Tag Archives: urban fantasy

Strange Magic

Book Review of Strange Magic (Yancy Lazarus #1), by James A. Hunter

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Strange MagicI downloaded a copy of James A. Hunter‘s Strange Magic from Amazon, when it was free.

Description from Goodreads:
Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there’s a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he’s been saran-wrapped to a banquet table. He never should have answered the phone. Stupid bleeding heart—helping others in his circles is a good way to get dead.

Just ask the gang members ripped to pieces by some kind of demonic nightmare in LA. As a favor to a friend, Yancy agrees to take a little looksee into the massacre and boom, he’s stuck in a turf war between two rival gangs, which both think he’s pinch-hitting for the other side. Oh, and there’s also a secretive ass-hat with some mean ol’ magical chops and a small army of hyena-faced, body- snatching baddies. It might be time to seriously reconsider some of his life choices.

Yancy is a bluesman, a rambler, a gambler, but not much more. Sure, he can do a little magic—maybe even more than just a little magic—but he knows enough to keep his head down and stay clear of freaky-deaky hoodoo like this business in LA. Somehow though, he’s been set up to take a real bad fall—the kind of very permanent fall that leaves a guy with a toe tag. Unless, of course, he can find out who is responsible for the gangland murders, make peace in the midst of the gang feud, and take out said magical ass-hat before he hexes Yancy into an early retirement. Easy right? Stupid. Bleeding. Heart.

Review:
I thought this was a pretty good urban fantasy. Yancy had an amusing personality and I appreciated that he was supposed to be 65 (though he looked and acted much younger, which compromised the mature adult hero a bit). The baddie had a bit more depth than many such books and the whole thing wrapped up nicely.

I did however think that Yancy and Greg’s constant banter felt forced and disruptive, annoying even. I felt like I was missing some history, the when, how and why of getting his mage powers, for example, not to mention who trained him. The writing also tended toward repetition at times.

Book Review of Captive (Beautiful Monsters, #1), by Jex Lane

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CaptiveI received a free ARC of Captive, by Jex Lane, in exchange for an honest review.

Description from Goodreads:
Matthew Callahan has spent seven years struggling against the insatiable hunger for blood consuming him. Unable to stop the vampire inside from preying on humans, he keeps himself confined to a lonely existence.

Everything changes the night he is lured into a trap and taken prisoner by High Lord General Tarrick—a seductive incubus who feeds off sexual energy. Forced into the middle of a war between vampires and incubi, Matthew is used as a weapon against his own kind. Although he’s desperate for freedom, he is unable to deny the burning desire drawing him to the incubus general he now calls Master.

Review:
Man, I hate being the first person to give a book a poor review, but I just can’t agree with the majority here. I did not enjoy this book. The writing and editing are fine, but I had some major problems. The first of which was a preference thing. I’m not into the master/slave thing. It’s not my kink. Watching a man be broken and then come to love his enslavement is just not something I enjoy. I personally find it abhorrent. Not morally or anything, I wouldn’t bring that into a review. But I don’t find anything about it sexy. I consider it torture porn and, again, not my kink. I wouldn’t have picked the book up at all if I’d really believed this was the plot.

But outside of just not liking the type of book this turned out to be, I also basically thought this was 200+ pages of Matthew being too perfect and that just got old really, really fast. He started out clueless and I liked him as a character. But as soon as he got a little information he excelled at everything. He was faster, stronger, smarter, sexier, wittier, etc than everyone else. And not just a little bit better, but four times stronger than any other vampire. Plus, he had additional skills that I won’t mention so as not to include a spoiler, but he shouldn’t be impossible. He could charge into a room head-on, outnumbered and over-powered and win every time. Well, knowing that it’s hard to feel any real tension in any of the numerous fight sequences.

I did not feel the supposed affection between him and Tarrick (even when keeping a mind open for lies of protection). Please, don’t mistake this for a romance just because there is sex in it. You will be disappointed. I did appreciate that Matthew and other characters had both M/M and M/F sex, but I was shocked to find incubi and succubi with such HUMAN sentiments toward sex and relationships.

Humans were shockingly disposable. The narrative frequently fell into long tell heavy passages, as time passed. Matthew accepted his situation with shocking ease. The answer to the ‘what am I’ mystery was painfully obvious. The book felt overly long and, worst of all, never really accomplished anything significant before concluding with an open ending.

All in all, while it might be a matter of matching a book to a reader, I was disappointed with Captive. I could see what the author was trying to create with it, but I don’t feel it ever really accomplished it.

Book Review of Charming (Pax Arcana #1), by Elliott James

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CharmingI borrowed Charming, By Elliott James, from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
John Charming isn’t your average Prince… 

He comes from a line of Charmings — an illustrious family of dragon slayers, witch-finders and killers dating back to before the fall of Rome. Trained by a modern day version of the Knights Templar, monster hunters who have updated their methods from chainmail and crossbows to kevlar and shotguns, he was one of the best. That is — until he became the abomination the Knights were sworn to hunt.

That was a lifetime ago. Now, he tends bar under an assumed name in rural Virginia and leads a peaceful, quiet life. One that shouldn’t change just because a vampire and a blonde walked into his bar… Right?

Review:
Not bad, it was amusing. John had lots of witty comments that made me laugh. I was really impressed with how well thought out the magic system was and I liked the characters (especially the side characters). So, I’m not sad to have spent the time to read the book. But I also had problems with it.

My main one [this may be a spoiler, but it’s so predicable I don’t consider it so] is that with all the available enemies—new vampire queens, three different knight-like orders, werewolves, nagas, etc—and all the threats they could pose, the primary challenge here basically came down to who owns the right to a particular woman’s sex.

I use the word cliché in my reviews a lot. It’s one of my strongest insults to hurl at a book. And come on, a man willing to kill rather than loose “his woman” is just about as over-used and clichéd as they get. I love that Sig was a large framed, strong woman, still considered beautiful and didn’t wallow in her own body image issues. But she was still made weak in regard to relationships and good ol’ toxic patriarchy was wheeled out with thoughtless ease by the author. *sigh* And it doesn’t even look to be over, since I smell the whiff of a love triangle in future books. So we can keep arguing over who gets have access to Sig.

On a slightly similar note, i.e. dismissing women, John’s motley crew that this series is based on…yeah, it’s SIG’S crew. But you know, a man came on the scene so we need to shift our focus, right?

Anyhow, outside of those complaints I liked the book. I didn’t really feel the threat of the vampires or the knights hunting John. They were all just kind of in the background, never really creating any significant threat. John would occasionally attack them and have a pretty good fight scene, but then he could safely go home and the tension would drain away. But John had a fun narrative style, wasn’t and alpha A-hole. The side characters were fun and Sig was a woman I appreciated.