Wednesday 16 December 2015

Calhoun: Sacrifice

Author: Joe Mansour
Genre: Action Thriller Suspense
Book Rating: 5
Personal Rating: 4

It's been a while since I really didn't like a book.  But here I am again.  This book started of with a fairly decent opening sequence.  It seemed like it was going somewhere and then...  It just didn't move anywhere.  And the lead character I just couldn't sympathise with.  He was just annoying on all accounts.  I just didn't like him.  And even more so that his parents are from my home country.  That's about the only win I'm giving this book.

Friday 11 December 2015

Essence

Author: Beth Mikell
Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Book Rating: 6
Personal Rating: 6

I honestly started of reading this thinking oh this book would be awesome.  I even forced myself to ignore the fact that the queen was called the queen of hearts.  But sadly the book just didn't go anywhere.  It had all the promise of something real, Queen feeling emotions she's never felt before, a man who feels he has nothing to live for after the death of his brother, and a test to see if death really is what he wants.  Seriously the amount of character development depth and seriously intricate plot work the frame of this book held was ridiculous.  But that was about it.  The book was all set up and no go.  It hit a note and floated there, the entire short story.

Wednesday 9 December 2015

Silenced: The Intoxicated Book 5


Author: Allica Renee Kline
Genre: Romance/Chick-lit/Drama
Book Rating: 10
Personal Rating: 10

So this book was touchy.  It was very nearly almost a three instead of five star.  Thankfully I think about these reviews before I type them, hence they almost never have my first impression review after careful analysis.  This book was no exception.  I love this author, I don't think I've given any of her books five stars but this last installment wins, even with the one glaring thing that almost derailed me.

Sunday 6 December 2015

The Torrent: The New Agenda Series Book 4


Author: Simone Pond
Genre: Dystopian/Action Adventure/ Young Adult/ Adult
Book Rating: 7
Personal Rating: 6.5

Before I even begin to go into why I didn't really enjoy this novel, lets just say this author knows how to write.  In fact she writes exceptionally well.  And it was a debate whether to give this a five star or one star review, ultimately I decided three would be best.  There may or may not be a lot of spoilers in here so continue at your own risk.

Saturday 5 December 2015

Guitar Face: Book One Guitar Face Series


Author: Sasha Marshall
Genre: Contemporary/Modern/Rockstar Romance
Book Rating: 7.5
Personal Rating: 8

This book was a delight to read.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy reading it.  Most of the characters had a certain depth to them that kept you interested in where the plot would take them.  Tragedy was on point, writing good and humor... just ridiculously on point.  Still it didn't quite make it for me.  There were plot issues, all of which I wont touch but I'll hit on some, and dialogue that sometimes went on a bit to long that took me out of the story.  Just a lot of things I didn't need to know for the story to work.

Monday 30 November 2015

Rogue: Book 3 The Omega Group


Author: Andrea Domanski
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Action-Adventure
Book Rating: 8
Personal Rating: 7.5

Where to start.  Well lets just say I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It made me laugh, kept me wanting to read it. And the characters have such an amazing chemistry that it's hard not to love them.  Grecko is still my fave.  Seriously he needs another book.  One was just not enough.  My only problem with this book was the usual plot device.  Boy falls in love with girl from enemy camp, girl falls in love back.  Someone sabotages forbidden romance, and so on and so forth.  I dunno maybe I'm just passed the stage of seeing this type of thing but for once it be nice for someone to have it last against the odds with out the villain successfully tearing them apart only for them to find out years later they've hated each-other for no reason.  And in some books it's too late.  At least in this book it wasn't.  Okay maybe this wasn't my only problem.  There was a point in the plot where the cast seemed convinced that someone was the main villain, and i was kind of dumbfounded by this.  

Thursday 22 October 2015

Deny the Moon--Wolfblooded book 1


Author: Melissa A Graham
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama
Book Rating: 6
Personal Rating: 6

When I started reading this book it seemed like I was going to be madly in love with it.  Action, bad boy bikers, romance, and I made the assumption werewolves would be involved before even beginning to read it.  And I love werewolves.  This book pretty much had all the things I would typically enjoy but I just felt like I was reading on into nothingness forever.  It just didn't get to the point.   It read like it was one big massive block of intense character development for the lead that I pretty much had sorted out before I even made it a quarter way into the book.  She was described well enough for me to not need all the extra pages of stuff that felt like it was just stuff.  There was no pull me along I was just sorta going along because I was hoping for something big to happen.

Saturday 11 July 2015

Going Through The Change

Author: Samantha Bryant
Genre: Action, Adventure, Suspense, Supernatural
Book Rating: 7
Personal Rating: 6.5

I really Wanted to love this book.  Thought I was going to hate it, then ended up wanting to read the next one.  It was a serious flip flop of opinion but it did happen.  I was admittedly thinking this book would be a no star but now I can at least give it a three.

