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| B00W4BS5R8
| 3.93
| 135
| May 01, 2015
| May 01, 2015
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really liked it
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Wow, this was incredible! The worldbuilding was unique and interesting, the characters and their arcs were amazing and the combination of fantasy elem
Wow, this was incredible! The worldbuilding was unique and interesting, the characters and their arcs were amazing and the combination of fantasy elements in the historical setting made this an incredible and intense experience. Fair warning before diving into my gushing review: this book contains very, VERY dark themes. The author isn't kidding around or using the content warnings lightly. The book contains very graphic rape/non-con of a MC (not by the other MC), very (VERY) graphic and gory torture, lots of violence, death, gore, blood etc. This story takes place in the medieval times which were already a brutal time period but the author added in the existence of demons and the devil, which increased the level of brutality. The next section will discuss the most graphic/brutal of these dark themes so I'm putting the whole discussion under a spoiler cut if you'd like to skip it entirely. But please note that I put specific gory details under spoiler tags within the section so you can still read it without the details. (view spoiler)[The rape and the worst of the torture takes place between Fydelis and the devil (Fydelis' master, Malaketh). If you'd like to give the story a shot but want to skip those sections, beware of Chapters 1, 5, 29 and 32. Whenever a scene starts with Fydelis interacting with Malaketh in hell, skim to the end of the scene and the next scene will be back in the mortal realm. Speaking of those scenes, I want to give the author huge kudos for the incredible creativity that went into the torture that Malaketh subjected Fydelis to. It was gratuitous and the level of gore/brutality didn't advance the plot in any meaningful way but I loved that the author had put a lot of thought into how an overpowered being like the devil would torture an immortal angel/demon. The torture is excessive (do NOT click on this spoiler if you're sensitive to references to graphic torture and gore) (view spoiler)[(Malaketh rips Fydelis' skin off, he tears his limbs off, turns him inside out etc) (hide spoiler)] but at first, I thought Malaketh was doing random things just for the sake of hurting Fydelis. But when I realized that Malaketh was playing with Fydelis by forcibly changing his body from demon to angel and back to demon, my jaw dropped! Two examples of this included (don't click the spoiler if you don't want gory details!)(view spoiler)[Malaketh breaking Fydelis' back open, allowing his angel wings to appear, only for Malaketh to rip them off, and having Fydelis' hair and eyes become pale/light when his angel self re-appears but then Malaketh uses Fydelis' own blood to darken the hair and eyes until he once again resembles the demon he's been turned into (hide spoiler)]. I was blown away by that creativity and how much thought went into the whole thing! But like I said - those scenes aren't essential to the story and they can be skipped. (hide spoiler)] Now I promise there won't be further gory details so you can safely click any spoiler if you'd like more information. This story is the most unusual second chance romance setup I've ever come across. The story takes place during medieval times and Gareth has spent much of his life being a Crusader Knight, having been taught from a young age that it's his duty to be god's sword and to go forth and vanquish any evidence of dark magic or the devil's doings. During his years spent being a Crusader, he does what all Crusaders do and he chooses a personal guardian angel/god who he prays to and turns to for protection. While most Crusaders choose female guardians, Gareth chose the angel Fidelity. Maybe Fidelity wasn't a popular guardian angel or maybe Fidelity took a shine to Gareth specifically because the two of them develop deep feelings for each other over the years. What makes their first romance so unusual is that they can't directly interact with each other. In fact, Gareth has no idea that Fidelity has fallen in love with him just as Gareth has fallen in love with his angel. Then Gareth starts to question the direction and necessity of his Crusader mission and when he turns his back on crusading and switches over to being a priest, he and Fidelity lose track of each other and this results in a mess when Fidelity goes against god's orders and decides to go look for Gareth. The devil swoops in and takes advantage of Fidelity being in the mortal realm, grabs him and forces him to become the demon Fydelis. Meanwhile, Gareth is heartbroken that Fidelity has abandoned him and they're both sad boys. Long story short, Fydelis is given an assignment by Malaketh that allows him to join Gareth in the mortal realm but for a steep price. In addition to agreeing to do a dangerous mission for Malaketh, Fydelis is too ashamed to tell Gareth that he's Gareth's beloved Fidelity so he keeps that info to himself. The plot involves Gareth and Fydelis dealing with tons of supernatural and human-made dangers (many of which are connected to both of their pasts) and fulfilling the deadly mission that Malaketh has forced them to go on. The author seamlessly blends together the historical medieval details of the time period with in-depth, creative fantastical elements that result in an intense, gripping plot. I loved it! In particular, I loved that the author used the era's intense religious conflict to provide realism to all the fantasy aspects. This was a period of time where the majority of people in this part of the world really did believe in god, the devil, demons and angels so having all of these things exist in the book's universe felt more realistic than in other historical fantasies. For example - when a religious figure is preaching or ranting about something, it takes on a whole other level of seriousness when readers know that all those things that are being threatened are very real. In addition, the author does a fantastic job building on the religious and magical plot points as the story progresses, escalating the stakes and the tension to the point where the climax was jaw-dropping and I had no idea how the author was going to get both MCs out of the situation they were in, never mind giving them an HEA. I won't spoil it (it would take me too long to explain the details anyway) but to my delight, the resolution wasn't only creative and romantic but it fit perfectly into the story and beautifully wrapped up both MCs character arcs. I can't emphasize enough how much I adore the author's usage of fantasy in this story! I also loved Gareth and Fydelis' relationship. Malaketh allows Fydelis to take on a human appearance when he's in the mortal realm and Fydelis decides to take on the persona of a bratty, flamboyant guy who also happens to be an incredibly powerful demon. This was a great way to level the playing field between them, since Gareth is much bigger, he's a strong, experienced soldier and he holds a position of respect (being a priest) in the village where he and Fydelis first meet. It was also great having Gareth and Fydelis team up during battles with both using their respective strengths (Gareth using sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat while Fydelis uses his magical knowledge and dark magic to enhance Gareth's strength and healing abilities). Something I loved is that this is half second-chance romance and half first-romance. While Gareth doesn't know that Fydelis is his Fidelity for much of the book, it doesn't really matter because Fydelis had little opportunity to interact with Gareth in meaningful ways when he was Fidelity. With both of them being on the mortal realm this time around, they can actually communicate, learn about each other in more meaningful ways and they can truly bond. Since they travel together, there are tons of sweet domestic moments of them taking care of each other when the other is cold, injured or something else. But in addition to those bonding moments, it was so wonderful to constantly be reminded that these two already love each other (even if Gareth didn't know that his beloved was right next to him for much of the book) and that made their interactions more meaningful and made the danger they were in more intense. One of the minor reasons I'm not giving this incredible story 5 stars is because the reveal of Fydelis being Fidelity should have been a much bigger deal than it was. (view spoiler)[The problem is that the author holds back the reveal for much of the story, which meant the reveal had to take place right before the huge climax. As a result, there was very little emotional payoff from that reveal and that was disappointing because this should have been the hardest hitting part of the story. Fydelis has witnessed Gareth's grief at having lost Fidelity for years and Fydelis also knows that Gareth has maintained his vow of celibacy and refuses to consider sharing his heart with anyone else because he's still in love with Fidelity. Gareth should have felt betrayed and angry that Fydelis didn't reveal his true identity earlier, especially because Gareth has demonstrated multiple times that he'd grown to care for Fydelis' demon persona and respected him. (hide spoiler)] The other reason I can't give this 5 stars is because for some strange reason, the author decided to have Fydelis frequently use modern phrases and modern profanity. I have no idea why and the other characters consistently spoke in old-timey ways that suited the medieval time period the story takes place in. Fydelis would speak the same way most of the time, but then would randomly use modern profanity or a modern phrase, which always yanked me out of the story. I wish the author had carried the historical-era language throughout the entire story. But these two issues were minor in comparison to the many, many things this story did right. Overall, I'm blown away by how much I enjoyed this story. It was unique, intense and very well written and very well plotted and I'm definitely going to check out more of this author's work. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 20, 2024
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Jul 22, 2024
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Feb 11, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 163477597X
| 9781634775977
| B01IX3L4QY
| 3.90
| 259
| Aug 10, 2016
| Aug 10, 2016
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liked it
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This had so many great elements but unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of the pacing. The creep factor in this one was solid, which was exactly what I want
This had so many great elements but unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of the pacing. The creep factor in this one was solid, which was exactly what I wanted, the worldbuilding was unique and interesting and I enjoyed the romance. The big downfall for me was that the pacing was completely wrong for this type of story. I loved the way the author wove together magical elements with the culture and climate of Louisiana, which created the perfect backdrop for this creepy gothic dark romance. Levi and his family have been involved in the world of magic/spirits for generations and this manifests by Levi being able to see people's souls through their eyes (ie if they have a good soul or a bad one), his young sister Silvi can see ghosts and his mom and grandma can do seances and know some basic other witchcraft. In addition to using these character to showcase different types of magic, the author also showcased various cultural spiritual practices that exist in that part of the south, including voodoo, hoodoo, tarot and other things. I would have loved for the author to go more in depth with the different magical practices and with the magical elements overall, but I'll discuss that complaint later. But in terms of the positives - I love that the author incorporated a lot of different magic practices and tied them very strongly to the characters, their histories and the swamp that their small town is located next to. I also liked the romance progression, despite the pacing not being what I wanted. I loved Monroe's dark, tragic history and how the author had the MCs bond through dark, magical situations but also through normal, light hearted ones. For example, there would be heart pounding scenes such as when (view spoiler)[Monroe saves Levi from drowning himself in the swamp when he's under an evil spirit's control (hide spoiler)] and there were very sweet scenes such as when (view spoiler)[Monroe drove Levi and his little sister to the nearby city to go school supply shopping when their old car wouldn't start (hide spoiler)]. The creep factor of the story was also high. If you're squeamish when it comes to gore, this wouldn't be the book for you. I usually have a high tolerance for this kind of stuff in written form (though I can't watch any scary movies) but the scene where the author describes how the evil spirit looked when the characters were all at the top of the stairs in Monroe's house was almost too much for me. I was reading the story in broad daylight, on a noisy bus and I got so freaked out by the description of this evil, rotting, mangled thing that I had to stop reading for a minute. But to be honest, the repeated descriptions of the evil spirit are the biggest 'jump scare' in the story. The creep factor in the rest comes from Levi losing his ability to control his own actions and thoughts when he's around any dark spirit and he gets himself into some pretty hairy situations. Now for the negatives. This book had such huge potential but unfortunately, I didn't feel the author went all in with this one. The first half was boring and repetitive with Levi knowing he's attracted to Monroe due to the latter's soul having been cursed (ie because Levi's drawn to dark things) but also knowing he shouldn't go near him so there's a lot of hot/cold happening from Levi towards Monroe and there are countless scenes of people in Levi's life telling him to stay away from Monroe. The repetition was the biggest problem because the same things happened over and over again. People telling Levi to stay away from Monroe. Levi sleepwalking during his nightmares and ending up (view spoiler)[nearly drowning in the swamp by Monroe's house (hide spoiler)]. Silvi drawing/liking ghosts. Levi staring at the black serpent that was always winding its way around Monroe's body. These scenes happened over and over again, to the point where I got bored. What puzzled me about the slow pacing is that it hinges on Levi and his family considering Monroe evil due to the curse on his soul and not wanting anything to do with him. But Levi's family would be in a better position than most to understand that this isn't Monroe's fault and it's not permanent. Levi is literally attracted to dark/evil things yet nobody writes him off as a lost cause and Levi's situation seems to be permanent. Monroe's situation is a difficult one (the curse was cast by somebody very motivated and very knowledgeable about dark magic) but there's no question that it's temporary and it's absolutely not Monroe's fault. Monroe was just 8 years old when he was cursed, which should automatically make people think twice about judging him so harshly. So I didn't understand why it took until 80% (!!) for the characters to start trying to break the curse. Sure, Levi does a bit of research at the halfway mark where he figures out who put the curse on Monroe and why, but this still doesn't result in any of the characters wanting to cut Monroe some slack or wanting to help him. The poor guy has lived with this horrific curse since the age of 8. He has no family or friends since most people can sense that there's something wrong with him and steer clear. In addition, the evil spirit thing (I won't spoil it by revealing who it is) has never left him in peace and is constantly torturing him by doing things like scratching him bloody and other horrible things. Not only that, but the entire situation started when his mom had been murdered and due to circumstances I won't spoil, his father wasn't available. It isn't until he adopts little Coin (an adorable mutt) that he finally gets to experience feeling loved again. And none of this was his fault! So it upset and irritated me that all the characters went the majority of the book not wanting to help him. Since the curse breaking plotline doesn't actually start until 80%, it's incredibly rushed and IMO, it was resolved too easily. To be honest, by then I'd had enough of seeing the rotting, evil spirit thing because it gave me the creeps but it had also gotten repetitive. I thought one of the main plotlines that would be woven throughout the entire story would be the curse breaking so it was disappointing that it was only a subplot near the end. In particular, I was looking forward to it because Levi's family don't dabble in complex magic. Their knowledge and skills seem to be standard but not nearly adequate enough to battle something this dark. For example, (view spoiler)[Levi buys himself an amulet that he wears and he makes some protection mojo bags but these things don't even slow down the evil spirit (hide spoiler)]. It would have been interesting to see the family try more things and gradually increase the complexity and danger level of the techniques they're attempting during the curse breaking. The story also featured other characters who knew more about specific types of witchcraft than Levi's family did so making the curse breaking a bigger plotline would have been the perfect vehicle to add more excitement and educate readers more about the magical practices that have existed in Louisiana for hundreds of years. I also had some other issues with the story: 1. Having the curse breaking take place so late in the story meant we didn't get to spend a lot of time with non-cursed Monroe. In fact, the final scene had a lengthy description of Monroe's new car but we only get to see Monroe interact with Levi for a few sentences. 2. Every single smut scene between the MCs was a result of Monroe allowing his cursed soul to take over and Levi being uncontrollably attracted to that darkness. I wasn't a huge fan of these scenes because I couldn't tell if either character was actually into what was happening or if they were under the control of other forces. In addition, once we find out what/who the evil spirit is and its description, I really didn't want that thing being incorporated into the smut scenes in any way and having Monroe act like he's completely under the control of the dark magic inside him made it impossible to enjoy the scene. 3. This was a minor issue, but the situation with Ward made me uncomfortable. It's not a huge part of the story so I'm going to put it under a spoiler tag if you want to skip it. (view spoiler)[So Ward is the only recurring black character in the story, which is otherwise filled with mostly white people. From the beginning, you can tell that there's something off about Ward. The guy speaks without using any contractions, he doesn't have a personality and most noticeably - he doesn't seem to have his own life. He's literally always there when Levi needs him. Day or night, at home or at work, Ward always pops up whenever Levi needs him. I thought Ward was a ghost but then we learn Monroe can clearly see and talk to him so I went back to wondering what/who Ward really is. When the reveal comes during a flashback conversation between Levi and Ward, I both liked and disliked it. Don't click on the spoiler if you don't want to know the reveal. (view spoiler)[So Ward is Levi's soul. Levi also calls him a ghost but it's not clearly explained how/why/when Ward came to be. The author also never clarifies how anything related to Ward works. For example, why Munroe, Levi and Silvi can see him but nobody else can and why Ward is able to pick things up, sit on furniture and do other human things. (hide spoiler)] My main issue with this whole thing was that it made me uncomfortable. Ward didn't have his own personality or his own life. He was literally just a part of a white guy, put in the body of a black guy for some unexplained reason. This meant Ward wasn't considered a person and that whole thing made me uncomfortable. I just can't get over the fact that the only recurring black character in this story had a role where he appeared human but he was actually a thing that literally belonged to a white guy. Maybe it's just me but the whole thing had weird vibes. (hide spoiler)] Overall, this story was really unique and creative and I did enjoy the romance but the pacing was too slow overall and I wish the author had spent much more time on the curse breaking. Despite the dark premise, it often felt like the author was holding back from making things as intense and interesting as they could be, which was too bad because all the ingredients were there to make this a really great story. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 07, 2024
