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Rise of the Fallen

Book Review of Donya Lynne’s Rise of the Fallen

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Rise of the Fallen

I grabbed Donya Lynne‘s PNR Rise of the Fallen from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
In the streets of Chicago exists an uneasy, centuries-old truce between vampires and their distant cousins, a race of shifters called drecks. Vampire enforcement agency, All the King’s Men (AKM), is charged with maintaining the truce, but when volatile enforcer Micah Black loses his mate and falls into the biological agony that results from the broken bond, he tests the boundaries of the truce by seeking out Apostle, a leader in the dreck community. Micah wants Apostle to kill him, a request Apostle is more than happy to fulfill. 

When ex-Army medic Samantha Garrett inadvertently disrupts the plot and saves Micah’s life, a chain reaction sets Micah’s heart on a collision course with Sam’s, but he will have to protect her from Apostle and her obsessive ex-husband, Steve, if they will have a chance at forever. Can Micah hold his emotions together to keep Sam alive?

Review:
So, I’m not gonna mince words here. This is a Black Dagger Brotherhood knock off. It is. There are a lot of them out there these days. All the King’s Men (AKM), like the Brotherhood is set against another paranormal species in an attempt to protect the human race. Here they may be called Drecks instead of Lessers, but it’s all the same. Unlike in BDB however, AKM don’t seem to actually encounter the Drecks very often. Not once in this whole book did one of the AKM go out to do the job one assumes the AKM was created for–to maintain the truce between the two species. It felt very much like the Drecks only existed in order to provide a reason for the AKM to exist.

The same could be said for Sam’s abusive ex-husband. He was purposeless. He shows up three times in the whole book and played no significant role beyond providing Sam a victimised past to be used to excuse her for being a stripper. I suppose readers are more accepting of a woman who works in the sex trade if she does it reluctantly than just because the money is good, or whatever. I found it unnecessary.

Despite the above complaints I did enjoy the book though. The sex scenes were hot. They incorporated a little bit of male dominance, without making the woman feel abused or overly controlled. That’s a thin and uncomfortable line for me as a reader. Lynne played the card without going over board. Conversely I did feel like Micah’s history as an actual Dom only served to artificially make him feel edgier. Again, it wasn’t needed. It was nothing more than a distraction. (Though I see it comes into play in at least one later book.)

My favourite aspect of the story was the loose adherence to heterosexuality. It’s always seemed to me that if you were a vampire who lived for hundred’s of years there wouldn’t really be much reason to stick strictly to the social mores of the time. Why not open your horizons up? Lynne allowed her characters this. Some are flat out gay, others just aren’t concerned with male/female, a partner is a partner. I liked that.

The series may not be the most original, but it passed an enjoyable couple of hours so I have no real qualms with the book.

on the edge of hunamity

Book Review of S.B. Alexander’s On the Edge of Humanity

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On the Edge of Humanity

I grabbed S.B. Alexander‘s Vampire SEAL novel On the Edge of Humanity from the Amazon KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Jo Mason is lost in a world where traipsing from one foster home to another is normal. She hates her life, she hates school and on most days, she hates living. If it weren’t for her twin brother Sam, she may already be dead. 

Her normal world shifts one hundred and eighty degrees when she discovers her own blood tastes like candy and her eyes change colors like a mood ring. On top of that, her eyesight seems to be failing when she spies an otherworldly man sporting bloodstained canines trying to strangle a cop. The developments are shrouded when Sam goes missing between Anger Management class and History class. 

She’s called to the principal’s office to meet Lieutenant Webb London, a Navy SEAL who is part of a secret team of natural-born vampires. His mission is to protect the twins from an evil cartel, but he’s too late. With Jo now under his protection, his team searches for Sam. 

However, finding and rescuing Sam from the evil cartel may be the easy part. Jo learns she carries a dormant vampire gene that, if activated, could save him. As her normal world fades even more, pushing her closer to the edge of humanity, Jo must decide if her human life is more important than her twin brother. 

With time as her enemy, she struggles to make a life-changing decision for both her and Sam.

Review:
I have to be honest. Even though I can’t really fault the writing of this book I didn’t like it. I lost count of how many aspects of it I just personally didn’t like. That’s not to say others wouldn’t, or that it isn’t actually a good book, but I didn’t like it. Lets start and I’ll explain why.

First off, given the series title, Vampire SEALs, I was expecting at least a little vampire/military badassness. I read the description and knew that wasn’t going to be the main focus, but I expected some. There wasn’t any. This is a YA book about one scared little girl’s attempt come to terms with her situation. Major disappointment right there.

