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Mr. Perfect

Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


50% ‘Criminal Minds’-style thriller, 50% insta-romance explosion

This is a skillfully-written story, with some subtle twists that keep you guessing, and enough humor and romance to keep you distracted from the gruesome reality of the thriller portion. Other that the clear introduction to the where this is going to go in the Prologue, the story actually starts pretty slow, taking plenty of time to introduce all the characters and relationships. To be honest, I have my doubts about believability of the main concept—the one where the list becomes the nation-wide news feature and where so many people feel offended by it—but I know close to nothing about US society so I can’t really judge. The romance may feel a bit too fluffy and instantaneous, but then again, isn’t that the dream. I did also appreciate the fact that the culprit wasn’t a generic ‘his mother treated him bad so he grew up a woman-hating psychopath’ kind of deal, but then again, the twist I imagined in my head for the later part of the book might have been a little twistier that the actual one, which led to me feeling that this was after all a 4-star read, rather that a 5-star.



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Pride Mates (Shifters Unbound, #1)

Pride Mates by Jennifer Ashley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


To be honest, I first, after reading the description, was actually planning to avoid these series… The whole ‘Shifters are Collared and controlled, outcast from humanity’ concept doesn’t appeal to me at all. Not that I’d have hard time imagining humans being discriminating asses trying to degrade, insult, and control others on every step, but just because I don’t really like to be reminded of these disgusting human traits. I only picked this up because I have read Bodyguard by chance first and thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
It’s not a bad story. The plot is there, not dissolved behind the romance, and the characters are interesting and mostly well-developed. And yet, too much of this book talks about these issues of control, power over others, dominance and submission… even if the main character says she is not ‘into it’, everything in this book rotates around these concepts. Which honestly kind of puts me off.
Also, the insta-love and thick-headed main female character did seem clichéd, even if not enough to be annoying.



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Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, #2)

Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


On one hand, I can’t help but feel that these novels (especially this one) are too short, on the other hand, they are so packed with non-stop action that I also believe if it was any longer I would actually get tired reading it. The main character hardly has any any time to rest, she spends more time passed out after almost dying again than sleeping, she hardly eats, she goes from one deadly battle to another, ‘almost dies’ multiple times, and the whole book hardly covers more than a couple of days.
I enjoyed this book more mostly because there weren’t really any unreasonable blunders like in the first one, but I do think I would enjoy it even more if there was more ‘room to breathe’ between all the action.



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Dragon Actually

Dragon Actually by G.A. Aiken

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fun, unexpected, and explicit in more ways than one.


The way this book started, I thought I’d give it 5 stars. The tone, the humor, the characters and interactions, everything seemed great. Even thought this book is plenty bloody and violent. Unfortunately, later on the ‘rapid POV switching’ style, while fresh and enjoyable in the beginning, seemed to turn the story a progression bit too abrupt. Puff! Enemies are about to attack this specific village. Puff! We’re in the middle of the battle. Puff! It’s all over. Puff! A year has passed. (And I do feel like making it a year was neither realistic nor reasonable).
It also progressively turned a bit too porny, and when we reached “Chains & Flames” also too S&M-y for my tastes. It’s probably because, once again, I thought I was getting a ‘fantasy novel featuring some romance’, while it actually picking up ‘erotica in fantasy setting’. While it still could be the former if it tried just a little bit harder, it definitely is much more closer to the latter.



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Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane, #2)

Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Why do so many of ‘second novels’ in so many series turn into these pits of angst, I wonder?
I found this book much more difficult to enjoy than the first one. I think there were three major reasons. Firstly, is that while I can get behind a tortured anti-social hero who is hunting a murderer, I find it much more difficult to get behind a tortured hero who runs illegal gin still and sleeps with people’s wives in public places. Even though Reading is perhaps a more pleasant person personality-wise. Secondly, this novel takes a very specific and very obvious format. The one where you know with 100% certainty how the story will go from the very first chapters: everything starts from a low and angsty point, then it will become gradually worse and angstier, until it reaches the climax where something terrible happens and forces people to take their heads out of their asses, so that the happy end you expected from the very beginning is brought about. And you know all the major story points that are going to happen before they do. It’s hard to remain interested and not just skip to the end and save yourself from suffering through all the angst and misfortunes. And thirdly, the fact that the main theme of this novel seems to be infidelity. Whether it’s sleeping with other people wives or fiancés, or falling in love with someone else while being engaged, or telling your lover that you can’t marry them and will marry someone else and have an affair with them after a year or so… I don’t like this topic and don’t find it exciting.
Additionally, I also felt like Lady Hero turned out to be a much weaker character here than she appeared to be in the first book, which was rather disappointing.