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Sep 10, 2024
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Feb 11, 2024
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ebook
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| B08XZQ7NTQ
| 4.27
| 259
| unknown
| Mar 19, 2021
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liked it
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I'm completely floored by how much I enjoyed this! I'm not into the fated mates thing, I knew this was the second in a series and the summary is writt
I'm completely floored by how much I enjoyed this! I'm not into the fated mates thing, I knew this was the second in a series and the summary is written with a rom-com tone while the premise is far from rom-comy so I was sure this would be a quick DNF. Plus - that cover really intrigued me because it's very unique but I was worried that it too would be a case of false advertising/trying too hard (which has happened to me very often with books that market themselves as being dark/intense). Well, not only did I finish it but I enjoyed the majority of it! In fact, I'm going to read two other books in the series and check out what else the author has written. One of the reasons this book worked for me was because it contained so many tropes I love: second chance romance, plenty of angsty pining between the MCs, MCs willing to destroy anybody/anything in their path to protect each other and lots of hurt-comfort. There was also bed sharing, body heat sharing/naked cuddles and having one MC take care of the other when he's injured (including (view spoiler)[having Dane bathe a filthy, injured Seren and both of them ignoring the sexual undertones of the situation in order to stay focused on getting Seren clean and warm (hide spoiler)]). The writing was also very enjoyable and the action scenes were thrilling and intense, which I hadn't expected at all. In fact, I'm using my dark romance tag for the book since the descriptions of many battles involved a lot of violence and gore, which made me really happy because I was worried the book wouldn't take those topics seriously. Speaking of which - I was very happy that the MCs dragon shifting abilities played a huge role in the story. I've read some shifter books (dragon and others) where the shifting ability rarely comes into play or it's just a party trick and this book did complete justice to the shifter genre and I ended up loving Dane's dragon just as much as I did Dane himself. I also loved the fantasy aspects. This is book 2 in the series and I hadn't read the first one but I had no trouble getting up to speed on Dane and Seren's interesting history and the world the author had created. I really loved that the author casually wove worldbuilding explanations into the narrative when and if they were required which made it easy to understand what was going on but wouldn't be annoying to those who had read the first book. The fantasy world itself was also refreshingly unique (IMO). The dragon shifters live in different clans spread throughout coastal/rural England and they live in old castles and follow traditional routines but the author always makes it clear that these books take place in contemporary times. There's magic, dragon shifters, fated mate bonds and other fantasy creatures but there's also cellphones, coffee shops and hotels. The way the author blended together the typical medieval-style high fantasy setting with the contemporary world was really well done and everything fit together beautifully. It was also a neat touch that the author used Irish (Gaelic?) words for certain dragon related terminology (uasal = gentlemen (the nobles); ridire = knight (dragon hunters) etc). I also adored both MCs. Dane is part of a warrior clan and he's one of the biggest, strongest dragons around. The guy's job is to kick ass when somebody threatens somebody he cares about and there's no such thing as overkill where Dane's around and I mean that literally (if you're squeamish then this is not the book for you). Dane is exactly the kind of guy you want on your side and you don't ever want to be fighting against him. Seren is from a nobility clan and while he's a competent fighter when in his dragon form, he's also capable of doing magic. Together, the two of them are an impressive force and that's mostly due to Dane having trained Seren five years before the story starts. (view spoiler)[They had both developed feelings for each other while training but when Seren was told/threatened by his clan leader to stay away from Dane (since warriors aren't considered good enough for nobles), they go their separate ways and spend the next five years grieving a relationship that died before it got off the ground. I found it fascinating that the author had both Dane and Seren's dragons go through different versions of depression as a result of the break up. These two dumb-dumbs don't realize until near the end of the story that they're fated mates, which is why their dragons reacted so strongly to them being apart but I personally didn't find this reveal surprising. Anyway - Dane's dragon struggles with constant rage to the point where Dane has trouble keeping his dragon under control and he's constantly lashing out and getting into fights when he shouldn't. With Seren, his dragon retreats so far within him that Seren loses the ability to shift or use any of his shifter magic (healing, magic spells etc). His dragon is the light inside Seren and being separated from Dane had turned off that light and left Seren an empty shell. The author did such a great job describing their pain at being separated that their joy at being reunited and deciding to get together permanently made me as happy as it did them. They were adorable together, especially Dane. (hide spoiler)] The reason I can't give this wonderful story more than 3 stars is because of the length. The story isn't nearly as complex as it could and should have been. (view spoiler)[When the story starts, Dane and Seren have already been broken up for 5 years. Seren is told he's going to be forced to mate (ie marry) with somebody from another nobilty dragon shifter clan, he refuses, he's disowned and cast out, he's kidnapped by that nobility dragon shifter clan and Dane rescues him and brings him to his warrior dragon shifter clan. The End. The story is just Seren going from clan A to clan B to clan C and the entire thing takes place over the course of 3 days. Yet, the book is 360 pages and the reason why is due to filler. (hide spoiler)] After the epic beginning where we're introduced to the MCs and (view spoiler)[Seren is cast out (hide spoiler)], the pacing suddenly crawls to a halt for several chapters as the MCs are separated and they interact with many different side characters who are all sequel bait for future books in this 9 book series. Some of the characters who showed up did serve an important purpose (Glimmer, Glenwise, Rhod) but many didn't (Prince, Broadmire etc). I do appreciate that the author showcased all of those characters personalities well, to the point where I know that I'm interested in books 8 (Glimmer/A Ridire) and 9 (Glenwise/Rhod) but you couldn't pay me to touch books 3 through 7. But it was still irritating having the pacing slowed to a crawl and having to skim through scene after scene of boring nothingness while I waited for the MCs to reunite. The author also went overboard to force the side characters into scenes, even if it meant pushing the MCs into the background. The worst example of this was (view spoiler)[Glimmer having the locket of Seren's hair that the witch used for the location spell. It would have been much better for Dane to have kept something of Seren's all of these years and for that to be used for the location spell (hide spoiler)]. Another obvious clue that the author is paid per page is that half of the book contains repetitive internal monologuing by the MCs. Many times individual lines of dialog would be followed by paragraphs of internal rambling (which we'd heard dozens of times already) before another line of dialog was added. Some conversations were painful to follow and many times, the internal rambling was so bad that the characters were literally thinking in circles. They'd have Thought A, go through Thoughts B through E and that last one would lead back to Thought A and so on. It didn't help that the smut scenes were well written but they were very long and there were many of them. Since the book suffered from such a severe level of bloat already, the smut scenes were yet another part I had to skim over in order to stay awake. Then there was the ridiculous situation where Seren's voicemail to Dane is fully written out THREE TIMES in the narrative - first when Seren leaves it, second when Dane listens to it and a third time when Dane lets somebody else listen to it!! The author isn't even trying to hide the fact that she stretches out her books with filler to get more money from higher page reads. The length of the story would have made perfect sense if the author had done one of the following: a) showed all of Seren and Dane's romance with a five year time skip in the middle or b) had the entire thing take place over longer than 3 days with more types of conflict and more plotlines. As it was, the book could have easily been cut in half and told the exact same story. This all being said, I'm going to check out books 8 and 9 because I did enjoy the story and it's currently my favorite dragon shifter MM romance, which says something. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 18, 2024
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May 20, 2024
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Feb 11, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| B0B9DBGNJR
| 4.41
| 8,427
| Sep 09, 2022
| Sep 09, 2022
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it was ok
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This book has gone on and off my TBR multiple times but after having all of my GR buddies express their love for it, I finally decided to see what the
This book has gone on and off my TBR multiple times but after having all of my GR buddies express their love for it, I finally decided to see what the fuss was all about. Full disclaimer: I haven't read the rest of the series so I wasn't familiar with the world or who the barrage of other characters were but it didn't really matter. Lilac and Seraph are both outsiders at the start of the story (just like I was) and the author provided enough worldbuilding info that I could easily keep up. Sidenote: I really wasn't a fan of calling the monsters 'beasties'. It sounds childish and condescending. You'd think the monsters would find such a childish reference offensive but whatever. The good news: I really enjoyed the first half. The hurt-comfort scenes, the slow bonding between Lilac and Seraph, the creative ways the author had them communicate, the domestic routines that Lilac and Seraph developed - all of this was great. The writing style was enjoyable and although I found many of the cameos by previous characters annoying and pointless, the first half of the book flew by and I was shocked at how quickly I had read the first 200-odd pages. The first half is basically the length of an average romance book and it didn't feel like it which indicates to me that the author did a good job with the pacing in the first half. The bad news: once the MCs got together around the halfway mark, the focus of the story changed and I lost interest. I was going to write a detailed review listing all of my issues with the second half but I came across Azzlen's wonderful review, which lists exactly the same problems I had. Sidenote: I almost threw up when (view spoiler)[Seraph puts his fingers into Lilac's mouth and Lilac enthusiastically sucks on them. Seraph hasn't bathed in literally years and he's been eating raw meat and hasn't had access to toilet paper or any other hygiene supplies for years (hide spoiler)]. But to the author's credit, even though I didn't find the monster sexy times sexy at all, I though the author did a great job coming up with creative ways that Seraph and Lilac could have sexy times despite Seraph's complex anatomy and metal bars being between them for much of the book. Kudos to the author for that! Overall, I'm glad I finally read this. I can understand why people adore this book and this series so much and I'm happy that I finally know what the fuss is all about. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 16, 2024
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Apr 17, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 9781310770333
| 3.79
| 1,358
| Apr 24, 2015
| Apr 25, 2015
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did not like it
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DNF @ 38% I can't believe how incredibly boring this was!! It really does take talent to make a motorcycle club dark romance that features rape and abu DNF @ 38% I can't believe how incredibly boring this was!! It really does take talent to make a motorcycle club dark romance that features rape and abuse so boring that I nearly fall asleep. Things started out really intense with (view spoiler)[Ghost traveling to New York to surprise 'Zara' who he knows has come to New York from Italy for a short trip. They've fallen in love through their 5 year online relationship and Ghost wants to propose. Then Ghost finds out that Zara is really Luca and that leads to drama, but he also discovers that Luca's abusive boyfriend is actually a real-life mafia boss. Luca was forced to become the mafia boss's sex slave in order to pay off a massive debt ($50K) that his father had owed to the mafia and died before repaying. Ghost decides to rescue/kidnap Luca and then we find out that that this mafia is actually the main supplier of the drugs that Ghost's motorcycle club sells, which means he's in hot water when it's discovered that he'd kidnapped Luca. Things stay intense as Ghost negotiates with the mafia boss to pay off Luca's debt in full so Luca can be free and that's followed by Luca being brutally raped and tortured during his last night with the mafia boss (hide spoiler)]. Based on all of this, you'd think the story would continue being a well paced, intense dark romance, right? Wrong. From the moment Luca is handed over to Ghost, the story become a snooze-fest. The MCs go to live with different people for no reason other than to showcase those side characters, there's way too much focus on those side characters and boring scenes are stretched out with boring conversation (like when Ghost takes Luca clothes shopping and they spend ages talking about what jeans and underwear Luca should buy). Then there's Ghost's repetitive angsting over him a) knowing he's bi and b) being really attracted to Luca but c) not wanting anybody else to know that he's bi (despite the club's vice president being openly gay). It was really boring and nothing was happening. I skipped ahead several chapters and it turns out that I hadn't missed anything important and that the boring pacing had continued, which meant my decision to quit early was the right one. I had so many other issues: + Some of the dialog was cheesy and didn't fit with how either MC would talk, but especially an MC like Ghost. Some of the dialog wasn't just cheesy but it was written oddly, as if the writer isn't a fluent English speaker. Examples of this bad dialog: "I've never done anything like this, but I can't stop thinking about kissing your lips since I laid eyes on them." and "I'm lost in what you make me feel." + Both Luca and Ghost were constantly gasping, which always makes me think of cartoon characters or those brain dead heroines from MF romances. + (view spoiler)[Luca is handed over to Ghost the morning after his torture session, having been raped, flogged and having had a finger cut off. After a short first aid session in the back of a bar administered by Ghost and being given some pain meds, Luca apparently heals up immediately because there's little reference to him being in pain even a few hours later. Luca literally had a finger cut off and nobody mentions it or discusses caring for the amputation after that initial first aid session. (hide spoiler)] + Ghost decides (view spoiler)[the best place to bring Luca immediately after he's released from the mafia boss's captivity is his parents' home, where his parents waste no time letting Luca know how much they hate him. I completely understand why they weren't a fan of Ghost's catfisher living in their home but Ghost knew ahead of time that his parents would react badly and he also knew it wasn't the right environment to bring a traumatized Luca. The MCs quickly leave the morning after arriving but they had the offer to stay with Lucky and Tooth before they went to Ghost's parents' home. The only reason they didn't take that offer immediately (despite Ghost knowing it was the more appropriate offer) was because the author had to showcase the parents' on page but it made Ghost look like a dumbass (hide spoiler)]. This was my second try by this author after having DNF'd the Dig Two Graves duology early and this experience doesn't make me excited to give the author another try. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 11, 2024
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Aug 13, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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ebook
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| B08FK99YT2
| 3.92
| 1,093
| Aug 20, 2020
| Aug 20, 2020
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really liked it
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This was such an interesting and unique romance! The romance wasn't quite as hard hitting as it would have needed to be in order for the book to get 5
