I don’t read much paranormal romance, largely because even the little reading I’ve done has made me acquainted with the cliches of the genre. This book has some of those. There’s the supernatural abilities as an explanation for unrealistically over-whelming sex appeal; the insta-love; the girl who feels overwhelmed by the guy’s magic enhanced mojo; and the guy intrigued because the girl is the only one who can resist his appeal.  However, if you like paranormal romance, I’d suggest you check this one out for the good qualities that make is stand out from the pack (pun completely intended).

Marianne Morea’s writing is as good as I remembered from Hollow’s End.  Her descriptions are detailed enough I felt I was standing in each scene. The secondary characters are well-developed and added depth to the story. One of the cliches I enjoyed was the steamy sex, which the author accurately described as “medium heat”. One of the cliches she broke spectacularly is the lack of female friendships in books with a strong romance. There are several great friendships in this short story. I think it even passes the Bechdel test! She also showed the mutual attraction from both participants perspectives. This balances the relationship well, as does the fact that the characters both support and protect each other. As a result, the smoldering sexual tension didn’t make me view our strong protagonist as more of a puddle in the presence of her love interest.

In Hunter’s Blood, Marianne Morea didn’t throw out all of the tropes in the way I so admired in Hollow’s End. However, she did choose some good ones to keep and a few important ones to break, adding great female friendships and subtracting a weak-kneed heroine from the common formula. That was enough to make me really enjoy a genre that’s not always my favorite. Fortunately for me, the publisher didn’t just send her book. If I want read more of the genre, I have seven other books by really great authors in the same ebook. Fortunately for the rest of you, that collection went on sale today on Amazon for only $.99 and personally, I think this book alone is worth more than that. Check it out here.

Do you have any autho’s you love because they break the cliches of their genres? Do you enjoy cliches in books or find them annoying?

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Title: 

Hollow’s End is inspired by both the legend of Sleepy Hollow and the history of the town where the legend is set. Events from the Revolutionary War  pitted the town’s inhabitants against each other, leaving lingering animosity that leads to paranormal activities as Halloween approaches. Although Rowen is from a family of witches, she’s never wanted to do anything with such things. Unfortunately, her relationships and her powers leave her little choice but to deal with visions sparked by ancestors of the towns current inhabitants…

The potential this book had was overwhelming, to the point that at the middle of the book, I was imagining a five star review. Rowen is a perfect YA heroine. She feels guilty and concerned about her weight when she’s splurged on junk food, but is generally confident and happy with her appearance. She’s nervous around her crush and even once wonders why he likes her (dear lord, please spare me from heroines wondering why guys like them). However, the butterflies in her stomach mostly don’t make it out of her mouth and she manages to hold her own in every conversation. I adored her. She reminded me of what it was like to be a teenager without becoming the overdone, insecure, teenage stereotype found in so many YA novels. She also has a great relationship with her mother, who helps her deal with events both paranormal and romantic. Obviously, not every teen has great family relationships, but I suspect it’s far more common than having parents who are bizarrely absent or too stupid to notice paranormal activity when they see it. All around, many points for avoiding annoying YA tropes.

The plot was a little less amazing. There wasn’t too much to the mystery the book centers around and “new” information was being revealed long after it was clear what it had happened. The final confrontation, although written well enough to be pretty suspenseful, didn’t require much of our heroine. After all the bravery she showed early on, I found that a bit anticlimactic. The idea for the plot was good though and the characters were so wonderfully realistic that I found this a very enjoyable read. As the authors first foray into young adult, this was quite impressive and I look forward to seeing what she does next. If you like character driven stories and are getting sick of YA tropes, I would highly recommend her work already.

Edit: After I wrote this review, the author was kind enough to contact me and ask for more specific critiques. Then, she actually and sent me a new ending scene! It fixed everything that made the original anticlimactic. Instead I was on the edge of my seat, cheering as the protagonist figured out a brilliant solution. With this brilliant debut, I’m super excited to read more by Marianne Morea.

The post Hollow’s End appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

Although Dana is human, as soul sister to vampire Ani she could potentially live forever. Unfortunately, Ani’s decision to kill a human who tries to hurt Dana causes the vampire leader Donovan to decide that the sisters are more trouble than they’re worth. Fortunately, the sisters have some powerful friends and if they manage defeat Donovan, Ani will be safe as the new vampire leader. But first, they have to survive…

This book has a lot of potential. The writing was occasionally stilted, perhaps because the words and sentence structure were reasonably simple, but the writing was certainly not bad and wouldn’t have distracted me from a really good story. At the beginning, I was completely engrossed in learning more about the unique vampire mythology the author created. It’s so fun to see a new take on an old legend, especially one in which vampires enjoy being vampires instead of being all angsty about it. At only 80 pages long, I was dreading running out of book!

Sadly, I ended up feeling very let down by the second half. In the last forty pages, nothing happens except the characters preparing for a massive, climactic showdown with Donovan. There’s training, and more training, and the book slowly started to drag. Eighty pages suddenly seemed like a lot to get through! If this had, in fact, lead to an epic showdown, I would have been ok with all the lead up. Instead, the bad guys basically just surrender and the anticlimactic ending takes only a few pages. I might read more be the author since she had some great ideas, but in this case I was disappointed with the execution.

Amazon|Goodreads

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This week I’ve finally (after waiting a whole day :-P) gotten to read the rest of the published books in the Raine Benares series.  Although the plot in each book is pretty unique, the second and third books did seem a  lot like the first.  One common complaint which I share is that the author reuses words and phrases from book to book.  It’s not unreasonable for the author to recap parts of earlier books, but most other authors are able to do this without directly quoting the previous books.  The direct quotes gave me an unpleasant feeling of deja vu which pulled me out of the current action a little bit. In the first book, I enjoyed all the flirting.  I thought it was enough to give the books a little sex appeal, but not enough I’d be uncomfortable if my mom looked over my shoulder.  But by the third book or so all the almost having sex was beginning to feel kind of ridiculous – it was obvious it was going to happen, but it never did!  The fourth book was one of my favorites, both because something (no spoilers, I promise!) does happen in terms of sex and some of the bad guys begin to get what’s coming to them.  This made for a very satisfying read.  The fifth book was also much more action packed in terms of fighting the bad guys and in Raine’s sex life.  I really liked these last two and can’t wait for the new book this year!

Non-Project Non-Fiction

None this week.  Surprisingly, I’ve actually had less time to read at home than I did my last week at school, so I haven’t done a whole lot of extra non-fiction reading!

Summary

Armed and Magical (book 2) and The Trouble with Demons (book 3) – 4 stars – new engaging plots, but largely similar to the first book in tone, style and wording.

Bewitched and Betrayed (book 4) and Con and Conjure (book 5) – 5 stars – I really enjoyed these two!  Much more satisfyingly action-packed than the previous two books.

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