Tag Archives: self published

I fell through a portal and into a gargoyles arms

Book Review: I Fell Through A Portal And Into A Gargoyles Arms, by Dana Isaly

Always on the lookout for authors whose surnames start with ‘I’ for my yearly Author Alphabet Challenge, I picked up a freebie copy of Dana Isaly‘s I Fell Through A Portal And Into A Gargoyles Arms from Amazon.

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After getting laid off from my job, all I want to do is go home, put on a Halloween movie, and take a hot bath to soak away my troubles.

But things take a turn as soon as my head sinks below the water.

When I come back up for air and open my eyes, I’m not in my bathtub anymore—I’m in the arms of a very large, very gray, very masculine man.

Turns out, he’s a gargoyle, and I’m no longer in my world.

Thoren says I’m his mate, that he’s waited for me for his entire life. And there’s no denying this pull between us. But I’m determined to figure out a way to get back home.

There’s just one problem, the bond is growing stronger every day. When he’s away, there’s a heaviness in my chest. And when he’s near, my body aches for him.

Leaving him may be harder than I originally thought.

my review

I Fell Through A Portal And Into A Gargoyles Arms Dana IsalyI have read one other book by this author, which was a dark romance that I did not like at all. I chose not to continue the series, even though I owned all of it. (That’s not an easy thing for me to do.) However, I decided to give her another try with something completely different. This is a largely plotless, fluffy fantasy romance. I thought it was sweet and entertaining. There’s not a lot to it. The title tells you all of it, really. But he is a giant cinnamon roll that falls first, and she has enough backbone not to feel limp in the circumstances. If you want to read something mildly spicy just for the feels, this one will fit the bill.


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Book Review: Sweet Abandon, by Sarah Urquhart

I picked up a copy of Sarah Urquhart‘s Sweet Abandon as an Amazon freebie a few years back.

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Baker Bonnie Boone has had too many bikers dip their fingers in her butter cream. She’s done with them, but when a hot as hell biker rides into town, he slowly melts the single life she thought she wanted.

Easton Young, uncomfortable as a bear shifter in the city, hit the road in search of more of his own kind. His plans are delayed the moment he walks into Firebrook’s local bakery and smells his mate. Denying her will only cause them both pain.

She drops her guard, and he sees a home in her heart. But neither are willing to let go of their carefully laid plans, leaving their love in the dust, in sweet abandon.

my review

This was sweet, and I liked that he fell first and he was growly but not a controlling alpha-hole. However, I did find him insufferable for much of the book, thinking he could have his mate without having to actually give anything up while she was expected to accept whatever scraps he tossed her way. (Of course, he wasn’t thinking of it that way. But…) Meanwhile, she was obsessively holding on to a hurt and refusing to allow herself happiness in a manner that barely made sense and certainly showed no adult emotional intelligence. They did both eventually grow past it all, though.

The real problem for me was that the whole thing was just ridiculously contrived. All the tension and conflict in the book could have been solved with a single conversation, which made it a little hard to feel deeply invested. Plus, despite being book a prequel to a new series, the Firebrook Bears series, it is pretty obviously a spinoff of something else.

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Book Review: Fire’s Daughter, by India Arden

I received a free Audible code for a copy of India Arden‘s Fire’s Daughter.

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Confronting a gang of dangerous rebels is one thing. Falling for them is another.

You can’t turn on the news nowadays without getting bombarded by stories about the Rebels. They look so scary on TV – blowing things up, knocking things down, terrorizing the declining city of Corona, and making sure even the rubble doesn’t go unscathed.

My father is the reigning Arcane Master of Fire. Since he’s a prominent figure in both politics and magic, it only makes sense that my family is a target.

Still, I never expected to encounter a Rebel leader in person. I never imagined I’d be drawn to him, either. And I most definitely never dreamed I could lose my heart to them all.

The Rebels:

Ember: The leader

Sterling: The healer

Zephyr: The thinker

Rain: The dreamer

And Aurora is the heart of the group, pitted against her own family in this enthralling series.

my review

I actually DNFed this and then later came back and finished it because I was short on my yearly reading goal. (That is the only reason, not because I was enjoying it.) Look, I might have liked this when I was too young to read critically. But now, I am pretty disgusted by it. I’d call this Fundamentalist fiction. You have a smart, capable woman who has all the power in her own hands, but she happily (because it’s inferred to be the right thing) hands it all off to men who will take care of her but have no power to do so without the sacrifice of her power to them. And she turned pretty useless once they came into the picture. Plus, the whole thing is just so ridiculously ham-fisted. I have the rest of the series, but I will not be finishing it.

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