Book Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (Audiobook narrated by Kevin Kenerly)

Summary:
R is a zombie, and he remembers nothing about his life before he was one–except that his name starts with the letter R.  He and his group of the other living dead inhabit an old abandoned airport and are ruled by the bonies.  They hunt the living not just for the food, but also for the memories that come from ingesting their brains.  It’s like a drug.  One day when he’s out on a hunt, R eats the brain of a young man who loves a young woman who is there, and R steps in to save her.  It is there that an unlikely love story begins.

Review:
Now that I have a new job I decided to stop going through the rigamarole that is finding something you actually want to read as an audiobook in the public library and subscribe to Audible, especially since I always have my kindle with my anyway.  I decided to choose audiobooks to read from the bottom of my wishlist, so everything you’ll be seeing on here (unless it was free on Audible) was put on my wishlist a long time ago.  Half the time I couldn’t remember why it wound up there.  That was the case here.  I mean; I’m assuming it was there for the zombies, but I basically had no other idea about it heading in.  This is partly why my mind was blown, so if you want a similar experience I’m telling you to go get yourself a copy right this instant!  Vamoose!  For those who need more convincing, though, please do read on.

Perhaps surprisingly, I have read zombie love stories before, so I wasn’t expecting too many new or particularly engaging ideas.  This book is overflowing with them though.  Everything from zombies getting high on other people’s memories to getting to see both the zombie and living side of the war to the concept of what the war is ultimately about to even what a zombie is was all brand-new.  And it pretty much all makes sense in the world Marion has set up and is engaging.  I could not “put the book down.”  I listened to it in every spare second I had.  Nothing went the way I predicted and yet it all made complete sense.

R is far more complex than what you’d expect from a zombie, even before his symbolic awakening.  Julie is everything you would want from a heroine.  She’s pretty, smart, and she says fuck!  She can hold her own but is still emotional and vulnerable.  She’s exactly what any artistic, strong woman would be in a zombie apocalypse.  Even the more minor characters are well-rounded, and there is the racial diversity one would expect from a zombie apocalypse in a big city.

Alas, the narration was not quite as amazing as the story.  Although Kenerly does a very good job, sometimes he fails to convey all of the emotions going on in the scenes or doesn’t switch characters quite quick enough.  Don’t get me wrong, it was very good and didn’t detract from the story at all, but I also don’t feel that it added a ton to it.

This is a book that I know I will want to read again, and I may even need to buy an ebook or print version just to do so in a whole nother way next time.  It is an engaging new look at a zombie apocalypse that reads more as a dystopia than post-apocalyptic.  Anyone who needs restored faith in the ability of humanity to fix where we’ve gone wrong should absolutely give this book a shot.

5 out of 5 stars

Source: Audible

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Book Review: Tundra 37 by Aubrie Dionne (Series, #2)

Summary:
Gemme is the Matchmaker for her generation on board the Expedition a spaceship that has been headed toward Paradise 18 for hundreds of years and multiple generations in the hopes of saving humanity from extinction due to the failure of Earth.  The ship is driven by a pair of seers–twins from Old Earth who have been kept alive an abnormally long amount of time by being hooked up to machines and virtually made part of the ship.  The seers make a mistake for the first time in hundreds of years and end up in a meteor shower and having to crash-land on the barely inhabitable ice planet Tundra 37.  Gemme finds herself reassigned from Matchmaker to the exploratory team Alpha Blue with the hunky Lieutenant that the computer system matched her with just before blowing off into space during the meteor shower.  Can she land the hunk without anyone knowing about the match?  And will the colonists manage to survive Tundra 37?

Review:
Although this is the second book in the series, which I didn’t realize at first, it appears that each book follows a different spaceship that left Earth, so I really do not think it’s necessary to read them in order.  I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, for instance.

It’s been a while since I read a book this bad that came from a publishing house, but it does happen.  This is part of why I firmly believe it shouldn’t matter if a work is self-published or indie published or traditionally published.  Bad books happen everywhere.  Although it definitely is more baffling when something like this slips through a publishing house.  (Then again, Twilight happened…..)

