Tag Archives: shifters

fever blood moon

Book Review of Fever (Blood Moon Rising #1), by Lola Taylor

Leave a reply

FeverFever: Blood Moon Rising, by Lola Taylor, is a perma-freebie on Amazon. That’s where I picked my copy up. I read it as the 6th book in my Blood Mood Reading Challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
When the Blood Moon rises, the wolves come out to play… and find their mates. 

Danica has about given up on love. In a last-ditch attempt at finding “the one,” she agrees to a blind date through an online dating service. But instead of finding roses and romance, she finds someone intent on killing her. That is, until the mysterious, brooding Gage shows up to save her…. 

Gage is running out of time to find a mate. If the Blood Moon sets before he can find her, he’ll lose the rank of packmaster – and the peace within the pack – he’s worked so hard to obtain. When he saves a luscious blonde in the parking lot, he has no idea she is his mate – until he Marks her with his touch. 

Determined to keep her safe at any cost, Gage whisks Danica away into a hidden world full of lust, unlikely love, and treachery. Someone’s put a hit on his mate, and he’s hell-bent on finding out who, all while the Blood Moon looms closer, threatening to destroy his chances at true love forever. That is, if something – or someone – doesn’t kill the woman he’s falling for first.

Review:
*Sigh* It wasn’t Baaad. It just wasn’t very good either. Nothing and no-one had any depth or development. It was schmaltzy to the nth degree. The same gimmick (like her refusal to believe she wasn’t dreaming or the interrupted sex) was played over and over. Dangers popped up and disappeared without any true tension. In fact, nothing in the whole book had any kind of edge to it. Gage was the most beta alpha I’ve ever read (he did not inspire confidence) and Danica was just annoying and useless. This is basically just a collection of various werewolf tropes strung together with nothing to bolster it up or tie it together. I did like the brother Nik and some of the dialogue is funny, but all in all, not a real winner for me.

Blood Moon

Book Review of Blood Moon (Moonstruck #1), by Silver James

Leave a reply

So, there I was, reading the second book in my Blood Moon Challenge (Blood Moon (Moonstruck #1), by Silver James) and I realized I’d read it before. It took 5% for me to be certain, but eventually I was. Oddly, I see no evidence that I posted a review here for it. So, I’m going to go ahead and rectify that, but I don’t suppose it counts as a legitimate challenge read.

Blood Moon, Silver JamesI picked the book up on Amazon, when it was free.

Description from Goodreads:
Army Major Hannah Jackson knows where the skeletons are hidden at the Pentagon and now she’s been tasked with keeping the secrets of Army Special Sci Ops Unit 69—the Wolves—and their secret is a doozy. That a civilian corporation wants to exploit the Wolves is a matter of pressing concern.

Sergeant Major Ian McIntire doesn’t trust Hannah as far as he can throw her—and that’s quite a ways considering he’s an alpha werewolf. The woman is a pain in his butt and with the Blood Moon coming, the unit needs to complete their mission and get home before tempers flare. While she might know most of their secrets, the one she doesn’t know about the moonstruck Wolf might just get them all killed.

When a covert operation goes wrong, Mac must trust Hannah to save his men—and his heart. Secrets, lies, and betrayals are more personal under the full moon, but when a Wolf loves a woman, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

Review:
This novella started off so well…and then went to total shit. In the beginning we’re introduced to sexy Alpha among Alphas, Mac and the sexy, capable, strong-willed Hannah. Everything was looking good. I was loving the narrative predominantly from Mac’s POV and thrilled to be reading about a heroine who was competing on par and impressing all the type A, military men. You go girl!

Then about 25% through the book the sexual tension cranked up and Hannah’s IQ dropped by about 50 points, as did her sense of balance and calm. All of a sudden she was scared and crying every 10 minutes, stumbling over tree roots (where before Mac had been impressed with her ability to soldier on unaided), and bordering on hysterics for all of the rest of the story. And no, for the record, just because he tells her repeatedly that she’s strong and resilient doesn’t actually make her so. It’s condescending and pat.

I get that she had a bit of a shock. Totally get that. But why did she have to become so very weak in order for his masculinity to come through? He would still have been plenty manly even if she didn’t fall to pieces. I sure didn’t see any of the men crying over a little gun fight.

The story also felt very much like the middle of a longer piece. There is obvious history with Hannah and her job with the military and the Wolves’ need to rescue Torjak. Then there is a lot left unexplored on the return to Virginia. Not once did Mac and Hannah manage a normal, rational conversation about their future. I would have liked to know how that was addressed.

I had a hard time looking past Hannah’s crumbling facade. It ruined the story for me. But I did find that I liked the writing style a lot. The POVs shifted a bit too quickly at times, but that was easily looked over. I also thought the basic structure of the world Silver James created was interesting. It was only thinly sketched out, but I saw the possibility of some entertaining future books in it. I’d be willing to give another one of her stories a shot.

Blood Moons

Book Review of Blood Moons (The Blood Series #1), by Alianne Donnelly

Leave a reply

Blood MoonsI picked up a copy of Blood Moons, by Alianne Donnelly, from Amazon when it was free. I read it as the first in my Blood Moon Reading Challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
They say no good deed ever goes unpunished, a sentiment Dara understands fully now that she is paying for a crime she didn’t commit. It was stupid to call in a murder she didn’t really see. But how could Dara have kept silent? Now a stunning—scratch that, a dangerous—man with a frightening secret of his own is telling her he can help. Yeah, right. A telepath knows better than to trust mere words. 

The last decade of Tristan’s life has been penance. All that time spent among the worst dregs of society might have made him begin to question his humanity, but he’s never felt so much like an animal as he does around this timid, delicate female. Her very presence stirs the beast within him; Tristan can feel it growing stronger every day. Any more time with Dara, and it might overpower him completely. But without her, he stands no chance at all…

Review:
I had problems with this book. It wasn’t the writing. That was fine. It wasn’t the idea behind the plot. That was fine. It wasn’t the dialogue. That too was fine. It was the fact that the first third is basically just ‘let’s protect the fragile heroine from being raped in this unbelievably vile, but oddly sterile prison with a gender ration of 4 women to 200 evil, evil men that the reader never sees or feels the threat of’ and the last two-thirds rambles on and on forever. This book needed an editor. Not for typos and grammar mistakes, I never noticed any, but for someone to tell the author to cut a third of the length and tighten the plot a lot.

I also thought the characters, Dara especially, were very shallow and did things that were not only too stupid to believe, but often out of character. Like volunteering for maximum security prison with the most violent offenders (because you usually get to choose your level, apparently) despite being innocent and as fragile as glass or leaving the person you are so protective of that you literally guard her from passer-bys on the street alone when there have been legitimate threats against her.

Close, but no cigar for me.