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Review of Bella Forrest’s A Shade of Vampire

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 I Won a signed copy of Bella Forrest‘s A Shade of Vampire from Layers of Thought. I included both the new and old cover just to be awkward. 

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Description from Goodreads:

On the evening of Sofia Claremont’s seventeenth birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake.

A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood. 

She is kidnapped to an island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine.
An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains.

Sofia’s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is the one selected out of hundreds of girls to join the harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal Prince.

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Will she succeed? …or is she destined to the same fate that all other girls have met at the hands of the Novaks?

Review (with mild spoilers):

If Edward Cullen had ever been forced to rule a hidden enclave of vampires he would definitely be named Derek Novak. No doubt about it. A Shade of Vampire is a quick little YA read that Twilight fans will love. The problem is that I’m really not a Twilight fan. So in order to give this book a fair chance I tried imagining how I would have reacted to it if I was still an angsty teenage girl. Certainly Sofia is described as a smart, slightly quirky, wall flower. I can relate to that. She’s secretly crushing on her popular best friend, who I THINK she lives with. I guess I can relate to that too. (Though the whole living situation was never very clear. Apparently she was abandoned, but I never could grasp the details. Maybe I’m wrong.) I had to wonder a little bit about the whole high school clique thing though. I mean if he’s popular and she isn’t how are they best friends? I don’t really remember cliques being so accepting of such social transgressions. In the end I decided that I can relate to Sofia’s life prior to the vampires, but not after. Once she is taken to the Blood Shade I could do nothing but shake my head.

Derek wakes from a protracted sleep and INSTANTLY falls for little ‘ol Sofia. What does he fall in love with? Well, I don’t want to give anything away, but it isn’t anything the other girls don’t have too. So, really the question still stands. Sofia, in turn, is either exceptionally susceptible to Stockholm Syndrome or has no sense of self-preservation, because she is feeling Derek in return. She is falling in love with his kindness, which, honestly, feels misplaced. Really there is a whole undercurrent of incongruous innocence in this book. It’s in small things, like the keeping of harems and constant references to playing with their beautiful slaves, or the leers Sofia is subjected to but the complete lack of follow through or sex of any kind. Example: the girls are all kidnapped when they are 17 because they mature and taste sweetest when they turn 18. Now, the whole blood letting/sex connection is pretty blatant, so the message is essentially that the girls will be ravished, but not until they conveniently (and coincidentally) come of legal age. Riiighhht. The novel is so sexually charged that this absence is conspicuous. I realise that as a YA novel it shouldn’t really have any, so maybe the suggestion needed to be pulled back a little. 

I have a guess about where the story will go from here and I’d be willing to read a sequel to see if I’m right or not. With the exception of the constant and annoying one sentence paragraphs (I was always told a minimum of 3 BTW) it reads fairly smoothly. (Though to be fair Derek’s dialogue is a little too smooth for someone who’s been asleep for 400 years. But since I wouldn’t really want to slog through the old English I’m more than happy to let that pass.) It was also interesting to be able to see both sides of Sofia and Derek’s interactions. Sometimes their actions held different meanings for the two of them, but were still meaningful to both. I thought that was very cleverly played. All in all I thought it was OK, but I’m well aware that there will be those who love this sort of story and they will, no doubt, really enjoy it.

Book Review of the Altered States series by L. Harner and T.A. Webb

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I grabbed Laura Harner‘s short story Altered States and the subsequent novella written with T.A. Webb, Deep Blues Goodbye, off of the KDP free list. I then bought Deadly Shades of Gold. As of the time of posting the first two appear to still be free and MrsConditReadsBooks seems to have a giveaway running for the third (though the one thing I couldn’t find posted was the closing date. So…)

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I have to start out by saying that I almost missed out on reading this series. I’d seen Altered States on the KDP list a couple of times and never paid it any attention. It had the double handicap of being a short story, which I tend to ignore, and a cover that doesn’t really appeal to me, which I ignored. I never even read the description. Mistake. I’m pretty sure M/M vampires would have gotten my attention from the start. It sure did when I found them in the blurb for Beep Blues Goodbye. It was only when I realised that they were a set that I went back and got Altered States too.

It’s a good thing I’m a little obsessive about reading descriptions of books even if I don’t like covers. Otherwise I would have passed on DBG too. And if I didn’t read reviews I wouldn’t have realised that AS is a prequel. I would have missed out on a whole lot of fun. So thank you to all those wonderful reviewers who made that connection apparent. 

Before I get on with reviewing the series let me pause and mention that all three books…or rather the short story and both novellas wouldn’t stand alone very well. It’s one story. Each ends in a severe cliffhanger and a reader would be scrambling to catch up if they read a latter book without having read the first ones. That’s why I’m breaking my usual routine and reviewing them all as one. I’m also going to forgo my usual rant about partial books. We all know I would normally make it here, ’cause yes, none of these instalments is a full story arc in itself and, yes, that normally makes me grind my teeth (especially when they are all short enough to fit in one binding). But I’m letting it go here because I got two of the three for free and enjoyed them so very much. Moving on…

I could sum my review of this series up in one explicative ridden sentence. GAWD DAMN, THAT MOTHER FUCKIN’ SHIT IS HOT!! But, while that may be all some need to know before picking the series up (probably would have been enough for me), letting my less than eloquent inner teenager (or apparently budding cougar) out wouldn’t tell you much of substance about these gems.

