Tag Archives: urban fantasy

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Book Review: Darkness Unknown, by Selina A. Fenech

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I purchased a copy of Selina A. Fenech‘s Darkness Unknown. In fact, I tried to see if the author offers signed copies on her website, because I wanted a copy of that cover to keep. Unfortunately I found no evidence that she does. Bummer.
beshadowed Darkness Unknown cover

You have been lied to.

Werewolves, vampires, ghosts … they aren’t what you think.

After the death of her mother, Everly Boderleth has to go back to her spooky hometown, Shroudhaven, and she has a plan to get in and out as quick as possible.

Step one, clear out the family home and antique store.

Step two, watch her childhood sweetheart die violently at the hands of an indescribable, horrific creature.

Wait, what?

That wasn’t part of the plan. But it was just a dream, wasn’t it?

As the evidence mounts that what she saw was real, a broken heart is the least of her problems.

Everly thinks she’s close to the truth, but nothing is as it seems.

What is really lurking in the dark?

my review

I purchased this book, after seeing it on Instagram, based on the cover alone. Let me tell you why. There is a full figured woman on the cover and nowhere in the description is it made an issue of—neither in the fetishistic Big Beautiful Woman way nor in any sort of apologist, lack of self-esteem way. I had high hopes that the image was simply the character’s body and there need be nothing else said about it.

And you know what? Darkness Unknown delivers on that front. Everly’s body just isn’t an issue in the book. Let me say that again. Her full figured body got to be on the cover and it’s not a plot device. It just is. She just is. I love that so much! I can not emphasize how rare this is.

The rest of the book is passable. I’d call it OK. I liked Everly, but she’s a little bland. I loved Harper, with her utter loyalty and non-plussed response to discovering the existence of the supernatural. But the love interest, Rylan, is completely characterless throughout the book and the plot barely gets started here before the book ends.

Having said that, I’d read more of the series. I’m not loving it yet, but I see opportunity for it to grow on me…maybe grow to deserve that pretty cover.

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Other Reviews:

I Wish I Owned a Bookstore – ARC Review: Darkness Unknown

 

 

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Book Review: The Darkest Vampire, by Juliana Haygert

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Juliana Haygert‘s The Darkest Vampire was featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight. And while I didn’t agree to review it for a tour, everyone who participated in any manner received a free ARC.
the darkest vampire cover

Supernaturals around Portland are turning up dead. I’m next … if the vampire I just made a powerful bond with doesn’t kill me first.

Magic is in a short supply for a half-witch like me, which makes things very difficult when I’m bound by a blood promise to avenge my parents.

With no leads left to follow, I make a bargain with a demon for help. Bad decision. The quest the demon sends me on binds me to a vampire named Killian, a half-mad, half-naked monster who hates my guts almost as much as he longs to drink my blood.

Killian swore to kill all witches on sight, but we agree to work together to solve the murders ravaging the city. He despises me, and I can’t stand him… but there’s an unexpected connection between us, something I can’t help but be curious about.

No, I can’t let anything distract me. Not even a hot and enraging vampire who presses all of my freaking buttons. I’m determined to find my parents’ killers, and stop the chaos taking over the supernatural world.

If only love didn’t get in the way.

my review

This was a big fat “Meh” for me. I think the author had an interesting idea, but the execution is just SO FLAT. The main characters basically run around reacting to things. The heroine has no agency of her own. (She’s certainly not all bad-ass, like the woman on the cover.) The ‘romance’ barely fizzles. The villains, who have flat out murdered all the other victims, mysteriously choose to tie the heroine and her friends up and talk to them first. And that talk is the cliched mu-wha-ha-ha villain monologue where they tell their whole dastardly plan with basically no prompting. Then, they are vanquished far too easily.

I read an ARC. So, I won’t comment on editing. The mechanically writing seems fine though. It’s just the flatness of everything that lets the book down.

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Other Reviews:

Nicki J. Markus: Book Review Darkest Vampire

 

 

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Book Review: Chase the Dark & Bind the Soul, by Annette Marie

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I borrowed audio copies of Chase the Dark and Bind the Soul (written by Annette Marie and narrated by Jorjeana Marie) through hoopla. I’m not feeling super wordy today. But here are brief reviews…let’s call them mini reviews.

chase the dark audio coverThe Book:

Piper Griffiths wants one thing in life: To become a Consul, a keeper of the peace between humans and daemons. There are three obstacles in her way.

The first is Lyre. Incubus. Hotter than hell and with a wicked streak to match. His greatest mission in life is to annoy the crap out of her, but he isn’t as harmless as he seems. The second is Ash. Draconian. Powerful. Dangerous. He knows too much and reveals nothing. Also, disturbingly attractive — and scary. Did she mention scary?

The third is the Sahar Stone. Top secret magical weapon of mass destruction. Previously hidden in her Consulate until thieves broke in, went on a murder spree, and disappeared with the weapon.

And they left Piper to take the fall for their crimes.

Now she’s on the run, her dreams of becoming a Consul shattered and every daemon in the city gunning to kill her. She’s dead on her own, but there’s no one she can trust — no one except two entirely untrustworthy daemons … See problems one and two.

chase the dark photoMy Review:

I enjoyed this. I liked the characters a lot and there is some real humor in an otherwise grim story-line. It maybe wasn’t as good as some of Marie’s newer works, —it has a pretty big info-dump/lag in the middle, for example—but still good.  It does feel a little more YA than NA though, just an FYI.  The narrator was also inconsistent—sometimes doing a really good job and other times speaking as if through a blocked nose and swallowing a lot. But I enjoyed more than I didn’t and I look forward to book two.

bind the soul audio cover

The Book:

The most important rule for an Apprentice Consul is simple: Don’t get involved with daemons. Well, Piper is planning to break that rule — big time.

After a near-deadly scandal with the Sahar Stone, she has the chance to return to the only life she’s ever wanted. All she has to do to keep her Apprenticeship is forget about Ash and Lyre. Ash might be enigmatic and notoriously lethal, and Lyre might be as sinfully irresistible as he is irritating, but they’re not bad for a couple of daemons.

There’s just one problem: Ash is missing.

Really, she shouldn’t risk her future for him. He lied. He betrayed her. But he also saved her life, damn it. Wherever he is, he’s in trouble, and if she doesn’t save his sorry butt, who will? But with every dangerous secret she unravels, each one darker than the last, she slips deeper into Ash’s world — a world with no escape for either of them.

bind the soul photoMy Review:

I struggled with the first half of this book. Piper was just SO WHINY. And while I realize she’s a teen thrown into huge events that are understandably beyond her, it was no fun to read (or listen to, as the case ma be). However, she seemed to firm up in the second half and I felt like she experienced a lot of personal growth. The romance is very slow, which I appreciate and I’m still liking the characters a lot. I plan to finish the series, but I think I’ll give myself a little break first.