Tricia Owens

I grabbed Tricia Owens‘ Descended From Dragons when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
To save Sin City, she must battle Hell. Too bad the odds are against her.

Beneath the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas lies another city. A secret city in plain sight, full of warlocks and demons, shapeshifters and golems. A city that feeds off the chance magick that is generated by gamblers and which is ruled by mysterious beings called the Oddsmakers.

It is in this strange underbelly of the occult that Anne Moody runs a cursed pawn shop for the desperate, the curious, and the magickally inclined. Though the job is boring, it keeps her under the radar. None of her customers have any inkling that she is a dragon sorceress with a power that’s been feared throughout history. One day, a visitor to her shop pawns a stone statue that is more than it appears. The statue is a gargoyle named Vale, who is shrouded in mystery and secrets. When she learns that Vale is possessed, and that the person responsible for cursing him plans to take over Las Vegas with a horde of demons from Hell, Anne realizes it is up to her to defy the Oddsmakers and save the city, and possibly the world.

Review:
Eh, amusing enough but not overly impressive, nothing we haven’t all seen before. But I still enjoyed the couple hours it took to read it and I’d read the next one. I liked that Anne unequivocally saved the day and that the characters were racially and culturally diverse. The ending felt a bit abrupt and the world wasn’t very developed. All in all, a nice fluffy book to pass the time with, as long as you’re not looking for something particularly original.

I picked up a copy of Tricia Owens’ The Sorcerer’s Betrayal from Amazon, when it was free.

Description from Goodreads:
When the mercenary Caledon meets a young man named Hadrian he falls instantly, hopeless in love with him. But Hadrian is a mystery: shy and secretive, hailing from an island supposedly inhabited by sorcerers; he has come to Caledon’s city to recruit the mercenaries for a well-paying job offered by Hadrian’s father… but it is a lie. Hadrian is far more dangerous than his gentle disposition would suggest, and what he wants with Caledon and the mercenaries of Rhiad will change the land of Juxtan forever and set in motion a prophecy that will bind two men together in love and hatred until death.

A note on why I read it now:
When I downloaded the book it had a different cover. I was reordering my To-Read shelf recently and noticed this new one. It gave me pause because last year I conducted what I called the Annoying Close Up Guy Challenge, in which I read four books with this same stock photo on the front. Mostly because it annoyed me to keep scrolling past it; thus the challenge title.

So, I was surprised to come across yet another one. (Actually, I came across three; this and A Vampire’s Rise, by Vanessa Fewings, and The Shadows Birth, by Ryan T. Delson.)

It’s like this must be the only stock photo of a mysterious man available on the internet ,or something. And how do they all seem to find themselves on the my To-Read shelf? In the end, I thought I’d do an Annoying Close Up Guy Part 2 challenge.

Edit: You guys, I just found another one, The Phoenix Prince by Kristen Gupton!

Review:
This is essentially two books, neither of them good. The first half is insta-love and lots and lots of cheesy, naive, instructional virgin sex. There is no character development or plot progression. Just two people meet, are instantly attracted, rut like animals and declare their ever-lasting love for one another (based on what, who knows).

The second half is almost unreadable for all the flashbacks. It does provide you some background information though. Unfortunately, it’s so full of plot holes it’s painful to read. I’ve read self-fulfilling prophecies before, but never one where someone seemed to so obviously be setting one up.

The writing is often fine, but it’s poorly edited and there are frequently no transition between scenes, such that two people are having sex in forest and then in the next sentence they are in a bed (on another occasion apparently) and then suddenly one is on a horse. To top it all off, one of the main characters doesn’t follow into the second half, he just disappears, and the book doesn’t conclude.