Tag Archives: shifters

Justice calling

Book Review of Justice Calling (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress #1), by Annie Bellet

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Justice CallingI picked Justice Calling (by Annie Bellet) up as a freebie at Amazon. It was still free at the time of posting.

Description from Goodreads:
Gamer. Nerd. Sorceress. 

Jade Crow lives a quiet life running her comic book and game store in Wylde, Idaho. After twenty-five years fleeing from a powerful sorcerer who wants to eat her heart and take her powers, quiet suits her just fine. Surrounded by friends who are even less human than she is, Jade figures she’s finally safe. 

As long as she doesn’t use her magic. 

When dark powers threaten her friends’ lives, a sexy shape-shifter enforcer shows up. He’s the shifter world’s judge, jury, and executioner rolled into one, and he thinks Jade is to blame. To clear her name, save her friends, and stop the villain, she’ll have to use her wits… and her sorceress powers. 

Except Jade knows that as soon as she does, a far deadlier nemesis awaits.

Review:
While there is nothing new here, it’s entertaining enough. I think I’d have preferred to see it bulked into a full novel, instead a novella, in order to allow for more plot and character development. But it was at least a full story arc, with a beginning, middle and end. Yay and thank bloody god for that. I liked what I knew of the characters and, though the plot wasn’t really given the time to deepen, it’s not so rushed as to be unenjoyable. I’d read more of the series.

The One We Feed

Book Review of The One We Feed (The Apocalyptic Series #2), by Kristina Meister

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The One We Feed

I won a copy of Kristina Meister‘s The One We Feed through Library Thing. I read/reviewed book one in the series, Craving, here.

Description from Goodreads:
After the bizarre suicide of her sister, Lilith Pierce discovered that the world was full of dangers and villains she could not have imagined, and that the history of human civilization was far from complete. Now, gifted with tremendous powers she barely understands, Lilith is determined to stop whatever plots and schemes her immortal cousins, the Sangha, can hatch. When a simple reconnaissance mission ends in tragedy; however, Lilith’s entire focus changes.

Attempting to save a child she’s never met from a fate worse than death will require every ounce of Lilith’s strength, forge new and treacherous alliances, and possibly change the world forever. Suddenly all eyes are on her, and the destiny of the human race is on her shoulders.

Review:
While I enjoyed the humor, the geekery and the actual writing, and I really do think it presents a thought provoking  philosophy, I was generally disappointed in this book. The reason for this actually started in book one, with the too perfect heroine. It only gets worse here. Essentially, Lilith is indestructible and she knows it. So, there is no challenge to her from anyone, which means no challenge to the reader. This whole book is her wandering around making witty quips, teasing Jinx (who I adore), and almost lazily figuring a thing or two out. Oh sure, there are some fight scenes, but she’s faster, stronger, smarter, more invisible, more skilled, etc than any of her opponents, so the result is a foregone conclusion and comes far too quickly. It’s dull, no matter how much action is happening.

The book also falls into what I consider a tempting trap when dealing with immortality. All of a sudden, almost everyone Lilith meets is a famous historical character. All the billions of people who have lived throughout history and the immortals happen to be ones we’d have heard of?

The book is worth reading to engage the Buddhist (and such) arguments, but it doesn’t have quite the flare and appeal as the first book, in my opinion.

What I’m drinking: It’s a bit of a bastardized, homemade version of Turmeric Tea, sometimes called Golden Milk. Here is some information and a recipe from Health Ambition. It’s not exactly the one I used, as I didn’t actually use a recipe and, I didn’t have coconut milk, so I used unsweetened almond milk. But hey, it was still good and good for me, worth checking out.

Taming Heather

Book Review of Taming Heather (Cariboo Lunewulf #1), by Lorie O’Clare

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I’m trying to read some of the physical book from my shelves, to make room for new ones and to replenish the restock stash for my Little Free Library. Wanna see a picture? I’m awful proud of it.

Sadie's Little Free Library

Anyhow, I’m trying to clear out the physical book, so this was my morning.

Taming Heather

I picked up this used copy of Taming Heather, by Lorie O’Clare, from Goodwill for $0.70.

Description from Goodwill:
Heather Graham had one thing in mind—furthering her career. And an exposé on the werewolves in her community would do just that. All she needed was to get up close and personal with one of them, and she could write an article that would give her front-page coverage across the nation. Her career would skyrocket! And Marc McAllister was just the man—and werewolf—to help her do it.But when Marc realizes Heather’s flirty behavior exists solely so she can exploit werewolves in her newspaper, he decides it’s time to show little Miss Graham exactly how a werewolf behaves. And Marc McAllister isn’t just any werewolf, but purebred Cariboo Lunewulf—wild, strong, aggressive and the quintessential alpha male.In a clash of wills, bodies and souls, Marc and Heather set off enough sparks to start a raging fire. Drawing the wild side out of Marc hits Heather with a bolt of lust that won’t go away. Unexpectedly for Marc, he may just have met his match in the little spitfire.But their biggest hurdle may not be with each other, but from another direction entirely.

Review:
Oh man, this was bad. If I used stars here, I’d say it’s only avoiding a one star because I laughed a lot. (There was very little deliberate humor in it.) It was basically just a thin veneer of plot to allow for lots and lots of sex that essentially started the moment the man characters met. But hey, it’s Ellora’s Cave and that’s practically their business model. So, I can’t say I went in unaware. I happen to occasionally like that sort of book in a “I’m laughing with you, not at you sort of way.”

Unfortunately, the sex wasn’t that great. The writing was extremely repetitive, with the same stock words/phrases being used again and again and again and again, sometimes more than once within the same paragraph, and the same information being provided over and over. The characters never really lived up to their description; the book depending on that description to give them life, instead of providing proof. Plus, I thought Marc was a jerk. Lastly, the copyediting needed a bit more work and it contradicted itself.

What I’m drinking: Milky chai. My stepfather gave me some loose chai from The Natural Way, but I failed utterly in making it correctly. It hardly had any flavor at all. I think I didn’t boil it long enough, so it’s basically just warm, brown milk. *shrug* live and learn