Tag Archives: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Fantasy Lover

Book Review of Fantasy Lover (Dark-Hunter, #1), by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Leave a reply

I borrowed an audio copy of Fantasy Lover, by Sherrilyn Kenyon through Hoopla. It’s narrated by Carrington MacDuffie.

Description from Goodreads:

It might sound like a man’s favorite fantasy — to live forever, destined to be the lover of thousands of women. But for Julian of Macedon, it’s a nightmare. Once he was a proud Spartan general, now he’s a love-slave, his essence magically held captive in a book, cursed to spend all eternity pleasing women. Then, one day, Grace Alexander summons Julian to fulfill her passionate dreams — and sees beyond the fantasy to the man himself. Long years as a sex therapist, listening to other people’s bedroom problems, has taken a lot of the fun out of the physical side of love for Grace. She’s remarkably understanding about Julian’s situation — and that’s disconcerting for all concerned. With or without sex, the rules of the enchantment cannot be changed. Julian is hers for the next month. And, as their time together slips by, Julian and Grace find more to share than sympathy and conversation — and they begin to wonder if love might be within their grasp. That leaves only one question. Is love enough to break a 2,000-year-old curse? 

Review:

A while back I read Deadmen Walking. It’s one of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s newer book and the first one by her that I’d read. I thought it was awful, which surprised me since so many people like her books so much. Another reader commented that she loves Kenyon’s writing, but agreed Deadmen Walking isn’t the best. She recommended I try Fantasy Lover instead. The reason I never read Kenyon before is that I was baffled by all the overlapping series and didn’t know what to read first. So, with a recommendation on where to start I picked this one up at the library. 

I didn’t hate it. I won’t say I loved it. But it was a sight better than my previous Kenyon experience. The book has a certain self deprecating humor I appreciated and poor tortured Julian was too sweet for words. But I also thought Grace too prim for a sex therapist, wondered why her Ph.D. best friend was running a tarot stand, thought no one reacted reasonably (or at all) to literal gods popping up in their lives, and I got desperately bored with 300+ pages of sexual angst but no actual sex until the conclusion (and then it was abrupt and without any foreplay at all). 

Some of what irritated me just comes from the fact that the book is 15+ years old and the norms of the PNR publishers of the time are ones I find irksome now. Grace’s whole personality seems to be based on being giving, caring and generous, for example. Because of course a woman is, right? But still, I didn’t hate it and that’s something.

The book talked enough about Kyrian that I’m curious about him. But I’m also not particularly interested in having to read another one. So, I don’t know which way I’ll go, maybe read the next book, maybe not.

Edit: A search of my reviews shows that Deadmen Walking wasn’t actually my first attempt at a S.K. book, Dragonmark was. However, I didn’t finish it. So, I’m not going to change the wording of this review.

Deadmen Walking

Book Review of Deadmen Walking (Deadman’s Cross #1), by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Leave a reply

I borrowed a copy of Sherrilyn Kenyon‘s Deadmen Walking through Hoopla.

Description from Goodreads:

Deadmen tell their tales . . .

To catch evil, it takes evil. Enter Devyl Bane―an ancient dark warlord returned to the human realm as one of the most notorious pirates in the New World. A man of many secrets, Bane makes a pact with Thorn―an immortal charged with securing the worst creations the ancient gods ever released into our world. Those powers have been imprisoned for eons behind enchanted gates . . . gates that are beginning to buckle. At Thorn’s behest, Bane takes command of a crew of Deadmen and, together, they are humanity’s last hope to restore the gates and return the damned to their hell realms.

But things are never so simple. And one of Bane’s biggest problems is the ship they sail upon. For the Sea Witch isn’t just a vessel, she’s also a woman born of an ancient people he wronged and who in turn wronged him during a centuries long war between their two races―a woman who is also sister to their primary target. Now Marcelina, the Sea Witch, must choose. Either she remains loyal to her evil sister and almost extinct race against Bane and his cause, and watches humanity fall, or she puts faith in an enemy who has already betrayed her. Her people over the totality of humanity―let’s hope Bane can sway her favor. 

Review:

Sigh. Do you know what one of my biggest book pet peeves is? It’s when Sequels and spin-offs aren’t well labeled. What’s more, I honestly believe that authors and publishers do this purposefully so that readers who might not pick up a books 5 or 15 or 25 in a series will be tricked into picking up a book one in a poorly labeled spinoff that is actually book 5 or 15 or 25 in a previous series. 

