Tag Archives: shifters

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Book Review: Moon Scorned, by Marty Mayberry

Moon Scorned, by Marty Mayberry was featured over and Sadie’s Spotlight and I was so taken with the cover that I picked it up for review from R&R Tours.

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I fell hard and fast for the alpha of an elite pack.

Then he rejected me.

Everly

Asher took off when I needed him most, rejecting me and my inner wolf. Then my half-sister is murdered at an exclusive college that’s enshrouded in magic and secrets. When the school offers me a scholarship, I accept and move onto campus. I’m going to find out who killed her, then rip them apart. And if I run into Asher while I’m there? He’ll learn I’m no longer his sweet little thing. He’s about to taste the fury of a wolf shifter scorned.

Asher

Everly’s everything to me, but to protect her, I had to shove her away. If I go near her, the Drudge Pack will discover who she truly is. My father—their enforcer—will kill her. But when she shows up at Ravenmire College, my inner wolf hungers. I’ll do anything to keep her safe—even if that means sacrificing myself and betraying my dangerous family.

my review

I think that this book will appeal to a lot of readers. It’s not a bad book at all. Everly is admirably willing to stand up for herself and shrug off mean-girl BS. Asher is sweet in his desperate desire to do the right thing, even as it hurts and he’s scorned for it. There’s an interesting world here and the writing is quite readable.

However, the book also starts out feeling as if there must be a previous book and then ends on a cliffhanger with absolutely nothing concluded. Here’s my feeling on cliffies. It’s one thing to wrap-up part of a story and leave some threads open for continuation of a story. The reader finishs the book with at least some sense of completion. It’s another to publish part of a story, ending it with nothing concluded. Those are not the same thing. I have no interest in further committing myself to series that do the latter, because I just assume the next book and then the next book and the next will end the same and I have no faith in ever actually getting an ending.

However, none of this is uncommon and I doubt everyone is as annoyed by this as I am (since it’s become a pet peeve of mine). If this doesn’t bother you and you’re looking for a familiar feeling academy(ish) YA/NA paranormal read this one is probably worth your time to pick up.

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Giveaway:

Win a copy of the prequel novella, Moon Hunted.

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Book Review: Dreaming Of a White Wolf Christmas, by Terry Spear

I picked up a copy of Terry Spear‘s Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas as an Amazon freebie, in order to read it as part of my Christmas Reading Challenge.
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Tangling with a White Wolf—Best Christmas Ever, or Real Trouble?

Romance writer Candice Mayfair never missed a deadline in her life—until an accidental bite from a werewolf puppy turns her into an Arctic wolf shifter. She’s forced to isolate herself in the wilderness to cope with her unpredictable shifting while she works on her deadlines. After all, for Candice, Christmas is just another day.

Enter private investigator Owen Nottingham, a wolf shifter hired to find Candice so she can collect her inheritance. They have a real problem: she must arrive home in human form, and that’s not happening during the full moon. Besides, Owen has a new mission: to convince the pretty she-wolf her best move is to join his pack in time for Christmas…and to prove he’s the only wolf for her.

my review

Good lord, this was just horrid. I don’t understand it either. Terry Spear is well known. Lots of people enjoy her books. Hell, this series is 30 books long. Obviously, someone somewhere enjoys this sort of thing. But I was bored to tears.

The dialogue is stiff. The writing is dry as dust. It’s SO tell heavy and everything is repeated, as characters do things and then tell people about doing things, or tell people they’re going to do something and then do it, or think about doing something and then do it, etc. The love is instant and the romance is non-existent and basically comes down to her being the only available arctic wolf. Random things happen randomly. There are a ton of characters who pop up and then disappear just as suddenly. I assume they are only mentioned because they’re cameos from other books (but they just felt disruptive here). And the book just went on and on and on.

Honestly, I would have DNFed this, for sure, had I not been reading it for a challenge and wanted to be able to count it. I think I need not ever read another Spear book.

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Other Reviews:

Mainlining Christmas: Book review – Dreaming of a white Wolf Christmas

Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas (White Wolf #1 / Heart of the Wolf #23) by Terry Spear-Review, Excerpt & Giveaway


Come back tomorrow. I’ll be reviewing Solstice Surrender, by Tracy Cooper-Posey and Charley’s Christmas Wolf, by C.D. Gorri. Yeah, I’ve had to start doubling up to try and fit all the reviews in by Christmas.

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Book Review: Shifting Fates, by Meredith Clarke

I picked up a copy of Shifting Fates, by Meredith Clarke on one of its Amazon freebie days.

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Here’s the thing, I need you to believe monsters are real.

But ask me that question, and I’ll tell you the truth. No, it’s not possible. The more believers out there, though, the busier I am at night booking walking ghost tours in New Orleans’ French Quarter. I like giving tours, love them actually. I was born to do this—well, I thought I was until I met him. Now everything I thought I knew has changed.

It was a normal tour, like all the rest, except Spencer isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met. How am I supposed to resist those sapphire blue eyes and the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen? I mentioned he’s hot, right? And it’s not just him. He has three friends. Three men who look at me like I am the sun and the moon.

Just because Spencer saves me from a man whose speed is lightning fast and claims he and his pack mates have been looking for me doesn’t mean I should fall for them, does it? The temptation to give in to their suggestions is hard to resist. Maybe too hard.

Maybe I wasn’t meant to point out tombstones and landmarks. Maybe there is something to the prophecy Spencer’s pack talks about.

Maybe I don’t know sh*t about monsters after all.
But now I believe in them.

my review

This was a big ol’ fail for me. My biggest (in terms of most personal) gripe is that I work hard to avoid rape in the books I read for entertainment. The reader here is told in just about the first chapter that a decade earlier Rosalie’s foster father tried to rape her. He failed, she ran away, end of story. Except that it’s not the end of the story. Her whole personality seems built around this one attempted rape. And while it’s horrible and (one assumes) traumatic, even at 92% the reader is STILL being reminded of Roger and his attempted rape 10 years earlier. (Plus, she runs into a vampire who tries to assault her too.) I really REALLY hate when rape is used as some sort of ubiquitous seasoning to a story. It contributed nothing and irritated me every single time it was mentioned again…and again…and again…and again.

Outside of that, the book is just inconsistent. One minute Rosalie is afraid, the next she’s giggling coquettishly, the next she’s up in the face of werewolves twice her size, threatening them (despite having no authority or reasonable reason to think her threats would hold sway). The plotting is ham-fisted, the romance is herky-jerky, her powers are all deus ex machina in times of need, the sex is just embarrassing to read, and the reverse harem aspect felt cartoonish. I won’t be continuing the series.

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