This was such an interesting and unique romance! The romance wasn't quite as hard hitting as it would have needed to be in order for the book to get 5 stars but I loved the characters, the beautiful prose, the historical authenticity and the author's worldbuilding and usage of fae mythology, which were all incredible! Historical Authenticity To my delight, the author does an amazing job portraying the early 1800s time period that the book takes place in. Much of the story has the MCs wandering around in rural parts of York and other parts of Northern England so we don't get to see much of society but all the historical details (clothing, houses, meals etc) felt on point. Best of all - the MCs behaved and spoke exactly the way you'd expect two men living in 1810 would. One of my favorite details was that they rarely use each other's first names throughout the story, even after they become a couple. During arguments, they even automatically refer to each other as 'sir' and all of that fit perfectly with the mannerisms that they would have spent their entire lives being exposed to. Some readers would find this off putting but I loved it because it showed that the author prioritized historical authenticity over modern romance tropes and by doing so, readers get to see how two men in this time period would become and remain a happy couple without randomly adopting modern behaviors. Beautiful Prose Another thing I adored was the gorgeous writing. The story has a dark tone, tackling themes of death, dark magic and fear and the whole thing takes place during cold winter with the MCs spending a lot of time in the bitter cold or in abandoned places where they huddle for warmth. This dreary, creepy atmosphere was beautifully brought across by the gorgeous prose, which also helped create the historical atmosphere that the author was going for. Here are some examples (in no particular order and no connection between): (view spoiler)["I was born here," Loxley corrected, faintly. "though I've spent my adult years in London, it's true. I came north because--" There was an uncomfortable gap in his memory where reason ought to have sat. "Where am I, exactly?" XXXX "Because I assure you, I should most certainly like to give you cause to avoid me, if only so you can save yourself the trouble of coming to my rescue yet again. But as I know of no way to deter the Fair Folk from their course, you must either excuse or instruct me." XXXX "You've told me often enough that I judge myself too harshly. I'd be dead three times over by now if it weren't for you, so I'll hear no more of your failures, sir." XXXX (hide spoiler)] Worldbuilding / Fantasy Elements I don't know much about Fairy/Fae mythology so I don't know how much of the worldbuilding came directly from mythology, what was inspired by it and what the author created but this was incredible. The Fae in this story aren't the elven-like ethereal beings that you usually find in romances where they feature as MCs. In this story, they're a cross between Gollum from LOTR and the Night King from GoT. These Fae are incredibly dangerous, powerful and creepy. I won't spoil anything because the pacing of the many reveals throughout the story are part of this story's powerful impact but basically, Loxley discovers that he'd been cursed by the Fae when he was a child (the details are revealed throughout the story) and he has no clue how to break the curse or how to survive the Faes' multiple attempts to get him to come to Faerie. Thorncress has spent his life dealing with the Fae for reasons that are very personal and which I also won't spoil. He's Loxley's only hope but the reason this story is as intense as it is is because the characters realize very quickly that they have very, very little chance of defeating the Fae. People wear charms and they can attempt to burn Fae markings off themselves, but nobody has ever managed to kill a Fae, break a Fae curse or best the Fae at their evil plans. So the thing is - stories don't usually go this way. Normally, the heroes discover a way to defeat the big evil villains and then they do. But in this story, the author takes a very, very unusual approach, one which I loved but it was also very shocking. Don't click the following spoiler if you don't want to know the resolution of the story! (view spoiler)[The MCs don't defeat the evil. Instead, the evil defeats them, just like they feared it would throughout the story. There's no Chosen One trope, there's no last second big reveal that gives the MCs the ability or power to defeat the Fae. Nope. The Fae win because that's what the Fae do. Humans are weak, pathetic creatures in comparison to the Fae, who are rumored to be older than the Earth itself and it was shocking but not surprising that our humans don't win against them. But what's also interesting is that the MCs still get an HEA, even if it's a very unusual one. (hide spoiler)] No detailed spoilers but believe me - I was NOT expecting the story to go in that direction and to have such an ending! Throughout the story, the combination of the beautiful prose, the rich historical details, the atmospheric descriptions and the worldbuilding all combined to make a creepy, intense plot that gripped me from start to finish. Having the story take place during winter was a huge help in terms of creating the right atmosphere so I'm glad the author took every opportunity to make these powerful, scary creatures come across the way they needed to. The Romance The only aspect of the story that I wish was done differently was the romance. I adored both MCs and due to the premise (Loxley being hunted by the Fae and not having a clue how to stay alive), the MCs were constantly in hurt-comfort and rescue situations with each other. They saved each others lives multiple times, they took care of each other's injuries, they huddled together for warmth and there was plenty of platonic bed sharing (and some non-platonic bed sharing too!). I loved all of that and I fully believed that Loxley slowly fell in love with Thorncress along the way. The only part of the romance that fell a bit flat for me was that we don't get Thorncress' POV and he's a very stoic, closed off individual so I never felt a strong connection with him. In addition, while Loxley's main priorities in the story start out being his own safety, he quickly grows to care for Thorncress and prioritizes the latter's well being too. The problem is that throughout the entire story, Thorncress' motivations and priorities lean more heavily towards people/situations who aren't Loxley, which isn't what I want in a romance. The best example of this was near the end. DO NOT click on the spoiler if you don't want the biggest plot twist in the story spoiled. (view spoiler)[So towards the end of the story, Thorncress dies. Without going into too many details, I was confused about his death because the established rules in this world dictated that he should have died 2 days later than he did. But then we find out that the catalyst behind his death happened 2 days earlier than Loxley thinks, which makes the timeline right. But here's the problem: Thorncress knew 3 days before his death that he would die. He knew exactly when he'd die, why he'd die and most importantly - that this would leave Loxley completely alone in an abandoned house, within reach of the Fae that had been pursuing him for his entire life and with Loxley still having no clue how to keep himself safe. The fact that Thorncress spent those 3 days not telling Loxley that he was about to die made me sour on their romance a little bit. Throughout the story, we know that Thorncress has always planned to die exactly the way he did end up dying because he had some other unfinished business. But the thing is - that unfinished business related to somebody who had died a long time ago and there was zero guarantee that Thorncress would be able to find or help this person after his death. But Loxley was right there. Loxley was alive, in love with Thorncress and there was at least a little chance that they would figure out how to save Loxley. There wasn't much of a chance (because...Fae) but still. If I'm reading a romance novel, I don't want one of the heroes to decide near the end that protecting the man he loves is secondary to something else. And here's the thing - everything that Loxley feared would happen to him if Thorncress ever left him does happen. Loxley is tired of being scared, hunted and in pain so he gives up and lets the Fae take him. He does get reunited with Thorncress in Faerie and thus, we get an HEA (one of the most unusual HEAs I've ever come across), but I wish Thorncress' death hadn't been intentional on his part. I like the way he died because it strongly connected with many elements in the story but I wish the mechanism behind his death hadn't been intentional. It would have been absolutely devastating for Thorncress to accidentally do what he did that sealed his fate and for him and Loxley to both know that Thorncress had exactly 3 days left before he'd die and to have them pointlessly scramble to come up with a solution for either of them and to end up failing. (hide spoiler)] Conclusion Overall, I really, really enjoyed this. It had so many strong elements and it was incredibly well done and it was also a very unusual romance. If the author had done a few things differently with the romance then this would have definitely been a 5 star read but I still loved it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 07, 2024
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Aug 08, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| B0185L7EE0
| 3.68
| 50
| Dec 04, 2015
| Dec 04, 2015
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did not like it
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DNF @ 22% This romantic suspense apparently has a really cool twist that the majority of reviewers agree is really epic but I'll never find out what it DNF @ 22% This romantic suspense apparently has a really cool twist that the majority of reviewers agree is really epic but I'll never find out what it is because the writing is so juvenile that I couldn't continue. The dialog is unnatural and stiff with the MCs frequently not using contractions and talking in stilted ways that make them sound like robots. At other times, the MCs sounded like they weren't fluent English speakers, which wasn't supposed to be the case. Maybe the author isn't a fluent English speaker and based the dialog on their own speech patterns? Who knows but it was unbearable. Here's an example of Jamie talking to Kyle after Jamie wakes up from a nightmare: "My crazy mind hurts every time I sleep. Why am I so sure I deserve death in my dreams? Like I did something wrong, like there is any reason..." If this were a historical or if you read the words with a slight non-English accent then it sounds okay but neither apply to this story. Jamie is a native English speaking 22 year old living in the 21st century, which means he wouldn't phrase things that way. The rest of the writing was equally juvenile. The pacing is unbelievably rushed at the start with events happening at breakneck speed which doesn't allow readers to connect with either character or what's happening. The writer should have just skipped the beginning and conveyed the setup through telling instead of showing, but it's pretty clear that the author isn't an experienced writer. Jamie's characterization also made no sense. The guy's parents and sister were murdered when he was five and since then, he's been attacked twice by somebody who everybody assumes is the killer. Whether the guy is trying to finish off what he'd started or if he's obsessed with Jamie and just trying to kill everybody around him is unclear. Suffice it so say that Jamie is very paranoid for good reason. He doesn't allow anybody close to him, he refuses to work/live/be in the same place for long periods of time and his entire life revolves around him being paranoid. So when Kyle offers to let Jamie be his housemate for really cheap, you'd think Jamie would be suspicious and it would take him ages to trust Kyle, right? If it turns out that Kyle is doing a lot of suspicious, creepy stuff that Jamie is fully aware of (knowing Jamie's name and that he's looking for a place to rent despite Jamie never having met him before, watching Jamie sleep and touching him while he sleeps, knowing Jamie's favorite drink from Starbucks and having all the ingredients ready to go when Jamie moves in so Kyle can make him his drink every morning etc), it would be a given that Mr. Paranoia would run for the hills immediately, right? Well, no. Jamie trusts Kyle immediately and none of Kyle's obviously inappropriate, red flag behavior shakes that trust. The reason this happened was because the author needed Jamie to want to be around Kyle in order for the story to work, but this was a manufactured plot convenience that made no sense. I also hated that Jamie was supposed to be in his early 20s but he often acted like a child. He threw a full on temper tantrum after waking up from a nightmare (yelling, kicking his bed) and Kyle has to reprimand him like he's a kid so he doesn't accidentally break his foot or something else. Then there's a weird conversation between Kyle and Jamie where Jamie asks what Kyle wanted to be when he was growing up, Kyle says musician and Jamie immediately declares that Kyle would be the world's best musician...despite not knowing if Kyle has any musical talent and anyway - it's a childish thing to say. Kyle reacts to all of Jamie's childish behavior the way any parent would, which meant I felt uncomfortable when I remembered that these two would eventually be a romantic couple. In addition, I'm pretty sure I guessed what the twist would be, based on the huge, obvious clues that the author leaves right from the start. Several reviews claim that the twist was different from what they thought it would be, but the writing is so bad that my curiosity isn't strong enough to make me want to skim through it. It's too bad that the writer didn't spend more time polishing this or pay to get an editor's assistance because it sounds like the story has a unique plotline and that's something the genre desperately needs more of. But if the story isn't readable then none of that matters. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 18, 2024
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Jul 18, 2024
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Sep 26, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B09BMBJBMJ
| 4.19
| 213
| Aug 20, 2021
| Aug 20, 2021
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did not like it
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DNF @ 22% I was very excited about this one. A dark romance featuring an MC who used to be in a white supremacy gang, then he has the rug pulled out fr DNF @ 22% I was very excited about this one. A dark romance featuring an MC who used to be in a white supremacy gang, then he has the rug pulled out from under him when he becomes a paraplegic, then an alcoholic and then goes to prison. The love interest is a prison guard who bonds with the inmate MC while he serves his sentence and helps him get his alcoholism under control, they work together to figure out how to deal with the wheelchair scenario and there's a redemption arc too. This was everything I wanted, but it turns out that I had made some assumptions that weren't correct. It's a shame because this was a highly anticipated read for me. Not Dark Romance I only read a quarter of it so I can't say for sure, but except for the prologue, I don't think the dark romance label is applicable. Just because somebody has a traumatic past and the story includes very evil villains doesn't make it a dark romance. Maybe some people consider very heavy, angsty books dark romance but that's not what my interpretation of the label is. Missing Info The author claims this is a standalone and that enough background info will be provided to make it easy to understand if you haven't read the previous book. That's not the case. We start the story with a prologue showing how Pete ended up in the white supremacy group (more on that later). Then we skip 20 years into the future to Pete arriving at the prison. It's not clear how/when/why the guy is in a wheelchair but signs indicate it's a temporary situation, which made me sad face anyway. Then we learn that the white supremacy group (the Aryan Society, I'll refer to them as the AS from now on) fell apart many years ago and Pete has been living in fear of his former buddies since. There's no explanation of how/when/why any of these things happened. Pete also has a son and apparently the son is involved in a massive age gap relationship with somebody Pete knows/knew/whatever and the whole thing is confusing. THEN we learn that Drew isn't just a random do-gooder (more on that later) who works at the prison. No, he used to be in the AS too! But...Pete and none of the other AS members (the prison is filled with them) recognize him...? The former AS boss (Black) is also in prison but he also doesn't act like he knows Drew. And how the hell is it possible that somebody who was part of such a big, well known hate group ends up working as a guard in the prison system? These groups don't typically allow lurkers. You have to have the right look and behavior to join and that means your days of blending in at the neighborhood summer BBQ potluck are over, never mind passing a background check and becoming a prison guard. Suffice it to say that I was very confused and I had no idea what was happening. In fairness to the author, I only read 22% and maybe these things do get explained but I'm not a reader who wants to stay confused for most of a book before things are fully explained. Pete = Not A Badass Villain Pete was supposed to be a badass but he's just a pitiful Sad Boy with a Tragic Past who spends way too much time crying and feeling sorry for himself. The blurb describes Pete like this: Peter Gaffin can be downright vicious, even while using a wheelchair. Combining that line with his past as a white supremacy group member creates a certain image in my head of what this character was supposed to be like. So having him spend lots of time crying into his pillow and lashing out like a moody teenager when Drew tries to help him move around wasn't what I wanted. Having Pete respond to Drew's offers of help with stubborn pride and lashing out with deeply embedded rage would have been realistic. But having the guy weakly push Drew out of the way and sit there like a sulky teenager didn't work for me. The problem is that the author was clearly worried that readers wouldn't sympathize with a character like Pete so certain decisions were made in an effort to make him more likeable. But unlike in other dark romance books where a morally corrupt character is given characteristics or an arc that make him likeable (maybe not redeemable but a character doesn't have to be a good guy or redeemed to be likeable in my books), the author took the approach of making Pete a Good Guy who just happened to be in bad situations. I hate it when authors do this and I'll never stop complaining about it. Instead of this being a story about a guy who went through the complex psychological journey of starting out being a normal kid and then becoming a fully committed member of a hate group in his teens, we learn that Pete wasn't only forced to join the AS but he was a victim from start to finish. In the prologue, we learn that he was befriended by a recruiter without knowing the guy was a recruiter or even part of the AS. When the recruiter invites him to watch an underground fight (Pete has been participating in such fights for years), Pete happily goes. The whole way there, he keeps hoping that his crush on his new friend might result in them getting together at one point. They arrive and he's told he won't be watching a fight but he has to participate in the fight. In fact, it's his initiation into the AS. Pete has no idea what's happening, he has no idea what the AS is and he has no desire to join them. But he's told he has to fight or be killed. So he's forced to join the group under duress and his services as an enforcer (I assume that's what he did) were also provided against his will. To make matters worse, the AS leader (Black), rapes Pete when they're alone together during initiation and he explains that Pete will basically be his sex slave from now on. So no, this wasn't a guy who ended up on the wrong path in life and slowly questions his beliefs and allegiances when he's exposed to things outside of his bubble and then tries to make up for his past wrongs. No, Pete is a Victim. The author bent over backwards to make Pete sit in the Victim category instead of the Villain category, and that means this isn't a redemption arc. The story focuses on the enormous amounts of trauma that Pete has lived through and based on what reviewers have said, the story is essentially trauma porn. There's an audience for books like that - ones which wallow in never ending angst and sadness - but they're not my thing. In addition, I'm too annoyed at the discovery that Pete isn't the type of character I'm interested in reading in. Drew = Good Guy Caricature Maybe fearing that readers who believe 'all prison guards are evil' won't like Drew from the start, the author decided to make Drew a saintly caricature. He's liked by all of 'his cons' (an expression used frequently by Drew that I didn't like for various reasons) and he claims they respond to his kindness and friendly manner by returning it. Uh huh. Yeah, I'm sure they're all kind hearted teddy bears. He also doesn't carry a weapon because according to Drew, weapons mean violence and that's a no-no. Drew