That’s how I feel about Deadmen Walking. I’ve long wanted to try a Sherrilyn Kenyon book. But Haven’t really known where to start, since there are so many of them. But when I saw book one of a what I thought was a new series, I gave it a go. Big mistake. 

Deadmen Walking has no world building, a confusing muddle of mythologies and several characters (of which there are far too many) were barely introduced. It felt enough unlike a standalone book that I finally did some investigation to discover that it’s a spinoff of the Dark Hunter series. 

Outside of the spinoff series issue, I also just didn’t think it was very good. It wasn’t complete shite, but it felt VERY formulaic and shallow. I saw no reason why characters who’d lived together for centuries suddenly saw each other in a different light and finally accepted love. There was no development in the romance, (again, they’d lived together for centuries). There were too many characters to keep straight and several were basically pointless. A second romance was tacked on at the end that hadn’t been developed at all. (And it felt like the female character was originally meant to be the primary love interest until Kenyon changed her mind, so she had to be matched up somewhere.) I didn’t understand the villains motivation or how she got so powerful. Bane seemed to develop abilities randomly and the pacing is inconsistent and the pacing seemed super inconsistent. 

I no longer fear I might be missing out having never read a Kenyon novel.

A not-review of DragonMark, by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Leave a reply

I don’t usually review book that I don’t finish here on the blog. In the five years I’ve kept it, I don’t think I ever have. I post a note on Goodreads for myself and move on. But I have to have a little rant on about this one. Partly because I’m enraged and partly out of pure WTF confusion.

Let me start by saying how much I hate (with a passion I’m not sure words alone can convey) coming across books like this. (And I’ve complained about this before). It’s book number 25 in one series, 10 in another, 5 in yet a third, 41 in another and the first in Dragon-Hunter: Dragon Rising. Apparently all these series intertwine. But can I read it as the first in ANY series, as that number 1 suggests? Or do I need to have read the others. What exactly, as a new Sherrilyn Kenyon reader, should I base that assessment on? Your guess is as good as mine. I picked the audio book up at the library and, despite serious misgivings, thought I’d give it a try.

For the first half the book I was fine. I could feel that there was history I was missing. Characters probably had their own books, but I was able to follow the hero and heroine’s story. I had complaints, such as how fast it all moved and how magic with no defined limits side-stepped so many problems in too easy manner, but it was a readable PNR. And I appreciated that the heroine was a larger lady. Plus, it was funny at times.

Then I reached disk 5, roughly the middle of the book. (There are 8 disks total.) Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, despite having fallen in love in a day, ten years passed and then in a page or two the heroine was dead and centuries had passed for the hero. The story picks up with two totally new people. The original hero becomes a side character in their story and everything moves along as if the train hadn’t literally just changed tracks. I stopped the player to make sure a disk from another book didn’t get mixed in! It’s that abrupt and incongruent.

Logic would suggest that the new characters are the characters from whichever series has Cade and Joe in it and the two timelines are crossing. (As and aside, at least I can pronounce their names, unlike Illarion and his love, whose name I don’t remember and apparently isn’t considered important enough to even include in the blurb of her own book.) And I would guess that at some point it’s all going to wrap back around such that Illarion can bring unnamed love back to life, or whatever. But I can’t bring myself to listen to hours of story about people I literally don’t know, because they literally just appeared with no introduction or explanation, before getting to it. (And that’s assuming I’m right about what happens.)

So, to answer the initial question of can a book with multiple series listed be read alone, even if its called number one in one of those series, no. Half this book can be read as a first book in a series, but half is apparently the continuation of another’s story and can’t be read without all those previous books from multiple other series. That is my take away. I gave up. I didn’t finish disk five and I won’t be finishing the book. I’m left reeling and confused. What the hell just happened.

I can almost imagine the narrator, who did a fine job, calling up the publisher and asking, “Hey, just checking, but you didn’t happen to mix up your manuscripts did you? I’m just making sure you didn’t send me two? Again, just checking.”

What’s worse, in reading the reviews of other readers, this seems to just be rehashing other books in the other series (whichever it is). My advice is don’t bother. I’m going to stick to my initial instinct and steer very clear of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s books in the future. The foul taste left in my mouth from this one is that strong.