The premise is good.  Four women going through menopause who change into supernatural beings because of a certain woman's products.  There's a lot of fun to be had here.  It's not your typical superhero fare.  One woman becomes a villain and the other three become the heroes and the race is on to catch the evil product making villain who made them this way.  Granted this isn't the most amazing plot ever, but it works for the story.  The action scenes were fun to read and the settings where easy to picture in my mind, even the characters were clearly defined.  This book was just awesome…. in the second half.  That was the problem I hit 55% or so on my reader before it got this amazing, and was completely bored to tears with the dragging plot development slow-paced blah.

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Changed


http://www.amazon.com/Changed-Intoxicated-Books-Book-4-ebook/dp/B00S7DPPCU/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Author: Alicia Renee Kline
Genre: Romance/comedy/chik-lit
Book Rating: 9
Personal Rating: 9

Okay.  Having read all of this author's books I can say they do indeed keep getting better.  This one, if I am being honest made the biggest jump into better from its predecessor.  I just couldn't get enough of this book.  Just fun fun fun.  So lets knock out two things first then get into it.

Firstly this did nothing to make me dislike the book it just bugged me considering it was right after the prologue.  Our star Gracie tells us there's a flashback coming.  Now I can say for a fact that I always knew, in the previous book when they where coming.  The author set them up the way most authors do.  So I have no reason to doubt her ability to pull off a flash back.  I actually think I said just when i was like enough... there were no more :) so they didn't even bug me that much.  This did, because the set up in the prologue was so well executed that when i saw flash back, naturally i assumed, like most flashbacks, it would go right back to where the prologue left off.  Of course it doesn't because this book isn't told from those characters point of view.  Basically the book starts in chapter one and works amazingly well with out that little quip.  In my opinion, it was written well enough to not tell me the reader we were going back only one day in time.

Sunday 31 May 2015

Modern Girl's Guide To One Night Stands

Author: Gina Drayer
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Book Rating: 8
Personal Rating 8.5

This book was a delight to read.  I enjoyed it.  Quite a bit to be honest.  Mostly for the laughs, and the side characters.  Not that the mains weren't fun, but I'm starting to notice with this type of genre that the witty, pointed, caring well put together best friends are just more fun.  But more on that later. 

One night stands rock, especially when they go horribly wrong.  Laughter abounds and really risky circumstances come.  And the massive flash of misdirection in which the book is based on is just pure writing genius.  It might be my favorite thing about this book.

Monday 25 May 2015

Jack Strong and the Red Giant

Author: Heys Wolfenden
Genre: YA/Teen/Scifi/Adventure
Book Rating: 7
Personal Rating: 7

This book seemed like it was going to go well.  it had the makings of a really good, even excelent book but it just didn't quite make it. I can't say that I didn't enjoy it, but i didn't really enjoy it either.  The prologue started of as a great attention grabber.  But after that the story unfolded in a typical manner.

It dragged too much for me and was a bit predictable.  Jack, I wanted to love him, shy bullied poor boy who earns some friends and some courage.  There is so much win here.  Yet, i just didn't like him.  Getting bullied is one thing, but he jumped, yes jumped, from that to this insane boy on a mission to save everyone.  It was just too much.  I found this hero element fell into the I don't use my brain i just have to save everyone because they are all alive.  I guess I'm a bit jaded but yes, if there are no signs of life and you are slowly dying yourself at some point you have to let go.  And stranded on a planet that's about to blow up.  First priority how the hell are we getting of this planet.  Save people after you have a plan.  Every minute you spend saving people is one more lost trying to escape so you are all going to die anyway.  Lets just say He bugged me.

Spirits Of Vengeance: The Stone Spirits



Author: Andrew John Rainnie
Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy
Book Rating: 9
Personal Rating: 7.5

Lets just get it right out there that I loved this book.  Quite a bit.  It was well paced.  Moved along quite well.  There was so much to love about it.  It was crafted in the way a good book should be, nice action packed opening scene, betrayal, tragedy, all the notes of a good book were hit so yes, it was a masterful piece of fiction.  Yet here I am not shooting for a full five stars.  Lets just start of with the good stuff.

The opening just jumps right in.  Death looming overhead on your toes oh my god is this one of those sequences where the characters die in the beginning and the story starts years later in the aftermath of said deaths.  It was that kind of opening.  One of the main characters Callaghan is introduced here with his apprentice.  Just great no real details needed.

The elves later on are also a nice addition.  Characters who bring a certain amount of life to the tale that it otherwise would not have had.  The different races and cultures were spot on, and the descriptiveness of everything sucked you into the book.  You routed for the heroes, feared they might actually die.  It was all in all done well.  But regardless of the fact that the plot held true, there were no obvious errors, and indeed almost all the characters were enjoyable, even the evil ones.  It just had a few things that bugged me enough to not forget.

For example, the point of the book as said in the title.  Killing someone in vengeance keeps them stuck in this world as a sort of ghost, not here, but not quite gone.  Within itself.  Brilliant. But then if they walk too far away from their creator suddenly both of them become weak.  Why create something and then limit it's potential.  It's like the daemons in Pullman's Dark Materials.  Why can't they be separated.  So many ghost stories, and fantasy novels and what not live in this rule confinement and it somehow takes away the mystery of things because you know they can't get far enough apart so some things will just never happen.  The things that can go wrong are like, well they cant separate so now we have this ghost who cant find a way to save the day for fear of being too far gone for the human to live.

