Tag Archives: self published

Book Review: Underground Kings #1-3, by Jenika Snow

I’ve had Cold Hearted Bastard, Reckless Heir, and Corruption long enough that I’m no longer 100% sure where they all came from. Mostly, I’m uncertain where I got Cold-Hearted Bastard. Perhaps I purchased it at the same time I bought Reckless Heir and Corruption from the author. But I don’t know why I would have bought it as an ebook and the other one as a paperback. So, I suspect I already had the e-copy of Cold Hearted Bastard, and that’s why I chose to buy books two and three in The Underworld Kings series when I saw that Jenika Snow had signed books available in her shop and bought a couple.

Regardless, I’m trying to make a concerted effort to read some of the paperbacks that have such a tendency to get put on the shelf (out of sight, out of mind), which is why I’m reading these at long last.

About Cold Hearted Bastard:

He didn’t have a heart… but he wanted hers.

All I knew about life was anger and violence. Pain and suffering. Kill or be killed.

I was a “fixer” for the Ruin—a syndicate for the Bratva, Cosa Nostra, Cartel, and any other organized crime faction that dealt in the darker, crueler aspects of humanity.

I was a free agent who was called upon to do things weaker men didn’t have the stomach for.

And when you surround yourself with death for long enough, soon, you didn’t remember what it felt like to be alive.

And then I saw her. She was a fragile little thing who tried to be strong. But I could tell she’d seen too much horror in the world, too much of the ugly within people. I should have stayed away. I’d only bring her farther down into the darkness.

But for the first time in my life, I felt a stirring in my chest, this protectiveness and possessiveness toward another living person. And it was painful. It made me feel alive.

Lina tried to hide how broken she was, but I was an old friend of being ruined. She held secrets I’d find out. Because for the first time in my miserable life, I wanted something for myself. I felt something more than apathy and indifference.

I wanted to possess the innocence she clung to. I wanted to break it open and consume it for myself.

I could look into her too trusting blue eyes and knew I’d maim for her. I’d kill for her. And that became our truth when her past finally came back for her when my present tried to destroy her.

They thought they could take the one thing—the only thing—I’d ever wanted for myself. They were wrong.

When I looked at her, I felt some of the monster that made me who I retreated back to my black soul. He’d never leave… but he’d share the space.

For her.

Meh. The writing and editing were fine. The spicy scenes were spicy, and the book isn’t lousy with them. But if you’ve read my reviews for a while, you’ve probably seen me call something the low-hanging fruit of plotting. That’s what I call books whose primary plot hinges on bad men sexually abusing women. It’s not that I’m screaming trigger warnings or feminism. There is no moral outrage here. I’m not saying such things shouldn’t get written. It’s just that it’s been written so often and regularly that it’s cliched by now. I read such books and basically visualize a lazy author not wanting to work too hard, so they reach for the low-hanging fruit, the story that is all but a cultural narrative by now. There’s no creativity, nothing original or new. It’s old, tired, overused, and boring at this point.

If you happen to like the kind of thing, good for you. You’ll probably love this book. I cannot express my disappointment that Snow didn’t stretch her creative muscles even a little bit to write this book. Personally, I’m tired of seeing our victimhood trotted out as entertainment with nothing more to accompany it in a book. As if he’s a rapist or a trafficker and she’s a rape survivor or escaping trafficking is character development and plot by itself. It is not. Do more.

About Reckless Heir:

My father sold me off to a ruthless killer in the Russian mafia, an alliance between the Bratva and the Cosa Nostra.

An arranged marriage where I’d be at the mercy of the man who’d no doubt see me as his property, where I was sure he’d be just as cruel and violent as every other Made Man I’d known in my life.

Nikolai Petrov, known to be a sociopath and for killing anyone for the smallest infraction. And I’d be forever tied to him, an accessory he could use or dispose of any way he saw fit.

And then I found myself painted red, my wedding dress stained in blood. A man dead by my husband’s hands for simply touching my hair.

I was terrified of the lengths Nikolai would go to get what he wanted… to keep me as his, but despite all of that I felt something far stronger, far more dangerous.

Need. Want. Dark and depraved desire. And it was all for the man who said I was his.

For better or worse.