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One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles, #3)

One Fell Sweep by Ilona Andrews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I’m still a little sad that this series has traded a big portion of humor for angst, but I did enjoy this book much more than the second one. I think we could do with fewer ‘almost deaths’ per novel. But the Hiru story was very good.
It’s too bad that it looks like it’s going to be a while before we get any continuation with the story with Dina, if ever.



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Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles #2)

Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Unfortunately, this series didn’t manage to escape the ‘curse of the second novel’. It was so much drier, heavier, and compressed, I can’t even really say I enjoyed it. It made me rush to finish it not because I couldn’t look away, but I wanted it to be over quickly so I could see if the next one is any better. Most of the good content that was in this was practically suffocated from two sides by too extensive dry recapping of the events of the first book in the beginning, and a wave of angst in the end; the humor and flavor of the first novel didn’t really have any space to breathe here.
Also, the twist with Sean was too obvious. I really hate it when I get this ‘well wouldn’t it suck if this happened’ feeling in the middle of the book and it just comes true.
I’m giving this 4 stars because it’s not a bad book (even if I can’t help but feel like there should have been a better way to write it.) But it is also is a book that didn’t really leave me feeling good.



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Night Play (Dark-Hunter, #6; Were-Hunter, #2)

Night Play by Sherrilyn Kenyon

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unbearably clichéd and cheesy work that is focused on female self-image issues more than on anything else.
DNFed. I actually almost DNFed it after the very first chapter. But then I decided to make myself see if I’d get to any actual plot, made it about 40% in, and gave up.
After reading the Prologue, I thought it might actually be good. With the weres introduced and the dark back-story. But then in the chapter 1 we get introduced to the heroine…who is crying over an email where an abusive boyfriend who used her and treated her like shit all the time and broke up with her, and she ‘though she would marry him’. This alone could be enough to close this book forever for me. But there’s more.
Now I’m going to rant.
I’ve picked up a lot of ridiculous ‘romance’ novels by mistake recently, but nothing quite like this. I can even forgive the constant ‘insta-love’, because it often comes with the werewolf territory, but… They meet, he buys her a necklace, she cries, they have sex. (The end.) …He ‘doesn’t have an ounce of fat of his body’, she’s ‘solid size 18’; he keeps thinking how all other females he knew were aggressive and demanding bitches (literally) and how she is all so soft and kind, she keeps thinking about her ‘boyfriend’ who couldn’t stand looking at her with lights on while the main character is all over her; he is supposed to be a wolf-born shifter, who had lived his all life in a pack until 18 months ago and doesn’t even know how to date humans, and a hunted outcast without his own home and taking care of a comatose brother, but he also has a bank manager on speed dial who apparently his personal account manager, and he has his own table in the ‘super expensive’ restaurant where everyone knows him and he is ‘human enough’ to have that status in the society and throw money around; she is supposed to be spirited and independent and not take shit from anyone…while she let an abusive size-shaming shithead walk all over her for years and wanted to marry him. The 40% of this book that I did read, were so full of the worst kinds of ridiculous clichés I thought my eyes were going to pop out. These characters just don’t work. They contradict themselves constantly. And more importantly, there is something very disturbing about how both men and women are treated in this.

A shame, since I thought some ideas of the series were interesting, but this is going to be a very big NOPE for me.