There is just so much wrong with this book.  The characters struggle in this odd land between one-dimensional and three-dimensional.  They’re two-dimensional?  The structure itself is odd.  We jump around at illogical points between Gemme/Lieutenant, the Seers’ lives on Old Earth, and the little crippled girl on the ship, Vira.  I’d just get interested, finally, in one of the plots and then get yanked over to another one, only to have it happen all over again.  Actually, the Seers’ lives are interesting and unique.  I wish Dionne had simply told their story and ignored the total snoozefest that is the love interest between Gemme and the Lieutenant.  These are all moderately minor things though that I could still see another reader enjoying, if it weren’t for the things that make zero fucking sense.  There’s so many of them, I’m just gonna go ahead and bullet-point them for ya’ll.

• When the ship first crash-lands, the Seers (telekinetic, all-knowing types) announce that they have enough fuel to keep everyone warm and everything running for three months.  Mysteriously, this number changes to three days without any explanation.
• Seriously, how could one person’s entire career be matchmaking one generation that fits on-board a space-ship? Plus, all she does is double-check the matches the computer sets up.  This could be done in a day or two.  A week at the most.
• NOBODY noticed little Vira’s telekinetic powers before now? Puhleeze.
• Supposedly the Seers’ eggs have been randomly implanted into random women for all the generations on-board the ship in the hopes of getting another Seer.  Nobody knows this except the Matchmakers.  Fact: The Seers are African-American.  Double-fact: It appears almost everyone else on-board the ship is white. And you expect me to believe nobody noticed the random inter-racial babies popping up?! When these people mate for life? Apparently the facts of genetics that are so important to these people are completely unnoticed when it comes to race. HUH

As if these inconsistencies were not enough, there’s also the fact that Dionne simply tries to do too much throughout the book.  Among the ideas and storylines going in this rather short book (thank god), we’ve got:

• People reliving their past lives in their dreams.
• Soulmates from past lives finding each other.
• The humans’ attempts to survive on Tundra 37.
• The explanation of how this ship got in the air in the first place.
• One seer’s love story.
• The story of the seers’ relationship with each other on Old Earth.
• How Old Earth went to hell.
• Vira being telekinetic and hiding it.
• An “evil entity” on board the ship.
• The mysterious orb.
• The mysterious beacon.
• The Gemme/Lieutenant/Luna love triangle (wtf is with the love triangles in romance novels?!)

Basically, the problem is, you can either tell the story of the Seers’ lives or the story of the colonist’s lives on Tundra 37.  You can’t really do both.  It’s confusing and jarring and seriously that orb/beacon thing was totally unnecessary for either one.  This is honestly an understandable problem.  Authors sometimes get too much going at once.  But how it made it through editing and to publication in this format is beyond me.  Could it be a typical outerspace, clean romance?  (There is no sex).  Sure!  Is it the way it is now?  Hell no!  How it is now is a confusing mess that’s simply exhausting to read.  Not what your typical romance reader is looking for or, really, any reader for that matter.  Definitely give this one a pass. 

2 out of 5 stars

Source: NetGalley

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Previous Books in Series:
Paradise 21

Book Review: Timeless Trilogy, Book One, Fate by Tallulah Grace (Series, #1)

Summary:
Kris is a successful video editor in Charleston, South Carolina with two best friends she’s made her own family with.  She has a beautiful beach house and a loving fluffy cat named Pegasus.  She also just so happens to be precognitive.  Her visions have never been about herself until she starts sensing that she is being watched, receiving late night phone calls, and finding flowers left at her house and on her car.  Increasingly, she realizes she is in danger, and right then her old college flame moves in next door.

Review:
This is an interesting mix of suspense, romance, and paranormal that keeps the reader guessing and interested and shows promise in the writer.

Kris’s life prior to the stalking is relatable to the modern female reader.  She has a core group of good friends, a pet she loves, a career that is solid but not yet stellar, and her dream home.  All that she is missing is the man.  The added touch of her visions gives her that extra something special, but her visions are not over the top.  She can’t control when they come or what they’ll show her, so she treats them more as an odd talent.  This keeps the heroine from being over-inflated, which is nice.  The love interest, Nick, is cute without being a god and kind without being perfect.  He’s a good guy with flaws, ie, the ideal love interest in a romance that we’ve, alas, been seeing less and less of lately.

The plot is this book’s strong point.  It is scary and suspenseful, but still believable.  No characters make obvious stupid mistakes that would make the reader scream at them, and let’s just say, Kris is no Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she also isn’t a weak, quivering Disney princess.  Kris is neither a super-hero nor incredibly weak, which is just the kind of heroine we need more of in literature.

