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Book Review of Hot Wolf, by Ellie Valentina

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I received an audible code for a copy of Ellie Valentina’s Hot Wolf, a compilation of the first three books in the Werewolves on Heat series: The Hot Wolf, The Red Wolf, and The Fire Wolf. As I was listening to them all crossed 2019-2020, the reviews ended up divided. I posted a review of The Hot Wolf when I finished it earlier than the others. I’ll re-post it here, simply to keep them together. The compilation was narrated by Meghan Kelly.

I’ll make a few comments on the series as a whole, before posting my individual reviews. None of these stories was particularly deep. 2 of the 3 are too similar for comfort. It was like reading the same story twice. They all culminate in a marriage and baby as the happily ever after. None of the titles make any sense to the stories in them and none of them have the tension or passion to pull off the heat, hot, red and fire descriptors. And lastly, there seems to be no consistency in the series, when I sense it’s supposed to be an interconnected world, as opposed to a collection of unrelated werewolf stories.

Description of The Hot Wolf (which has the same cover as the compilation):

Ava Sparks was a paranormal assassin tasked with eradicating werewolves from existence. 

Her latest target was gorgeous billionaire Chase Elliot. Intelligence suggested he was hiding a secret life as a werewolf and because of that he was to be erased from existence. 

However, once Ava became close to the charming Chase she made a stunning realization that changed everything. 

Now, instead of killing the werewolf, she was to find herself making love to him and life as everyone knew it would never be the same again… 

Review:

First, I think both the title and the cover of this book are misleading. The title makes you think it’s erotica, but it’s not at all. There is VERY LITTLE heat in it. What’s more, the werewolf in question is very cool and collected. He may be attractive, but hot isn’t an adequate description of him as a whole. He’s a politician, not a soldier or anything else that would have him hulking ripped on the cover either. All in all, you are simply given there wrong first impression of this book (and probably series). 

This is exacerbated by the fact that werewolves are basically extraneous to the plot. The characters could be from opposing political factions, or ninja clans or corporate spies. None of it would change the plot one iota. I was disappointed by this fact.

Getting past all that, I though it was still only so-so (not bad, but not good either). The ‘parents’ seem to make decisions based on who knows what that make the heroine go off and make ill-thought plans and take poorly executed actions. (She’s awfully inept for an experienced assassin.) She seems to have several personality shifts throughout the book. And the happily-ever-after is just too pat to stomach easily. 

Description of The Red Wolf:

When Josephine Lancaster first caught a glimpse of the handsome, muscle bound Edward Jake Hunter she knew she would be unable to resist his charms. 

A steamy night of passion between the two was inevitable and it was the best night of her life. 

However, Edward was a man with many secrets. 

Not only was Edward a werewolf but he was a werewolf on HEAT. And this meant one thing and one thing only. 

Josephine would soon be carrying the werewolf’s baby… 

Review:

Not great, in fact, I’d go so far as to say flat out bad. First, it’s too similar to book one—shitty, over dominating parents, a woman trying to get away and running to the male lead, who happens to be a werewolf, etc. The werewolf aspect was extraneous to the plot too. Jake could have just been an ex-SEAL and the book could be 100% the same. 

Second, there are a ton of inconsistencies. Things like telling Jake about the baby the night before an ultrasound and then him speaking to his mother ‘the week before’ about the pregnancy, or a man demeaning her for being pregnant and then her inner narrative saying she can’t let him know she’s pregnant, etc, etc. 

The plot is just paper thin, not well explained or developed, and repetitive at that. And there is a SUPER convenient event that allows the hero to rescue the heroine that made me roll my eyes so hard I almost saw my brain. All-in-all, I simply didn’t enjoy it. The narrator did a fine job, but I didn’t much care for her style here.

