Showing posts with label NA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NA. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

A Touch of Darkness by Tina Moss and Yelena Casale

Synopsis: Cassie’s working for a tightwad boss at a pretentious NYC diner, dealing with paralyzing pain that doctors can’t diagnose, and trying to hide her hands that glow purple whenever she ...well, whenever.
So, when a mysterious stranger walks out of her dreams and into her life to spout some nonsense about her being a mythical creature, she chalks it up to one more crazy thing to add to her it’s-a-crappy-life list. Yet, when the stranger’s predictions start to come true, she discovers a world that could shake up her humdrum existence.

My Thoughts: Although the synopsis does have to do with the book it is almost misleading as the events highlighted, in most cases, are so underplayed that they are virtually non-existent during the course of the book.

The Good: An interesting concept based on the synopsis. Yep, I've used that "concept" line before but I truly mean it no matter how many times I say it when speaking about books. The synopsis pulled me in. I was intrigued by why Cassie's hands would glow purple and what exactly she was, if not human. The authors had some good ideas.

The Bad: The execution of the ideas could have been written better. The world building only appears to be halfway complete and the characters are poorly drawn. For example our *ahem* hero, Gabe, mentions that he and another "Fallen", Rafe, are bitter rivals yet the reasoning was never mentioned. In addition, the reason Gabe "Fell" was never covered even though he constantly talked about working toward his redemption. The addition of some over the top violence in the last half of the book that was completely absent in the first half made the sections a bit disjointed as if one author wrote the first half and the other wrote the last. Plus one torture scene appears to have been added just for shock factor. Gabe is tortured by the bad guys for information on Cassie. Yet the bad guys already HAD Cassie. Why they would have to torture him when they had her is beyond me. The lack of real romance within the book makes the H/h's devotion to one another towards the end of the book seem entirely out of place and a bit weird. And finally (not that this is the end of the issues but the end of what I'd consider "The Bad") the character's had an annoying habit of talking to themselves. Meaning, a book written in the third person narrative would utilize inner musings where we, the readers, would be able to see what they were thinking. This book had those thoughts spoken out loud as if the characters were in some weird soap opera.

The Ugly: These are more personal issues I have and might not be something another reader might find to be worse than those mentioned above. However, for me, they are deal breakers.....1)What looked like an interesting idea for a book based on the synopsis proved to be nothing more than an Angels against Demons trope. Been there. Done that. Cassie's "abilities" are so under explained that they barely had any significance within the story to make this book an original. 2)Basic editing errors are more than annoying. Any editor, no matter how seasoned, should have picked up the usage of "peak" instead of "peek" and "dear" instead of "deer". 3) Cassie was TSTL. She has demons trying to capture her and the Angels want her dead. So what does our *ahem* heroine do? She decides she is her own woman and purposely heads out to the Las Vegas strip on her own, without the man who has sworn to protect her from harm, just because she could. Ugh.

In A Nutshell: Unfortunately, this book has way too many issues for this to be a truly enjoyable read. For this reason I will not continue on with the series even though this is only the first book in what will be a series.

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Sunday, September 22, 2013

Against the Ropes by Sarah Castille

Synopsis: He scared me. He thrilled me. And after one touch, all I could think about was getting more...
Makayla never thought she'd set foot in an elite mixed martial arts club. But if anyone needs a medic on hand, it's these guys. Then again, at her first sight of the club's owner, she's the one feeling breathless.
The man they call Torment is all sleek muscle and restrained power. Whether it's in the ring or in the bedroom, he knows exactly when a soft touch is required and when to launch a full-on assault. He always knows just how far he can push. And he's about to tempt Makayla in ways she never imagined...

My Thoughts: After a really rough start I found that I was able to enjoy some of what this book offered despite the improbable occurrences that kept cropping up over and over and over again.

What Didn't Work: The present tense first person narrative can be quite off putting. It took quite a while for this to work for me and even then there were times that I was still pulled away from the story because some of the sentences just felt awkward. Also, there were several instances of texting between the two main characters. The formatting was a bit off as there were several times that the author of the texts were unclear because one line could contain both Torment and Makayla's texts together.

Normally I'm not one to complain about an Alpha Male hero but in this case Torment (aka Max) often came across domineering and controlling to the point of red lights and alarm bells going off in my head as I was reading them. He forbid her to do this. He ordered to not do that. He said it was for her own good, so he could protect her. In addition to Torment's extreme character flaw, Makayla wasn't all that great. She claimed to be able to "handle him" over and over. Again with the warning bells and blinking red lights! Makayla's flaws didn't stop with that, however. She had such an extreme reaction to violence (which included things like cold sweats, vomiting and almost fainting) yet she had no problem patching up the MMA fighters wounds as a result of the violence. She happily did it as a matter of fact. I think the topping on the I Hate Makayla cake had to be when she all of a sudden exhibited a seriously TSTL (too stupid to live) moment. It counteracted all her "I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself." moments reducing her to a shell of a woman and one I'd never want to meet.

So, all that's really left is to mention a bill collection company named Collections R Us, who apparently allow their collection team to call debtors from their personal cell phones and scream obscenities at them, an administrator in a hospital that is allowed to date their underlings, an organ donor list that requires monetary donations to get a name to the top and one person's past filled with anguish and mafia hit-men. Really. I'm not joking.

What Worked: Despite the over the top ickiness that was Torment's caveman mentality there were quite a few tender moments which melted my frozen-I-hate-these-characters-heart just a bit. The more I read the more I really believed he loved Makayla. I am not foolish to believe that love conquers pent up rage and violence but for the sake of fantasy I did enjoy those tender moments. In addition to the tender side of this book (and Torment) I thought the sexual encounters between our two love birds were very well done (except for the first one on the motorcycle...that one was a horrible example of BDSM and a Dom working with his sub.) So, first one aside I actually enjoyed reading the encounters and liked that even though there were a lot of them, they did not over power the story.

In a Nutshell:  Keeping in mind that if you've read (and liked) one of those other super popular series involving BDSM, Dom/sub relationships, extremely rich heroes or MMA fighters this book will not overly impress you on the originality front-line but it should be likable enough to spend a few hours of your time. For me, as an independent-mature-40 year old woman, I have long since outgrown my days of weekend binge drinking and reading about them coupled with Makayla's attitude and immaturity made it hard to connect to her and ultimately the book. But hey, at least the cover was hot!