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Fantasy Romance

Book Review

Book Review: Kiss of a Duke

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KissofaDuke
Beautiful cover!

Beautiful cover, NYT Best Selling author I had not heard of before, and the book was being offered for $0.99 during COVID. Yep, I snapped it up and finally got around to reading it.

The book is spectacular!

It is the second in the series, but it totally stands alone. Wouldn’t have even known it was the second in a series if it hadn’t said so.

The dialogue is sharp and witty. Seriously. It made me grin and even laugh out loud a few times. The sass, I loved the sass. So well done!

The characters, all of them, are terrific. Real. Quirky. Fun. And no one is too stupid to live. As a matter-of-fact, the heroine is literally brilliant. And it shows. Her friends are brilliant, too.

The plot is standard Regency fare, which is fine and what I was searching for amid the fear of a pandemic and everything else going on. I was not looking for a ride down a waterfall, but a nice float down a river. I more than got it. Best of all, the plot was real all the way through, and without filler.

The research that went into this book is stellar. You can tell the author understood the subject, and loved how the heroine saw the whole world through the eyes of a chemist. It was perfect!

I picked up two more books by this author. That says how much I liked this one.

Book Review: Don’t Tell a Duke You Love Him

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DontTellaDukeYouLoveHim
Pretty cover! Too bad the rest wasn’t as good.

I don’t leave book reviews on Amazon or Goodreads as I am an author myself and think I am sometimes too critical. But I will share my thoughts here. Partially because I feel it’s only fair to give an honest review, but more for myself. It really helps me focus on what I like and don’t like in a story.

I picked up this book as the author was new-to-me and a USA Today Bestselling author. I am actively looking for new authors that transport me new worlds. If they can do that, reading them will make my own work better.

There was so much promise in this book it broke my heart it didn’t fulfill it.

First, there were missing words and so many issues with commas it made my head hurt. I eventually forced myself to stop looking at punctuation. Not a great start.

The plot was weak but there. A snowstorm traps a duke with the lady that caught his eye and he’s trying to avoid. This is standard plot fare in some Regency, so okay.

What caused me so much pain were the characters. I wanted to love and adore the three sisters, yet, I struggled to tell the difference between the main character, Lily, and her sister, Camille. They seemed like all but the same person. The third sister, Adelaide, I liked her. A lot. She had the most personality of anyone in the story but was a bit character.

The hero was your standard brooding, unloved duke. He was literally a walking trope.

It also contained the standard love-at-first-sight trope with nothing really to back it up. The romance between the two characters is so superficial, and they are married in less than two days of knowing each other.

I wanted them to get together. I’m a romance reader. This is a given going into any book. But I never really felt anything for either character. I was never really pulling for them, but then it could be because they were all but together by page twenty.

The heroine’s mother comes off as horrible, but stupid, and makes a poor villain and no real impediment.

Despite the cover, there is really no heat at all. A few okay kisses, and one after-marriage scene at the end. Nothing for me to learn there.

The characters do get together. No, this isn’t a spoiler. It’s a romance novel. I expect it. But there is really no reason why they couldn’t be together at the half-way point in the book. I was actually surprised there were so many pages left when I hit this point. My guess is the remaining half is to round out page count as there is nothing at any point that really tests their love, and there is nothing to help them get over any emotional baggage they supposedly have.

It’s a light, easy read, but it didn’t grip me. Maybe because it is just a compilation of tropes without making any of them more. If I wouldn’t have been able to read it in one sitting, I would have put it down and never picked it back up again.

Book Review: Uprooted

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Book: Uprooted

Author: Namoi Novik

Recommendation: Do not start this book until you have a whole day to devote to finishing it

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Uprooted

 

This book was recommended to me as a fantasy romance. It is NOT. It is still a fabulous book.

It’s so amazing, I stayed up until 3am trying to finish it. I couldn’t. I barely slept as the characters danced through my dreams, and once I woke up Saturday morning, I sat down and finished it.

There’s a grown-up in me somewhere, but she hides when I sink into a book this good.

The book is intense. The author hooks you in the beginning and never once gives you a spot to put a bookmark. It’s a heck of a ride.

 

Characters

I love the characters. They are rich and varied. The story is told in first person, and you really get a feel for the heroine. She’s not always brave, or beautiful, or cultured. I love that. She isn’t perfect. No one in the story is.