Lastly, the blurb specifically says, “Not only was Edward a werewolf but he was a werewolf on HEAT. And this meant one thing and one thing only.” But this is never addressed or explained. He doesn’t go into heat, nor is his passion so hot as to be called heated, not is he driven to find or identify his mate. This sentence in the blurb that supposedly sets the tone for the book is literally unrelated to the book. Maybe it’s meant to be hyperbole. But I feel like a blurb isn’t the place for ambiguousness in such things.

Description of The Fire Wolf:

Ranger Nick Greyson was a werewolf on heat. 

When he caught the scent of 20 year old Sarah Benson he knew he had caught the scent of his fated mate. After all, the nose never lies. 

However, Sarah’s scent made Nick so wild with desire that he did the one thing he knew he should have never done. 

He bit her. 

And now young Sarah is set to also become a werewolf on heat..

Review:

To sum it all up, this book isn’t very good. To elaborate, I’ll start with an irritant, the plot literally has nothing to do with fire. Nothing. Why give a book a title that has nothing to do with the plot?

What plot it does have is very thin. And the whole thing just feels ickily sexist. There are so many small examples, but they add up to a whole heck of a lot of (probably) internalized misogyny. Things like the fact that all the women except the main characters are basically just sex toys. The main female characters all stay home and be protected while the men go out and do things (even the man who’s been a werewolf for a matter of days and the woman who has been one since childhood). All decisions are made by the men, even in situations in which you’d expect a different power balance (like when speaking to your mother in her home). And worst of all the man who tries to essentially kidnap and rape the main female characters is befriended by her brother and shown to be a hotheaded, but well-interventioned guy. Nothing in the narrative condemns his attempted kidnapping and rape. It literally is just passed off as unworthy of mention in it’s appropriateness.

I am so glad to be done with this series.

sinless

Book Review of Sinless (Deadly Omen #1), by Jenica Saren

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I received an audible code for a copy of Sinless, by Janice Saren.

Description from Goodreads:

So, introduction time and all that fun stuff. Yay. 
My name is Ria. Don’t ask about the last name, I don’t wanna talk about it. I am twenty-three years old and living a pretty glamorous life, what with the fiancé (he’s amazing, by the way), the nice car, the gorgeous house, and the job I love. Huh? The job?

Okay, so yeah. I’m a stripper. How’s that for an opening line? 

Well, I had all of those things before shit hit the fan and I found myself in this tiny town in a not-so-tiny house. Speaking of the house, I have roommates. Six, actually. Let me clarify: I have six insanely hot, insanely weird, and insanely insane roommates. Gory details and all that be spared, shit’s getting real in this innocent-looking town and, let’s face it, I’m not qualified to handle bizarre crap. Not my thing; I’m a stripper for fuck’s sake. 

However, Eliam, Gatlin, Kellan, Gray, Beck, and Rafe seem to think that I am just the gal for the job. The Severin brothers are getting me all involved and in danger, and I’m truthfully terrified – not of the danger stuff, but these guys. There’s something different about them that I can’t quite put my finger on, but I swear I’m going to figure it out.

Review (with spoilers):

Not great. I like what the author was trying to do here. Ria is determined to be her own person. She shows backbone when she finds her boyfriend cheating. She has a meaningful friendship with another woman (i.e. not all other women are the enemy). She’s not afraid or ashamed of her own sexuality and doesn’t agonize over it. 

However, I think Saren failed in a lot of the execution. The inner-self was so overused that Ria simply felt mentally unhinged. It became a little more bearable when it was hinted toward the end that she might actually have a split personality. But as it was, I cringed (often literally) whenever Ria started describing her inner-self, complete with what she was wearing, how she was walking, what expression she had on her face, the tone of her voice, etc. I wanted Inner-Self to die and go away. 

