Marked - Sarah Fine [Servants of Fate]

Marked - Sarah Fine [Servants of Fate]
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Originally Reviewed: January 5, 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆

My first introduction to Sarah Fine was with her Guards of the Shadowlands trilogy. I was hooked on the first book. Even if I hadn't read that first, Marked would have done it all on it's own.

The thing about Guards of the Shadowlands is that, even though it was decidedly dark, it was most definitely YA. Touched is a far, far cry from all of that and the comparison has completely caught me by surprise. It's not that often that you find an author equally skilled in writing for both adult and YA audiences.

And Marked is definitely for an adult audience. My god, is it ever. Sarah Fine's talent is absolutely undeniable. Her work with the Guards has cemented that in my mind. Any author who can completely wrap me up in a YA novel let alone hold my attention through an entire series deserves bragging rights. That trend has definitely continued with Marked.

Cacey is a Ferry. Her family name, of course, but there's a reason for that. Her family helps the spirits of those who have passed transition to heaven or hell, wherever they are fated to go. The Ferries work on conjuction with the Kere, another race of beings who marks those fated for death by the Fates themselves.

She works as a paramedic, and she gets partnered with Eli, recently moved to Boston with his sister. Eli manages to tap into her secret, and both of their worlds are completely spun on their axis. We're thrust into a world of rogue Kere, and possibly even a conspiracy among the Fates that could unravel the tapestry of time and life itself.

All characters are phenomenally put together. Cacy and Eli are both very believable. Eli's sister, though she doesn't get a lot of screen time, becomes a major player and is very well developed. My only issue is with Cacy's immediate family. Her brothers and sister aren't nearly as well done as Cacy, Eli and his sister were. They seem a lot rougher and disjointed.

We already know that I think Fine is a brilliant author, though. However, and this is probably a silly gripe, the scenes between Cacy and Eli completely overshadow everything else. The story, minus Eli and Cacy, could have stood up fabulously on its own. The sexual tension between them was so. Intense. That alone was enough to distract from the non-romantic storyline. Then the tension finally gets acted on, and...

My girly parts tingle just from the memory.

But it was like two fully developed, independent storylines crammed together in a single book, with only a token effort to fuse them into a cohesive story.

Meh, what can I say though? Sarah Fine has me firmly in the grip of flawless dialogue, enrapturing creativity, and emotionally engaging people with stories that leave me breathless. 

Dark Prophecy - Ann Gimpel [Soul Storm]

Dark Prophecy - Ann Gimpel [Soul Storm]
Source: Goodreads Giveaways
Originally Reviewed on Goodreads: January 4, 2015
Rating: ★★★★★

This book was received as part of the GoodReads Giveaways.

Never judge a book by it's cover.

We've all heard that, I 'm sure, but I don't think it has ever been more blatantly true as Dark Prophecy. On the cover is a woman with her head tilted back, lips parted, a man with a hand behind her neck, a small smile on his lips. Inside, where one might think to find an erotic, lust-inducing tale, we instead find a tale of a world where resources are dwindling, dreams foretell the future, and a woman who's ignored her inherent magic for most of her life can no longer do so.

Dark Prophecy starts off somewhat slow, a little confused. The plot could have gone any number of directions, and didn't really show a clear purpose until about halfway through the book. Despite this, Dark Prophecy delivers thought-provoking, challenging and intriguing ideas. Philosophically, environmentally, magically...

Not many books these days strike me as having a clear message as much as this one does. Was this the intent? I don't know. What is this message?

What, exactly, is our responsibility? What do we owe our planet? Our friends? Our gifts (even if we consider them curses)?

What do we owe, and to who? For the lives we live and the resources we use?

This is not a book influnced by activism, not by a long shot. The main part centralizes around Lara McInnis, a therapist with powers she only barely acknowledges. We meet some of her clients, her partner, friends. The danger she faces isn't just from dwindling resources. Something wants her power, and will stop at nothing to get it and render her useless in the face of growing chaos.

Attending her is Trevor Denoble. While not nearly as memorable as Lara, he is not to be passed over. He is about as human as they come. He looses his job, and has a partner with psychic abilities who's life is on the line more than once during the time we get to spend with them. His humanity and role as the man in Lara's life become more and more evident as the book continues, and he and Lara start making hard decisions about their future, and their lives together, in a changing world.

