Reading Fanatic Reviews
All Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Paranormal Reviews
Siren Song by Alexandria Clarke
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Siren Song*
Paranormal Adventures
This is actually three novellas in one book, all following the paranormal adventures of Bay and Nicco. They are great characters, and in these three novellas, they have to deal with Sirens, an evil beauty contestant, and an incubus! Each book is relatively short, which doesn’t give a lot of time for each story to develop, though the author does manage to get in a few a fun twist and turns. But what is written is well done and engaging. The author has created a fascinating world for these characters, both the “Witch Myth” universe and these particular looks at it.
Death on Line One by T. K. Barber
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Bol.de
Death on the Line*
Unique, Funny, Sizzling Paranormal Romance
My goodness, what a fun and original story! I enjoy paranormal romance, but this was like none that I have read. I feel like I barely know what to say about it because it is just such a unique read that has to be read to be fully appreciated. The book is told in the alternating viewpoints of the hero and heroine; he is Death, and she is one of his soul calls. He escorts souls to the afterlife when people die. The heroine is zany and quite amusing; the hero, as you might imagine, is a bit more serious. His “life” has been lonely and quite humdrum, and he is very intrigued by her. They actually do have chemistry that sizzles off the page. The story takes some surprising twists and turns. The book is very humorous in places. I enjoyed the way that the contemporary world and the world of Greek mythology interplayed in the story, and I am definitely looking forward to the next book of the series. I hope the author can surprise me with the next installment as well.
Her Warrior by Alice Wilde
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Her Warrior*
Saga Continues in China
This book continues where the previous one left off, and thank goodness after what happened at the end of that one! I found myself enjoying this book because I really like Li’s point of view. This book takes place in his world, as they seek an alliance with the Chinese. Because we’re so far on this series, I’m afraid to say too much, potentially giving spoilers if you haven’t read the previous books. This series does definitely need to be read in order to really understand the full arc, and one book does truly follow from the previous one. The relationships between the heroine and her shifters have gotten more complicated, and we’re down one guardian. The heroine continues to mature beyond that rather annoying teenager from the first book, I’m happy to say. If you have enjoyed the previous books in this series, you won’t want to miss this one.
Her Highlander by Alice Wild
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Her Highlander*
Better Than the First
I have some issues with the first book of this series, but I always give an author another try or two to see if he or she can still impress me. While I’m not fully there yet with this author, she has come up in my estimation. One of my pet peeves about the first novel of this series was that the heroine seemed more like a petulant teenager than a princess preparing to wed. In this book, she is gaining in maturity, but she still has naivete about the world. I enjoyed the slow-burn romantic aspect of this book and the rivalries between the guardians as they try to figure out all that their relationships should be. I enjoyed the Scottish flavor of this particular installment. The book did feel repetitive in parts; it could have used a good editor. All in all, I enjoyed this portion of the saga and am looking forward to the next.
Her Betrothal by Alice Wilde
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Her Betrothal*
Somewhat Tedious, with Immature Heroine
This book had the potential to be interesting, or at least I found that of the blurb had intriguing elements. But the heroine, who is the main voice of the story, comes across as a petulant teenager instead of a young woman on the cusp of marriage and perhaps co-ruling her kingdom. The book uses the first-person present point-of-view, but the author didn’t seem to have a mastery of how to use tenses in this viewpoint, so they were sometimes wrong, which was jarring when they occurred. In general, I am not a fan of the first-person present point-of-view for several reasons, including this one. I think that it is actually distancing because it is so unusual. I read so many books in the third-person past that the viewpoint doesn’t even make much of a blip on my radar unless the author gets confused with tenses or calls attention to it in another way. I think authors mistakenly believe that the first-person present gives a book a greater sense of immediacy, but for me, I have never felt that to be the case.
The book had other issues as well. It has some strange problems with grammar, punctuation, and usage; commas seemed particularly problematic. I felt like the book was slow to start and quite repetitive. Much could have been cut out or condensed, which made of made this story tighter and better. As I was reading along, I felt like I was just waiting for something to actually happen; I don’t like that feeling in a book. I feel like this book could have used both a developmental editor and a copy editor/proofreader.
Highlander’s Caress by Joanne Wadsworth
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Smashwords, Mondadori, and Angus & Robertson
Highlander's Caress*
Complex Tale, Good Romance
I have read several books in this series, and I quite enjoyed Duncan and Elle’s story. Much goes on in this book, but the author sets the scene well early on, which keeps it from becoming confusing. Duncan and Elle have chemistry that sizzles off the page. With their clans at war, things do not look good for them even though they have a fated, mated bond. I really enjoyed the unique solution to their problems that happened at the end of the book. If you read other books in the series, you know that there is no huge resolution to the bigger, overarching plot in each book–in fact, each book seems to add to the complexity of the threads that tie the stories together–but I think this is one of the better happy-for-now resolutions that I’ve seen in this series. I love these stories of the Fae and the Highlanders.