I think I am just going to have to accept that, as much as I want to get on the Jenika Snow bandwagon, her books are just not for me. It’s not a quality issue (though the editing in Reckless Heir was pretty shoddy, especially toward the end). It’s that every one of her books that I have read has an ick factor for me.

In this one, it was how often and strongly the fact that Amara was barely 18 was stressed. Nikolai, who is 29, must have said young and innocent (code for young and virginal) about a million times. And yeah, I get that this is a dark romance, and he’s a murderous anti-hero. But I still did not enjoy it. Paired with the fact that the reader is told what a savage his father was ‘to the fairer sex,’ but the things Nikolai wants to do to Amara sound just like the things his father was doing to women in the previous book. (Guess the apple didn’t fall far enough for me.) So, the man too focused on how young his bride is and having tastes just a little too close to his sexually abusive father’s (who we are made to believe was irredeemable) made for an ick factor I couldn’t quite let go of. Also, I’m not a huge fan of the humiliation and degradation kink. But I could have handled that if it hadn’t been in combination with the ick.

When I finished this book and put it back on the shelf, I realized that I also have book 3, Corruption. I’d forgotten that. I know I should read it now so that they all get reviewed together. But I just don’t think I can take a third of these books in a row. And that should tell you a whole heck of a lot about how I’m feeling about the series at the moment. All the power to those who enjoy it. But I think it’s just not for me.

About Corruption:

Even the beast could get the beauty… he just had to take her.

Anastasia was a Russian mafia princess.

I was unworthy to even look at her.

But that didn’t stop a bond, a friendship to form between us. She was the only good and right thing in my painful, brutal life. She was the only one who could look at my bruises and wounds and see I wasn’t a total waste of space.

But I was ripped away from her, thrust into the underground world of violence and fighting, molded and shaped to be the ultimate killing machine for the Bratva.

And that’s who I was now.

Razoreniye. Ruin.

Now, ten years later all of humanity had been stripped from me, all the emotion and empathy that I’d once felt taken away until I was nothing more than the beast who craved blood and had far too many kills tallied up.

But they could never take her away from me. And so I followed her, watched her through her bedroom window, broke into her apartment, and held her as she slept.

I wasn’t a good man. I was carved out from the very devil himself, and although I would ever be good enough for Anastasia, that didn’t mean I’d ever let anyone else have her.

So when she was forced to marry another, I did the only thing that made sense.

I took her in the middle of the night and kept her locked up until she realized she was mine and mine alone.

I hadn’t actually intended to read this book at this point in time. But I decided that if I didn’t read it with the rest of the series, I probably would never come back and do it. So, I muscled through. Oddly, I actually liked this one more than I did either of the previous books. Ruin is even more unhinged than the rest of the men in this series (which is saying something), and that moved the book a little further away from reality into fantasy land. Plus, the ick (because, like I said before, all of Snow’s books seem to have an ick factor for me) is a relatively shallow one. I’m just not down with all the spitting. But that’s an aesthetic ick, not a full-body flinch like I encountered in Reckless Heir. The plot is pretty thin, and this feels like a middle book. But I suspect whether you like it or not will come down to if you like the sort of thing or not.

Other Reviews

Cold Hearted Bastard by Jenika Snow Release and Review

The Abstract Books Blog: Review Reckless Heir

Book Review: Seeking Snow Falls, by Jenn D. Young

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I have had a copy of Jenn D. Young‘s Seeking Snow Falls since 2021. So, my memory of where exactly I got it is vague. However, the book was featured over at Sadie’s Spotlight. So, there is a good chance I received a copy as part of the tour material.

It was supposed to be a fun getaway with my best friend, until I ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere Montana.

There I was, freezing to death, when three men came to my rescue and thawed the icicles around my heart.

There’s one little problem: they aren’t human.

When my own haunted past comes calling, they stand by my side and protect me.

But can I overcome my own demons and accept I have mates? Or will my own fears cripple me?

I wanted very badly to like this book. I went into it with high hopes. They all crumbled pretty quickly, however. I don’t hate insta-lust/love on principle. Sometimes, it is done well, sometimes not. It would have been fine here if the book had enough other development to accompany it. But the lust/love is instant, and there is very little further development in the book, which made the insta-lust/love just one more underdevelopment. It’s the one more that is at issue here and is with most of my complaints.