The supporting characters are many, but few stand out and fewer still make it to the end of the book. I would have loved to have seen fewer minority characters in exchange for having more time to get to know the ones that really mattered in the end. I know we'll see more out of them in future books, but worry that they'll continue to be overshadowed by sub characters that are ultimately pointless.

I hesitate to say much more, because so much of what I think makes Dark Prophecy so memorable and makes me want to read more... you just won't see coming, and I don't like spoiling those kinds of surprises! I could easily classify this into realistic fiction or magical realism. In Dark Prophecy, Gimpel approaches magic and the end of life as we know it in a very believable fashion.

If you're looking for the romance element, it is by no stretch of the imagination lacking. The relationship between Lara and Trevor is enviable, but the story does not depend on it, and I think that just adds to the realism of it.

Dark Prophecy does a wonderful job blending fantastical elements with real world relationships and experiences. With the kind of deals I can get on these books for my Kindle, you can count on seeing reviews for the following books very, very soon!

Some Fine Day - Kat Ross

Some Fine Day - Kat Ross
Source: Kindle
Originally Reviewed: January 3, 2015
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Some Notes:

On page 137 I read a line where she’s wondering “Is it possible to have a midlife crisis at the age of sixteen?”

WOAH. She’s only 16? I completely forgot. The way she talked and acted, I thought she was about to graduate from a post-secondary military academy.

On page 199, it gets even better – because she’s sixteen.

“If I wanted to kill you right now with my bare hands, I could do it in a dozen different ways. Some fast, some slow. Some real slow.”

Sixteen. Sixteen years old, and this is what her dystopian society has turned her into. Then they wonder why she’s trying to *spoiler so I’m not finishing that sentence.*

There may not be any specific enemy in this book, but I’ll be damned if Ross didn’t give me a thoroughly hateable enemy in Raven Rock. If you have an enemy, they need to be hateable.

Moving on…

The fact that Jansin, the heroine, is only sixteen largely escapes me for perhaps 2/3 of the book. She doesn’t act like she’s a teenager. She’s not the only one. Her eventual love-interest, Will, is only a year older than she is and yet I keep thinking he’s in his late 20’s. I have a really hard time noting this as YA, except if it wasn’t YA there would have been a lot more happening between Jansin and Will than there was.

So, what exactly happened? I’d say about a generation ago (when the parents in this society were little and the “grandparents” were parents) we have an event similar to what you’d find in The Day After Tomorrow (I’m a sucker for end of the world movies, what can I say?). Massive, massive storms, though they don’t just freeze and die out in one hemisphere like the movie. Nope. They just charge right across the continents, causing massive flooding, scouring trees and even grass from the earth, and ending society as we know it.

A fraction of the population escapes underground. Future generations are taught that it was perfectly planned and executed. Heroes were born, and society saved. Except they left out the part about how many people were left to die on the surface, which Jansin finds out in the worst possible way.

On a vacation to the surface, she gets kidnapped. By humans.

She learns a lot about what things were like before the “descent”. She learns a lot about surviving, and about living, and about what the “real world” is like. She begins to question whether or not she would want to return underground.

She begins to question whether or not she would have the choice, once the militia from Raven Rock found her.

It is so hard to go into what makes this book special without spoilers. I know I’ve bashed YA novels before about their kids being unrealistic in the way they react to danger and their lives getting tossed around, but Ross handled things splendidly. You don’t spend almost 10 of your most formative years in a military academy to learn to freak out when crap hits the fan. No, you learn to breathe, to analyze, to act based on your desired outcome and not what’s currently raining down on you.

Jansin struggles of course. She goes through a massive trauma and it’s only 2 months before everybody decides she’s had enough time to recover and expect her to move on. Ain’t that just like an adult? She may have been trained for combat and all sorts of other things, but she’s still 16 years old and suffering from post-traumatic stress. Jansin deals in the only way she knows how – the way the military taught her – which really sets things up for a potentially explosive ending. The whole time everybody things she’s fine and has recovered, she’s questioning everything she was ever taught.