The series starts out following Sam Garrett, New Orleans Police Detective and gay black man. He is smart, sarcastic, sexy, and honest in his lustiness. I love that. I found his character to be a joy. Well spoken black men are too rare in fiction and well spoken gay black men few and far between. When he is partnered with the arrogant, by the books detective Travis Boudreaux things start to go a little sideways. 

When Boudreaux later “had the bad taste to sit up at his own funeral” the series finally earns its paranormal tags. There are vampires, werewolves/bears/panthers/dogs, cops, hookers, feds, Homeland security, and mobsters involved in an ever expanding plot. There is also some really, really steamy sex. One particular dance scene had me fanning myself and I don’t even know if the M/M/M ménage à trois is physically possible. (Being singularly lacking in a penis I suppose I’ll never find out.) But Wow! 

What really struck me about AS and DBG is that they were unquestionably steamy reads, but they did this without all of the power plays. No one was dominated, subjugated, or abused in any fashion. There were no whips, blindfolds, or kinks of any sort, but the sex still smoldered. I don’t mean to make grand sweeping generalities, but I kind of think modern erotica’s frequent heavy dependence on fetishism is a plot crutch. Yes, it is titillating to read about exotic sex, but it takes a stronger story to keep the scene equally captivating without taping into people’s sense of the taboo. These didn’t go there. They didn’t need to. DSoG did a little bit in the character of Henri, but he’s the über bad guy so I can forgive it. 

In and amongst all of this testosterone-laden male goodness is a story too. There is a murder mystery to solve and a gentle romance struggling to bud. There are some wonderfully colourful characters too—Russ, Jet, Danny, and right there at the end Wayne. The man-banter between these guys is great. I can’t wait for more. 

If I understand correctly there should be another book, Free Falling Crimson apparently, out later in the year. This makes me very, very happy. 

Mercy’s Debt

Book Review of Mercy’s Debt, by Sloan Archer

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Mercy's Debt

Yesterday I grabbed Sloan Archer‘s novel, Mercy’s Debt, off of the Amazon KDP list. Lately I’ve been really agonising over which book to read next, so when I accidentally tapped this one, opening it directly after it downloaded I decided to just roll with the punches and read it right then.

Description from Amazon:
After graduating from the prestigious Dewhurst University, Mercy Montgomery finds herself in a bit of financial trouble: over $108,000 worth of financial trouble, in fact. She can’t find a job to save her life, and with bill collectors constantly at her heels, she has no idea how she will ever come up with the money needed in order to keep her head above water.

Mercy’s monetary worries seem to be over after a chance meeting with mystifyingly pale Michael Graves, who offers her a high-paying job at his company, Dignitary. But there’s a catch; the seemingly harmless Dignitary is an underground organization that offers human chaperones to wealthy bloodsucking clients.

As if congregating with the undead doesn’t make life complicated enough for Mercy, there’s a savage killer on the loose who appears to have a craving for her blood. Soon Mercy is torn between a dark and dangerous underworld of supernatural desire and a simple life of practicality, and sexy but dangerous business magnate Robert Bramson is the man she blames for her confusion. As the killer closes in, Mercy realizes that she must make a decision. But will she make her choice too late?

Review:
Sloan Archer is one talented author. I’ll give her that. Her character’s are fresh, funny, and fleshed out, especially Mercy and her roommate Liz. Their banter is some of the best in the book. She understands humour and can time a joke brilliantly. Though I’ll admit the main sex scene felt a little choppy, it still had some smoulder to it, and I like the cover.

Mercy’s Debt starts out with something a lot of recent college grads can relate to, many student loans and few job prospects. I don’t know if the completely out-of-leftfield lesbian exploration passage was supposed to be something else recent grads could relate to, funny, or a red herring of some sort. I liked it well enough. It’s something you don’t see addressed in the genre often, but it seemed to serve no purpose in the book. In fact the book, in terms of the story, doesn’t even start until Mercy meets Michael and Robert. The background information in the first couple chapters helped solidify Mercy’s character, but seemed awful long for such a short novel.

Which brings me to my only MAJOR complaint, the shortness of the novel. This is something I seem to be harping on about a lot lately. Where is the rest of the book? I’d say it ends on a cliffhanger, but that requires an ending of some sort. Something has to wrap up and conclude. This is one of those books that just stops instead. You still don’t know who the murder is, what happened to Liz, if Mercy will fall in love or accept the love offered her, pays off her debts, or lives happily ever after or not. You know the characters names and some of their histories, that the setting is in California, there are vampires and someone is killing women, that’s is.

I laughed out loud a lot in this book. I liked the main and supporting cast. I routed for the fragile hero and witty heroine. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, right up until I hit the unexpected words ‘The End’ and got a little bit angry. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that there isn’t yet a second book to run out and buy, even if begrudgingly. I have no problem buying sequel to finish a series. It always irks me to buy sequels to finish a book and that’s what this feels like. I got a free teaser, but have to pay for the conclusion. This doesn’t leave me with feelings of happy contentment, even if I enjoyed the book up until that point.