All of that said, Grace shows promise as a writer, but she still needs to work on her craft.  Her plot structure is excellent, but she frequently shows instead of tells.  Similarly, she struggles a bit when first introducing a character, often falling back on the beginner writer’s method of explaining hair and eye color before anything else.  Similarly, the book needs more editing for simple grammar, spelling, and typos.  The book does not read like a strong author’s work, but it also is still enjoyable.  I am left wanting to find out about the romances of Kris’s friends Cassie and Roni, but I am also hoping that the writing that goes along with creative plots improves in the next two books.

Overall, if you are a fan of suspenseful romance with a dash of the paranormal and don’t mind a bit of showing instead of telling, this book is a fun way to pass a few hours, particularly for the low cost of 99cents.

3 out of 5 stars

Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review

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Book Review: The Mummy by Anne Rice (series #1)

Summary:
Julie Stratford’s father is a retired shipping mogul who now spends his time as an archaeologist in Egypt.  He uncovers a tomb that claims to be that of Ramses the Damned, even though his tomb was already found.  Everything in the tomb is written in hieroglyphs, Latin, and Greek, and the mummy is accompanied by scrolls claiming that Ramses is immortal, was a lover of Cleopatra, and can and will rise again.

Review:
I’m a fan of Anne Rice.  Her Vampire Chronicles are a lovely mix of social commentary, lyrical writing, and all the best tropes of genre fiction, so I was excited to stumble upon a cheap copy of The Mummy in the second-hand section of the bookstore.  I wanted to love it.  I really did.  But whereas the Vampire Chronicles contain valid social commentary, this is so stereotypical of mainstream romance a la The Titanic that I was sorely disappointed.

Again, the language is lyrical and gorgeous.  Rice without a doubt is incredibly talented at putting together sentences that read like a rich tapestry of old.  There is no rushing to get the story out as is so often found in more modern writing.  It’s fun to indulge the senses and oneself in the scene.

The plot, though, ohhhh the plot.  It’s so mainstream romance it hurts.  And yes, I know I read and enjoy (and write) paranormal romance, but the difference is that PNR is oftentimes tongue in cheek.  It knows it’s ridiculous and over the top and doesn’t take itself too seriously.  It’s meant to be fun and ridiculous.  Rice is being serious here, however, and that’s why the plot bugs me.  Let’s look at it for a second, shall we?

Girl is engaged to the perfect guy but she mysteriously does not think she loves him.  Girl meets immortal man who is so hot he would be voted hottest man alive every year forever.  Girl immediately “falls in love” with immortal guy.  Girl ditches perfect guy for immortal guy.  Girl and immortal guy have lots of the hot hot sex.  Immortal guy causes a series of unfortunate events in pursuit of his ex-lover.  Girl insists she still loves guy but cannot forgive him.  Girl decides life is pointless without immortal guy.  Girl attempts to kill herself.  Immortal guy saves her.  Girl forgives immortal guy.  Girl agrees to become immortal too. Yay happily ever after.

Like….just……there are SO MANY parts of that that piss me the fuck off.  So. Many.  The main female character (Julie) is a shallow douchebag in spite of claiming to be a modern, progressive woman.  She does not “fall in love” with Ramses.  She falls in lust with him.  He gives her tinglies in all the right places.  He ditches her to pursue his ex-lover (Cleopatra).  She, at first, rightfully tells him she can’t forgive him for that.  But then she TRIES TO OFF HERSELF. OVER A GUY.  And the only reason she doesn’t succeed is douchebag saves her.  I just….wow.  Not a plot I can respect.  Not a plot that gives us anything different from the patriarchal rigamarole so often forced upon us.  Anne Rice.  I am disappointed.

Then there’s the odd eurocentrism at work in the narration.  Even though Julie’s father loves Egypt and Ramses is, um, Egyptian, for some reason everything modern and European is what is impressive to everyone.  I suppose I could maybe (maybe) forgive that, but then there’s the fact that the elixir that makes people immortal also for some mysterious reason turns their brown eyes blue.  So nobody immortal has brown eyes.  I don’t think I need to unpack why that’s offensive for you all.  I trust you can figure that out for yourselves. Unlike Rice.

So, essentially, The Mummy is a beautifully written book that is destroyed by a kind of offensive, all-too-common plot and Eurocentrism.  Even beautiful writing can’t overcome that.