On the ending…

This has probably been one of the best YA dystopian society/post apocalyptic books I’ve read, but the ending was a HUGE let-down! So much of a let-down that I would have given this book 5 stars if only the ending wasn’t so damned anti-climactic. I want to know what happens to Raven Rock, and who’s where, and what was found… there’s so much I was left wanting to know. If this was obviously a book that was part of a series or a collection, it wouldn’t be so bad – the answers must be coming somewhere, right? But it’s not, so where are the answers?

Seven Years - Dannika Dark [Seven]

Seven Years - Dannika Dark [Seven]

Source: Kindle

Originally Reviewed on Goodreads: January 3, 2015

Rating: ★★★★★

There is a lot I could say about this book. A ton. Really, don't doubt me. I could probably ramble all day about it. That'd involve a lot of spoilers, though, and that's not what I'm about. Not here.

What I will say is I was beyond impressed. Shifters seem to be one of those plot elements that just about every paranormal or urban fantasy author is using these days, and they can get tiring, quickly, if they're not done well. Dannika Dark has done something wonderful with the Shifter device. There's something refreshing and interesting about it that makes me want to keep reading, pick up the next book, and read some more. And more, and more, and more.

The imagery in a lot of the scenes, both intimate and not, was amazing. I don't often highlight things in fiction books, but this book is now chalk-full of them because I don't want to forget my favorite scenes, and it's not just enough to bookmark. I want to remember specific moments that took my breath away, made my heart melt, my stomach muscles clench or made me just go "awwe!"

There was one moment towards the end that had me completely melting, and absolutely jonesing for Denver's story:

Austin had warned me Denver's wolf had a vicious and unpredictable nature, one that couldn't be trusted.
Except with a six-year-old little girl who adored him.

Seriously. Read the book if only for that scene alone. For the interactions between Denver and Lexi's little sister. Fan-fucking-tastic.

The Characters

Lexi, I love. She's sharp, witty, strong - but not so strong as to be beyond reasonable. She may start off as being uber irritated with Austin, but she's not above admitting when it was good for him to show up. The mental dialogue and, well, actually most things involving her and her wolf are a total crack-up.

Austin... okay, it takes him a while. A long while. I just couldn't warm up to him, because things having to do with Lexi aside, I didn't see much of a man out of him. Not to say that's a bad thing, but he's supposed to be an Alpha. Alpha's can't be Alpha's only when there's a woman around, human or other. In general, he doesn't have much that interests me, but as a partner to Lexi, he's perfect. Just wish that wasn't all he was perfect about.

Some Notes:

Okay, I have one serious, serious gripe about this book: What's up with all of the random guys groping Lexi? I mean, it'd be one thing if it was chalked up to human guys getting caught up in the whole Heat thing, or if these random guys happened to be Shifters as well, but... throughout the book they're just random guys that happen upon Lexi and try to grope or otherwise sexually assault Lexi.

I couldn't put this one down. Seriously, it was gripping and I kept wanting to know what would happen. It had everything I wanted in a book. Despite Austin's shortcomings, his character with Lexi more than made up for it. The interactions and roles of the other characters made me crave their stories, find out what made them the people and wolves they became in Austin's pack. Anybody who enjoys books with a thick plot, supernatural elements, and lots of fun will absolutely love this.

Masters at Arms & Nobody's Angel - Kallypso Masters [Rescue Me]

Masters at Arms & Nobody's Angel - Kallypso Masters [Rescue Me]
Source: Kindle
Originally Reviewed: January 2, 2015
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Thanks, Kallypso – both for a wonderfully written first installment to this saga, and to the warnings you so thoughtfully provide.

With that out of the way, I have just one word for this: HOT! Possibly TOO hot (as you’ll read in my notes below).

Masters at Arms
First, we get introduced to the Masters at Arms – Marc, Adam and Damian. We see what led them together to a fateful day in Fallujah where limbs and lives were lost, leaving all three of them scarred and bonded for life. The writing here is rich, deep, evocative and gripping.

Nobody’s Angel
This is where things get just a little sketchy – though still phenomenal. Marc has gradually faded away from the BDSM club he owns with his other 2 military buddies, favoring solitude and time in the mountains as a SAR (search and rescue) to getting up close and personal with women he doesn’t want any kind of relationship with. Understandable, considering what we learn about him in Masters at Arms.

