Tag Archives: urban fantasy

Book Review of The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1), by Deborah Wilde

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I downloaded a copy of Deborah Wilde‘s The Unlikeable Deomn Hunter from Instafreebies.

Description from Goodreads:
The age-old story of what happens when a foul-mouthed, romance impaired heroine with no edit button and a predilection for hot sex is faced with her worst nightmare–a purpose.

Ari Katz is intelligent, driven, and will make an excellent demon hunter once initiated into the Brotherhood of David. However, this book is about his twin Nava: a smart-ass, self-cultivated hot mess, who is thrilled her brother is stuck with all the chosen one crap.

When Nava half-drunkenly interrupts Ari’s induction ceremony, she expects to be chastised. What she doesn’t expect is to take her brother’s place among the–until now–all-male demon hunters. Even worse? Her infuriating leader is former rock star Rohan Mitra.

Too bad Rohan’s exactly what Nava’s always wanted: the perfect bad boy fling with no strings attached, because he may also be the one to bring down her carefully erected emotional shields. That’s as dangerous as all the evil fiends vying for the bragging rights of killing the only female ever chosen for Demon Club.

Odds of survival: eh.

Odds of having a very good time with Rohan before she bites it: much better.

Review:
You guys, this book has a 20yo, sexually liberated, Canadian, Jewish demon hunter with a gay brother (and neighbor couple), bi best friends and fellow hunters that are racially diverse. I should have loved it. I really, really should have. But I did not.

I’ll start with the sexually liberated bit, because it’s important. I loved that Nava is 20 years old and shamelessly slutty. She likes sex and has a lot of it, mostly in the form of one night stands. And I’m cool with that. I like it even. Why shouldn’t girls have as much sex as men, with as few repercussions? I’m even ok with her taking her happy-screwup-slut and draping it around herself as part of her personality. Hell, I’m thrilled to get something other than a ‘good girl’ Mary Sue for a change. What I am not ok with is the fact that this appeared to be the only personality she has. I love a witty innuendo as much as the next person. I like seeing women claim their sexuality. I was even moderately ok with her sharky attitude. But by about a quarter into this book I was tired of Nava and her one track mind. Even a good thing is horrible when you’re beat over the head with it. Nava and the book never let up on the sexs—think of sex, crave sex, pursue sex, have sexs—long enough to let the rest of the plot develop.

Plus, she was supposed to have some sexual hangups (like not kissing her partner), intended to keep it firmly in lust not love territory. But the reason for this was never explored. It served no apparent purpose in the plot.

As for the rest of the plot, what little there is under the flood of sex, sex, sex, it is thin to say the least. I found that it jumped around, with challenges popping up willy-nilly and being defeated just as randomly.

All in all, it wasn’t horrible. I was just hoping for something better.

Pound of Flesh

Book Review of Pound of Flesh (Half Demon Warlock #1), by J. A. Cipriano & Conner Kressley

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I received an Audible copy of Pound of Flesh, by J. A. Cipriano and Conner Kressley, from the one of the authors.

Description from Goodreads:
My name is Roy Morgan, and I’m not your average Atlanta cop. For one, most of them don’t have to kill people to stay alive. I do. It’s a half-demon thing. Yep, that’s right, half-demon. It’s awesome, especially since I’m half-warlock too, and those two sides don’t much get along.

Still, that and a buck will get you a candy bar. So it’s all good.

Or at least it was.

See, I had this dumb idea to stop a robbery in progress and have myself a snack. Turns out these weren’t your run of the mill robbers. No, these were demonic slavers, there to capture the district attorney and sell her off to the highest bidding demon in Hell.

Now if I want to stop them, I’m going to have to fight my way through a city full of hellfire-flinging, gun-toting, spell-weaving demons.

My name is Roy Morgan, and I think I’ll have seconds.

Review:
This is fairly standard male urban fantasy. There’s a first person, self-deprecating hero who likes to make snarky comments and act like an anti-hero, a damsel in distress that he falls in love with, a female BFF who is characterless beyond being vapid and slutty (and condemned for it), a cute sidekick and prevailing against all odds. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t call it anything special. It is funny and the writing flows quite well. I also liked the narration of the audible version, done by James Foster. I’d read more in the series, even if I’m not racing out to get the next one.

Shadow Sight

Book Review of Shadow Sight (Ivy Granger #1), by E. J. Stevens

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I downloaded a copy of Shadow Sight, by E. J. Stevens, from Instafreebie.

Description from Goodreads:
Welcome to Harborsmouth, where monsters walk the streets unseen by humans…except those with second sight, like Ivy Granger.

Some things are best left unseen…

Ivy Granger’s second sight is finally giving her life purpose. Ivy and her best friend Jinx may not be raking in the dough, but their psychic detective agency pays the bills—most of the time. Their only worry is the boredom of a slow day and the occasional crazy client—until a demon walks through their door.

Demons are never a good sign…

A demon attorney representing the water fae? Stranger things have happened. And things are about to get very, very strange as a bloodthirsty nightmare hunts the city of Harborsmouth.

There’s blood in the water…

Kelpies have a reputation for eating humans. Unfortunately, Kelpies are the clients. When an Unseelie faerie this evil stalks the waterways of your city, you have to make hard choices.

The lesser of two evils…

Review:
Gotta say, it wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t impressed. Here’s the thing, if you read an Urban Fantasy, you expect the main character to be central to the action. Ivy was not. She was hired to do a job and then went around and recruited the people who performed the action. She herself did nothing. In fact, it didn’t even make sense that it was here that was hired, instead of, say, the hunters or any magical creature more able to repel an attack.

The enemy is a shadow throughout the whole book. She’s told about them and then just sort of goes about life. At around 75%, they finally show up, but they’re still not fleshed out. It’s a faceless army. There’s no actual individual enemy. And they’re defeated with ease.

Then at about 90% in the author throws a romance at the reader. It seriously comes out of nowhere and is based on nothing. And the romantic partner somehow knows all about Ivy when no one else did, least of all her. (This is all just tacked on at the end and not even incorporated into the story.)

The book is just basically Ivy marching around explaining things and it was painfully unexciting. The writing is fine, if on the silly side, but the book just barely held my interest. Well, the writing was fine once you managed to wade through all the info-dumps. Omg, they were endless.

Lastly, as an aside, I have to address that cover. Look at that sexy broad in her sexy thigh-high boots, yeah? Here’s a quote from Ivy concerning herself and shoes (but really more her personality type): “Me? I have one pair of black Doc Martens boots and an old pair of trainers.” This is the sort of character she is. She also spends most of the book in a baseball cap and avoids all amorous or sexual contact. So…um…who the hell is that supposed to be on the cover? Because I know it’s not Ivy.