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A Hidden Fire

Book Review of Elizabeth Hunter’s A Hidden Fire (Elemental Mysteries #1)

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A Hidden FireI downloaded a copy of Elizabeth Hunter‘s A Hidden Fire from the Amazon KDP list. It’s still free BTW. 

Description from Goodreads:
“No secret stays hidden forever.”

A phone call from an old friend sets Dr. Giovanni Vecchio back on the path of a mystery he’d abandoned years before. He never expected a young librarian could hold the key to the search, nor could he have expected the danger she would attract. Now he and Beatrice De Novo will follow a twisted maze that leads from the archives of a university library, through the fires of Renaissance Florence, and toward a confrontation they never could have predicted.

A Hidden Fire is a paranormal mystery/romance for adult readers. It is the first book in the Elemental Mysteries Series.

Review:
For a free Amazon read, A Hidden Fire was surprisingly good. I can honestly say that the dialogue was some of the best I’ve read in a a while. B and Giovanni are quick witted and sarcastic. I really quite enjoyed their banter. I also really liked each of them as characters. Their molasses-slow romance, however, not so much. I got really, really tired of seeing them deny each other.

There were also times when the influence of other popular vampire books was a little too obvious. One particular scene really could have been cut and pasted from Twilight with little alteration beyond being in a library elevator instead of a forest. Nothing in this book is anywhere near as angsty as Twilight though. So big sigh of relief there.

I did think that it wrapped up far, far too easily. B’s computer wiz magic seemed just a little too convenient and I had a hard time accepting that she could pull it off so effortlessly and without any ill after effects. Kind of reminds the reader that main characters often have preternatural luck on top of everything else.

I’m happy to say that the book does conclude to a degree. (So many PNR these days don’t. They end on ridiculous cliffhangers that really just equate to incomplete stories.) A lot of threads are left open though. So anyone, like me, who prefers their stories in tight little packages instead of drug out across a whole series might be frustrated.

As an informative aside, the book is a really clean romance. There is no sex–a few kisses and quite a bit of longing, but no actual culmination. I felt a little cheated by this, but those who prefer to avoid the erotic should really enjoy this one.

Review of A.C. Warneke’s Awakening

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AwakeningI grabbed a copy of A.C. Warneke‘s Awakening from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
THE QUEEN HAS BEEN DEAD FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS

IN A MOMENT OF FIERCE PASSION…

Celeste Hamilton is having one last adventure before her real life begins: a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe with her best friend. On her last days in Paris she meets the mysterious Adamanteros Vespari and he makes her feel reckless. She comes alive beneath Adam’s touch, burning for his possession.

ADAM MAKES A FATAL MISTAKE…

Her craving for Adam threatens to consume her and Celeste knows she cannot stay or she’ll cease to exist. Slipping out of his arms in the middle of the night, she makes her escape before she loses herself in him completely. But the world she returns to is no longer familiar and her friends aren’t what they seem.

AND AWAKENS SOMETHING DEEP WITHIN CELESTE…

When Adam comes back into her life she finds that she was lost before she was even born and with his she is finally found.

LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

Review:
Awakening was a fun enough PNR read and a slightly off-centre take on the whole vampire lore. (The Apocritae aren’t actually supposed to be vampires, but close enough.) Warneke created an interesting dilemma, threw out a fairly massive red herring, and actually wrapped the book up before the end–something that seems to be becoming a rarity.

I quite liked a lot of the characters. I especially liked Auberon. I felt really wretched for him. I have no doubt the payoff will come in the next book, Reawakening, and I’m fairly confident that I know how that will happen. I just wish someone would drop the hint to him. Seeing him suffer so nobly was almost painful. Oddly, Adam and Celeste were probably my two least-liked characters in the book. They were far too wrapped up in one another for there to be much room left over for anything else. Their meeting was a stunning example of insta-love/lust and so there wasn’t really any need to get to know each other, so the reader didn’t really get to know either one either. On top of that, I’m not really a bit of a fan of literary hearts and flowers, so their and the narrator’s constant reminders of how in love they were started to tick me off. I got it and could have done without being reminded of it 15 thousand more times.

I do have to say I find it unlikely that Celeste would have really triumphed. I don’t want to post a spoiler, but suffice it to say that her opponent, the overall baddie, could have and really should have killed her at any time. Celeste, after all, was much weaker, untrained, and far too naive. But like so many super-villains, pride and the need to talk until the end drug the whole thing out far longer than was realistic.

Awakening is apparently a sequel to Blight, but I didn’t know that until after I had finished this one. Having read Blight might have given me a clearer understanding of the Apocritae society better. I had no problem following the plot, but until I realised there had been a previous book I intended to comment that the basic world-building seeming a little light. Despite not reading the prequel, I still enjoyed the book. It seemed pretty well written.

Book Review of Bria Hofland’s 42nd & Lex

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42nd & Lex

I grabbed Bria Hofland‘s PNR novel, 42nd & Lex from the Amazon KDP free list.

Description from Goodreads:
A divorce lawyer by trade, I have been soured on love for years. I haven’t had a date in months and now my childhood best friend—you know the über pretty and together one—has hired me to handle her divorce. If she can’t keep a man then there is no hope for me. Then a chance meeting on an elevator changes everything. Lucan O’Reilly is good looking, wealthy, and has an apartment to die for. He always seems to know just what’s on my mind. The perfect man, actually. But is it all too good to be true…

“Shh, I’m ready to tell you,” he whispers and with that I hear him speak a word in my mind. Vampire. Unfortunately, this is the least of my concerns for a new relationship fraught with secret ceremonies, blood hungry enemies, and saving Lucan’s soul. 

Review:
This wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I thought it would be a hot paranormal, if not erotic, romance. It wasn’t. There were a few incredibly mild sex scenes, but the sizzle level was along the lines of ‘we made love until morning.’ Meh.

I did enjoy Abri though. She was a feisty heroine who knew her own mind and didn’t easily bend to the overprotective nature of her literary mate. Said mate, Lucan, was a pleasant surprise in and of himself. He was kind and considerate and even sexy. What he was not was any sort of overbearing alpha male. It was nice to see that mould broken. He was exceedingly wealthy though. (I guess an author can’t be expected to break them all.) An annoyingly large portion of the book was dedicated to showcasing his money–his cars, clothes, jewellery, fancy restaurants, high price real-estate, etc. All of which he, of course, showers her with. After a while it just felt like a plot prop.

The book could do with another round of edits. There are a lot of missing words, mostly pronouns and particles. There are also a few word choice issues. The repeated use of the word least when lest is meant, for example. The story was still perfectly readable, enjoyable even, but it would be hard to miss the mistakes.

All-in-all I found it a sweet little romance novel with a few weak attempts to broaden the plot. The whole Serge drama fell a little flat with me. He didn’t feel like enough of a threat to warrant as much attention as it was given. The whole vampire reveal seemed a bit ho-hum. No one seemed bothered in the least by it. Even the scary high council just felt like cheery geriatrics. Be that as it may, it was still a fun little read.