also regularly comes within grabbing distance of 'his cons' because he wants to be more personable with them or some nonsense. He acknowledges that it's not safe and the inmates could easily grab his radio, phone, keys or many other things that guards walk around with but he still does it because he's a Nice Guy and those prison guards who always stay at least arms length away are all Meanies. *sigh* And of course, to ensure readers really understand what a Good Guy Drew is, the author makes sure that his co-workers are mostly rude assholes with god complexes who bully inmates just because they can. Of course prison guards like that do exist, but having the most frequently recurring guard side characters be depicted like that was annoying. The whole thing felt very YA to me and I hate it when complex things are simplified like this. Unrealistic Depiction Of Prison Life The author did do a bit of research into life in US prisons, but I happened to have spent a lot of my free time watching documentaries about life in US prisons (and I'm not even American) and the many inaccuracies bothered me to the point where I couldn't take the story seriously. Some examples: Black is a very violent man who is in prison because a) he was the leader of a large white supremacy group and b) he committed multiple violent murders (he did other things too but I assume he was convicted because of the murders). But Drew explains the reason Black is in a medium security facility is because max facilities didn't have the room. That's...not how these things work. At all. Black is what the prison system would label a very high security risk (I believe they use a complicated numbering system that assigns numbers based on various factors and then spits out a total). If there wasn't room at a max facility, they would look for a lower security risk inmate who's at max due to the length of their sentence. Their choice would be somebody with a clean(ish) prison record (minor infractions only) and a criminal record containing non-violent offences, like drug crimes and they would transfer that person down to medium and Black would go to max. There's no way - NO WAY - a person like Black would end up in a medium facility. Next problem - Black is serving time in the SAME PRISON as many of his former gang members. This also doesn't happen. Gang leaders are automatically sent to separate prisons and not allowed any contact with former gang members. There are even specific gang-unit staff members at prisons whose jobs involve studying gangs and coordinating with each other to figure out where to put who. It's actually a very complicated process, especially when you add in the complexities of rivalries between different gangs, including ethnic divisions. Obviously there are still tons of gang related issues in prisons but making sure leaders don't get to hang out with their former subordinates is the bare minimum. There are so many other problems with the way Black is treated in the book. He's rude to guards and threatens Drew with violence when he's released from solitary, which would automatically send him back to the hole. But Drew is so loving and kind that he ignores the threats. Black also makes a fuss that he doesn't want Drew handcuffing him as they walk back to Black's block because it won't look good to his guys. That's ridiculous. Somebody in Black's position would have spent so much of his prison life being handcuffed while being transported from point A to point B that he wouldn't even notice or care when it's happening and he wouldn't bother questioning such a basic, non-negotiable part of prison procedure. And none of his guys would think anything of it either because it's so normal. But then the author increases the stupidity of the situation by having Drew handcuff Black with his hands in front of him. That's the part where I DNF'd because there's stupidity and then there's that. Sure, if an inmate is a low security risk with a clean prison record, I've seen guards handcuff their hands in front or even leave off the handcuffs entirely (the inmates have to keep their hands in 'cuffed' position when walking). But that privilege has to be earned and Black isn't somebody who would ever get there. There are also multiple instances of Pete being rude to Drew and shoving him. Drew ignores these incidents each time and when Pete does it to another guard, Drew and the guard get into an argument in front of Pete over whether to ignore it or punish Pete. None of these things are how things are done and for good reason. Black = Bad Guy Caricature I wasn't impressed when the author described Black as having a mouth full of rotting teeth and being covered in tattoos of dead bodies depicting the people he'd killed. It felt like the author was going overboard in an attempt to illustrate that Black is a Very Evil Man. Having a mouth full of rotting teeth only happens in very specific situations and none of them apply to Black. As for his tattoos - I don't believe he'd choose such simplistic yet OTT gory imagery. The types of tattoos white supremacists have are specific and come with certain rules and meanings. Sure, they can also mix in some personal tattoos but having the author specify that Black only has these childishly gory personal tattoos made me lose faith that the author had done sufficient research into the subject matter. It basically boils down to: if you're not comfortable doing research about a specific topic then don't write a book centered around that topic and claim it's an accurate depiction. Maybe the author was worried readers would be put off by the description of real white supremacy tattoos but I think it was a lost chance to educate readers who might come across that imagery in other spaces but won't know their meaning and the dangers they represent. Conclusion This book didn't meet any of my expectations. It basically boils down to me being disappointed by the misleading marketing of the book, the YA-like characterization of the MCs, the sanitized portrayal of the difficult topics involved and the blatant inaccuracies that simple research could have avoided. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 02, 2024
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Jan 03, 2024
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Jun 16, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 162798920X
| 9781627989206
| B00KAGGOF4
| 3.97
| 622
| May 11, 2014
| May 12, 2014
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did not like it
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DNF @ 25% I've liked some SJD Peterson books but this one was just bad. I really liked how it started! The author did a great job depicting the MCs whe DNF @ 25% I've liked some SJD Peterson books but this one was just bad. I really liked how it started! The author did a great job depicting the MCs when they were 12 years old. Their behavior, thought processes and language fit their pre-teen ages very well. Then the boys turned 18 and that's when things fell apart. So Jamie and Tek have been secretly attracted to each other ever since they engaged in 'practice kissing' at the age of 12. They've been friends since birth and both of them were born into motorcycle club legacy families with their futures written in stone. Tek will be president one day and Jamie will be his lieutenant. Their lives are filled with violence, homophobia and misogyny and I was really excited to read a story about two genuinely bad men who make no excuses for their atrocious behavior but they happen to fall in love with each other. Unfortunately, the author didn't depict these men in a realistic way. The boys and co go to blow up a rival's warehouse, which was great! Jamie is a bit dumb and ends up with the enemy's gun pressed to his head which made me side eye him but okay, fine. Tek loses his shit in a way that would clue even the dumbest person into the fact that he's got the hots for his buddy. Cue another side eye and me thinking this book wasn't going to go well. Anyway, I did like how they got out of the situation and it ends by Tek shooting the enemy guy because nobody threatens Jamie and gets away with it. That was great! Except... Tek is overcome by guilt afterwards and Jamie fusses over him, insisting that they share their feelings about the situation with each other. Neither of these things jived with who these men are supposed to be. The author tells us that they had done a lot of 'stuff' for the club from age 16 to 18 already and it's strongly implied that murdering people was part of that stuff. So having Tek throw an angstfest after that situation made me go WTF. And having Jamie hovering over him, hugging him and insisting that they talk about their feelings regarding the situation didn't ring true either. Even worse - the author was obviously fighting the characters during those stupid conversations because the normally flowing dialog suddenly became stilted, unnatural and the boys stopped using contractions. It felt like the author had to physically shove every word into the characters' mouths one by one and they were fighting every step of the way, which is why the dialog was so atrocious. None of it was realistic because guys like this wouldn't be acting like that. The author thought that she could adequately portray these guys as criminals by randomly throwing in the word fuck and constantly referring to women as bitches but having the rest of their dialog and many of their actions not ring true made the overall effect fall flat. In addition, whenever the boys 'speak gangster', it comes across as trying way too hard. It sounds like a teenage boy who just learned some curse words and he throws them into whatever sentence he can create, thinking it makes him look cool. The best example of this was when the guys go to get tattoos and the author refers to the font style used as 'gangsta font'. That little fact perfectly summarizes what's wrong with this story. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 22, 2024
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Apr 22, 2024
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Jun 11, 2023
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ebook
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| B07XVSPWRY
| 3.71
| 142
| Mar 23, 2023
| Sep 23, 2019
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it was ok
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It was impossible not to compare this story to Amy Rae Durreson's The Holly Groweth Green (which was a 5 star read for me) because the two stories sha
It was impossible not to compare this story to Amy Rae Durreson's The Holly Groweth Green (which was a 5 star read for me) because the two stories share a unique premise: (view spoiler)[one MC was cursed centuries ago and the curse can only be broken if somebody falls in love with them. Complicating matters is that they only appear in their true form at specific times of the year (hide spoiler)]. Well, at least that's what the author of this book had me believe is the case for a while but then things got muddled and confusing but more on that later. This book is very short (60 pages) so the author had an uphill battle right from the start, since the MCs go from strangers to lovers and there's a complex magical mystery to figure out. That's already a lot, but the problem is that the author overcomplicated the already complex magical mystery for no other reason than to make it creepy. While I didn't mind the creepy additions, I did mind that the situation ended up being very messy and many points didn't make sense. (view spoiler)[So Malcolm comes across this random town, he's wandering around outside and he meets David, who invites him to his cabin in the woods and they have sex. Then David starts acting strange and begs/forces Malcolm to leave ASAP, which Malcolm does. The next morning, Malcolm talks to the villagers about the young man he'd encountered but he's told there's no young man. The individual living in that cabin is a very, very old man. Making things weirder is that the villagers know the old man has been an old man for at least a hundred years and he's been living in that cabin since before any of them were born. There's lots of talk about witchcraft and other stuff, Malcolm goes to visit David's cabin, finds the old man, realizes it's David and because Malcolm has 'fallen in love' with David (cue me giving the author the side eye), the curse breaks, David turns young again, they leave the village and then the village disappears. (hide spoiler)] There are so many problems with this: 1. There's no way Malcolm fell in love with David over the course of 12ish hours. Even if David used some magic and/or Malcolm was confusing lust for love, that shouldn't have tricked the magic into releasing the curse. In comparison, Durreson's The Holly Groweth Green addressed this problem head on and actually dealt with it in a realistic way, which was one of my favorite parts of that story. 2. So we're initially led to believe that (view spoiler)[David was cursed somehow and he's forced to live as an old man for eternity until somebody falls in love with him. The best chance he has for this is on the night of the harvest moon, which is the one night a year when he turns into his younger form. That all made sense. But then we find out that's not the case. Centuries ago, David had a lover and they were both accused of witchcraft by the villagers. They murdered the lover but then David discovered that the lover's body had disappeared and he'd left behind his necklace. So David assumes that means the lover is still alive, which was a silly assumption but David was grieving so I was willing to let it go. So David starts searching for the lover, but he can't find him. David starts growing older and that's a problem because he needs to keep looking for his lover. So the guy decides the thing to do is to start luring young men to his cabin during the harvest moon night (when David is in his young form), murdering them and using their blood and bodies to make himself immortal so he can keep searching for his lover. This made no sense. NO SENSE. If David has spent 200 years searching for this lover despite never finding any sign of him and never having any INITIAL sign that the dude's still alive, then he's obviously suffering from intense mental illness. Malcolm declaring that he's 'in love' with David wouldn't have done anything to solve that. Also - learning that David has devoted the last 200 years of his life to his deceased lover means there was no time for David to move on and fall in love with Malcolm. Yet, we're expected to believe that he does? Also - I found it hilarious that the author casually mentions that David is a mass murderer who has been brutally killing young men for hundreds of years out of a selfish desire to extend his own life span, yet this reveal has no consequences. Malcolm just ignores it and it's shrugged off. Listen - I love morally corrupt MCs but you can't have a guy confess to being a murderer with purely selfish intentions and then have the supposed good guy MC shrug it off like the guy confessed to stealing a cookie at the age of 5. It made no sense. Plus - the whole magic situation ended up being a confusing mess. We start out being told that David was cursed by somebody else and he only has the harvest moon night to find somebody to help break the curse. This made sense. But then we learn that David uses the harvest moon night to kill young men in order to extend his life span. There's no curse. There's no requirement for true love. Everything that's happening is being done by David...but he can only be young during the harvest moon night and he still needed Malcolm to break the curse?? WHAT?!? (hide spoiler)] I can tell that the author wanted to put a creepy spin on the usual true-love-breaks-curse situation, but the author got over excited by wanting to re-invent the wheel and didn't spend nearly enough time smoothing things out to make a coherent story that would fit within 60 pages. 3. It's not a big point, but it bothered me. Malcolm was a walking, talking, empty headed himbo. In fact, I've never seen a character purposefully being written to be so stupid and it was only done to make the plot move faster. (view spoiler)[So Malcolm arrives in this village and the first thing he notices is that the road leading into it resembles a Roman-build road and it doesn't look as old as it should. When he's talking to the villagers the next morning, all the villagers talk and act in a distinct style that's reminiscent of a medieval/1500s time period. After Malcolm breaks David's 'curse' and they leave the village, the village disappears and nobody in the area has ever heard of it (hide spoiler)]. So it's pretty clear that the entire village is meant to represent (view spoiler)[some ghostly remnant from medieval times, which was when David's lover was murdered (hide spoiler)]. This screws up the entire timeline anyway (another sloppy mistake), but my biggest problem is that Malcolm doesn't question any of these weird things. He notices them but there's zero reaction from him, like his brain is turned off. Add in his non-reaction to finding out that David is a serial killer and we have an MC who basically acted as a narrator instead of being a main character in his own romance. 4. Since the story is so short and there's so much crammed into it, I would barely classify this as a romance. The only connection between the MCs is instalust and they barely know each other before the end of the story. Again - comparing this to ARD's story emphasizes what a poor take on the premise this story is. Overall, this is the second book I've tried by this author and neither of them have been my cup of tea. The author's ability to portray historical time periods is fantastic, but this story needed a lot more development and smoothing out, never mind that the romance was badly lacking. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 09, 2024
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Jan 09, 2024
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Jun 04, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B0BT4TY24K
| 4.03
| 1,647
| Jan 25, 2023
| Jan 25, 2023
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DNF @ 21%. No rating. This wasn't my thing at all. The reason I picked it up was because both Declan and Blake are alpha werewolves and I love alpha-al DNF @ 21%. No rating. This wasn't my thing at all. The reason I picked it up was because both Declan and Blake are alpha werewolves and I love alpha-alpha pairings. Making things potentially even more interesting was that former richy-rich Blake has lost access to his family's wealth and Declan takes advantage of that to get revenge on Blake by forcing him into a humiliating prostitution arrangement. I was expecting an intense enemies to lovers plot where two violent alpha werewolves start out hating each other's guts but slowly fall in love. Unfortunately, the author's take on Blake's alpha nature was a joke. The guy is a spoiled, immature, whiny man child who is supposed to be an alpha werewolf in his early 30s but he acts like a teenage boy. Not only that, but he goes ga-ga over Declan's alphaness immediately and easily takes on the submissive role that Declan forces him into. Blake is also dumb. For example - the guy spent days at Declan's casino, gambling with money he didn't have and racking up huge room bills that he also knew he couldn't afford. So Declan tells Blake he can work the owed debt off by being Declan's personal whore or Declan will turn him over to the cops. So what does Blake do a few hours after agreeing to this? He decides to 'get revenge' on Declan by ordering tons of expensive room service and charging it to their (Declan's) room. And then Blake is gobsmacked when Declan informs him that every cent of that order will be added to Blake's debt. Because...duh! There's stupid and then there's that. Basically, there was nothing alpha about Blake and when you add in that I really hate immature, annoying MCs then there was nothing left. Fair warning: while the characterizations weren't what I wanted at all, the author does go all in with the enemies to lovers aspect. Declan forces Blake into a prostitution arrangement and the sex scenes that I read were all non-con (even though the author claims they're dubcon). Other reviews indicate that Blake suffers mental health issues (panic attacks, crying) from the abuse he's subjected to, which would have been a DNF point for me anyway. I adore MCs who are rough and violent with each other but only if they're on a level playing field in terms of their physical strengths and their ability to defend themselves. Blake isn't an alpha in any sense of the word so having Declan treat him like that isn't a fun game - it's just abuse and I'm not into that. For those still curious about the book, please note that the little bit I read worked very well as a standalone. I haven't read any other books in the series and there was little sign in the part I read that this is part of a series. I seems I was the only one who had issues with Blake's characterization and people who are fans of the rest of the series generally enjoyed it and many thought this was the best of the series, which meant my expectations really weren't what they should have been and that's why I won't rate it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 18, 2024
