Tag Archives: urban fantasy

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Book Review: Serpent’s Touch, by Marina Simcoe

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I picked up a copy of Marina Simcoe’s Serpent’s Touch as an Amazon freebie.

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Mysterious and tragic, Madame Tan’s menagerie is the only home I’ve ever known. It’s a place where two worlds merge, a twilight zone between Earth and the magical Kingdom of Nerifir.
The menagerie is filled with fantastic animals, but I discover that Madame captures and displays sentient beings too.

One of them is locked in a crate day and night, not seen by anyone, and one day I learn why— looking at him kills. Even talking to Kyllen is forbidden, but I break that rule.
I break many rules for him.

He wants his freedom and offers me a chance to escape Madame’s cruelties. Little do I realize that with Kyllen, my heart is in even greater danger than my life.
Can I love a man whom I can’t even see?

my review

For a book with a really dynamic cover, it sure did have an incredibly bland…dare I say BORING story in it! Plus, despite being titled Serpent’s TOUCH (with a sexy man on the front), there is almost no touching in it. It is, in fact, almost a platonic young adult book. It started out well enough, but lost steam before the halfway point. The MMC always felt a little too slick to be trustworthy, and the FMC (despite one desperate act of rebellion) is basically a doormat who literally allows herself to be rendered blind and helpless. This was a no for me and I don’t intend to continue the series.

Other Reviews:

Serpent’s Touch by Marina Simcoe

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Book Review: Splintered Loyalty, by W.R. Gingell

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I contributed to the Kickstarter for W.R. Gingell‘s Splintered Loyalty and therefore received an early-release e-copy of the book. I’ve reviewed the previous books here: Splintered Mind, Splintered Life, Splintered Sight, and Splintered Path.

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Luca is back. Jasper is shady. The Tea House has returned to its regularly scheduled programming.

But nothing is quite normal for Viv, who knows that someone in the Tea House hacked her phone and stole valuable information about her mother before she had a chance to look at it. Tech Support can help with that—but only so much.

And before Viv has a chance to get to the safe deposit box belonging to her parents that might or might not still be in an old, gothic Melbourne bank, she and the rest of the Tea House denizens are overrun by an invasion of Forex agents taking over the Tea House.

Viv knows she can’t trust Jasper completely. She trusts Luca completely, but knows she shouldn’t. She’ll need all her wits—and allies—about her to save the Tea House and uncover her own family secrets before it’s too late.

my review

I find reviewing books well into a series difficult. There comes a point where I just want to go, “I’ve made it to book five in this series. I clearly enjoy this world, these characters, and this story. And I’ve likely already explained why in at least one of the previous four reviews.” But it’s true. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by Gingell, and the Shattered World series is no exception. I like her writing style, authorial tone, wit, humor, and characters.

Viv and Luca are marvelous, and both are allowed to grow separately in this book. Though the reader sees more of Viv’s growth than Luca’s. I did miss seeing them work together, but I appreciate that Viv needed a chance to prove her abilities on her own. And she does, saving the day as only she can.

I did feel the writing here was a tad more rushed in some indefinable, perhaps imagined, way. But I still finished the book wishing the next one was already in hand. I’ll be waiting impatiently.

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Book Review: Tall, Dark & Dead – by Tate Hallaway

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I picked up a used copy of Tate Hallaway’s Tall, Dark & Dead at Savers some time back.

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The line between magic and sanity is very thin.
That’s part of why I, Garnet Lacey, quit cold turkey.
Never touch the stuff. No exceptions.
But magic is so addictive…and my inner Goddess Lilith is hard to resist. Besides, restraint isn’t easy when you manage Wisconsin’s premiere occult bookstore, and get customers like Sebastian Von Traum—piercing brown eyes, a sexy accent, and a killer body in denim and black leather. The only thing missing is an aura. Which means he’s dead… And that means trouble. I guess I’m a sucker for it. The Vatican witch hunters are on to us. My long-lost vampire ex has crawled out of the woodwork looking for action. And Sebastian’s frustrated ex is stirring in her grave. So what’s a girl to do if she’s hot for a dead man walking? Run like hell—and take full advantage of the nights…

my review

I was mostly just confused by this book. I think it was aiming for paranormal romance, but I finished it not at all convinced of the romance. I wasn’t even sure it was a happy-for-now, beyond ‘yay, we survived together.’ But it didn’t feel like urban fantasy or even magical realism, either. In the end, I came to the last page with a bewildered shrug. That’s a thing I’ve read now.

I liked Garnet well enough. But no one else particularly stood out to me, not even the theoretical male romantic lead(s). I appreciate that Hallaway eschewed some of the genre’s usual tropes, whichever genre she was aiming for. (Or maybe, being that the book is a bit older, when it was written, the genre tropes were not yet as cemented as they are now.) But I also think that doing it less than successfully is part of my confusion about how to feel about the book.

All in all, I don’t think I’ll continue the series.

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Other Reviews:

Book Review: Tall, Dark and Dead, by Tate Hallaway