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Shadow of The Fox (Shadow of the Fox, #1)

Shadow of The Fox by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The first impression is very simple—reading this is like watching anime in text. Not just because it’s Japanese. It’s the whole imagery, concepts, attitudes, flow of the narrative. I suppose it’s probably a very different book for you when you don’t actually live in Japan and feel like every image from this book you’ve already seen somewhere before. But I’m at least glad that this at least was written by someone who knew what they were writing about.
I also suppose that his ‘anime’ nature fits very well with the YA trend of mixing childish with gruesome deaths and cringy concepts (of people not having free will and being tortured in general). And this is really all the description I can come up with: it’s like anime, childish and bloody at the same time, full of yokai monsters and talk of samurai honor; cringy enough to keep me from really liking what is going on.
Minus points for the cliff-hanger ending, as predictable as that turn was, but plus point for the Epilogue—that bit was very satisfying.
On one hand, I might be curious about what will happen to the characters from now on, on the other I don’t know if I’m actually willing to read two more books to find out…



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When you say ‘curse of the second novel’, many people think about the curse of the second published novel of an author. I, personally, find it much more applicable to the ‘second novel of a series’… It’s harder to find an exception, really.

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Moonshadow (Moonshadow, #1)

Moonshadow by Thea Harrison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This might be the closest I felt to a female protagonist. Which is probably over-sharing.
And yet, I did find a few too many things I found myself empathizing with.
Other than that:
Yes to the banter, yes to the setting (though I do wish we would explore it a little more), yes to emphasizing thinking for yourself, yes to keeping your promises, and yes to men in black with swords.
I don’t know how much we will come back in the other 2 books of these series, if at all, but it does feel like some of the concepts and ideas were left a little underdeveloped. Like the forms and identities of the remaining knights not being addressed after the beginning, or Dark court relationships in general. I think the ending could be expanded a bit more, instead of saying ‘in next few weeks things like these happened’… But oh well, this is more like asking for more, than real complains.
Also, I had about 4-5 scenarios in my head of how this book could go horribly wrong all the time while reading, and I couldn’t be happier that it didn’t touch any of them.
One more book like this and Thea Harrison might become a name a on my ‘automatic buy’ list.

The only real complain I can give is the cover…



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First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1)

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Want to read about the worst things humans do in a fun way? This book is for you.
It has great writing and humor, and they’ll mostly make you forget that it also touches on some very heavy topics. In other words, if you have a lot of triggers, this book is not for you. It is also probably important to mention that most of the worst things that happen/are mentioned in this book involve children.
I feel like I’ve been fooled into a false sense of security by the attractive humor of this book, and it doesn’t feel too right. I also feel like I dug my toes into yet another 10+ book series, and now I’m in trouble.
I enjoyed this book a lot, even despite the bad things it deals with, but I’m a little cautious about the directions it is going to take from here on. To be honest, I’m not sure how I will feel about the whole gates to heavens and armies of Satan scale it threatens to go with…



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With all the highlighting and sharing abilities, Kindle should have a ‘report a typo’ function. When you highlight a typo and send it back to the author/publisher.

(because apparently it’s not enough to be correcting people’s typos at work)

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I haven’t really considered before how big of a stone the saying ‘Don’t judge book by its cover’ was, aiming for publishers and marketers.

I think it’s actually very difficult to find a book, unless it’s a famous international bestseller with a few dozen of editions, where a cover would match the content. (And even then, if you look at the very first cover it was published under, it will probably make you shake your head. Like ‘Harry Potter’ covers… they are not bad, but after the 3rd one, I do believe they became too childish for the content.)

Just in these two months, I’ve seen good quality fantasy hidden behind badly photoshoped cheesy jackets with half-naked models that made me cringe; or on contrary, picked up something for it’s beautiful and sophisticated cover just to find tasteless PWP inside. It’s almost like you need to go from the contrary each time time try to chose a book. For example, a lot of YA books get beautiful hardcover editions and sprayed edges, because of the bookstagram movement that for some reason decided to focus on YA, but I’ve found out (after getting caught by the pretty editions a few times, I do love pretty books) most of them have hardly anything worth finding inside. And then, the best urban fantasy usually comes in cheap mass-marked editions with covers that are more likely to scare people off with their trashiness, and make me happy that in our country there’s a big culture of personal book covers to put on your books when reading outside…

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After these few months of reading a collection of random literature I never thought I’d find myself reading and posting my impressions and ‘reviews’ on goodreads for all of it, I realized that I mostly base my rating of any book on a single factor: ‘How did it make me feel after I finished it?’