But when he rescues Angelina from being abused on a St. Andrew’s Cross by her abusive boyfriend Allen, his life becomes irrevocably changed. Angelina flees the club as soon as possible and writes off BDSM, choosing to stick with her novels instead, and Marc is left with scalding memories and an inability to track her down. It is by sheer chance that he ends up in her town, 3 hours out of Denver, on a SAR mission with his partner Luke, in the same bar where Angelina decides to go on her first night out on the town since “the incident.”

Let the fireworks begin!

Angelina doesn’t remember Marc, as when Marc rescued her at the club in Denver, he had a mask on and she couldn’t see his face. Marc isn’t the only one who’s been troubled by dreams, however, land something about Marc – the way he handles her, the way he speaks – reminds her more and more of her “dream Dom” – one she has managed to convince herself doesn’t exist.

Now let’s throw in Luke – guilt-ridden Luke, who lost his wife the same day that Angelina lost her father (another SAR man). He is convinced, however, that Angelina was sent to him by his late wife – on account of a dream. What a cluster.

Marc wants to help Angelina move on from her horrid experience at his club. Luke believes his dead wife has sent Angelina to him as a sign to move on – with her. Apparently both men are willing to step away to allow the other to move in, though it’s almost like a tug-of-war in terms of who backs away when.

In the end… I won’t spoil it for you. Pretty much everything comes out in the open and it’s a gigantic cluster…. but it’s a fun one!

On the Characters…

Now, I absolutely love Angelina. Truth be told, I think she’s the most well-rounded, realistic and unique individual of the three. Her psychological and emotional responses to her initial experience with BDSM, her “wolf-angel dream Dom”, Luke, Allen again, and just… everything. Everything about her is wonderful.

We don’t get a lot of genuine screen time with Luke, which is disappointing. I hope we see more of him, because he seemed to kind of fall in the space between “true supporting character” and “crowd character.” I’m honestly not sure what his purpose in the book was, other than the fact that Marc needed a SAR partner, so it was decided he’d get thrown in the middle with Angelina and Marc as well. I really believe the book could have done without him, though.

Marc… the number of times I wanted to smack him across the face and shake him by the shoulders… I lost count. I’m really starting to get a little tired of the “I’m not the man she needs” kind of crap from what are otherwise strong, capable men. I have seen that done a million times – and very, VERY few times has it been done well. This is not one of those times.

Some notes:

This is just what I noted in my Kindle as I was reading…

1. How many times can a guy’s cock harden before it can’t get any harder? I mean seriously. I think we heard about Marc’s cock getting hard a dozen different times in a 12-hour period. Oh, but then we find out it’s just been hard for about 24 hours. Even better!

2. Bad guys in romance novels, especially when the bad guy is a bad guy because he has an obsessive interest in the heroine, need more screen time. Not just “evil plans” screen time, but something to make them a 3d character that, at the very least, we can hate. Allen just annoyed the crap out of me, simply because he was distracting.

3. If you’ve had the unlucky experience to have a “dom” use a BDSM scene to abuse you, you don’t go from total panic to total acceptance in the space of a heartbeat. When Marc used the flogger on Angel and she’s freaking out because that’s what Allen had used on her, she goes from freaked out to “deep breath” mode in less than a heartbeat. I’m sorry, that just doesn’t happen. Especially not your first or second time out with the thing.

4. This goes for any erotica novel with dialogue during the juicy stuff. If you don’t understand the dialogue, you need a better lover. I can imagine soooo well what Angelina’s experiencing, because of that dialogue.

In the end, I think Masters really needs to find a better balance. She goes over the top in some areas and doesn’t flesh out others nearly enough.

The Discovery - K. C. Neal [Pyxis]

The Discovery - K. C. Neal [Pyxis]
Source: Kindle
Originally Reviewed: December 27, 2014
Rating: ★★★☆☆

So… what to say about Pyxis. It’s a YA novel, that’s to be sure. Throughout the book we see how our heroine, Corinne, has to manage both her increasing knowledge about the Pyxis, and her day-to-day life as a high school student and part time employee at her dad’s bakery.

In fact, that’s where the whole thing begins. Her grandmother had this box which held a number of bottles, which Corinne had thought were food dyes. She uses two of these bottles in goods she makes for a school bake sale. Suddenly, she goes from barely noticeable to one of the most popular girls in school – though temporarily, and only to those who ate a certain color treat.