  • The prince slays a chimera, acts like an entitled jerk, and yet is still the 8 year-old-boy who lost his mother and is willing to sacrifice anything to get her back.
  • The powerful wizard who can’t connect to anyone or anything.
  • The best friend who was supposed to be perfect but then isn’t chosen and both resents not being chosen and is relieved she isn’t.

There is so much here it’s amazing. People are flawed, and those flaws have prices to themselves and those around them.

The only part I disliked was the some side characters I wanted to see live died. This is not a romance novel, but it’s not Game of Thrones, either.

 

Plot

The plot is intense. It grips you in the beginning, and what I thought was going to be the climactic rescue ends up being just another plot point about a quarter of the way through the story. Seriously intense.

But you get your ending, and it’s a good one.

 

 World Building

Truly spectacular. This is one of the strongest points of the book, and it has so many of them. Enough of the familiar mixed with the new that she creates something fresh but still wholly relatable.

 

Are there any bad things about the book? The only downside for me was I was looking for a comfortable fantasy romance. Instead, I got sucked into a hard core fantasy novel with all of the sadness and pain that they’re known to inflict on their characters.

There’s a reason I’m a romance reader and writer! I like the other stuff, and this was truly spectacular, but I felt so wrung out when it was over that I decided to clean the house! You know how much I love doing that.

If true fantasy is your genre, I’d say pick it up and give it a read. Days later, the plot and characters are still teasing around in my head so much they’re making my own writing difficult. I truly loved the story. It is powerful, riveting, and moving. But it also take a lot out of you.

 

Book Review: A Talent for Trickery

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Book: A Talent for Trickery

Author: Alissa Johnson

Recommendation: Solid Read

TalentTrickery
Fun, sassy book

I was looking for a fun book to pass a cold and rainy evening. This book checked a lot of boxes for me, and it didn’t disappoint in the execution.

Characters

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters.

Owen, the hero, was a white knight. He was not your typical alpha male, always knowing best. He stumbled, made mistakes, but at his core, he was always good and trying to do what was best. He was competent, smart, but not invincible. You also understood why he struggled not to always take charge.

Lottie, the heroine, was smart and savvy. She had a hard upbringing with a criminal father involving his children in his schemes. She’s come a long way, but trust doesn’t come easily for her. I also loved her relationship with her siblings

All of the supporting characters are excellent. Owen’s two men I’m sure will feature in future stories. Esther, Lottie’s sister, is a complex and developed character. More than that, the author focuses on the sisters’ relationship. How they argue, keep secrets, and try to protect each other. Esther is not just tacked on for a bridge into a sequel. No fighting over a man, either, thank goodness!

I really enjoyed the playful banter as well. The characters laughed and teased, even in some of the tense scenes as Lottie comes to terms with her past (as real people do).

Plot

The romantic plot was solid. Lottie might have forgiven the hero over past wrongs a tad easily, but I also applaud the author for not dragging it out interminably. And the reasoning behind the forgiveness did not require me to suspend disbelief.

This is a mystery romance, and the mystery seemed solid to me. I was surprised by the villain at the the end, but not unduly so, and all of the clues leading up to it kept me turning the pages.

Steamy Scenes

This was by far the weakest bit. There was one, it wasn’t bad, but it was pretty forgettable.

 

All in, well worth the read. It gave me the happily-ever-after I demand, and it was sweet without sending me into sugar shock. I liked the characters, and it featured a white knight hero. All in, a good read.

 

Book Review: Promise of Fire

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Book: Promise of Fire

Author: Amanda Bouchet

Recommendation: Buy this book when you have time to read it in one sitting.

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Book is as awesome as the cover.

You know I don’t always give glowing reviews, so when I do, the book deserves it.

I will start out with I was a little turned off that the author wrote in first person present tense. It’s jarring, but after the first few pages, I didn’t care.

This is also a trilogy. I didn’t read the first book until the whole set was out.

 

Blurb

KINGDOMS WILL RISE AND FALL FOR HER…
BUT NOT IF SHE CAN HELP IT

Catalia “Cat” Fisa lives disguised as a soothsayer in a traveling circus. She is perfectly content avoiding the danger and destiny the Gods-and her homicidal mother-have saddled her with. That is, until Griffin, an ambitious warlord from the magic-deprived south, fixes her with his steely gaze and upsets her illusion of safety forever.

