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Book Review: Claimed by an Alien Warrior, by Tiffany Roberts

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Tiffany Roberts‘ Claimed by an Alien Warrior has been on my shelf for a while now. I received it in a Renegade Romance book box last year.

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After losing her job, apartment, and boyfriend in one afternoon, Zoey doesn’t think things can get any worse. Then an uninvited passenger—green, four-armed, and sexy as sin—proves her wrong by dragging her into his frantic escape. Helping Rendash is the right thing to do, but it means becoming a fugitive and risking the only things she has left—her life, and her heart.

Weakened by years of captivity and torture, Rendash, an elite aligarii warrior, seizes his only opportunity for freedom. Alone in an alien wasteland, he seeks the aid of a human, one of the very species that imprisoned him. But he finds himself inexplicably drawn to Zoey, and his need to protect her soon wars with his mission to return to his homeworld.

With a shadowy government agency pursuing them, Zoey and Rendash must race across the country before he is recaptured, and she is thrown in a dark cell as a traitor to her kind. But their greatest obstacle may be the most unlikely—their insatiable attraction to one another.

my review

Meh, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. It was sweet, but also not particularly deep, fairly formulaic, and therefore predictable. Honestly, that could stand as the review in its entirety. If a sweet, comfortably predictable alien romance is what you are after, this will fill the bill. If you’re looking for a little more depth or development, it’s probably not the book for you.

I liked Zoey well enough, though the “I’ve let myself get treated badly because I’m fat” got old pretty quickly, even if I did appreciate her finding her alien who liked her curves. Rendash is wonderfully straightforward and noble, but he’s also a cardboard cutout of a noble alien warrior. Nothing about him feels new or original, and I didn’t find him very well developed. The thrown-together-by-fate road trip felt overly long, though the book does have a couple of humorous culture clashes and is a quick read.

All in all, it’s not an overall winner for me, but it’s not a waste of my time either.

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Sci Fi Romance Review: Claimed by an Alien Warrior by Tiffany Roberts

 

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Book Review: Sweet Pea Pysteries (#1-2), by Kathryn Moon

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I received copies of Kathryn Moon’s The Baker’s Guide to Risky Rituals and The Knitter’s  Guide to Banishing Boyfriends in a Renegade Romance book box.

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About The Baker’s Guide to Risky Rituals:

A Kitchen Witch with a bite, a King of Hell on a mission, and a candy coated town hiding bitter secrets.

Josie Benoit, gourmet patissier and kitchen witch, may not be a Sweet Pea native but she’s made the small town her home and she intends on keeping it that way. When trouble rolls into town on the seats of shining motorcycles, and the safety of her home and her own reputation are put at risk, Josie bands together with her coven to protect her world from a dark influence.
If only that dark influence wasn’t so deliciously handsome.

King Beleth is not a demon to be trifled with.
Leader of the Hell’s Bells MC and one of the great warlords of the Bowels, Beleth takes pride in his work and has the patience of a… man who knows what is best is worth waiting for. Known as Bell—to his friends, which you are not—he’s come to Sweet Pea to dismantle the core of good at the heart of the little town. But upon arrival he discovers three things that might just get in the way of his work:

Sweet Pea is more disgustingly adorable than they were warned.
The town has a coven of witches protecting it.
He’s developing a sweet tooth.

Review:

I enjoyed this well enough, though I don’t feel any desire to rave about it. It was fairly short and sweet and nowhere near as smutty as anything else I’ve read by Kathryn Moon. While I liked the characters, the overarching plot setup seemed interesting, and it got the occasional laugh out of me. But the whole thing felt hollow and incomplete. I got no real sense of the demon’s motivation beyond being assigned, nor did I really feel that I followed Josie or Bell’s change of heart toward one another, and it, at best, can be said to end on a happy-for-now (though barely even that). Some of this, I think, is because there are 7 demons (most of whom will eventually want love interests, I imagine) and 4 witches to introduce. That’s a lot for a 258-page book to carry, and it, therefore, felt very diluted. I have and will read book two. But unless it is significantly better, I probably won’t search up any more of the series…if there is any more.
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About A Knitter’s Guide to Banishing Boyfriends:

A Stitch Witch trapped in a cage, a Demon in search of a challenge, and old enemies creating unlikely allies.