And not just that  Callaghan is supposed to be this all wise ranger.  Yet he's so quick in one part of the book to judge someone that everyone can vouch for as being good because he is the twin of someone bad.  Yet on the flip side a complete and total stranger can spin him a story about something or other and he just magically trusts him.  It makes no sense.  The captain and crew have been sailing with someone and can say he's saved their lives many times, yet a stranger just appears out of nowhere and you a seasoned warrior will accept that, and not solid evidence from the crew people.  Just… I cant deal with characters who act out of character in order to move the plot forward.  If they are capable of such things, there should be a precedent before hand set up so that it doesn't seem rage inducing stupid.

The other thing was the whole rangers not having wives stuff.  Sigh.  What is it with this idea that if a woman joins some hero elite, or a man joins the hero elite, that now magically they are incapable of feelings and must now give up a life of either one love for ever, or even random encounters during their journey.  Apparently love and sex are evil and real heroes cant have them.  

One of my favorite parts was in the second half of the book.  A new country with wonderful animals and a completely different dialect.  Just fun.  What bothered me though is when you add the last paragraph above with a love interest that arrives.  It falls flat.  I never believed even for a second that it would pay off.  Why would it?  The king obsessed with world domination, twisting history to serve his purposes, sigh.  I feel like I've been here before.  And the gods situation, i'm just going to leave that alone.  These are just a few of the things that just made me think why?  

My enjoyment level suffered because of a few too many things that just didn't make sense for the characters to do.  Under normal circumstances I'd get really detailed but since this book, in my opinion, was a very brilliant action packed piece of magical world building fantasy genius--I'm not.  It was indeed a well written book that I could not put down, regardless of the fact that i had a few issues with it.  I loved it.  In fact I loved it enough to be ecstatic about reading part two and I would recommend that any fan of good fantasy read this novel.  You wont be disappointed.

Sunday 1 March 2015

The Mainframe: The New Agenda Book 3


Author: Simone Pond
Genre: Scifi/Dystopian/Action suspense
Book Rating: 7.5
Personal Rating: 6

Okay.  Don't know how many ways I can say this but this author is brilliant.  This is another well crafted novel yet still like the last I just cant make it a five star.  I really want to but I just cant.

This novel starts further into the future whereas the last one started in the past.  That was refreshing.  The plot as always moved along just fine.  Twist and turns great, teen angst on point.  Not much in those areas to complain about.  The problem lies in the main character.  In this book it's Ava and her teen daughter Grace.

Basically Ava after spending an entire book in Morray's past seeing how his father's need to work made him a bad father, well absent.  Then Morray himself did the same thing to his son.  Completely neglected him for the mission of continuing his father's work.  And, now, Ava, has spent over fifteen years I believe, living in the mainframe and Lillian's journals trying to find Morray.  Which subsequently placed her work above being a mother.  Thankfully this child, Grace, has Joseph her father.  But Resentment, yes.  She has bucket loads of this stuff.  And her excuse is, what I'm doing is for you.

The New Agenda: The New Agenda Series Book 2

Author: Simone Pond
Genre: Science Fiction/Dystopian/Suspense/Action
Book Rating: 7
Personal Rating: 6.5

I went into this book with really high hopes.  I gave the first in this series five stars.  This one well I was rather underwhelmed.  The plot was still great.  The writing is still excellent.  Basically there is no real reason why this book should've failed.  Yet it just did.  Ultimately through all of the brilliance I just found I couldn't fall in love with the main character.  I felt that I was supposed to sympathise with them and mostly just ended up being annoyed.

This book goes back in time while still being in the present.  I found that to be the most interesting detail about this book.  When I realised this I was very excited.  It has a host of rather nice characters.  The energy seekers amongst my faves.  I honestly don't think they were crazy enough.  Morray seems to have this aversion to them like they are weird but I find them just as easy to understand as him and the rest of the non-energy seeker crew.  Their riddle speak was too clear for me to grasp why he just seemed to not understand. 

Sunday 22 February 2015

Stranger At Sunset

http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-at-Sunset-Eden-Baylee-ebook/dp/B00L7BVDFM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424660347&sr=8-1&keywords=stranger+at+Sunset
Author: Eden Baylee
Genre: Suspense/Mystery/Romance
Book Rating: 7.5
Personal Rating: 7

This book was neither bad or exceptional.  It was okay.  Nothing I would go shooting through the roof about it's awesomeness here but it didn't drive me crazy.  It just had a few faults that took it away from awesomeness.  I did manage to not want to put the book down.  That definitely made it worth the read.

Descriptively this author could do no wrong.  Very detailed and precise. You could practically smell the ocean.  Feel the sea breeze, touch the walls in the rooms and taste the delicious food.  Just brilliant.  I could also visualize the characters very well also.

The plot.  It made sense.  Went along smoothly.  No real hiccups yet nothing out of this world shocking either.  It just sorted sat right in the middle of great and blah.  Leaning a little more towards great.  It just felt like it could've used a little bit more umph.  Some things were predictable and others' I just wondered why is this even here.