Griffin knows Cat is the Kingmaker, the woman who divines the truth through lies. He wants her as a powerful weapon for his newly conquered realm-until he realizes he wants her for much more than her magic. Cat fights him at every turn, but Griffin’s fairness, loyalty, and smoldering advances make him increasingly hard to resist and leave her wondering if life really does have to be short, and lived alone.

 

Spoiler Free Review

Characters

Cat, the main character, makes the story. She’s strong yet vulnerable in all the right ways. Looking for family. Looking for happiness, and not sure she can have either after a horrible childhood. Her camaraderie with the other characters really shines through as the story progresses.

The hero, Griffin, is a lot more your generic alpha male lead, but the story isn’t about him. We always see him through Cat’s eyes, so I think that makes it much tougher to develop him. This doesn’t mean he’s cardboard flat, he’s just not as awesome as Cat.

 

Plot

As this is a trilogy, I have a feeling the plot will get more developed in the next books. At the moment, the plot was simply for Griffin to round up some Magoi to help him and his family that have recently staged a coup and taken the throne from a tyrant. They’re now trying to figure out how to lead a nation after leading warrior tribes.

 

World Building

This is pretty spectacular. The world is based on the Greek mythology. Basically, Zeus makes the world for one of his children. That child is then murdered by his three children, and the world is divided into three kingdoms.

You have the traditional pantheon of the gods, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades etc. and a few more interesting characters. Magic has a huge role in the world, with the magic and the magic users being strongest in the frozen north, closest to Mt. Olympus.

 

All in, this book was so good that once I started it, I got yelled at by my family to put it down because I had tuned all of them out as I read. I also found the characters doing cartwheels through my own thoughts and making it difficult for me to write my own stuff. That’s a good book.

4 Reasons Why I Write Book Reviews

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I know, it’s terribly unpopular for authors to write book reviews right now, particularly if the review isn’t favorable.

open old book, a rose in a vase and a feather
Except if you’re an author.

I’ve chosen to write a few reviews anyway, and here are four reasons why.

 

1. I Accept my Limitations

A no point am I going to claim to be an expert. I don’t assign stars, because I don’t feel qualified to do that. I will also not be like Gottlieb at the New York Times reviewing books I don’t love in a genre I don’t love.

I love romance novels, sci fiction and fantasy novels, and books with strong female leads. Because I love them, I feel like I try to give them all a fair shake within the confines of what one expects from the genre.

I don’t review horror books or thrillers or a slew of others because I, personally, don’t love them.

 

2. Validity of Review Process

If I only ever write good things in book reviews, you won’t trust me. My goal is to give a balance interpretation through the lens of my experience. Your interpretation could always vary.  For example, the book North of Need had a few triggers for me. The set-up for the story had the feel of a horror novel to me (being trapped in a snowstorm with a stranger who is much bigger and stronger). Others, didn’t find this triggering. If you didn’t, you might like it more than me.

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Emphasis on fair.

 

3.  I Learn Something When I Write Them

Sometimes it’s something about myself. Like, I have stranger danger even as an adult. Sometimes, I learn more about story structure.

I love Lisa Kleypas as a romance author. There’s a reason why she’s one of the top names in historical romance. Her characters actually have character (something you don’t always find in romance). She lets women be friends, and sisters be sisters. It’s not all convoluted jealousy that I see too often. Her steamy scenes are very good, and her descriptions are amazing without using tired cliches. Like I said, she’s one of the best. By reading her and studying what I like, I learn a little more. Both for my own work, but also what to look for when selecting a new book.

Same is true of books I don’t like. I can learn a lot about plot and character development by figuring out why I don’t like something. After reading Lisa Kleypas, picking up another author that had every woman jealous of every other woman really brought to light how much I dislike that.

 

4. I Never Post to Amazon

As a fellow author, I don’t post my reviews on Amazon. Partly, because this is against Amazon’s terms and conditions, but more because I don’t ever want a review to be taken as an “attack” against another author.

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A reason to not give a bad review. Unless you’re a certain kind of romance writer.

Honestly, there are times I wish I could call some of the authors and tell them I like their work, but I’d love it if they could fix a few things. Do they want me to beta read for them?

Hubris, clearly, but in my opinion, book like the Queen of Swords could’ve been spectacular instead of just good with a bit of revision. This takes me back to Point 3. I learned a lot by reading Queen of Swords. More than I learned reading all of Lisa Kleypas’s books, probably because she makes it look so effortless.

 

How about you? Do you write book reviews on Amazon, knowing writers need them to succeed? Do you only ever write positive reviews?