in the sense that the romance genre is one in which a a love story is central, where the “main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work.” That’s present yes, but it’s barely central.

I’m not actually claiming this isn’t a romance, just that it doesn’t feel as if the romance is central to the plot. The characters fall in love within a chapter of meeting and the whole rest of the book is the war. They pass each other on occasion and tell each other how much they love each other. But the love is established early and there is NO TENSION OR CHALLENGE TO IT. Only the inconveniences of war. And honestly Asher seems to have free movement around France. So, it hardly even feels like that much of an impediment. 

Even the hard decision referred to doesn’t exist. The two are firm in their non-decision to stay in France (as in they never even discuss anything else) until a singular event makes them both decide to return to England. (And that isn’t honoring Asher’s father’s title. That is never a consideration in the narrative.) Since they both have the freedom and funds to make leaving happen in a day there is no difficulty in it.

Also, it’s war and they can leave in a day. That tells you how much tension the war is really creating in the narrative. Not much.

Then there are Catherine’s abilities. They are mentioned. But if you took them out of the book the plot wouldn’t change at all. The single vision she tries to act on doesn’t come to pass and the one that you’d expect her to act on (based on past behavior) she doesn’t. The ‘gifts’ are a pointless plot device. 

And as to the title? Asher is in no way a rogue. There is nothing even remotely roguish about him. In the last chapter he thinks to himself that he had been a rogue before meeting Catherine. But that’s it. He’s kind and gentle and loyal and respectful throughout the book, and there is no reference to him chasing other women in the past. HE’S NOT A ROGUE at all. 

The writing here is perfectly competent, as is the narration. But I felt like the book was just a random series of events with very little tying it all together. Even characters appear and disappear with no point. Why did we meet James, have him disappear and be replaced with Julian? Plus, (as I said above) the description totally is inaccurate. This wasn’t a total flop for me, but I didn’t finish it particularly thrilled.

Feral Ice

Book Review of Feral Ice (Ice Dragons Book 1), by Ann Gimpel

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I borrowed an audio copy of Ann Gimpel‘s Feral Ice through Hoopla.

Description from Goodreads:

Doctor and biochemist, Erin signed up for six months aboard an Antarctic research ship to escape her stifling surgery practice. Jerked from her cozy cabin, she’s dumped in an ice cave by men who assume she’s dead. 

Konstantin and Katya, twins and dragon shifters, have lived miles beneath the polar ice cap for hundreds of years. Other dragons left, but they stuck it out. When several humans—all but two of them dead—end up not far from their lair, the opportunity is too good to pass up. 

If the lore is to be believed, humans can become dragon shifters. Delighted by a simple solution to their enforced isolation, the dragons lure the humans to their home. Surely, they’ll be thrilled by the prospect of becoming magical. 

Or not. 

Too bad no one shared the script with the humans. Science be damned, they’re horrorstruck in the face of fire-breathing dragons. All they want is to escape, but home is thousands of miles away.

Review:

This was bad…like really bad. I thought, in the beginning, I might be able to enjoy it in the ‘it’s so bad it’s amusing’ sort of way. But no, it didn’t even manage that. The story moves along in robotic jerks. The romance is so underdeveloped I literally thought it was going to be between the two humans, instead of the dragon and female human. Honestly, I think it would have been a better pairing. But mostly it just meant I didn’t feel anything for or about the couple. The lore is ridiculous and poorly explained. And dialogue is super cheesy.

The narrator did and OK job. But I don’t understand why Gimpel would choose a male narrator (Gregory Salinas) for a book in which the only first person POV is female.

The Queen's Gambit

Book Review of The Queen’s Gambit (Rogue Queen #1), by Jessie Mihalik

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I borrowed an audio copy of The Queen’s Gambit, by Jessie Mihalik, through Hoopla.

Description from Goodreads:

When the Quint Confederacy and the Kos Empire went to war—again—young Queen Samara wisely kept her Rogue Coalition out of the conflict. But staying neutral in a galactic war doesn’t pay the bills, not when both sides refuse to trade with neutral sectors.

With her people on the brink of starvation, Samara hatches a daring plan to snatch the kidnapped Kos Emperor from the Quint mercenaries holding him. The Kos Empire will pay a fortune for their emperor’s return, enough to feed the Coalition’s citizens while they wait for the return to a begrudging peace.

But when her plan goes sideways, Samara finds herself evading Quint mercenaries with the very man she intends to capture. And the more time she spends with Valentin Kos, the more she realizes that he’s not the coldly indifferent villain she imagined. Torn between duty and desire, Samara must decide if saving her people is worth giving up the one thing she’s always wanted.

Review:

This wasn’t bad, it was just kind of weak. The plot was weak. The romantic development was weak. The world-building was a little less weak, but still not strong. It felt like someone had taken a knit comb to a full length novel and picked out everything that fleshes a story out. What we’re left with instead is an unlikely couple who experience almost insta attraction, a galactic war in which the two largest, most powerful, wealthiest combatants can’t swat a minuscule fly of a woman, political intrigue that can be solved with an email or two, and a happily ever after that is so pat it feels like an afterthought. 

Now, I know none of that sounds positive. The story development really was lacking. But once you get past all the gratuitous-to-the-plot physical descriptions of the male lead (which I wouldn’t have minded if they had been balanced with more actual plot development) the story is entertaining. And when it comes right down to it, I value that over a lot of other elements in a book. 

Now, a word on the narration: I disliked how Dulude read this. I thought she made everyone (but especially Emperor Kos) sound a little too soft and….well weak, which was problematic with an already weak plot. But more that, her speech pattern had regular micro-pauses (I don’t know what else to call them) that interrupted sentences, broke them into pieces. It drove me absolutely batty. To be fair, it might not bother anyone else at all though.