Most of what I turned out not to like about this book I disliked because of the cluster it is part of, rather than a problem by itself. Here are some examples. Laney is constantly crying. I mean constantly! Everything makes her cry—happy, sad, scared, panicking, sympathy, empathy, acceptance, rejection, everything! I am not exaggerating when I say I think a count of crying-related words (tears, sobbing, crying, etc.) would average out to one per page—AT LEAST—if I were able to count them. I don’t mind crying, but by 55%, I was literally rolling my eyes and exclaiming out loud, “Oh My God, again!? ”

To go with the crying, there is a pretty thin line between an author writing a female character with some trauma and room for growth and flat-out infantilizing that character. This book went with infantilization. All of the descriptors of Laney are childlike. Visualize this character for me. There’s the crying. She curls up on the men’s chests with her fist curled under her chin. She sits up and sleepily rubs her eyes. She never laughs; she giggles. When they get in vehicles, the men always buckle her seat belt for her. They often put their chin on top of her head (because she is so much smaller) and kiss her forehead. She is constantly falling asleep or waking up. They put her to bed repeatedly and often even get her ready for bed (like one would a child at nap time). What does the character in your head look like, a 29-year-old woman or a child?

On a side note, female characters constantly being put to bed is also a pet peeve for me. Because it so often simply serves the purpose of putting the toy on the shelf when the men-folk are busy. It shows precisely how much of an object a female character is. Not in this scene? Put the toy away. From the reader’s perspective, she literally has no consciousness when not in the presence of the men.

And all of this childlikeness doesn’t even address her lack of adult decision-making abilities. She has panic attacks at the drop of a hat. She almost freezes to death in her car while parked in front of a heated building. How many people would freeze to death before breaking a window to crawl into the heat? A person can apologize and pay for the damages later. Or be rescued by the police, who show up when the alarm goes off. Either way, survival is literally 6 feet away, and she never even considers it because she does not have adult mental facilities.

Which makes the explicit sex scenes feel jarring. I’m not making any moral or prudish objection, not even to the child-likeness of the character juxtaposed with sex. It’s just that the sexplicit sex felt out of place when handed a child-like heroine. It felt like a plotting disconnect.

The book also needs more editing to catch all the wrong words. The mistakes aren’t even all homophones. Most are simply close but not quite right words—widely used when wildly is what is meant, for example.

The book is pretty formulaic. There is nothing new here. But people (myself included) read so many such books because we enjoy the formula. This means what I so disliked here was the content itself, and most of that is personal preference (or peeves) rather than outright quality issues. Plus, it ends on a cliffhanger, which wouldn’t be an issue except that it is very clearly labeled as a standalone.

I did appreciate that Laney is a plus-sized character and that there was a pre-existing sexual relationship within the trio of mates that persisted even once Laney is introduced to the dynamic. And the cover is pretty. So, I think my last word is that this is probably great for the right reader. I’m just not that reader. I’m really not the right reader.

Other Reviews:

Book Review: Cosmic Kiss, by Clio Evans

“Prepare to be scandalized by the hottest shooting star in the universe…”

Stella is a rising star in her intergalactic troupe. Focused on her blooming career, she never expected to be blindsided by one handsome alien, let alone two.

Prince Zin and Chancellor Toras are determined to win their dazzling human over, even if they have to put their differences aside. The two sexy space hunks will do anything for Stella. Worship her, seduce her, charm her— and protect her from the mysterious poison spreading through the troupe.

A fateful encounter leads to an unforgettable cosmic kiss that puts this trio in the spotlight of love. Will Stella, Zin, and Toras follow their hearts and shoot for the stars?

This is porn with plot…sweet porn with plot. I’m not judging. I knew what I was picking up in that regard. But I want to make sure everyone else does, too. Cosmic Kiss is a really sweet, low-stakes, low-angst read. And if that’s your jam, I absolutely recommend this to you. As much as I liked Stella, Zin, and Toras as characters, sweet isn’t really jam, unfortunately. I sort of find it similar to eating egg whites; perfectly fine, maybe even good for you, but where is all the flavor? But that is a matter of personal preference, not quality. Clio Evans writes fun monster romances. I have no doubt I will read more of them. I think I just prefer her darker books.