Tag Archives: shifters

grizzly cove

Book Review: Grizzly Cove (Tales of the Were: Grizzly Cove #1-3), by Bianca D’Arc

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I picked up a copy of Bianca D’Arc’s Grizzly Cove (vol 1-3) during one of its Amazon free days.

Description from Goodreads:

Welcome to Grizzly Cove, where bear shifters can be who they are – if the creatures of the deep will just leave them be. Wild magic, unexpected allies, a conflagration of sorcery and shifter magic the likes of which has not been seen in centuries… That’s what awaits the peaceful town of Grizzly Cove. That, and love. Lots and lots of love.

This anthology contains:

All About the Bear
Welcome to Grizzly Cove, where the sheriff has more than the peace to protect. The proprietor of the new bakery in town is clueless about the dual nature of her nearest neighbors, but not for long. It’ll be up to Sheriff Brody to clue her in and convince her to stay calm—and in his bed—for the next fifty years or so.

Mating Dance
Tom, Grizzly Cove’s only lawyer, is also a badass grizzly bear, but he’s met his match in Ashley, the woman he just can’t get out of his mind. She’s got a dark secret, that only he knows. When ugliness from her past tracks her to her new home, can Tom protect the woman he is fast coming to believe is his mate?

Night Shift
Sheriff’s Deputy Zak is one of the few black bear shifters in a colony of grizzlies. When his job takes him into closer proximity to the lovely Tina, though, he finds he can’t resist her. Could it be he’s finally found his mate? And when adversity strikes, will she turn to him, or run into the night? Zak will do all he can to make sure she chooses him.

Review:

This is an odd book to review, because honestly, on Goodreads, I wrote the same short review for both of the first two books. I said, “Short, shallow, repetitive, and hokey. But cotton candy sweet if you’re into that sort of thing. Mechanical wring and editing seems fine.”

I had a little more to say about book three, but not much. For book three I quoted the review from the first two books, but added, “This holds true for this third book too. But I feel like the author did something different here. She tried to bring in a larger plot (the third book seems an odd place to do this, but ok), one that didn’t get resolved in this single book. So, while the romantic pairing stands alone, the actual plot does not.”

So, as you can see, these books didn’t particularly impress me. And being as short as they were, I didn’t take much time in crafting reviews for them. I might have even skipped bring the reviews here to my blog, except that I don’t have a D-author for my author alphabet challenge. Welp, now I do.

Cursed by Fire

Review of Cursed by Fire (Blood & Magic #1), by Danielle Annett

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I Picked up a copy of Danielle Annett’s Cursed by Fire, from Amazon, on one of its free days.

Description from Goodreads:

Blood is going to spill …
It won’t be mine.

Someone is feeding the flames, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. The victims are innocents, chosen to pit the shifter Pack and the vampire Coven against one another.

If war breaks out, humanity won’t survive.

But controlling fire is my thing, and I won’t let that happen.
I’m a mercenary, but this is about so much more than money. It’s my city and someone is threatening it. I won’t stop until I find them.

When the good guys start to look more like villains, I have no choice but to question everything I knew, including the people I thought I could trust.

It turns out the humans might not be as helpless as they seem, and I’m in more danger than I realized.

Review:

Meh, Not all-out bad, but not great either. Mostly, it was just predictable and full of tropes. But I liked the characters well enough and it was perfectly readable.

I don’t suppose I can review this book without addressing the allegations of plagiarism surrounding it. The world, a lot of the language, some of the characteristics of characters, and even some of the plot points really are very similar to the Kate Daniels series. (And it’s a little startling to go into a book knowing this to be the case and immediately come across a character named Daniel.) I don’t know if I’d call it plagiarism, maybe fanfiction. Though I know the author never says that it is.

Readers should probably also note that it’s not a standalone book and my kindle copy, at least, ends at 85%. The rest being a teaser for the next book.

eat you up

Book Review of Eat You Up, by Lucy Leroux

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I received an Audible code for a copy of Lucy Leroux‘s Eat You Up.

Description from Goodreads:

Dmitri, a high-end thief, is flying cross-country for a lucrative job when the woman destined to be his mate is seated next to him. Her scent drives him to the edge, but he manages to control himself on the flight by the skin on his teeth and fate—by way of the flight being diverted because of a terrible storm.

Nina isn’t sure why she’s trying so hard to get home in time for her sister’s wedding, given that the groom is her ex. But indulging in an affair with the aggressive and attractive man who has come to her rescue brings worse problems to her table. It’s just supposed to be a fling, but Dmitri clearly has no intention of leaving—ever.

When Dmitri’s new employer turns out to be Nina’s ex’s father, the line he spent a lifetime blurring becomes crystal clear. Unfortunately, by the time he realizes this, it may be too late to save his mate.

Review:

This wasn’t very good. I had the audio version and the narrator (Addison Barnes) did a fine job. That, and the fact that the grammar seemed fine, are about the only nice things I have to say about it. I thought the hero was an insufferably arrogant jackass. I didn’t like him. There is one scene toward the end after he’s been injured that he shows a little humility. I liked him for that paragraph and that’s it. For the entirety of the rest of the book, he’s pushy and self-absorbed. He walks all over the heroine and her expressed wishes.

Sadly, my dislike for the hero isn’t balanced for any like of the heroine. It’s not that I thought she was a doormat, she wasn’t. But the book if full of things she should be angry about (her sister stole her wedding, for example, by which I mean she seduced her fiance, accepted the same ring and actually got married in the hall they’d book for the original wedding) and the heroine is sad for a little while and then just shrugged it off. No bitch, you’re allowed to be angry about that and hold that grudge for a while. The author’s total unwillingness to allow her heroine the natural emotion of anger angered me. If I’m supposed to relate to this character don’t constrain her to the ‘feminine’ ideal of a pleasant milksop. Let her rage. She deserved it and I deserved to see it.

This is apparently book two of a series. I didn’t realize that initially. But I had no problem following the plot. I just didn’t like it very much.