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Mar 18, 2024
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May 15, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 9781949340433
| 3.92
| 194
| Aug 13, 2018
| Aug 13, 2018
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really liked it
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What a wonderful start to a series! I loved both MCs, the pacing was perfect and the length of the story was just right for this introductory arc, whi
What a wonderful start to a series! I loved both MCs, the pacing was perfect and the length of the story was just right for this introductory arc, which felt satisfying but also makes me excited for the rest of the trilogy. I'm not a huge fan of vampire romances, particularly ones that follow the standard trope of having one MC be a vampire and the other be a young human. It's a given that the human MC will always be younger than the vampire but it's normal for the human to be very young - the same age that the younger MCs usually are in significant age gap romances. Due to the age gap already creating a massive power imbalance between the MCs, if you add in the vampire MC being more powerful, richer, experienced etc and the dynamic between the MCs is so skewed that I don't enjoy it. But in this case, the author made some fantastic decisions regarding Edmund's characterization that made me adore him and root for his relationship with Andrew. (view spoiler)[Edmund might be in his 20s but he's not innocent, shy or helpless. He was born into wealth and inherited a title so Andrew's former status doesn't impress him. Edmund might be young but he purposefully left behind his pampered upbringing and has spent his life travelling around the world as a naturalist, feeding his never ending curiosity about the world and his craving for adrenaline and adventure. Meeting Andrew provides Edmund with everything he loves: a chance to study a mysterious creature, an adventure filled with action and danger, the company of a fascinating man who has enough stories to satiate Edmund's never ending desire for new information, and a lover who has the stamina and desire to give Edmund the never ending rounds of enthusiastic sex this power bottom craves. (hide spoiler)] I loved that on the surface, it seems like Andrew would be the one to take control of their interactions but Edmund makes it clear from the start that he considers himself Andrew's equal or even superior to him. This is beautifully demonstrated so many times, especially by their behavior on the island. (view spoiler)[Andrew has spent 4 years on the island already but he's spent that time throwing himself a pity party and making zero effort to improve his situation. When Edmund arrives, he doesn't even wait for his wounds to fully heal before he's running around, fishing, hunting, exploring and setting traps to protect them from the cannibals. It's Edmund who sets the pace with their romantic relationship too and it was both funny and highly enjoyable to have Andrew just following along behind Edmund, completely enraptured by this fascinating human whose arrogance rivals that of any vampires. (hide spoiler)] In particular, I loved that the final confrontation between Edmund, Andrew and the cannibals involved (view spoiler)[Andrew following Edmund's orders (hide spoiler)]. Then Edmund (view spoiler)[continued his trend of taking control of any situation he's in by refusing to be intimidated by the older female vampire (Michelle; the leader of Andrew's coven) when she comes for a visit (hide spoiler)]. But making Edmund's characterization even better is that he wasn't thoughtlessly arrogant or immature. (view spoiler)[He has a huge amount of knowledge about the world, he has a wealth of life experiences and he's been exposed to lots of different people and situations, bringing him much closer to a vampire's mentality than other humans in this time period would be. He's cunning and intelligent and he uses that to his advantage to steer situations in the direction he wants to go. (hide spoiler)] I absolutely felt that Edmund isn't only Andrew's equal but that they make an amazing couple. The fact that Edmund is human (I have no doubt this will change later) doesn't even matter. I also loved Andrew and it was great that the author didn't try to censor his vampire nature. He's a brutal, violent creature who has spent hundreds of years viewing humans as nothing more than toys, sex partners and sources of food. He's murdered and tortured humans with zero regret and many of his sexual interactions with humans were dub-con situations. When he finds himself exiled, he undergoes a really interesting character arc but it's one that fits his personality perfectly. (view spoiler)[He doesn't suddenly develop a conscience. His main interest in keeping Edmund alive has nothing to do with developing a sense of compassion or empathy for the injured shipwreck survivor. Instead, he wants to keep Edmund alive so Michelle will believe he's changed and release him from exile. But then Andrew realizes that Edmund is far from being as dumb and ignorant as Andrew's accustomed to humans being. As the days go by and they get to know each other, Andrew quickly falls in love with this fascinating human who matches Andrew in every important way. In addition, I got the sense that Andrew lost some of his arrogance and violent tendencies purely due to the length of time that had passed. Prolonged loneliness will usually calm any temper and I got the impression that's what happened here. But when push comes to shove, Andrew is still very happy to let his violent tendencies take over. The author never lets readers forget that Andrew isn't human - he's a dangerous, dark creature and I loved that. (hide spoiler)] Connected to that, I also liked that the author doesn't sanitize any of the dark subject matter in the story. There's plenty of gore and violence which is described in graphic detail and there's no attempt to justify or romanticize Andrew's treatment of humans in his past. There's also zero interest from either Andrew or Edmund to humanize the cannibal natives of the island and I'm so glad that the author decided to avoid going down the politically correct route with that issue because that would have completely gone against Andrew and Edmund's characterizations. Side note: this story is marketed as being historical but there's little attempt at historical accuracy except for the clothing that people wear. In particular, there are lots of modern phrases used in the dialog. But I didn't mind too much because most of the story takes place on a deserted island so social norms didn't matter anyway and if the flashbacks had included period-typical attitudes towards homosexuality, it would have changed many of the events that mattered. I didn't find the inaccuracies bad enough to be distracting. Overall, I really loved this first installment and I can't wait to continue! I adore Andrew and Edmund as individual characters and also as a couple and I can't wait to find out what they'll get up to when they're in New Orleans. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 03, 2023
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Jul 03, 2023
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Mar 10, 2023
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ebook
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| 1955211132
| 9781955211130
| B0BKFF7TPB
| 4.12
| 1,176
| Oct 25, 2022
| Oct 24, 2022
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did not like it
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DNF @ 60% I had really high expectations for this because I keep expecting Ashlyn Drewek to deliver another masterpiece like the Leander Welles series, DNF @ 60% I had really high expectations for this because I keep expecting Ashlyn Drewek to deliver another masterpiece like the Leander Welles series, but it keeps not happening and this book is yet another example of that. To be fair, the summary does a pretty decent job of setting this story up exactly as it is: a low angst MM romance that happens to include some paranormal elements and a simplistic mystery/suspense plotline that includes some gory violence. Unfortunately, I had way higher expectations than this. My first problem with the book was the excessive length (it’s nearly 500 pages). More than half of this book could and should have been cut because it was repetitive and boring. The worst was the first 35% (or 18 chapters), during which Chase has no idea vampires exist. This is a problem because the book has alternating dual POV chapters so all of Chase’s chapters in the first 18 were generic MM romance stuff: Chase angsting about not wanting his fellow cops to find out he’s gay, dealing with his homophobic father, dealing with a clingy asshole ex-boyfriend who is also in the closet etc. All of these things would have been fine...if the story hadn’t been a paranormal suspense featuring vampires! I mean, come on! In addition to Chase’s ignorance of the supernatural world making his chapters boring, it also meant his view of the murder cases that he’s dealing with were a waste of time. Through Eric’s POV, readers learn pretty early on that all of these random murders are being committed (view spoiler)[by a male vampire (Tiberius) (hide spoiler)] for reasons that are stupid and boring (but I’ll get to that later) but at least readers get some direction and forward movement with Eric’s insights. Chase has zero insight and that’s not his fault but it meant his chapters were really boring. While things did pick up a little bit after Chapter 18 when Chase finds out about vampires, things quickly shift back to Boring Town. I didn’t think it was possible to create a paranormal vampire romance featuring multiple murders that was boring and unoriginal, but the author managed to do that. Every single plotline was done in the most unoriginal and boring way possible: Eric is a badass 250-year old vampire, but he prefers to live the life of a normal human detective. He doesn’t socialize with other vampires, he doesn’t do any cool vampire stuff, he just goes to work, does his job, swings by a Polish deli to buy pigs blood to eat and comes home. Rinse and repeat. Chase and Eric have feelings for each other but the author wanted to draw out their slow burn romance as long a possible and this was done by the tried-and-true methods of having the MCs interrupted every single time their clothes came off or having one or both of them do the whole ‘I’m-not-good-enough-for-him’ thing. The murder mystery (ie the string of murder victims who all have their throats torn out) isn’t actually a mystery because we learn early in the story who is behind the murders and why. Essentially, (view spoiler)[another male vampire (Tiberius) is annoyed that Eric is living on his turf and for some odd reason, he’s decided after decades of them sharing space in Chicago that NOW is the time for him to express his dissatisfaction by creating tons of work for Eric and making it hard for Eric to keep the vampire world hidden from humans. Oh, and Tiberius is also trying to kill Chase because he knows that would annoy Eric. (hide spoiler)] Even typing that out felt boring. You have a 250 year old vampire and another one that’s been around since the Roman Empire and territory jealousy is the only conflict between them? Seriously? Anyway, so we know who is committing the murders and why so the only thing left is finding (view spoiler)[Tiberius (hide spoiler)] and sorry, but having Eric constantly staring at a map of Chicago and angsting over not being able to find the guy wasn’t interesting. Not to mention that this setup (ie having readers know who is doing the killing) means I didn’t care whenever another random body showed up. The repetition in the murder mystery was truly baffling. Over half of it could have been cut out with no impact on the overall story and I didn’t even read the whole thing. Then there are the gorgeous and scary female vampires who came with such potential but once again – their main problem with Eric seems to be that he refuses to get involved in their internal politics and that he’s fond of Chase. B-O-R-I-N-G. Also – side note but I was annoyed that the author didn’t describe the Queen’s physical appearance except for noting that she looks stunning and is pale. I don’t care if authors don’t describe what generic characters look like, but when you have somebody with interesting physical features, I want to know about them so I know what to picture. I have no idea what the Queen looked like – hairstyle, eye color, clothes etc and that bothered me. Anyway, back to more important things. So basically, every single plotline (the paranormal stuff, the romance, the murder mystery/suspense stuff) was done in a boring and generic way. I just didn’t get it...the author had all the ingredients to make this an amazing and intense paranormal romance, yet this bland stuff is what she came up with? After the brilliance that was the Leander Welles series?!? To be fair, I didn’t read the whole thing but that’s part of the problem. This book is so unnecessarily long that I read nearly 300 pages before calling it quits. Maybe something interesting does happen in the final 200 pages but readers shouldn’t have to read through 300 PAGES (which is the length of an average romance novel) in order to get to the good stuff. That’s assuming that there as any good stuff hiding in the last 40%, which I doubt. I also dislike Chase’s characterization and that impacted my ability to enjoy the romance (asides from the romance being boring). Chase is portrayed as the typical damsel-in-distress and it drove me nuts. The author kept inserting cringy scenes where Chase would insist that he’s capable of taking care of himself and he would get huffy at Eric being over-protective while everybody (Eric, readers, probably Chase) knew that actually, Chase wasn’t capable of taking care of himself in those situations and he DID need Eric’s help and protection. The whining and complaining just made him look pathetic. This is the exact behavior I hate seeing in MF romances with those ‘strong’ female characters who insist that they’re tough and smart but they’re actually useless and do dumb things. Thankfully, the author stopped short of pushing Chase into TSTL territory, but it came close. The guy spent way too much time terrified, throwing up, hiding in bed and self-medicating. I think another problem with Chase was that the author seemed to be writing him as being younger than he actually was. He was supposed to be 26 years old but he came across as younger. The author would randomly shove in references to Chase having been in the military and being a tough guy with an attitude, but none of that came across in the scenes where I wanted Chase to actually be a tough guy. He reminded me really strongly of Roan (from the Roan Sinclair duology) and I think maybe the military angle and saying Chase is 26 was the author’s attempt to make Chase seem tougher and more capable than Roan was...? But in any case, it didn’t work because he was written to be way too similar to Roan (or generic romance heroines). All of this also meant I didn’t understand what attracted Eric to Chase in the same way that I didn’t understand what attracted Sasha to Roan in the Roan Sinclair duology. Not only is Eric much older than Chase, he’s literally lived several lifetimes while Chase is only 26, he outranks Chase at work, has way more work experience than him and is more comfortable with his sexuality. Basically, Chase had nothing that would have attracted Eric and or made Eric need him, except for sex related things. The author routinely noted that both of them were in the military, but this fell completely flat because their military pasts are only relevant during one short conversation near the beginning. I knew what the author was going for and I was eagerly waiting for their military ties to become relevant or to help explain why Eric was so drawn to Chase (ex. maybe they default to military tactics while chasing a suspect or maybe Eric has some PTSD flashbacks to combat like Chase did) but the author did NOTHING with the military connection. In addition, to this being wasted potential (and resulting in Eric’s attraction to Chase not making any sense), I also hated how Chase’s military PTSD conveniently disappears after Chapter 18 when he becomes aware of the supernatural world and the author needs to shift focus to that. Lastly, I’m pretty sure this is already obvious but there was nothing particularly dark about this story. Yes, there were vampires and yes, they did kill people but that doesn’t automatically make a story dark. Much like the meat grinder scene in The Vengeance Of Roan Sinclair, the author shoved in an extremely gory scene where Eric (view spoiler)[tortures a female vampire by digging inside her skin, breaking her collar bone and trying to rip it out (hide spoiler)]. My problem wasn’t the gore – it was that the violence was over the top for that particular situation and that the gore was gratuitous. Like with the meat grinder scene, there was no reason for the MCs to spend extra time doing those gory things to those random side characters. Both scenes felt like the author had realized that the stories weren’t dark enough and this was her amateur way of quickly shoving some into the story. Sorry, but isolated scenes of over-the-top gore doesn’t equal dark romance. Once again, I’m left baffled because this is the SAME AUTHOR who wrote the Leander Welles series so she knows exactly how to write dark romance. That series had creepy and dark imagery and symbolism that was cleverly woven throughout the entire series, it had horrifying yet purposeful violence, it had MCs whose violent desires were portrayed in a dark and terrifying way but whose love for each other beautifully balanced out that darkness, and it had original plotlines that were meticulously woven together to make them intense, exciting and every beat left me on the edge of my seat. Overall, I had many of the same problems with this book as I did with the Roan Sinclair duology. At this point, I don’t know if I’m going to continue reading this author’s work. It seems like she’s happy with the books she’s been writing since she finished the Leander Welles series and I’m happy that she’s found a formula that she enjoys, but it’s not what I enjoy. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 13, 2022
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Dec 14, 2022
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Feb 08, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 4.10
| 126
| May 01, 2019
| May 01, 2019
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it was amazing
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What an incredible thrilling conclusion to the series! It's not often that I literally can't put a book down because the story is so gripping so this
