Tag Archives: urban fantasy

Book Review: The Rowan, by Stella Brie

I picked up a copy of Stella Brie‘s The Rowan as an Amazon freebie.

For over three hundred years, Arden’s very existence has been hidden. Until one night, when the latest assassination attempt fails and the third Killian blade makes its appearance.

A powerful witch with little knowledge of her heritage, Arden’s first step on the path of destiny is The Abbey. A place of sanctuary and power, it’s a haven in a sea of unknowns and where she hopes to find an ally.

An Elven prince, a Fae lord, the First Vampire, a warlock, and the King of Dragons make up the Imperium Cadre, one of the most powerful cadres in existence. Owning and managing The Abbey for over a thousand years, they’re not known for taking in strays. But Lord Theron’s life debt paves Arden’s entry into the formidable sphere of their protection.

As the sweeping winds of change blow, Arden and the cadre will navigate the path of destiny together. Secrets are revealed, heritage found, and alliances forged and lost.

Honestly, this might have been a personal preference sort of thing, but I was just so incredibly bored throughout this entire book. She shows up at The Abbey, and all the men instantly fall for her. So, there’s no sense of tension or getting to know each other (let alone time for the reader to get to know anyone or come to care for the potential relationships). She arrives super strong and competent/confident. So, there is no sense of room for personal growth in her character. But still the reader has to sit through all the ‘training’ and ‘testing.’ *Yawn*

There is very little worldbuilding. In fact, I started to suspect this might be a spin-off of something else. (That would mean the worldbuilding was in a previous book or series and would account for the pre-existing relationships that feel important in some of the side characters.) The villains are cliched. Actually, the treatment of ALL OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS is cliched. The whole thing reads like an upper YA/lower NA book, despite the character theoretically being 328 years old. For those that care, there is no on-page sex, and the book ends on a cliffhanger. I don’t think I’ll bother with the next book.

Other Reviews:

Book Review – The Rowan (The Killian Blade 1) by Stella Brie

Book Review: Flirting With Monsters series, by Eva Chase

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I picked up a copy of Eva Chase‘s Shadow Thief as an Amazon freebie. Then, I purchased the compilation of the whole series (Shadow Thief, Twilight Crook, Dusk Avenger, and Dark Champion).

On a side note: I’ve just spent two and a bit days with no power (so, no internet). This means that it has been a few days since I finished these books, so they’re no longer fresh in my mind. Apologies if the review is a little sparse as a result.

When a sassy thief sets three demons free during a heist, she doesn’t count on them following her home—or insisting on repaying her with their protection. This gal isn’t looking for an entourage, even if it’s made up of sexy supernatural hunks. But when it turns out the monstrous men have a lead on the creeps who murdered her family, she’s all in.

Track down the baddies, hook up with a demonic hottie or two, and don’t get killed along the way. Piece of cake, right?

Since I read this whole series as a single entity, I’ll review it similarly. I thought that this series started out well. The writing is easy to read, and the plot whizzed alone. I enjoyed the sass and the easy devotion of the romantic partners. However, as time went on, some cliches crept in, characters started getting introduced and then dropped without explanation, and some sections started to drag. Honestly, I think the whole thing jumped the shark by an entire book.

I enjoyed book one, liked book two well enough, started to lose interest in book three, and only bothered to read book four in order to finish the series. None of it is bad. I just think Chase should have wrapped it up sooner than she did. (Plus, the epilogue was pat and predictable.)

Other Reviews:

Traveling Bookworm: Flirting with Monsters, by Eva Chase

Book Review: Dark Magic, by Raluca Narita

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Raluca Narita‘s Dark Magic was over on Sadie’s Spotlight, and I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the book as part of the promotion packet.

The Goddess of Death, the Grimm Brothers, and the Devil collide in a thrilling new paranormal fantasy series.

Primrose Titan is the Goddess of Death, an ancient deity who reaps the souls of the dead and rules the Underworld. All life ends with death, and in death, there is no happiness. Primrose knows this better than anyone, and her heavy responsibility has twisted her reality, purging her of all feelings for humans—or so she believes.

When the Demon King Lucifer escapes his prison in Hell and threatens chaos on the human world, Primrose must hunt him down. The High Court, a council of deities, is skeptical Primrose can handle Lucifer on her own and appoints the handsome yet icy Atlas Grimm, one of the fabled Grimm Brothers, to assist her. Strange, dark magic and supernatural creatures sent from the Devil himself stand in their way, along with political enemies acquired over the millennia.

Honestly, I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did. I think it has crackin’ world, magic, and plot ideas, but the actual plotting needs to be tightened up a lot. The book started off strong and ended with me wanting to know what happened next. But I was so bored in the middle that I considered DNFing and, though I wanted to know what happens, the twist at the end I saw coming. (I even have a pretty solid guess about who the mystery masked villain is. I’m pretty confident I’ll turn out to be right.) The combination of having muscled through the middle on little more than determination and then hitting a predictable, cliffhanger ending was a pretty weak ending, in my opinion.

I did like Rose, though some of her characterizations made no sense to me. The whole insistence on stilettos felt both out of place and out of character (and cliched). The fact that she is one of the oldest goddesses alive but reads like a stroppy, ill-informed teenager felt like infantilization. Her abilities felt inconsistent (unbeatable at some times and easily overcome at others), and there is just a general sense of the deities (all of them) who hold such contempt for humans being too HUMAN.

Add to all of that a fuzzy sense of time and history, two male leads—neither of which the reader gets to know well enough to be more than cardboard cut-outs—and some truly odd phrasing in the writing (that is otherwise pretty clean) and you have a bit of a fizzle read. However, I believe this is the author’s first book, and there is a solid base to improve on. She has obvious talent.

I always hate to say this, but if this book had been given to a ruthless developmental editor (not a copy editor, but one to work with Narita on tightening the plot and cutting out some of the chaff and cliched aspects), this could have been so much better than it is. I think that’s what bothers me. This is so close to being so good and does itself a disservice by not quite getting there (at least in my opinion). All in all, I’ll say it was OK, not bad, but it doesn’t live up to its awesome cover.