Next, Jo simply didn’t DO anything of substance. She asked a lot of ineffectual questions, whined, and vomited a lot. That’s about it. The realm of action was left entirely to the males. Even Ben, the token human, feeble as his attempts might have been, came out fighting. Jo just stood around and waited to be told what to do. This extended even as far as her own feelings. As an example, when she showed any anger toward her father he responded as such: “I lost both of you once and I don’t want to screw this up again. I have a chance to get to know my daughter and possibly my son. So call me selfish if you want to, but don’t ever, ever disrespect me again.” However, when Sam woke up equally as angry with dear old dad he was allowed to have a fist fight with him. People actually stood back and let them hash it out.

Sam was allowed expression and possession of his own emotions. Like a child, Jo was chastised or physically restrained anytime she expressed anything but compliance. This paternalistic infantilization was further enhanced by the constant act of putting a finger under her chin to force her to look up at someone. I think every male character in the book did it to her at least once. Everyone of them apparently has more control over where she looks than she does. I wanted to vomit myself.

I mentioned ineffectual questions. Jo asked questions constantly, good ones too a lot of times. But was almost never answered. Yea, I get it. She was dealing with a top secret organisation so some things would remain secretive, but I got seriously sick of being denied information. Because, of course, as a reader I was left without the information just as often as Jo was. (As a side note, Sam got all of his answers almost without having to ask and Ben seemed to often have things explained to him.) On the flip side, Jo also constantly asked herself questions along the lines of, ‘How did my life get here?’ There were so many of them I wanted to scream. Add the rhetorical questions, which are of course unanswered, to the ones the SEALs didn’t answer and you probably have half the book right there. It didn’t leave me feeling particularly satisfied.

Then there is the fact that the book started with an attempted rape. I wasn’t yet invested enough in the book to sit comfortably through that. I obviously made it through, but barely. It seemed to be a running theme that Jo attracted creeps and that Sam was constantly having to protect her from them. (Notice the continued helpless theme there?) But Jo somehow managed to hang tenaciously to her “I’m ugly” mantra, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

So to conclude, I disliked the book. I didn’t enjoy it, but those things that irked me so badly are almost all personal preference kind of things. I hate seeing female characters patronised. It almost always rubs me the wrong way. That may not be the case for someone else, so I’ll still give the book three stars.

Book Review: A Midsummer Night’s Demon, by Brenda Sparks

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A Midsummer Night's DemonI grabbed Brenda Sparks‘ novella, A Midsummer Night’s Demon from the Amazon KDP list.

Synopsis:
Daelyn Torres is determined to break free from her over-protective brother. Born a demon, she knows little of the world outside her home and work. A chance blind date promises adventure and perhaps a walk on the wild side. But her night on the town takes a deadly turn when she is gravely injured and left to die. A handsome, mysterious stranger comes to her rescue and brings with him a passion she has never experienced.

A dark guardian sent to investigate a series of missing person cases, vampire Ky Robinson is ready for anything, except the insatiable desire that engulfs him when he meets Daelyn. He senses their destiny is intertwined and vows to do everything in his power to keep her safe. The only problem: demons and vampires go together like fire and ice.

Daelyn never believed in things that went bump in the night but is more than willing to be seduced by the sexy vampire who marks both her body and soul. Will Ky be able to keep them both alive long enough to prove that vampires and demons can be so much more than friends?

Review:
While entertaining, A Midsummer Night’s Demon left me scratching my head. Daelyn Torres is supposed to be a demon, but what kind I just don’t know. Not only is she extremely sweet and naive, but she’s also an ACCOUNTANT with a penchant for SUN DRESSES. We sure aren’t talking Mephistopholes, Belial or the Christian hierarchy here. In the end, it didn’t really seem to matter. Other than longevity her status as a demon might as well have been any other cultural quirk. She could have been a practitioner of Wicca or a dedicated Buddhist, the effect would have been the same.

For a full 83% of the novel I also kept waiting to meet the overbearing brother mentioned in the synopsis. He plays almost no role in the novella, which means that the blurb is being used to provide background information not present in the book. My gut reaction is that that isn’t right. It just seems that all pertinent information should be contained within the story itself.

Then there were the unanswered questions. What was the secret mission Ky’s partner was off on? She was introduced briefly but disappeared. Why was Raziel acting out of a vampiric character? What happened to Daelyn’s parents?

Really most of the above could have been addressed by more bulk. Had the book been a bit longer it could have addressed Daelyn’s background and family history, as well as explored the demon angle enough to give it a purpose. The side characters could have been fleshed out and explained. Despite my general sense of confusion I did enjoy the book. Ky was just fabulous. It would be almost impossible to not love him. He was kind, considerate, handsome, patient, sexy and funny. Daelyn simply existed. She was the woman who passively accepted Ky’s affections. But so many PNR females are just the same, so I can’t really complain about her lack of volition. The writing was fine and I don’t remember many editorial errors. All in all, it was satisfying enough.