What an incredible thrilling conclusion to the series! It's not often that I literally can't put a book down because the story is so gripping so this was everything I was hoping it would be! After the lackluster previous book, I was doubting whether the author intended to do these characters and this premise justice in this finale but she knocked it out of the park! This was Louise Collins at her best - intense and exciting action, great pacing, wonderful characters, great humor and zany OTT shenanigans that were pure fun to read about. What I especially loved was that she really took the time to make this a worthy finale to the series by pulling together every plotline and nearly every character from the entire series to create a thrilling, exciting and emotional experience from start to finish. Even the characters who I had found annoying in the past installments (like Amber and Tom) were used well in this story. I was so impressed that the author brought together multiple plotlines (view spoiler)[(the lady stealing Maddox's diamonds, the shady cop, the people who Maddox had murdered in the previous books, Maddox's failed efforts at figuring out the arson situation, Jake's job at the stationary store etc) (hide spoiler)] and many characters who hadn't been connected in the previous books to create an exciting and cohesive story. Every character had an important role to play, even if they were nothing more than a throwaway reference in the past books (such as Sam, Jake's boss at the stationary store and Ernie, the serial killer). It was also neat that some of Maddox's mistakes from previous books (view spoiler)[(like his decision to let the three junkies go while investigating the arson situation) (hide spoiler)] came full circle to bite him in the ass and were used by the author to add more excitement into the mix. There were multiple times when I got to the end of a chapter and I literally went "Oh, SHIT!", which doesn't happen often. It's so clear that the author really took her time to create something wonderful with this story and she also wanted to wrap up the series as well as possible and she absolutely accomplished that goal. Another thing I enjoyed is that Maddox was back to being the badass mafia boss who the author had introduced him as in the first two books (the third book (Fire And Sand) takes place on an island so that didn't count). I hated how Maddox was way too soft-hearted in Book 4 (Guns And Shadows) and went out of his way to solve problems in a non-violent way. I also hated that Book 4 was from Maddox's POV the whole way through, yet there were important aspects of his character that were missing, such as his love for Beethoven and his misophonia (a severe dislike for certain sounds). Book 2 (Mad Dog Maddox) was filled with Maddox's love and hatred for various noises and colors and this directly impacted his relationship with Jake so I was thrilled that this aspect of Maddox was brought up again in this book, particularly when Maddox is having to deal with the sounds/sights of prison and being away from Jake. I also loved that Maddox and Jake's relationship continued to move forward throughout this book and their relationship journey continued straight on from Book 3 (Fire And Sand). Sidenote - as I mentioned in my review for Book 4 (Guns And Shadows), I felt the depiction of Maddox and Jake's relationship and their characterizations didn't match what had been previously established. But in this book, the author was back to true form and I loved the development of Maddox and Jake's relationship. Specifically, it was really interesting that Jake and Maddox spend much of this book apart (Maddox is in prison) but there were two things that allowed their romance to continue developing despite the separation: a) having the author write the book using dual POV (the first in the entire series) and b) having spent time establishing the characters, their relationship and setting up plotlines in the previous books allowed the author to have the MCs share a strong emotional bond even when they weren't together. Connected to that, I also liked that this book has way fewer sex scenes than the previous ones. In fact, if somebody reads this one and expects erotica then they'd be disappointed. There are only three sex scenes in the entire book and the story itself is twice as long as any of the previous ones. Making things better is that two out of the three sex scenes were new and interesting. One of them involves phone sex (view spoiler)[(Maddox calls Jake from prison) (hide spoiler)] and the last one involves (view spoiler)[Jake tying Maddox up and taking control during sex (hide spoiler)], which is the first time that happens in the series. Speaking of that last sex scene, I love how it demonstrated that Maddox and Jake are now equal partners who rely on each other. In the previous book, I was very disappointed that Maddox still viewed Jake as little more than a sex buddy or even worse, a young, clueless moron who only interested Maddox in a sexual sense. But in this book, Maddox and Jake's separation allows both of them to shine separately and to demonstrate how much they love each other and how far they're willing to go to protect each other. I especially loved that Jake was given multiple opportunities to showcase how clever, brave and resourceful he is (view spoiler)[(first by thwarting the attempted theft of Maddox's third diamond and then leading his pursuers on a chase halfway around the world, and second by using the gun shooting skills Maddox had taught him to protect himself once his pursuer catch up to him) (hide spoiler)]. These scenarios also demonstrated how much Jake has matured throughout the series. At the beginning, he was just an adrenaline junkie who picked pockets for the thrill of it. Now he's grown into a man who uses his thieving/running/manipulating skills to protect the man he loves and fight for their future. In turn, this book also shows how much Maddox had grown and changed. Since he's in prison for most of the book, he no longer has control over Jake's life and thus, he has no choice but to trust that Jake will take care of himself. And once Maddox sees that Jake is very good at doing that, I think that's what allowed Maddox to relax a bit and view Jake as an equal partner - somebody who Maddox can actually envision spending his life with. Not to mention that having to enlist several inmates (ie strangers) to help him escape prison forces Maddox to tell them about his real feelings for Jake and that in turn makes Maddox realize that he's fallen in love with Jake. Lastly, because this series was written over the course of several years, it was really neat to see how much the author's writing and storytelling abilities have improved over time. It's no wonder that I loved the books she's published after this series! Quick sidenote - I tagged this book as dark romance because there are two surprisingly gory/graphic scenes of violence. One of them involves detailed references to (view spoiler)[somebody being burned alive (hide spoiler)] and the other is the detailed description of (view spoiler)[Maddox suffocating somebody in hot sand (hide spoiler)]. The violence matches what's happened in the series so far but graphic descriptions made this tip a bit more into 'dark romance' territory than I thought it would. In case you're interesting in this series but aren't enthused about the number of books, I recommend reading Book 1 (Adrenaline Jake), Book 3 (Fire And Sand) and Book 5 (Diamond In The Rough) and you'll get the full experience of Maddox and Jake's journey. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 16, 2022
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Dec 18, 2022
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Dec 15, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B076PNKJRF
| 3.80
| 233
| Dec 01, 2017
| Jul 2020
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liked it
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I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book, but I knew I wouldn't because this is an exact retelling of the first book, just from Maddox' POV. I di
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book, but I knew I wouldn't because this is an exact retelling of the first book, just from Maddox' POV. I did enjoy learning more about Maddox (like getting an answer to the question of why everything in his apartment is white, grey or black) and getting to fill in some of the blanks that had been left about him from Jake's POV. It's interesting that readers know a lot more about Maddox after reading this book than Jake does. In addition, getting to read the car chase from the beginning of the book from Maddox's POV was hilarious! Readers know that (view spoiler)[Jake is driving the other car after Maddox assassinated the driver, but Maddox has no idea that Jake is even in the car so Maddox's confusion at a 'dead' guy continuing to drive a car and leading him on a chase through the city was absolutely hysterical (hide spoiler)]! The ability to inject this type of humor in a story that deals with themes like violence, captor-captive situations and BDSM is why I love Louise Collins' work. I also liked that we got to see why Maddox likes Jake and what attracted him to Jake. Basically, Maddox has done everything that's worth doing as a mafia boss, he's at the top of the game and he's gotten bored. Everything and everyone around him is predictable and that's exactly why Jake intrigues him so much, because Jake isn't predictable. He's fearless when faced with scary situations, he gets excited instead of scared when dealing with any danger and he's spent his entire life taking care of himself and giving the world the middle finger and that policy doesn't change when he's dealing with the mafia. Jake's attitude and his enjoyment for thrills is what catches Maddox's attention and it wakes up the parts of Maddox that had fallen asleep over the years. They fit really well together and I loved seeing the entire story from Maddox's POV. That being said, getting Maddox's POV during the sex scenes didn't add much to them and because this is essentially erotica, the sex scenes take up a lot of page time and that meant a large part of this novella felt like needless repetition of the first book. While getting Maddox's POV regarding other scenes was important, doing a straight retelling wasn't and I wish the author had just used dual POV during the first book and made it longer. But in any case, I still love this couple and the author's way of telling this story, so I'm continuing with Book 3! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 15, 2022
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Dec 15, 2022
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Nov 15, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B075R8HM88
| 3.74
| 424
| Sep 18, 2017
| Jul 2020
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really liked it
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What an amazing start to this series! The way Louise Collins writes her books really works for me on every level. It reminds me a lot of how fanfic is
What an amazing start to this series! The way Louise Collins writes her books really works for me on every level. It reminds me a lot of how fanfic is written (and when I say that, I meant it as a very high compliment since fanfic was my world for over 20 years): don't waste time on pointless details or unnecessary setup, just dive right into the story and always focus on the important parts of your story. This is exactly what Louise Collins does. Her main focus is always on squeezing every drop of potential out of every scene and if that means bending the rules of physics a bit or creating situations that are a bit OTT, so be it. I normally hate OTT or unrealistic stuff in books but Collins' approach works for me because she's doing it in service of the story and in particular - in service of the romance. If she has to make time move unnaturally slowly so a specific interaction between the MCs is even more romantic/meaningful/exciting then she does it and I love that! In addition, I love how well paced and well plotted Collins' stories are. They're funny, exciting, sexy and emotional and the author does a great job of moving between these emotions as each scene requires. I also love how she approaches age gaps in her stories. In general, I really dislike how age gaps are handled in MM romance because it feels like gender-swapped MF romances from the 80s. This is the third book I've read by Collins and all of them have featured age gaps with one character being in their early 20s and the way she sets things up makes things work for me so well. Like in her previous books, the younger MC (in this case, Jake) might be young but he's intelligent, mature for his age and isn't a wide-eyed naïve damsel-in-distress. When Jake gets unwittingly wrapped up with mafia shenanigans and he ends up being threatened by men who are much larger and stronger than him, he stays in control and uses the weapons that are available to him: outwitting and outbluffing his opponents until he's in a position where he can run like hell. He might have been out of his element with the mafia stuff, but he was never a useless damsel-in-distress and I love that about Collins' younger heroes. I also loved the progression of the romance. Like I mentioned before - the author doesn't waste time on stuff that doesn't really matter. Jake and Maddox come together because of mafia stuff and there's sexy times pretty much instantly. Is it realistic and does it make sense? No. But the pacing of the story and the way the author enthusiastically jumps from one scene to the next means I didn't care. In addition, all of Jake and Maddox's sexual interactions are dub-con (due to Jake being held captive and/or not consenting to the situation) but the author does such a great job of portraying Jake's thought processes throughout that I didn't mind. It's not realistic but did it feel in character for Jake? Absolutely. And that's the sign of an author who knows how to tell a good story. Another thing I loved was how the BDSM elements were handled. Kink wise, the story is light BDSM (bondage and blindfolds are the only kinks that are used) but what was interesting was that Jake has never experienced any BDSM related sex before. The situation wasn't set up as purposeful BDSM but it ends up being that due to Jake being Maddox's captive (hence, the bondage) and Maddox wanting to hide his identity from Jake (so - blindfold). But Jake ends up going into subspace and then also experiencing subdrop later, which was a really neat thing to add. He has no idea what's happening and Maddox wasn't expecting that, which results in some beautiful moments between them. I can't get over how creative this author is! I did take off 1 star because of the author's unfortunate tendency to leave sloppy SPAG errors throughout the book. It makes me desperately want to zip through the book to clean up these small errors (ex. missing words, misspelled words, accidentally calling Tom 'Tony' one time etc). This is unfortunately standard for this author but the story was still fantastic. I'm just so thrilled with life right now! I've been disappointed over and over again by authors who wrote one thing that I loved but never produced something else at that level (my most recent read is the best example of it). There's nothing worse than finding an author who writes something specific exactly the way you like but then the author never repeats that specific thing again. But in Louise Collins' case, she's continuing to deliver exactly what I want and that's why I can't wait to continue reading her work! I'm going to start by continuing with this crazy mafia erotica series that shouldn't work for me but it definitely does. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 14, 2022
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Dec 15, 2022
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Nov 15, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B09N22DV9Q
| 4.11
| 877
| Dec 03, 2021
| Dec 03, 2021
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liked it
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Rating: 2.5 Stars (rounded up) I've been wanting to try a book by Daniel May for a while but the kinks in his other books aren't my cup of tea and I pr Rating: 2.5 Stars (rounded up) I've been wanting to try a book by Daniel May for a while but the kinks in his other books aren't my cup of tea and I prefer plot-focused romances over erotica. That means I was overjoyed when this one came along and I was excited to finally get to experience this author's work. Unfortunately, my experience ended up being a mixed one. While I enjoyed a lot of things in this story there were an equal number of things that didn't work for me. The positives include the dark, creepy atmosphere that Jove's stone cold attitude at the beginning of the story and the homicidal, flesh-eating horses provided. The mixture of the casual mafia violence combined with the creepiness of the horses made for a really cool atmosphere. Speaking of horses, I also loved how seriously the author depicted everything regarding horses in this story. The murderous demonic horses aside, this book is full of love for horses and equestrian life with loads of details that demonstrate how comfortable the author was regarding this topic. I really loved how the various barns and the strictly-herbivorous horses were depicted and it gave the story a cozy, warm feel that beautifully balanced with the dark, creepy horror that the strictly-carnivorous horses introduced. I also liked Jove at the beginning of the story. His cool demeanor and casual attitude when it comes to violence made him just as terrifying as the horses. I also liked that Tobias wasn't the typical helpless and stupid damsel-in-distress character that mafia books like this usually include. At the same time, the author kept his confusion and fear realistic. He reacted the way most people would when they end up in a crazy situation that they don't understand - some fear, some confusion but with enough intelligence that he tried to figure things out and find the best path forward. Another thing I liked was Jove's relationship with his three sons. In fact, the complex relationship between Jove and his sons was more interesting to me than the romance between Jove and Tobias, which isn't a good thing when the story is marketed as a romance. But on the bright side, I would have probably liked the story even more if the romance had been removed entirely because there was a lot of other stuff that was done well. I also really enjoyed the writing style. I blew through this book very fast and that's purely due to how lovely the writing was. I also enjoyed having many scenes be re-told from both Jove and Tobias' POV. They were such different characters and they were approaching every situation from completely different perspectives which made both versions of the scenes interesting. Another thing I appreciated was that there might have been loads of violence but the author deliberately kept the gory stuff off-page. Unfortunately, everything else didn't work for me. The Romance I'm not a fan of age gaps so the romance didn't work for me, but not for the reasons I thought. In most mafia MM romances, the older MC (usually the mafia boss) is very controlling and borderline abusive while the younger MC is usually just horny and useless. In this case, the author steered clear of these common archetypes by making Jove respect Tobias and having Tobias not be a horny puddle of useless goo 24/7. Unfortunately, their relationship still didn't work for me. One of my issues was that I didn't understand what attracted Jove to Tobias other than finding Tobias mildly entertaining. Tobias isn't providing any knowledge, life experience or skills that are useful to Jove, they don't have anything in common and they don't share any life experiences or history with each other. I didn't understand why Jove went from casually murdering a young guy without a second thought at the start of the story to falling head over heels in love with another young guy just because (view spoiler)[the second guy saved his life (hide spoiler)] and also amuses him. I didn't feel any chemistry between them and I didn't understand how their relationship would work in the long term. Adding to the difficulty with the romance was that Jove had never been