June Byrne, stitch witch and unofficial leader of the Sweet Pea coven, just wants a little peace and quiet. She has everything under control, even the demons of Hell’s Bells MC, until a stranger steps into her knit shop asking for help. Sucked back into her ugly past with her ex-boyfriend and his coven, June’s peace is shattered.

When the bonds of the Sweet Pea coven fracture too, June turns in an unexpected direction. What will be the cost of tangling her troubles with a dangerously handsome demon?

Ashtaroth is no King of Hell. He’s the demon with the skills and determination to unravel even the most intricate problems. He can carve away at a civilization like a sculptor digging the human frame out of a hunk of marble. And when he’s done? He can shatter the remnants into an unsalvageable mess.

June Byrne appears to be the perfect puzzle to solve; a witch so guarded with charms, she blends right into the background. Ashtaroth has her in his sights and he will make an art out of breaking her walls down, as long as she doesn’t catch him in her threads first.

Review:

Well, I officially liked this second book more than the first. I found the MMC, Ash, more dynamic and engaging, and the FMC, June, has more backstory and is therefore more interesting. But like in book one, the transition from enemies to not-enemies is abrupt and seemingly without cause. Unless some twist on the motivation of hell in sending the demons to Sweet Pea is eventually exposed, I don’t grasp their intentions, as the men don’t seem to be doing anything of note (and no one important seems concerned by this) despite our being told they are the best of the best. So, while I think it’s fluffy and sweet and enjoyed that aspect, and Ash has some funny moments, I also found the whole thing kind of flat and milquetoast.

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Book Review: The Tidebound Bargain, by Isolde Morrow

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I received an advance copy of Isolde Morrow‘s The Tidebound Bargain.

She built an empire from wreckage. He’s guarded these waters for millennia. Neither planned on needing the other. When a storm destroys everything Captain Maren Voss spent three years rebuilding, she wakes on a volcanic island that shouldn’t exist—watched over by something vast, ancient, and far too interested in keeping her alive. Eidros has protected Ven Skai for centuries, binding a horror beneath the reef and asking nothing from the humans who shelter on his shores. But Maren is different. She calculates risk the way he reads tides. She doesn’t flinch from what he is. And she sees the cage he’s built around himself—the same one he built around the woman who fled him three hundred years ago. The bargain seems simple: her help with the binding in exchange for safe passage home. But the creature beneath the reef is stirring. And Maren is learning that some debts can’t be paid in coin—only chosen freely.

my review

Again, I received and read an ARC. So, there is a chance some things have changed between my reading and the book’s publication. However, I had very mixed reactions to this book. It started out very strong. I liked Maren. I was intrigued by the mysterious Guardian. The shipwreck plot looked interesting. The prose is VERY purple, but I have a pretty high tolerance for purple prose and thought it lovely.

But then the book just went on and on and on and on and on, repeating itself about a million times. Yes, Maren and Eidros were working out difficult things, and Eidros showed real growth. Maren’s growth was less straightforward, and ultimately, as is so often the case, she gave up her previous life to pick up Maren’s. But she did grow. And yes, consent is very strongly emphasized, and I appreciated that. It is, in fact, an important part of what Maren and Eidros are working out between them. I liked the story a lot.

I also liked the mystery around what Eidros actually was. I got the impression he’s not wholly organic, not entirely naturally evolved, maybe. Again, it’s a mystery, and I appreciate it. But by the end, I was just praying for it to finally end. I honestly think a good 100 pages could have been cut with no effect but improvement. I figure some people will love this, others will hate it. I enjoyed the story, but was stifled by the length. Would I read the next? Probably.

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