Tag Archives: vampire

Steal the Light

Book Review of Steal the Light, by Lexi Blake

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Steal the LightI downloaded a copy of Lexi Blake‘s Steal the Light from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
When dealing with demons, the devil’s in the details…

Stealing mystical and arcane artifacts is a dangerous business, especially for a human, but Zoey Wharton is an exceptional thief. The trick to staying alive is having friends in all the wrong places. While having a witch and a werewolf on the payroll helps, being partners with a vampire really opens doors.

Zoey and Daniel were childhood sweethearts until a violent car crash took his life and left her shattered. When Daniel returned from the grave as a vampire, his only interest in Zoey was in keeping her safely apart from the secrets of his dark world. He has vowed to protect her, but his heart seems as cold as the night he calls home.

Five years later, a mysterious new client named Lucas Halfer offers Zoey a fortune to steal the Light of Alhorra. The search for the Light leads Zoey into the arms of an earthbound faery prince. Devinshea Quinn sweeps her off her feet, showing her everything the supernatural world has to offer, but Daniel still calls to her heart.

As the true nature of the Light is revealed, Zoey discovers Halfer is a demon and much more than money is at stake. Per her contract, she must give him the Light or spend an eternity in Hell. What’s a girl to do except fight for her soul…and her heart.

Review:
There were certain aspects of this book that blew my socks off. The most important one (to me at least) was the very real sense of longing between Zoey and Daniel. This is highlighted even more by the fact that the author states in her forward that these books (the series, I suppose) were the ones she wrote while waiting for someone to return to her. Thinking the emotions I felt in the book might be an echo of her very real ones was almost excruciatingly beautiful.

I also really liked the characters. Zoey was strong and sarcastic, without ever becoming suicidally mouthy. Daniel was the silent type, but he had a surprising vulnerability to him. There were also saucy side kicks, sexy bits on the side and even a beautiful bouncing baby.

I did find the book quite repetitive. We are told the same things over and over again. I really can’t abide by love triangles (and honestly, it’s the triangle that makes me consider not continuing the series) and I don’t AT ALL understand Zoey’s decision at the end of the book (I was a bit infuriated by it.), especially since she knows Daniel is coming back.

I also found the tone of the sex scenes inconsistent with the rest of the book. By this I mean that while the whole book is soft, hazy, true love the sex is of the raunchy, gritty, fuck-you-into-the-mattress kind. Now, I like that kind just fine, but it didn’t at all fit the rest of the book or the characters outside of the bedroom.

All-in-all, I found it a well written, funny fantasy romp.

Shrouds of Darkness

Book Review of Shrouds of Darkness, by Brock E. Deskins

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Shrouds of DarknessI downloaded a copy of Brock E. Deskins‘ book, Shrouds of Darkness sometime last year, when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
Leo Malone is a vampire for hire to do just about whatever you need done. Leo is hired by a young woman and her brother to find her father, a werewolf and mob accountant, who has gone missing and is suspected to be responsible for several killings around Brooklyn. Leo soon finds there is far more going on than a”simple” werewolf run amok problem. Leo’s no nonsense, bullet diplomacy approach to problem solving has him leaving no stone unturned and no toes un-stepped on as he tries to unravel a conspiracy that threatens to topple the enclave and reveal the existence of vampires.

If you like vampires with overly emotional teenaged angst, Leo is not your guy. If you like a wise-cracking, sword swinging, bullet spewing, hard-charging vampire, you don’t want to miss out.

Review:
Another reviewer said it took him a couple chapters for this book to draw him in. That reviewer was being kind. The beginning of this book is…off putting. (Now I’m being kind.) It starts with a first chapter that would be better termed a prologue. We then meet the main character for about a page before the book leaps into a lengthy flashback. He then starts reminiscing about a friend. We see him for another page or so before a large info-dump.

I’m not even exaggerating. It’s a good 15% into the book before we actually really ‘meet’ Leo. And given we hadn’t met him yet, all that information about his past, his friend, the vampire dynamics was nothing more than detritus. I simply couldn’t care yet. Even worse, it’s all told in a stiff, almost formal first person account. Off putting.

If it hadn’t been for the previous reviews stating it gets better, I would have given up and tossed it on the DNF pile. But I didn’t. I stuck with it and it does get better.

Leo is a bit of an anti-hero. He is not a nice man. In fact, he’s pretty much an asshole. But I would deem this ‘men’s fiction,’ in other words written for a male audience, and men do always seem to idolise violent jerkwads. So, that kind of makes sense. And you can appreciate the politically incorrect, socially disinterested, devil may care attitude he sports.