Fae Hunter: Semester 2 by Amelia Shaw
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Fae Hunter: Semester 2*
Blurb Slightly Misleading
The blurb of the book makes you think that the bulk of it will take place in the Fae realm, but after a brief visit there, we stay stuck in the human world at the Academy until around the 50% mark. I thought this book was unbalanced in its pacing and action. It felt slow in the beginning and through much of the middle, but then really sped up–and the end was at lightning speed. The book has a little more profanity than I am comfortable with. I thought some sensual scenes, as well as regular ones, had elements that were slightly cringe-worthy. The heroine learned a lot more about herself, the Fae realm, and the Academy, much of which will come as a surprise to the readers of the first book. Not everyone is who or what they seem. The end of the book is a bit shocking, with a nail-biting cliffhanger at the end… so if you’re not a fan of those, be warned. This book cannot be read as a standalone; you do have to understand what went on the previous book to fully grasp what happens in this one. If you like the first book, you will most likely enjoy this one. While this book did have shortcomings, I am curious to see the resolution to the cliffhanger as well as what happens in the heroine’s evolving relationships with Fae princes.
The Time Traveler’s Magic by Anna Applegate
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The Time Traveler's Magic*
Glaring Medical Errors Distracting
While it isn’t relevant to the entire book, I am an RN, and I have to say that I thought the hospital portions of the book were way off, starting with the phone call that Ember received about her mother lapsing into a coma. As an RN, I have had to make those phone calls myself to family members, and I would have never have called a patient’s daughter at work in that circumstance or asked her to come in right away (when there is nothing she can or needs to do). The idea of having a hospital administrator latching onto a family member when she enters the hospital asking for bill payment wouldn’t happen either. There would be no team of doctors entering her mother’s room, trying to figure out what happened with her mother; there would be one hospitalist or intensivist working with her for the day, and perhaps a consultant or two, but they would rarely all be in the room at the same time unless a critical, emergent event is taking place (and even then it wouldn’t be likely). I could go on, but I won’t.
Aside from the above, I felt like the book was an odd mishmash of what are a lot of contemporary characters/themes in independently published books: magic, vampires, shifters, pirates, and time travel. If only one of them were a billionaire, then most of the common tropes in fiction would have been represented! I didn’t think these all necessarily played well together. I also did not like the heroine; she seemed too inept to handle either the present or the past, which made the reading a bit tiresome.
Dragon’s Fury by Brian Meeks
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Indigo (Chapters)
Dragon's Fury*
Character-based, Campy Epic Fantasy
Is campy epic fantasy a thing? That’s how this book came across to me. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the sequel to The Blues Brothers movie, but this reminded me somewhat of the idea of having “to get the band back together.” It is definitely character driven, and there are a LOT of characters (not always easy to keep track of them all, especially when some have similar names). An old nemesis is supposedly back, dredging up bad memories and opening old wounds as people come together to try to figure out what to do about it. The character vignettes were interesting, but I felt like the action itself was a little boring. It was more about reading about quirky characters and what they got up to as they sorted themselves out rather than a true edge-of-your-seat epic fantasy. By the way, I didn’t think either the title or the cover went along with the book at all; I do like both to reflect what is in the book; they set a tone and expectations, acting as the first gatekeepers and guiding me in deciding if I want to read it. Despite all this, though, I am curious to see where the author will go with this world.
The Wind from Faerie by William Justus
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters), and Bol.de
The Wind from Faerie*
Nice Try, But Misses the Mark
This attempt at fantasy by a new writer didn’t quite hit the mark. There are whole-book issues as well as micro issues. For the overarching issues, I think the most significant problem was that there didn’t really seem to be one major conflict that everything should have been building toward. This made the book feel like it lacked direction and purpose. For me, it was the kind of book that, when I got to the end, I found myself wondering why I had spent the time reading it. Fantasy particularly, I think, really needs a solid structure; we need something it to hold on to when we are propelled into a world that is not like our own. That said, the author did a fairly decent job of world building. The world is believable and interesting. This is the first time I have seen movie-like ratings in the blurb of a book, and it didn’t seem wholly accurate as the book seemed rather tame to me. The danger of using that type of system is that it is generic and not really describe a book. I actually think it would be best classified as a YA novel in general, despite what the rating says.
There were smaller issues as well. I didn’t particularly like the protagonist, and that always helps when reading a book. I thought the author tried too hard to use sensory details to describe things, and this slowed down the pacing of the book as we got mired in long paragraphs of overly detailed language. Some authors can actually pull this off, drawing you into their world through the use of sensory descriptions, but it did not work here. The prologue didn’t really seem to fit with the rest of the book. I do think this world has the potential to be explored in future books, but I think the author needs to grow as a writer to fulfill his visions of the world.
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