3 out of 5 stars

Source: Harvard Books

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Book Review: Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch (Series, #1)

Summary:
Katherine “Kitty” Katt manages to get released early from a dull day of jury duty only to find herself confronted with an angry man who sprouts wings and starts flinging knives from their tips toward everyone in the vicinity.  Kitty attacks and stops him and quickly finds herself sucked into a world she was unaware existed.  A world of alien refugees defending Earth and themselves from a bunch of fugly alien parasites.  She soon discovers her ordinary parents are more involved in this secret world than she would ever have dreamed.  On top of that, she’s increasingly finding herself falling for one of the alien hunks who announced his intentions to marry her almost immediately upon meeting her.

Review:
I received a free Kindle edition of the second book in the series, Alien Tango, last year and read it without realizing at first that it was part of a series.  I immediately fell in love with the world and Kitty and decided I needed to go back and read the first entry in the series.  This reverse approach definitely gave me a different perspective on the story, but it certainly didn’t make me love it any less.

What makes this series epically entertaining is well-established in this first entry.  First, the paranormal element is aliens in lieu of something more widely used.  Everything has the clean, secret government agency tinge to it instead of the dirty mafia feel many other paranormals elicit.  The aliens are aliens, yes, but they’re also a secret government agency.  Imagine Men in Black only the men in black are all aliens.

Second, Kitty Katt is a heroine who clearly epitomizes the modern woman.  She can take care of herself, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like having a man around too.  She’s smart, witty, sassy, and sexy, but she has her flaws and weak spots too.  She has sex on the day she meets a man, but she’s still aware enough of social norms that she takes care to attempt to hide that fact from the majority of people around her.  On the other hand, she herself doesn’t regret that act in the slightest.  She so clearly reflects what it is to be a modern American woman that I can’t help but applaud Gini Koch.  I hope to see more heroines like Kitty Katt in the near future.

The action itself is vastly entertaining, particularly if you enjoy scifi.  The fugly parasites are imaginative, disgusting, and frightening simultaneously.  The Big Bad is scary and crafty.  The solution to the Big Bad is seriously entertaining.  I honestly cannot say enough good things about the scifi in this book.

Overall, Gini Koch’s Kitty Katt series has not failed to leave me glued to my iPod screen yet.  It’s sharp, modern, unique, and vastly entertaining.  I practically throw copies at lovers of paranormal romance to read, but also highly recommend it to fans of scifi and modern heroines as well.

5 out of 5 stars

Source: Amazon

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Book Review: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Summary:
Bill wakes up in the hospital the day after a worldwide comet show with his eyes still bandaged from a triffid accident.  His regular nurse doesn’t show up and all is quieter than it should be except for some distraught murmurings.  Shortly he finds out that everyone who saw the comet show has lost their sight, leaving a random bunch of people who just so happened to miss it the only sighted humans left in the world.  A hybrid plant created years ago for its highly useful oil, the triffid, is able to walk and eats meat.  Swarms of them are now wreaking full havoc on the people struggling to save the human race.

Review:
This book reads like the novelization of a 1950s horror film.  Man-eating plants!  Dangerous satellite weapons of mass destruction!  Humanity being reduced to the countryside!  Classic morals versus new morals!  This is not a bad thing, and Wyndham seems to be conscious of the innate ridiculousness of his tale, as it possess a certain self-aware wittiness not often present in apocalyptic tales.

Bill is a well-drawn character who is enjoyable as a hero precisely because he is an everyman who is simultaneously not devoid of personality.  He is not the strongest or the smartest survivor, but he is just strong and smart enough to survive.  Similarly, his love interest, Josella, impressively adapts and changes over time, and their love story is actually quite believable, unlike those in many apocalyptic tales.  In fact, all of the characters are swiftly developed in such a way that they are easy to recognize and tell apart.  This is important in a tale with so much going on.

On the other hand, the action is stuttering.  It never successfully builds to an intense, breaking point.  Multiple opportunities present themselves, but Wyndham always pulls the story back just before a true climax.  After this has been done a few times, the reader loses the ability to feel excitement or interest in the characters and simply wants the tale to be over.  In a way it is almost as if Wyndha couldn’t quite decide which direction to take the action, so took it briefly in all directions instead.  This makes for a non-cohesive story that pulls away from the investment in the rich characters.

