Tag Archives: self published

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Book Review: Forbidden, by Jewels Arthur

I picked up an e-copy of Jewels Arthur‘s Forbidden on Amazon the other day.

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When a little girl, all alone in the big bad woods, lets it slip that she’s on her way to visit her sick gran, I can’t help but take advantage. Don’t judge me. I’m hungry and let’s be real… What tastes better than a meal that doesn’t struggle—much.

Little do I know, my blood-thirsty plot is about to be foiled by a set of five werewolves that have decided to eat gran, take her place, and eat the little girl! I wish I had thought of that last bit myself.

The worst part is that I have been a lone vampire for years now so I have no one to watch my back. I am just easy prey to them and their beastly desires. If I can’t escape, I just may become victim to those desires and they are more than willing to huff and puff and blow my resolve away.

my review

Before I read this, I couldn’t figure out how it had so many good reviews. It’s a little counterintuitive, but I understand now. Put simply, this is objectively bad—but in the absolute best way!

Years ago, before the time constraints of children, my now-husband and I used to do something called Good Wine/Bad Movie Night. One of us would pick up a good bottle of wine (Mind you, we were young and broke. So, our idea of ‘good wine’ was probably suspect.) and the other would pick out a bad movie. The idea was that the more you drank, the better the movie got. We forbidden photowatched a lot of B-grade sci-fi and questionable anime. But, my goodness, did we have fun with it.

If it were a movie, Forbidden would be a prime contender. It is bad. It’s ‘staying up until 2 am covered in Cheetos dust and cheap wine with your best friend’ bad. It’s cringe at the dialogue and sudden, inexplicable changes in character attitudes bad. It’s porn with minimal plot bad. But it’s not trying to be anything else. Which means you can laugh with it, instead of at it, and bask in its badness. I just had a ton of fun with it and will absolutely try the rest of the series.


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Book Review: Dragged Under, by D.E. Chapman

I picked up a Kindle copy of D.E. Chapman‘s Dragged Under on one of its Amazon freebie days.

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Send help… I’m going to need it.

I was normal… until I wasn’t. Dying does that to people, I guess.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Gabrielle, and I’m an omega. My life took an unexpected turn the moment I was dragged into an alley and murdered. When I woke up, I fully embodied lust and jumped three sexy-as-sin strangers—who just so happened to be Hell’s strongest demons.

Now the four of us are bonded for life. And as it turns out, this group of three is actually a group of six. Oh and there’s this huge plot to overthrow the current leader of Hell, and somehow I’ve found myself smack dab in the middle of it.

If I thought my life before was a challenge, it’s got nothing on this shit.

my review
When I picked up a copy of Dragged Under, a reverse harem in which a woman mates the Deadly Sins (one of which is Lucifer himself), I never would have imagined my primary descriptor on finishing it would be bland. I was simply bored the whole time.

Even the sex is mechanical and dull. I’m talking P enters V, equals O. Sometimes P doesn’t even enter V more than once before O. No foreplay, no getting to know the men, no variation, no emotion, no passion. Mechanics, that’s it, and not even many of those. It’s about as erotic as sitting on a chair and then immediately standing up, done.

The villain is a caricature that drops into monologue briefly on occasion and nothing more. The primary foil being ridiculous challenges that are overcome with comical ease.

Everyone had two names (both the 7 Sins and everyone else) that are used interchangeably throughout the book. So, I could never keep track of who was doing what. (Why would an author do this?) On top of not being able to keep names straight, none of the characters are well developed or differ enough to tell them apart anyway, not even the heroine.

dragged under photoBut then, how could she be? She spends literally half the book asleep or unconscious and the other half being carried or used as a flesh-lite. (The men negotiate with each other about who gets to stick it in next—and that’s about all they ever do. She’s never an active participant.) She might as well be an inanimate object. I’m not even exaggerating here.

And the whole thing ends with a deus ex machina that made no sense at all. I have no desire for more of this series.


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Book Review: Rise of the Phoenix, by JL Madore

I picked up a copy of JL. Madore’s Rise of the Phoenix as an Amazon freebie, last year.
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Monsters, Magic, and Mates I never knew existed.

Kia versus power pole isn’t the end I expect—it’s the beginning of… gawd, where do I begin?
Four wildly sexy males. Powers I don’t understand. And the eyes of the fae world on me as the person to unite the severed realms. No pressure.

my review

Amusing enough, but not much more. It’s entertaining but not very deep. The plot is pretty thin, and none of the characters (the males especially) are well-developed. One is such an asshole I don’t know how the author imagines she’ll redeem him, and two are fairly inconsistent in their tone and characterization. It was the book’s general inconsistencies that really threw me though, like someone unbuckling yoga pants.

The book also is guilty of using the cheap attempted rape shtick (and it wasn’t even very well rise of the phoenix photostitched into the plot). I’m not saying a book should never include rape, but I’ve found that far too often, it’s used for cheap tension. More often than not, here included, there are a million better and less over-used and common plot devices to reach for. At this point, I call it the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of plotting. It’s evidence the author took the easiest, least thought about, no-effort path. IT’S LAZY. And is that really how authors want to be seen?

Anyhow, despite how negative this review seems, I’ll read book two (I have 1-5), because I have it and I’m curious to see all the men submit.


Other Reviews:

Rise of the Phoenix by J.L. Madore – A Book Review