Tag Archives: Dragons

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Book Review: Courting Her Monsters, by Erin Bedford

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I picked up a freebie copy of Erin Bedford‘s Courting Her Monsters during the Stuff Your Kindle event (along with about a million other books).
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Unable to hear, I live my life in silence.
Unable to argue with my father, I live my life in service, married off to the highest bidder.

Now, to save myself and my kingdom, I will have to play the part of their prisoner.
But I’m not playing anymore, and my new betrothed is more than happy to push the limits of my body and mind. He’s a monster with a handsome face…

But truer monsters wait for me, and they’re ready to give me so much more than I was prepared for.
What makes a monster and what makes a man? Only I can find that out…
And my life isn’t so silent anymore.

my review

God, what a disappointment. This was a Stuff Your Kindle freebie, and I wanted to love it. I honestly enjoyed aspects of it. Yes, it’s got some pretty significant plot holes. Yes, the heroine does some too-stupid-to-live things. Yes, it’s completely unbelievable that if the abuse she was suffering was so severe, no one noticed (and she was up and moving around with ease). Yes, it’s unbelievable that the mind-reading drake didn’t know exactly what she was up to. All true. But it was still silly, fluffy fun. I would have happily said it was a three-star, nothing serious read. But good lord, the editing. I can’t figure out how more people haven’t mentioned it in previous reviews. Maybe they were all pre-publication and thought the problems would get fixed before it went to print. Maybe they’re fake, IDK. But the fact that it’s not been mentioned by more people is…odd because it’s a significant issue.

Look, it’s one thing to not pick up on the occasional homophone, missing word, or if the spellcheck didn’t catch the use of ‘up’ instead of ‘us.’ But this book has characters who speak telepathically. This is indicated by italics, with no quotation marks or dialogue tag. But in the last 1/4 of the book, the italics just stop. So, you have dialogue with nothing to indicate it as so. In the first 3/4 of the book, there are several instances of dialogue being italicized, along with the next 3 or 4 paragraphs of the narrative. It’s clear the author simply forgot to turn italics off.

Now, I’m usually pretty forgiving about editing. It’s easy enough to miss the small stuff, even repeatedly. But if no one is noticing multiple instances of several paragraphs of erroneous courting her monsters photoitalicization, then no one read this book after the first draft, not even the author, and that’s unforgivable. Thank god it was free. I’d be incensed if I’d paid for it.

The thing is, I liked the story (as ridiculous as it was). I liked that the heroine was deaf. I liked her snark and that she refused to be a perpetual victim. I liked that one of the important men is visibly marred. I liked the dragon-men and world. I might have even read the next one. But I’m not willing to pay for someone’s drafts.

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Book Review: Tangle of Dragons, by Jane Darkspire

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I picked up a copy of Jane Darkspire‘s Tangle of Dragons as an Amazon freebie.

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The city of Rendale is ruled by dragons—powerful monsters that control every drop of fame and fortune. They fear nothing, hunting without mercy and taking what they please.
And the Ruthless Dragons are the greediest of all.

I grew up believing if I worked hard my dreams would come true. Turns out that’s crap.
After two years of waiting for my life to begin, I was done sitting on my hands.
I’d have a final night of wild fun before packing my bags and saying goodbye to this wretched city.

But no one leaves Rendale once the Ruthless Dragons notice you.

Avrice, Sylt, Mortar and Rask.
The four of them masquerade as men to hide their wings and colorful scales, but they can’t wait to show me what they really are. Rumors say if they bring you to their den, you’ll be changed forever.
Warped and twisted by the time you walk out.

What happens if they never let me leave?

my review

This is one of those books—I’m sure we’ve all read them—that objectively isn’t very good. While the mechanical writing is fine, the pacing is off, there isn’t any worldbuilding or character development, it’s too heavy on the tell instead of show, the villains are cliched, the primary one is conquered too easily and anti-climactically, the men are not given equal attention, and there is no explanation for why the H is The One the men fall for and not just another toy as all the other women. Objectively this book is bad. But subjectively, it’s a lot of fun. It’s so committed to its over-the-top ridiculousness that you find yourself rolling along with it without thinking deeply enough to notice how bad it really is. I’d read another Darkspire book happily.

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Book Review: The Heretic Royal, by G.A. Aiken

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It’s been two and a half years since I read the first two books in The Scarred Earth Saga. You can go here to read the reviews. While all of the series’ details weren’t immediately available in my mind, I did remember that I’d really enjoyed The Blacksmith Queen and The Princess Knight, which made winning a copy of The Heretic Royal through Goodreads especially exciting.

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Gods save the queen!

Ainsley Farmerson has always planned to break free of the family business—and the family drama. But what was once farming, smithworking, and bickering over the dinner table has turned into open warfare between sisters. Sides have been taken, lives are on the line, and Ainsley has no doubt which sister must be queen. She’ll do whatever is necessary to take down the soulless Beatrix. Even if that means joining forces with angry battle nuns, irritating monks, and overbearing centaurs.

Gruffyn of the Torn Moon Clan has no time for human beings. And yet . . . there is something about the uncontrollable princess that he can’t ignore. Maybe it’s the way her eldest sisters underestimate her. Or her bravery facing down dragons and mad queens from distant lands. Whatever the reason, Gruff is willing to fight by this human’s side. Not only for the entertainment value, but because she’s right. Beatrix must never be queen. So whatever he has to do, whoever he has to destroy, Gruff will battle beside Ainsley. Fast. Hard. And with absolutely no mercy . . .

my review

I don’t use star-rating here on the blog. But I often do when I cross-post to Goodreads. When I look at this series, I see that I gave The Blacksmith Queen a 5* rating, The Princess Knight a 4* rating, and I’ll give The Heretic Royal a 3* rating. I loved book one, but have liked each subsequent book less and less. The reason was especially apparent here in The Heretic Royal.

These books are fun. The characters are zany. The world is full of fantasy creatures. The writing is sharp and witty. But the series has also always been chaotic. That’s part of the fun. But as the series progresses, the balance between utter chaos and substantive plot is faltering. Here in this third book, there is almost no plot progression at all. Aiken leans very heavily on the chaotic good of the characters and brings in a whole host of new crazy characters. And here is where my main problem arises.

All these characters? They’re the characters from her Dragon Kin series. So, here, three books into a series, we suddenly have a series mash-up. These new characters from an old series took up most of this book, and, as a result, the characters from this series were cast in shadow. We the heretic royalgot little more than surface interactions with any of them.

That’s without even considering how it felt to come to this book as someone who has not read Dragon Kin (which I think is 9 books and several novellas long), didn’t know or care about the characters, and didn’t know to expect this sudden influx of new, unrelated characters.

To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I still like the author and am hoping the series balances out because I want to reclaim that feeling from book one.

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REVIEW: The Heretic Royal by G. A. Aiken

Review: The Heretic Royal by G.A. Aiken