attracted to men before but he adjusts to a) being attracted to Tobias and b) having sex with Tobias very quickly and without any thought. Instead of it feeling like a casual bi-awakening, it kind of felt like the author had forgotten that they hadn't made Jove be gay/bi from the start. It was odd. I also rolled my eyes at the instalove that the author crammed into the story. After just 1 week of knowing Tobias, Jove is apparently in love with him and is a completely changed man. Excuse my eye rolling. Lastly, the factor that killed the romance for me was that the author constantly emphasized how Jove and Tobias' relationship strongly resembles a father-son bond and that made the added in sex factor feel icky. There's the fact that Jove calls Tobias 'kid' through the entire story. Then there are the many direct parallels between Jove and Tobias' dad and also between Tobias and Jove's sons (who are even older than Tobias). The author wasn't even trying to be subtle - the parallels are purposeful and that made them even harder to deal with. For example, Tobias' dad had been a jockey and had really wanted Tobias to learn how to ride but Tobias had no interest in horses when he was young. Then the dad bought Tobias a fat little pony as an intro-horse and Tobias still didn't want anything to do with it. Well, it turns out that Jove's son Nerva also had no interest in horses but Jove is a big horse fan so guess what Jove bought Nerva when he was young? That's right - a fat little pony that could be Nerva's intro-horse. But just like Tobias, Nerva wasn't interested in anything related to horses. So yeah, the parallels between the different sets of characters were very present in the story. There's even one conversation where Jove and Tobias reference the fact that their relationship allows them to 'redo' the damaged father-son bonds with their respective biological father/sons. Basically, I got very, VERY strong father-son vibes between them throughout the entire book (which the author never failed to re-emphasize) so having sex be added into the mix grossed me out. This was another reason I would have preferred for the romance to be removed because I think it would have been really interesting to have Tobias be a surrogate son (with Jove being the surrogate dad) and through that bond, Jove can heal his relationship with his other sons. It didn't help that my shipping radar pinged hard at Izawa (Jove's long term enemy) + Jove and Tobias + Hadrian (Jove's youngest son, approximately Tobias' age). Those two couples had so much more in common, were more interesting and were more realistic than Jove and Tobias. The Suspense Plotline Unfortunately, many details of the suspense plotline were handled sloppily, which impacted my enjoyment of it. (view spoiler)[The story starts off with a bang - Jove having come out of retirement after word reaches him that his organization might have a traitor in it and Tobias being kidnapped by people he doesn't know and being accused of doing something he doesn't have a clue about. The whole lead up to Tobias being kind-of taken captive by Jove was very well done. But then things get sloppy. Tobias' only bargaining chip (ie the only reason he can come up with that will prevent Jove from killing him immediately) is that Tobias had overheard a conversation presumably between the traitor and other people. Jove wants Tobias to listen to various people around Jove to identify the traitor. My problem was that the execution of this made no sense. Jove drags Tobias to two social events and he tells Tobias that he really doubts the traitor will be present at either one. So why the hell do they waste time going there?!? And when they're there, Jove keeps Tobias in a corner or doesn't mind if Tobias goes off on his own. Basically, there was zero progress being made on seriously identifying the speaker/traitor. I kept thinking to myself: why doesn't Jove come up with some excuse that makes it necessary to call all the people close to him, he puts them on speaker phone and Tobias listens to the call as they chit-chat?! At the end, (don't click on the spoiler tag if you don't want to know who the traitor is!) (view spoiler)[it's revealed that the traitor is Bialy, who has been around Tobias the entire book. How did Tobias not recognize his voice? Because we learn AT THE END OF THE BOOK that Bialy had been faking a bad cold and had deliberately been speaking with a hoarse voice. My problem is that Bialy hadn't bothered to fake any other cold symptoms except for chewing on cough drops randomly. In fact, even his hoarse way of speaking wasn't emphasized for most of the book, he's just the guy who likes eating cough drops and Tobias wonders once or twice if the guy is sick but it's not clear because Bialy doesn't fake any other cold symptoms (no coughing, sneezing etc). Because his altered speaking voice hadn't been emphasized, there was no way for readers to even guess that he's the traitor because we assume that he's speaking normally and thus, Tobias would recognize his voice if he was the traitor. But even having Bialy be revealed as the traitor was full of messy plotholes. He wanted the access codes that would give him control over the bomb network. Okay, fine. But he decided to do this by making Jove believe that his sons had betrayed him, which would be followed by Jove killing his sons and then Bialy hoped Jove would kill himself. BUT JOVE AND HIS SONS ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO KNOW THE CODES!! So how would the family's death provide Bialy with the codes?!? (hide spoiler)] There were so many other examples of sloppy plotting which ended up ruining my enjoyment of the suspense aspect. + Who was the group who had kidnapped Tobias at the beginning and what did they think he did? We never find out. + Why is Jove so quick to believe that one of his sons is a traitor when there's zero evidence provided? + Why were the murder horses attracted to the blood that Tobias spat when they were all standing in the hallway when Jove and his sons were also standing there, covered in blood? + Why was Izawa conveniently present throughout most of the story and allowed to tag along with Jove and Co when he's Jove's enemy and nobody trusts him? It was obvious that Izawa couldn't be the traitor because that would have been too obvious, but since most readers would know that, it made his presence completely pointless. + The whole bomb network thing came up out of nowhere and then faded away just as quickly because it served no point in the story. I loved the murder horses and that provided more than enough suspense so the bomb situation wasn't necessary. (hide spoiler)] Also - the entire suspense plotline lacked a sense of urgency because Jove had this tired and resigned attitude throughout the entire book. He gets told there's a traitor in his organization and then he's told the traitor is one of his sons but he reacts with tired resignation and absolutely no urgency. He'd rather spend his time hanging out/having sex with Tobias than figuring out what's happening in his own organization. Even after somebody attempts to kill him, Jove's attitude doesn't change. He was a bored, tired old man and I understand that he's nearly 60 and he liked his retirement, but come on! I wanted him to remain the badass, violent, intimidating mafia boss he had been at the start of the story. Not a tired old man who just shrugged and threw up his hands in defeat when things got a bit complicated. The Paranormal Aspects Based on other reviews, I see I'm not the only one who got curious and googled flesh eating horses to see if they're real. So it turns out that some cultures do feed their horses meat and have been doing so for 4000 years (these cultures are located areas where plants are hard to come by so they feed horses an omnivorous diet). And in mythology, there are stories involving demonic flesh-eating horses who closely resembled the horses in this story. So the existence of the psycho horses from the story were based on fact, mythology and the author's own imagination and I really loved that. However, at 70%, we randomly learn that (view spoiler)[the horses have human-like eyes (ie set closer together than on a typical horse) and they're capable of human speech...? Or at least, they're capable of somehow mimicking a human's exact voice without appearing to move their own lips/throat...? None of this is explained, expanded upon or brought up again afterwards and that was a sad waste of potential. One of the ABSOLUTELY CREEPIEST scenes in the story was when Tobias is surrounded by the psycho horses and they echo his "Hello" back to him in his own voice and Tobias (and readers) realize that the 'echo' Tobias has been hearing for hours any time he calls out is actually these creepy horses talking to him. OMG, shivers are running down my back even as I write this. (hide spoiler)] THAT WAS EPIC!! But...just like with other plot elements, the author fails to follow up on this and make it a meaningful part of the story. Conclusion I don't mean to be rude but based on some reviews I've seen of the next book, it appears the author didn't address the issues I had with this book. In fact, it appears those issues had gotten worse and new ones were piled on top so I think I'll steer clear of this author for the time being until he's smoothed things out. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 24, 2022
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Nov 25, 2022
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Nov 12, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 036950089X
| 9780369500892
| B081434BYZ
| 4.26
| 708
| Nov 06, 2019
| Nov 07, 2019
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did not like it
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DNF @ 72% This one wasn't working for me right from the start and then there was a certain situation that made me DNF despite how close to the end I wa DNF @ 72% This one wasn't working for me right from the start and then there was a certain situation that made me DNF despite how close to the end I was. Nothing about this story fit with my expectations or desires, which meant I struggled from the start. The very dark premise didn't work well with the author's usual version of rom-com-like writing style, neither MC were likeable and I didn't care about their romance. What ultimately made me DNF was the animal situations, but more on that at the end. The main problem is that the premise is very dark (a kidnapping victim falls in love with his psychopathic serial killer captor due to Stockholm Syndrome) but the author used her usual style for the story, which created a weird disconnect. There's a very dark premise lurking in the background but there's that OTT rom-com vibe that Collins is known for layered on top of the whole thing, which didn't work. You have scenes where the detectives are investigating a gory crime scene that features a decomposing corpse and starving, half-dead dogs but the detectives are bantering about job promotions, driving like lunatics when they're mad and doing OTT things like slipping on spilled coffee. The author's usual serious-version-of-rom-com style worked really well in the previous books I read because while the premises contained dark elements, the situations deliberately contained elements of light heartedness which allowed the premise to balance on the thin line between rom-com and serious. In this book, the premise and everything relating to it was so dark that adding in these lighter things just felt out of place and made the story feel disjointed. In addition, I'm sorry but I felt the author's writing abilities aren't good enough to do a premise like this justice. She kept portraying Romeo as a completely normal, likeable romance hero and the only way readers are reminded that he's a psychopath incapable of feeling emotions and he's a remorseless serial killer is by having Romeo and Chad constantly reference that he's a monster. Nothing else, just constant 'he's a monster' said over and over again. This felt childish and it didn't work because these little reminders didn't actually portray Romeo as the scary, remorseless villain he was meant to be. I actually liked Romeo and I liked his unapologetic approach to the murders and the reason why he didn't want to kill Chad. (view spoiler)[Basically, Romeo is killing just because he's always wanted to but he's limited himself to 5 people so he doesn't spend the rest of his life doing the same thing over and over again. He doesn't kill Chad because he doesn't want Chad counting as one of his 5 victims who were killed in methodical ways while Chad would have to be killed in ways that wouldn't fit with his pattern. (hide spoiler)] He has zero feelings towards Chad, he couldn't care less about what Chad thinks about him or the people he'd killed - he's only interested in making sure Chad will fit into his plans the way he wants him to. I loved this portrayal, but it didn't work for this story. The reason why is that Chad has no idea how to deal with somebody like Romeo and for that reason, the only way the author could make their romance even mildly believable was to tone down Romeo's dark tendencies and have him act like a normal romance hero for most of the story, which defeated the entire purpose of having a dark character like Romeo as one of the MCs. In addition, Chad was the other reason (and the much bigger reason) that this story fell flat for me. The guy was a whiny, annoying and useless character. His only purpose in the story was to constantly whine about his bad childhood and throw himself a never ending pity party. Asides from that, he's completely useless. He's one of those terrible people who uses their past trauma as an excuse to treat other people horribly and I can't stand such people. Honestly, I kept expecting for Romeo to snap and kill the guy out of irritation. This didn't work for me at all for two reasons. One - while I love MCs who have a traumatic past, I want them to have some kind of strength in the rest of their lives which portrays them as a fighter and survivor rather than somebody who spends all their time being a victim and demanding others take care of them while not giving anything in return. Chad didn't have anything that impressed me. He wasn't a good detective, he never thinks about anybody except himself (and his dog - more on that later) and he's been treating his poor fiancé like shit for years (view spoiler)[(making him believe Chad actually loves him while Chad actually loves the fiance's money) (hide spoiler)]. Two - I didn't believe for a second that somebody like Romeo would want to be with somebody like Chad. Chad brought nothing to the relationship. Absolutely nothing. In fact, Romeo had to spend all of his time catering to Chad's emotional break downs and putting up with Chad's whining and fussing. That's not what I want in a book that features a romance between a detective and a psychopathic serial killer! There were other minor things that also annoyed me. As usual, the author can't be bothered to pay a competent editor and it really irritated me here because asides from some jarring typos, there are multiple scenes that don't make any sense. For example, Chad closes his eyes at one point but in the next sentence, he's staring at Romeo. Or my favorite - the author writes a sentence in which Chad literally slips on the floor and spills hot coffee on himself, except in the next sentence Chad is standing up and the coffee is nowhere in sight. This sloppiness also resulted in the detective work in the first 30% of the story not being nearly as clever as the author thought it was. First of all - (view spoiler)[it was blindingly obvious that the constant not-relevant scenes the author kept shoving into the story were connected to Romeo. If they hadn't ended up being related to Romeo, it means the author had put in constant filler. Either way, it was done in a ham fisted, amateur way (hide spoiler)]. Second - the author has the detectives and cops make mistakes purely due to her inability to proofread her own story properly. My favorite example was when the detectives talk about not telling anybody certain details about the case, which is immediately followed by a scene where a random cop told those exact details to one of the victims' brothers and the detectives only moan about how this means the press knows about the details while nobody seems to care that this random cop is blabbing about sensitive case details when he'd been ordered not to. Louise Collins is one of my favorite authors but her current approach to her writing means she doesn't have the skills to write something complex like a murder mystery and it ends up being a mess that I don't enjoy. All of the issues I listed above are why I wasn't enthusiastic about the story as I was reading it but the reason I DNF'd so close to the ending was actually something completely different: the amount of animal cruelty and sad scenes related to animals got to be too much for me. In total, there are four animals in the story and they relate to three different situations and all of them involve animal cruelty and/or animal death. Two situations involve Romeo either directly or indirectly causing the death of innocent animals and there's enough time spent discussing the animals and the situations that their deaths do leave an emotional impact on readers, which made those scenes difficult to deal with. The last situation involves Chad's beloved dog Toby who had to be put down when he was old and got cancer. Like the other animals, the author spends enough time talking about Toby and his bond with Chad that his death left a big emotional pact on me. That was the point where I couldn't continue. While I did like all of these developments, I didn't like how they felt gratuitious. None of these situations furthered the story or the relationship between the MCs because they all emphasized things we already knew. Since I wasn't enjoying the story anyway, I didn't feel the story deserved my strong emotional reaction to Toby's situation so that's when I decided to stop reading. Overall, I still adore this author's stories but in my opinion, this premise wasn't the right choice for the style she likes using. From now on, I'm going to be more selective when choosing which of her books to try but she's an author who I vibe with really well the majority of the time so I'm going to continue reading her work. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Mar 26, 2023
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Mar 28, 2023
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Nov 11, 2022
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ebook
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| 4.32
| 563
| Oct 29, 2019
| Oct 29, 2019
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liked it