Additionally, I do not believe the whole concept of the triffids was used to its fullest extent.  The name of the book has triffids in it, for goodness sake.  I expect them to feature more prominently and fearfully than they do.  Perhaps I’ve just read too many zombie books, but the triffids just seem more like a pest than a real threat.  The concept of man-eating plants taking over the world is a keen one, and I wish Wyndham had invested more into it.

Overall, the book is a quick, entertaining, one-shot read that could have been much more if Wyndham had made better choices as an author.  I recommend it to kitschy scifi and horror fans looking for a quick piece of entertainment.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

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Movie Review: The Tourist (2010)

Summary:
The Scotland Yard is watching Elise Ward in the hopes that her ex-boyfriend, Alexander, who owes millions of pounds of back taxes, will contact her.  They get their chance when he does, telling her to come to Venice and choose a random tourist of his height and build to trick the cops into thinking is him.  The cops don’t fall for it, but unfortunately the mobster Alexander stole billions of pounds from does.

Review:
I’ve been a fan of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp since I can remember, so that pretty much is the entire reason why I went to go see this film.  Unfortunately, I have to say, Angelina and Johnny are starting to show their age.  For a film largely based on youth-filled action and passion, this is a bit distracting.  Although I enjoyed the old-fashioned storyline, I think I would have enjoyed it better with younger casting.  I’m not ageist, but when a storyline is so youthfully oriented, the casting should match.

The storyline itself is thoroughly engaging and refreshing.  It’s a romcom in the style of Cary Grant classics like Bringing Up Baby.  There’s a bunch of slightly over the top but still believable action.  It doesn’t rely on idiocy of the main characters or klutziness to move the story along.  It’s over-the-top enough to be engaging and escapist, but still believable instead of laughable.

There are enough plot twists to keep it engaging, and the cinematography strikes the proper balance between clear action-filled shots, quieter romantic scenes, and the more technical scenes of Scotland Yard observing the whole situation.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable film that unfortunately suffers from miscasting.  Hopefully romcoms coming out of Hollywood will continue moving in this direction anyway.

3 out of 5 stars

Source: I saw this in theaters.

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Book Review: A Tale of Two Demon Slayers by Angie Fox (Series, #3)

Summary:
Lizzie is ready for a vacation what with having spent the last month first saving her grandmother from the second level of hell and then saving Las Vegas from a hoard of succubi.  Plus lying around on the beach in Greece with her hunky Griffin boyfriend, Dimitri, sounds like quite the treat.  Of course, nothing in Lizzie’s new life ever goes as smoothly as planned. Their arrival in Greece leads to the discovery that someone has stolen something from Dimitri.  Something intertwined with Lizzie and that has put the whole Helios Griffin clan in danger.

Review:
Due to the title and the various repercussions so far to Lizzie sharing her demon slayer nature with Dimitri, I expected this book to deal with that.  Actually, the story it told was far more engaging and interesting.  Can Dimitri with his classical European family of tradition work in a relationship with Lizzie and her globe-trotting work and crazy motorcycle gang witch family?

Although the situations surrounding this romance are highly paranormal, the relationship itself is very normal.  Lizzie struggles to trust in Dimitri’s love for her, let alone allow him to love her.  Dimitri struggles to find balance between his life and family and Lizzie.  It gives a heart to the overall action and story that was missing in the other volumes.

The paranormal aspects are stronger this time around too.  The paranormal world seems to mesh together in a better way.  The addition of more animals besides Pirate make for a more entertaining menagerie.  Dimitri in particular is more fleshed out now that we see his family and where he comes from.  New characters too are well-drawn, particularly Lizzie’s new teacher.

Fox manages to avoid common paranormal romance cliches this time around, although at first the reader thinks she is falling into them.  This combined with drastically improved sex scenes, the better characterization, and the addition of a real world heart to the story makes for a far better tale overall.  I’m glad the humor in the previous two books kept me around for this one.

Overall, this is an excellent example of everything paranormal romance should be–colorful characters, believable paranormal circumstances, the heart of the story relatable to real world circumstances, good sex scenes, and plot twists that manage to avoid cliches.  It is thoroughly entertaining, and I highly recommend it to all paranormal romance lovers.

5 out of 5 stars

Source: Amazon

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Previous Books in Series:
The Accidental Demon Slayer, review
The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, review

Book Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (Series, #1)

Summary:
Mary’s world is tightly controlled by the Sisters and the Guardians.  The Sisters show the village how to find favor with God via the yearly and daily rituals.  The Guardians check and maintain the fence that keeps the Unconsecrated out.  The Sisters says the Unconsecrated came with the Return as a punishment to the people.  This is why they must maintain God’s favor.  But Mary dreams of the tales of the ocean and tall buildings her mother told her about, and her mother’s mother for generations back.  She will need those dreams when her world is turned upside down with a breach of the fence.  They’ve happened before, but never like this.