Secondly, the six heroes. This was majorly problematic for me for two reasons. The first being that I couldn’t keep them all straight and tell them apart. Saren gave them accents and habits, but six men filling the same role is just too many. Secondly, this book is referred to as a reverse harem. Ria only actually has sex with two of them (I think, definitely not more). But it felt super icky to me because she seemed a lot more like a little sister that they all got to fondle and fuck. (Or maybe she got to fuck her big brothers, as she was perfectly willing to initiate the act, which I did appreciate.) What’s more, Ria is a serious case of fawned over by all the males for being special, while not really doing anything particularly special beyond existing. 

Lastly (and this is a big one for me), the mystery/villian. It’s secondary to the plot, not even being addressed until the halfway mark. Then, one red herring villain is dispatched off-page and super anticlimactically. Cue Ria’s too-stupid-to-live tantrum because the men won’t listen to her about another villain still being at large (and they act surprised when this turns out to be true). But come one, the man stabbed her with a magical athame and by all description looked like a freakin’ zombie. This did not fly as something centuries-old, experienced people would miss. I 100% think the author forgot she’d included the stabbing in her plot. (I’m only half joking here.)

All in all, readable, but not a real winner for me. The narrator (Melissa Schwairy) did a great job though. 

I’m baaaack

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My family and I had a wonderful trip to Manchester, England and Yunnan Provence, China. That may seem an odd combination, but we went to Manchester to spend Christmas and New Years with family and then on to China for a wedding and time with friends.

We’re back now though. Which means the blog is open again. I have a few reviews to post from my time traveling. But I didn’t read anywhere near as much as I expected to. We simply did not stop. So, the only reading I did was on flights.

I read The Highest Tide, Blood of Elves, and One Dead Vampire. I was pleased with all of them.

Reviews:

The Highest Tide, by Marian Perera:

I liked this more than I expected to. I appreciated that the woman is the physically strong one who saves the day most of the time. She’s quite capable. I appreciate that she was allowed to be scarred, even if the author wasn’t willing to go as far as to let her heroine be ugly. Even scarred, men think she is beautiful. Which, of course, she can be. But I felt like the focus detracted from the fact that women don’t have to be beautiful, even if flawed, to be a heroine. It felt like the author got half-way there on not classically beautiful representation. But I’ll take what I can get. Similarly, I appreciated the little LGBTQ acceptance slipped in with no fuss or obvious ulterior motive.

As for the romance, I liked both characters and liked them together. But I didn’t feel the romance was well developed. Too much of the book has them avoiding each other, so there isn’t a lot of interaction. And for one of the characters the ‘love’ is so instant even he says he feels as if he’d been struck by lightning.

All in all, however, I’d be more than happy to read the rest of the series.

Blood of Elves, by Andrzej Sapkowski

This book got me through a 10 hour flight. It was nothing like I was expecting though. I expected a lot of fighting, like in the prequel short stories. Instead, I found a lot of humor as a group of clueless men try to figure out raising a young girl. I quite enjoyed it, though I found it slow at times and Sapkowski’s writing style a little sparse for my taste. I’ll be continuing the series though.

One Dead Vampire, by Kris Ripper

Cute & fluffy. I generally loved Rocky and all of the side characters, plus all the representation. There’s a fat and fabulous main character, several characters of varied sexual and gender identities—using any number of pronouns—and characters of several races. I do think this is a book not written for those invested in remaining with-in the confines of the comfortable majority. I suspect I’ll see more than one review saying all of the pronouns and such were unnecessary or too hard to keep track of. But I think that’s more a matter of what you’re used to. It certainly works. 

I did feel like Rocky was too clueless about both the supernaturals and police procedure to have been raised in a supernatural cop family. Plus, I felt like all those cops/detectives enabling her compromising an investigation felt super unnatural. And the eventual reveal of the villain was too random to feel satisfying. 

The romance is secondary to the mystery and pretty mild. But, as I liked both characters, I was willing to roll with it. I was less able to accept that Rocky had given up her best friend because the friend had the audacity to go away to college. 

All in all, this was a higher than middle of the road read, but not five-stars for me. I’m well up for continuing the series though.