Saturday, 29 April 2017

Beyond The Friend Zone

Author: Multiple
Genre: Short Stories/Romance/Drama
Book Rating: 7
Personal Rating: 7

This book was almost amazing.  Like I wanted to fall madly in love with it but ultimately couldn't. Two stories didn't quite stick to the theme, and others had awkward plot devices.  Each story gets a review, so this is going to be long and may contain plot spoilers.

Mechanics of Love

This could've been a five.  The chemistry between the leads Nora and Olly was good.  The story moved at a decent pace.  But the ending.  Didn't even read it.  The moment it was like yes the big payoff has arrived.  Then... Drama, a fight for no reason, and so on.

The Mutt

Author: Kasia Bacon
Genre: Short Stories/MM/Romance
Book Rating: 7.5
Personal Rating: 7

This was a short fun read.  Set up was good.  Dark brooding object of desire.  Unrequited love.  All the makings of steamy awesomeness.  The ending was good too.  The characters were easy to understand and follow.  Only thing is that it just didn't leap off the pages.  It felt like closer to the end it just sorta ended.  It didn't have enough info to read like a good short story.  Maybe five or so more pages in the middle.  There was no real way to connect with the main characters. The only thing really that I know about them is one is lusting after the half breed, and the other one is the half breed. 

The whole premise one elf waiting for the other to fall in line with the relationship that had begun in his mind.  That was the real problem. There was no begin, the relationship just was in the main character's mind and then it just existed for real and the book was over. I'm honestly struggling to find anything to say here, both good and bad because there wasn't enough of anything to connect with in this story. I enjoyed it but there was nothing so bad about it I'm about to write a 1 star review but on the other hand it definitely wasn't amazing enough for a good review. It's as average as a story can get which made it good for the time I read it but ultimately not interesting enough to care about reading more.

To it's credit the endnig although way too fast, wasn't to cliffhanger like. It did end and gave a clear idea where the book was going. The problem is that considering the onesided view from this story, and that it was entirely about him lusting after the mixed breed, I have zero hope that the next one will delve into the training and archery an so forth and will read like this one. Pretty much all talk about the way one character lusts for the other. The one thing that almost ruined this book and was the only thing to trigger an emtion out of me was the way the main character got all jealous and acted stupid over a relation ship that only existed in his head. Just why? I grunted all the way through that particular page.

If you're looking for a quick read, that's literraly all about the thoughts of one man pining for another man with very low steam. There's kissing but that's it. This book will fit the spot. It took me barely 30minutes to read this short. If your here for character development and something with real steam it might not work for you. it's way to short to fullfill either of these voids, and judging by the way it ended has no intentions too because the end goal is to make you read the other books, which I gess is fine. But it leaves an unfulfilled forgetable feeling. 

I guess that's my biggest take away. At the time of writing this review June/2020 I was moving from my old blog site to the new blog site. After rereading and editing over forty reviews this was the shortest review, one paragraph, and the only book I could not remember. Not a single detail. I had to reread it then the origianl made so much sense. I definitely struggled to get it up to my normal review length. 

Like I said already, I did not hate this short. It gets three stars. Maybe more like 2.5 but I've read my fair share of short stories and this is the first one got such a little reaction out of me good or bad that I struggled to find something to say beyond it was just okay.


Sunday, 16 April 2017

Everybody has a story.... These are ours


Author: Audrey N Lewis
Genre: Short Stories/Anthologies 
Book Rating: 7.5
Personal Rating: 7

This was not what I was expecting and that's what makes it awesome.  It was very well written.  And mostly, it felt real. Without all the extras that people fluff their stories up with these days.  These are the types of tales that stick with you long after you'ver read the last line.

Friday, 14 April 2017

Master

Author: Catherine Taylor
Genre: Romance, Suspense, Thriller, Erotica
Book Rating: 10
Personal Rating: 10

I honestly couldn't could this book down.  Action, suspense, steam, fight scenes muscles.  Oh, and the writing was good too.  If I could pull Jahn right out of this book I would but alas fantasising over fictional characters gets you nowhere in life.

At first, I was a little annoyed.  Damsel in distress, man comes to save her, erotic scenes to tease the pallet.  All well written but typical fair for this type of genre.  But as the plot thickens you start to realise the wonder that is Master.  Everything fell into place just at the right moments.  The motives that drove the characters were relatable.  The characters themselves lovable and the writing excellent.