Review:
This is an interesting take on the traditional zombie tale.  In lieu of starting with the outbreak or just after the outbreak, Ryan envisions what life would be like for the descendants of the few who’ve managed to survive.  Of course the sheer number of zombies in the world means it’s impossible for the few survivors left to kill them all, so they must live with constant vigilance.  In the case of Mary’s village, they’ve turned to religion to maintain the level of control required to keep them all safe.  This is the strongest portion of the book as it leads to interesting questions.  The threat outside the fence is indeed real.  Mary’s questions are making it difficult for the Sisters to maintain the control needed and prevent panic in the village.  On the other hand, the Sisters aren’t exactly being honest with the population or giving them a happy life.  They’re just giving them a life.

Where the action supposedly picks up with the breach of the fence is where the book sort of left me behind.  The fact of the matter is, I wound up caring more about the village than Mary, and I don’t think I was supposed to.  Where I was supposed to be rooting for Mary, I found myself rooting for the community, the group of survivors.  Mary’s individualism rings as starkly selfish to me in light of the very real threat around them.  This is odd because generally I’m in favor of people being themselves and not necessarily following the group, but that’s different when a crisis is being faced.  I found myself wishing it had read more like Elizabeth Gaskell’s classic Cranford, which is a study of a town and not an individual.

Of course, that’s not the type of book Ryan set out to write.  She set out to write a book about a girl in a future where zombies are a fact of life.  She writes beautifully, with exquisite sentences that read more like an 18th century novel than a 21st century one.  I also am certain that the teenage audience this YA book is aimed at will be rooting for Mary in her quest to find herself and her dreams.

If you are a teen or a teen at heart looking for an adventure tale with a touch of romance, you will enjoy this book.  If traditional zombies are what you are after, however, you should look elsewhere.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

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Book Review: The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers by Angie Fox (Series, #2)

Summary:
It’s only been a couple weeks since Lizzie found out she’s a demon slayer, and she’s already been to hell and back–literally.  You’d think she could get a vacation to Greece with her hunk of a griffin boyfriend, Dmitri, but her fairy godfather, Uncle Phil, has got himself tangled up with a succubus.  Lizzie, accompanied by the geriatric biker gang, the Red Skulls, and Dmitri run off to Las Vegas to save him.  They discover an unusual amount of demonic activity in Vegas, however, which points to a possible demon invasion from hell.

Review:
This was definitely a step up from the first book in the series.  The action is tighter, characters more well-rounded, and the impetuses for decisions are more believable.  The demon invasion winds up being a secondary plot point to Lizzie’s attempt to figure out what exactly the slayer truth “sacrifice yourself” means.  I also enjoyed the fact that Fox gave the talking terrier, Pirate, more to do besides be excited when Lizzie shows up.  The fact that she’s paying attention to animal characterization makes me happy.

One of my main complaints with the previous book was the romance story-line, in particular the sex scene, and I can’t say that that’s improved here.  Although by the end of the book I found Lizzie’s affection for Dmitri believable, for most of the book I was baffled by it.  He just doesn’t do it for me as a romantic hero, and I’m not sure exactly why.  Similarly, the sex scenes were again cringe-inducing, not sexy.  I mean, he rips her leather skirt up the middle, and she finds this endearing?  The fact that the man seems to lack the knowledge that you can push a skirt up makes me seriously doubt his abilities in the sack.  It’s odd, because Fox’s other scenes are generally well-done.  The two sex scenes are so decidedly cringe-worthy that I sort of forgot this is supposed to be a paranormal romance.  It read as a paranormal fiction featuring an odd choice for a boyfriend and thank goodness he’s not talked about too much.

In general though most of the book isn’t about Dmitri or his relationship with Lizzie.  It’s about Lizzie’s experience figuring out what exactly it means to be a demon slayer.  Thank goodness for that, because that combined with Lizzie’s crazy family and witty dog make for a good story.  I recommend it to those with a taste for the paranormal and romance lovers who aren’t fans of sex scenes in romance to start with.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

Previous Books in Series:
The Accidental Demon Slayer, review

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