Throw that in with the weird dreams that she and her almost-would-have-been-not-quite-sure-what-he-is-possibly-boyfriend Mason end up sharing, and we get swept up in conspiracy, magic, and miracles.

Points to consider:

The Good: I feel as if the characters introduced in this book were realistic, and handled the things thrown at them aptly for their age – which is a huge pitfall I see a lot of YA authors fall into, especially in their first works.

The Bad: I know Corinne has a best friend, somebody important in her life aside from Mason. Who that person is… she gets plenty of screen time in the beginning before Mason comes on scene, but once Mason is present, it’s like she gets completely shuffled off to the side. Considering the role she’s supposed to play… tsk tsk Ms. Neal.

The Good: It’s original. I can honestly say I can’t think of another book I have read that tackles the whole “cosmic force of evil” quite the same way Neal does. Of course, the theme is quite common (to be honest you’d have to be hard-pressed to find a book today with an original theme), but the approach is novel and interesting. I’m quite interested in finding out more about the Pyxis (the box and the human role).

The Bad: I finished this book about a week ago, and while I can tell you what the Pyxis is and what it contains, and some of the main details in the book, some of the more vague, but still supporting and important bits of information elude me. This is not good. I do not like having to re-read previous books in order to remember what’s going on and be able to understand the next one.

The Good: There are nasty elements, conflicts and hurdles that Corinne and her friends have to deal with – both as high schoolers and as the center of this whole cosmic woogy. I love being able to read something where the characters personal lives do not get completely ignored for the sake of the main story line. In fact… oh, I won’t even go there. I’ll just say familial relations take a very interesting turn towards the end ;)

The Bad: The two lives are almost too separate, one having very little if anything at all to do with the other. On one side you have high school drama, relationships with the immediate family, homework, job – everything a normal 16 year old girl would be dealing with. On the other side you have the Pyxis, strange smoke/fog, possible Armageddon… you get the picture. Yet, with the whole world at stake, you’d think the whole world would be touched a little more by what’s going on.

This book definitely deserves a solid 3-star rating. It had its ups and downs, but it gave me no reason to want to put it down and not pick it back up again when I had some more down time. I wanted to finish it, wanted to know more about this strange and unique experience Neal has created for us.

The Gray Witch's Grimoire - Amythyst Raine

The Gray Witch's Grimoire - Amythyst Raine
Source: Kindle
Originally Reviewed: August 1, 2014
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I had high hopes for this book. I really did. After reading the pages available as a preview, and going through the reviews available on Amazon, I was excited! Finally, a book that took (what I believe to be) a realistic perspective on Witchcraft – that all parts of it are to be respected, not feared.

I wish I could say I wasn’t disappointed. For one, its short. Less than 200 pages. (If I had the ability to focus I once did, I could read it in one sitting.) For another, it doesn’t really address Gray Witchcraft. It reads like a basic introduction to Witchcraft for the average seeker rather than someone who’s experienced in the Craft and wants to dive a little deeper into areas not typically covered.

I can appreciate her opening with “Magickal Principles” and a “Code of Ethics” for us “gray witches”, but that doesn’t even cover a full dozen pages. After that, it’s discussion on some symbols, and basic Witchcraft beliefs.

I understand this is titled as a Grimoire, so I’m not taking issue with the fact the rest of the book is full of correspondences. However, they are correspondences that can be found with just a few keystrokes on Google, with no real link to the concept of Gray Witchcraft.

That being said, there are a few things in the book that I think are missing from most basic Wicca/Witchcraft books on the market today – but again, nothing really specific to Gray Witchcraft. It was neat seeing how the author viewed Initiation, as that almost always ends up being a contentious subject. I enjoyed her take on how one experiences initiation not being a part of a group. I also enjoyed how she expanded on “The Metaphysical Laws of Witchcraft.” Again, something I think most books on Witchcraft are missing, but nothing special to the Gray Witch.

To wrap this up, I’ll say this: I think Amythyst Raine had a great idea, but the execution could have been done much better. The book itself is a good book – not something I would sit down and read, but definitely something I would still use as a quick reference as it has a lot of good information. If you are looking for a book that might actually be a good reference for the Gray Witch, I’d strongly suggest you search elsewhere.