A lot of it is over the top. He’s sarcastic and/or unnecessarily abrasive even when he would be better served otherwise or well after he’s gotten what he wants and further retaliation is not only pointless, but cruel. However, a lot of it is also quite funny. The man is completely neurotic on top of sarcastic, so there are a lot of opportunities for quips and quick wit. It’s this humour that carried me through the book. But it’s pretty borderline too much.

I don’t mind violence or gore, but I got tired of the endless fight scenes and weapons descriptions. I also cringed away from the first person narrative. I’m not a big fan of the style, especially when it’s a first person, present tense narrative. (I always get distracted wondering why the character is narrating their current life.) But it’s especially hard when dealing with a hard-boiled, apex predator type character. It just feels wrong to read things like, ‘My powerful legs flexed.’ Or to hear a character tell the reader how much stronger, faster, scarier, etc he is than anyone else. It just plain feels like bragging and who likes spending time with a braggart?

Plus, it’s never really addressed how he became so badass, as if he’s bad because he’s a vampire. Problem is, so are a lot of other characters. This makes it feels little hollow. I want to know what his reputation is based on, not just that he says that he has it.

The first quart of this book is difficult to get through, but once you do the story is pretty good. The mystery isn’t hard to figure out, if only by virtue of identifying the single person the character pays too little attention to, but it’s engaging enough. There’s a painful example of sex-equals-love, at least on the woman’s part, but she’s a fun character. There are a lot of chuckle worthy moments and plenty of fight scenes. I noticed a couple editing issues, but not enough to make an issue of. This is one of those books where ‘if you like the sort of thing’ you should pick it up, but it probably won’t work for those on the fringes.

The Wolf Within

Book Review of The Wolf Within (Purgatory #1), by Cynthia Eden

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The wolf withinI downloaded a copy of Cynthia Eden‘s The Wolf Within from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
FBI Special Agent Duncan McGuire spends his days–and his nights–tracking real-life monsters. Most humans aren’t aware of the vampires and werewolves that walk among them. They don’t realize the danger that they face, but Duncan knows about the horror that waits in the darkness. He hunts the monsters, and he protects the innocent. Duncan just never expects to become a monster. But after a brutal werewolf attack, Duncan begins to change…and soon he will be one of the very beasts that he has hunted.

Dr. Holly Young is supposed to help Duncan during his transition. It’s her job to keep him sane so that Duncan can continue working with the FBI’s Para Unit. But as Duncan’s beast grows stronger, the passion that she and Duncan have held carefully in check pushes to the surface. The desire that is raging between them could be a very dangerous thing…because Holly isn’t exactly human, not any longer.

As the monsters circle in, determined to take out all of the agents working at the Para Unit, Holly and Duncan will have to use their own supernatural strengths in order to survive. But as they give up more of their humanity and embrace the beasts within them both, they realize that the passion between them isn’t safe, it isn’t controllable, and their dark need may just be an obsession that could destroy them both.

 Review:
This is one of those books I refer to as ‘meh reads,’ because that’s my response to them. Meh. Nothing really horrible about them, but nothing particularly good either. I’d say this was designed simply to appeal that lizard, hind-brain we all seem to have. It’s all growly, über alpha precariously contains his inner beast for the benefit of the simpering female who’s caught his eye. Meh. Seen it all before.

I’ll give Holley points for having the moxie to say what she wants. But she also seemed perfectly content to let her brother control every aspect of her life. Meh. Not a total wet noodle, but not a wonderfully strong heroine either.

The plot had a few twists to it, but they didn’t work well for me. They felt abrupt and more like new plot arcs than twists. Meaning, it felt like, ‘ok, finished that bit up, now we’re going to race off in this direction now.’ Not boring but not natural.

Plus, many of these new arc directions were predicated on shifting character traits. The previous super evil, murdering bastard was suddenly the wounded victim. The good brother was suddenly the manipulative director, wait, no, he’s the real hero, wait, no, he’s obsessively possessive. Again, not boring but not natural either.

Every obstacle set up was overcome almost instantly, even the final climactic one. There was very little build-up or time for tension to heighten before solutions were found or bad guys defeated, etc. Meh.

The same middle of the road, shoulder-shrugging indifference can be applied to the sex too. There was no foreplay to any of it. It’s claim to eroticism seems to have been based solely on Duncan’s intense, animalistic need. Meh. One such scene might have been nice, but when that’s all we get…Meh.

So, again, it wasn’t a wholly bad book. It was just clumsy and obviously designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It needed more character development, world-building and plain old substance.

As a side note: I think that cover model has to be one of the most over-used men in the indie publishing world. I’m so sick of seeing him!