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Re-Read: July 2024 Original Read: Nov 2022 I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did! Before diving into the review, I want to express my sadnes Re-Read: July 2024 Original Read: Nov 2022 I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did! Before diving into the review, I want to express my sadness that this is the author’s only MM romance to date because she knows how it’s done and that’s rare for authors who mostly write MF and try their hand at writing a random MM. Since I’m not interested in reading MF romances, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we get more MM romances from her. Another small aside - if you’re as unfamiliar with Peter Pan lore as I am and you’re worried that you won’t understand some parts of this re-telling – don’t be. I’m sure I missed tons of special references to Peter Pan lore but it was a completely normal dark contemporary romance with no Peter Pan related knowledge required in order to understand it. The characters and locations had weird names, but that’s it. This book was very well done on many levels. It was a lot darker than I thought it would be but the romance between the MCs was so heartwarming and well done that it easily balanced the darker elements in the rest of the story. FYI, the story contains (view spoiler)[child neglect, child abuse (physical/sexual), drug addiction, drug dealing, PTSD, self-harm involving blood, human sex trafficking, implied sex slavery and violence (hide spoiler)]. Most of this is shown and the author doesn’t shy away from depicting the harsh realities that these situations involve, which I appreciated. But as I said, despite the story involving a lot of heavy and dark themes, it didn’t feel overly dark because the romance was all about love, taking care of each other and healing. At its core, this story is really James Hook’s story (don’t read the following spoiler if you don’t want to know his history). (view spoiler)[The guy has had an extremely rough life, pretty much from the start. He spent the first 9 years of his life being neglected by his drug-addicted mother and then having to raise his baby brother without her help once he arrived when James was 7. Then his mother dies of an overdose and after spending days in the apartment with his baby brother and her body, James finally ventures out to steal some food and diapers. He’s caught and he and his brother are taken to an orphanage. The elderly couple running the place seem to be good people so it seems things are finally looking up for poor James, but unfortunately, the elderly couple is killed in a car accident shortly after James’ arrival and they’re replaced by Croc and his wife. Croc is a monster on every level. He physically abuses the children, he forces them to work at his stolen car chop shop instead of getting an education and worst of all, he takes a special interest in James when the latter is 14 years old and regularly sexually abuses him for the next 4 years. Throughout all this, the one constant in James’ life has been a relentless desire to protect those who are weaker and smaller than him, no matter the cost. He did this with his baby brother and he continues doing it at the orphanage by always making sure Croc’s attention and rage are focused on James and not the younger kids. He accepted long ago that he’s broken beyond repair but that’s even more incentive for him to continue putting himself into the firing line, since there’s less and less left to damage over time. He didn’t initially volunteer as a sacrifice, but once he was chosen, he continued that role because no matter what was done to him, he couldn’t stop caring about those who depended on him. That reason is ultimately why James didn’t run to the other side of the world as soon as he turned 18 and why more than a decade later, Croc is still alive and James is still working for him. (hide spoiler)] The author does a fantastic job of building up this complex character who is grumpy and intimidating and uses sneers and rude comments to cover up the pain he’s hauled around for decades. I also loved how the author slowly reveals bits and pieces of James’ history throughout the book. A lot of things are obvious from the start but there are certain details that remain a mystery until James chooses to share more bits of information at specific times. It felt like the author was slowly putting together puzzle pieces and as more and more of the large picture came into view, the more fascinated I was by James but the more my heart broke for him. What I also appreciated is that James doesn’t want others to view him as a victim. The abuse he suffered heavily impacts his daily life (view spoiler)[(he doesn’t like physical contact, he needs to be in control during sex at all times, he has nightmares, he struggles with insomnia, he routinely self-harms by scrubbing his thumb against rough grout in the bathroom to the point of it bleeding etc) (hide spoiler)] but he’s very capable of pushing that to the side when it comes to his responsibilities as Captain (ie the head of the drug dealing gang who work for Croc). He was tough, intimidating and a force to be reckoned with, which was beautifully balanced by the broken, lonely man he was when he's alone. He was doing a great job of existing and keeping those under his protection safe and happy but he wasn’t truly living. Then John comes along and that’s when things finally get better for James. One of the things I loved is that John has known James since childhood. John and his sister Wendy used to sneak out at night and visit the orphanage boys and while James refused to spent much time with them as a group, John was instantly drawn to the moody, tough older boy and there was a serious case of hero worship going on. But as the years went by, the hero worship changed into John developed a deep respect and admiration for James. He didn’t know the specifics of the abuse James had endured but based on information he got from the other boys as they grew up, John never changes his opinion that James is the most awesome person on earth. This was such a perfect way of approaching the situation because James wouldn’t tolerate such admiration from anybody else. The only reason he does from John is because John’s been doing it for so long that James knows he can’t do anything to change it. I also adored John as a character. He shares James' drive to protect the innocent and bring down bad guys but due to his privileged upbringing, John's life has always been on a completely different trajectory due to the differences in how they were raised - James is a criminal who keeps his crew safe by being involved in what they do and John is an FBI agent who uses the law and the privileges he was given throughout life to protect those who need help. What fascinated me was that they would have probably ended up in each other's positions if their childhood situations had been reversed. In addition, I really appreciated that John is the stereotypical strait-laced Good Guy, but he's also tough and intelligent and James trusts John to take care of him. John's physical size and strength, his weapons training, his hand-to-hand combat training and his get-it-done attitude towards James' issues were all reasons that James felt safe with him and let down his barriers for the first time in his life. I also found the usage of sex in the story really interesting. Right from the start, James and John realize they’re attracted to each other and they're happy to jump into bed together, as long as they’re doing it on James’ terms. This is where things got interesting because John is accustomed to topping and he’s never been interested in BDSM before, but when James makes it clear that he needs to be in charge during sex at all times, John happily agrees to try new things out. Then there were some SMOKING HOT sex scenes that were incredibly well done but I loved how important those scenes were for John and James’ relationship as well. Not only does James get to take a break from the darkness in his head when he’s focusing on sex but John realizes he enjoys being submissive and James gets the additional positives of being able to have sex in a way that makes him feel safe and in control but he also gets to take care of John in a way he can’t bring himself to outside of sex. The only thing I was disappointed by in terms of the smut scenes was that there aren't enough of them. We get two short scenes near the beginning which were really great but then the author tells us about future scenes via telling instead of showing and these scenes advance the MCs comfort level with each other quite a bit. There are more smut scenes after the halfway mark but I wish the author had switched things around and shown some of the telling-only scenes and vice versa. The reason why I'm not giving this more than 3 stars is because the story was a bit repetitive and James was too emotional for my personal taste. To be fair - the abuse the poor guy has lived through was horrendous and I thought his PTSD was well portrayed. But having him be so overly emotional 24/7 felt OTT and not in character. Specifically, I found it exhausting that James constantly had the same thought processes and the same reactions to situations. No matter how good things were and how obvious it was that John and some of the other characters loved and cared for James, James would constantly remind himself that he's broken, tainted, unlovable, evil etc etc etc. He would roar and growl and go stomping around to emphasize how he's a very, very broken and bad person. While this type of thinking fit with the things he'd gone through, the repetition was boring and it felt OTT to me. The guy was 30 years old, not a teenager and I wish the author had dialed back his overly emotional displays and also decreased their frequency. Connected to the above point - the suspense plotline was only a subplot in the story, which was a shame. The suspense stuff was intense and had the potential to be explored in much more detail but the author used way too much page time on James' repetitive, OTT angsting. I wish the author had split the focus evenly between the PTSD-recovery plotline and the suspense plotline, which would have helped balance things out and keep the pacing more even. Despite those negatives, I still highly recommend this if you’re in the mood for an intense, emotional relationship progression between one damaged but tough man and another who has loved him for nearly his entire life and will wage war on demons any day, any time in order to make him feel loved. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Oct 23, 2022
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| B08L3QJM5Z
| 4.24
| 2,840
| Dec 15, 2020
| Dec 15, 2020
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it was amazing
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Re-Read: Mar 2024 Original Read: Oct 2022 (side note: if you're curious about what the endearments mean that Az uses for Madi throughout the book, I've Re-Read: Mar 2024 Original Read: Oct 2022 (side note: if you're curious about what the endearments mean that Az uses for Madi throughout the book, I've listed translations at the bottom of this review) I loved this so much! When I think of my idea for the perfect romance between two hitmen who are both alpha males, this is exactly what I envision. The MCs were perfect, their relationship was amazing and I loved how everything in the story (suspense stuff, side characters etc) were there to enhance the relationship between the MCs. This book was perfection from start to finish for me and it's one of my favorite enemies to lovers romances of all time. As a small aside, I've tagged this as BDSM because of some minor knife play that takes place, but it's really minor in terms of how often it happens. I recall only two small scenes of a knife being used and only the later scene actually involves the knife doing any cutting. It's so minor that somebody could easily skim past that paragraph but it does represent a really important milestone in the MCs' relationship. I adored both Madigan and Azrael. I felt the beginning was a little bit rushed with the MCs having a one night stand that kickstarts their fuck-buddy relationship as well as their hitmen-rivalry and then we abruptly jump forward 2 years. During these two years, they've continued this constant back and forth and I would have loved to see more of that, but I ended up not minding because rushing through those two years gave the MCs a strong foundation that was used to fuel the rest of the story. One of my favorite types of relationship dynamics is having two strong, violent alpha males coming together because the resulting relationship is so interesting. They're equally strong, which puts them on equal footing and they can be rough with each other without having to worry about causing real harm. They're used to solving problems using violence but they usually realize very quickly that romantic partnership issues tend to get worse with the application of violence so they end up having to work on their communication skills and other things in order to make their relationship survive. In addition, I loved that they identified that the other person is more than capable of taking care of them the way they need so they took turns swapping between being dominant and submissive in the bedroom, which was wonderful. I also really appreciated that the authors purposefully structured the book so the majority of the narrative had the MCs spending time together in isolation. This gave plenty of opportunity for smoking hot smut scenes (thank you, Neve Wilder!) and also quiet domestic moments between them that progressed their relationship. By 50%, the boys are pretty much living as domestic partners and everything's very sweet and wonderful, but I was wondering what the authors would do with the rest of the story. Thankfully, the authors were on the ball and at that 50% mark when everything had been going so well, suddenly everything crumbles for the boys - both professionally and personally. Having the professional stuff go wrong was a nice surprise because they're both highly competent hitmen who plan as thoroughly as they can for every hit but nobody can anticipate every tiny detail and that's exactly what happens here. This actually happened multiple times in the book, which made the suspense plotlines a thrilling ride and added a sense of realism to Madigan and Azrael's jobs. On a small note, I also really appreciated that both MCs were professionals through and through and when they were on a job together, they stayed focused on what had to be done and kept their personal problems on the side. The personal problems that temporarily tear them apart were also done really well because it's a result of these two dumb-dumbs not knowing how relationships work and not realizing that keeping certain things to themselves was a dumb move. It wasn't manufactured drama and it didn't feel ridiculous because their mistakes fit their personalities and lack of relationship experience. I loved everything about their relationship: the terms of endearments Az used for Madi, the wonderful switching back and forth between tenderness and roughness in the bedroom, the way these two loved being together and how easily they settled into domestic routines no matter where they were living or for how long etc. One of the funniest but also sweetest moments was when (view spoiler)[the boys had to do a fake couples counselling session as part of a hit, but they both realized how useful the situation actually was and they both agree to keep going to counselling afterwards (hide spoiler)]. If that doesn't demonstrate how committed they are to their relationship, I don't know what does. Unfortunately, the other side characters didn't interest at all so I'm not going to read anything else in the series, but this story was really top notch and it deserves all the praise it's getting. (In case anybody else was wondering what the terms of endearments mean that Az uses for Madi throughout the book, I did some research to look them up - WHY DON'T AUTHORS PROVIDE TRANSLATIONS IN THEIR OWN BOOKS?!? - and I think I found what they mean. The most common endearment used is motek, which is Hebrew for sweetheart, janum/jaanum is soulmate in Farsi and meri-jaan means my life in Urdu) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Mar 09, 2024
Oct 14, 2022
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Oct 15, 2022
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Oct 14, 2022
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my rating |
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| 3.93
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really liked it
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Jul 22, 2024
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Feb 11, 2024
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| 3.90
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liked it
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Sep 10, 2024
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Feb 11, 2024
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| 4.27
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liked it
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May 20, 2024
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Feb 11, 2024
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| 4.41
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it was ok
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Apr 17, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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| 3.79
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did not like it
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Aug 13, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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| 3.92
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really liked it
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Aug 08, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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| 3.68
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did not like it
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Jul 18, 2024
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Sep 26, 2023
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| 4.19
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did not like it
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Jan 03, 2024
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Jun 16, 2023
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| 3.97
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did not like it
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Apr 22, 2024
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Jun 11, 2023
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| 3.71
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it was ok
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Jan 09, 2024
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Jun 04, 2023
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| 4.03
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Mar 18, 2024
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May 15, 2023
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| 3.92
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really liked it
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Jul 03, 2023
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Mar 10, 2023
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| 4.12
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did not like it
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Dec 14, 2022
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Feb 08, 2023
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| 4.10
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it was amazing
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Dec 18, 2022
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Dec 15, 2022
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| 3.80
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liked it
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Dec 15, 2022
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Nov 15, 2022
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| 3.74
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really liked it
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Dec 15, 2022
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Nov 15, 2022
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| 4.11
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liked it
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Nov 25, 2022
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Nov 12, 2022
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| 4.26
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did not like it
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Mar 28, 2023
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Nov 11, 2022
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| 4.32
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liked it
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Jul 15, 2024
Nov 04, 2022
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Oct 23, 2022
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| 4.24
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it was amazing
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Mar 10, 2024
Oct 15, 2022
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Oct 14, 2022
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