Not What I was Expecting

"Some vendettas have more lives than others.

The gods walk among us. Some lurk in the shadows, masquerading as mortals; others embrace their celebrity status, launching careers from Hollywood to Capitol Hill.

One of them just murdered Cairn Delacroix's mother."

This is the first bit from the blurb of This Eternity of Masks and Shadows by Karsten Knight.

Oh boy, where to begin with this book? For someone who is supposed to be a bestselling author of over four books I was expecting better world-building and characterization. Maybe that was my problem, I expected it was going to be good and wound up in a river of disappointment because I feel awful for saying this but for a majority of the book it felt like the characters were going through the motions. There was no real I feel for you let me root for you to get what you want. I had no clue what the characters wanted half the time and I almost gave up on this book fifty times because the characters were one dimensional. They did to slightly get some definition toward them nearing the end of the book, but half of the characters were already dead by that point.

I found most of the story unbelievable and have you ever heard the sound a Canadian Lynx makes? I could not take Squall, the Canadian Lynx Cairn's mother smuggles across the border from Canada, seriously and I laughed every time the lynx came onto the scene. I wanted so much more then this book was willing to offer like a relationship between Cairn and her dad. Honestly, the dad could have been left out entirely and not affected the story at all. He seemed more like an afterthought than an actual character that is crucial to the story.

Cairn gets what she wants the moment we get told what she wants (her best friend Delphine to return her feelings of affection) within the first three pages which turns me off because I want the characters to work for what they want. I want to root for them to get their love interest but when you take it away within the first minute of the book I am going to be rooting for something to happen that splits them apart. I need something to root for. 

Another problem, most of the book is us being told what is going on and not being shown what is going on. I wanted to hold onto something concrete to immerse myself in the world, but I could not even do that and it hurts so much to have that happen in a book.

This book has so much potential if the author fleshed out the characters (the gods were more human than the humans), took a deep breath and showed us the world (how did the gods come to walk among humans? Why are they real? Is every single god and goddess in existence out there in the world? If gods are reincarnated and possess the abilities of that myth why do their children not possess any of these abilities? Why did the author pick the gods and goddesses that he did? If there was a second book would he play around with the gods and goddesses some more? Does he not realize that Roman and Greek gods are one and the same so he should have had Mercury also say Hermes and he did not as additional names.) The list could go on and on, but the general gist is that this book could have had a higher review if it did not feel like the author got lazy and could have benefited from reading Save The Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody (coincidentally, I was also reading this at the same time as this book and this book hit home on everything this book was missing.)

2 out of 5 stars.

A book that delivers on it's promise

Emberhawk by Jamie Foley is an incredible novel because it does what it sets out to do. You want elementals walking the world playing with all the pathetic humans? You got it. You want a potential war between different groups? You bet it is in here. You want a diverse cast with characters that struggle and have their moral compasses challenged? Right here. Girl shoots boy who winds up being an enemy solider with her dad's arrows? It is so here.
This book I cannot sing its praises enough because it is refreshing that the blurb is what actually happens in the book. The world-building was effortless and I finished it in three days and regretted when I got to the last page.
I have already bought the first book and preordered the second book. I will not say much about it except that this a book I would recommend reading to understand what I mean about it being a breath of fresh air.
5 out of 5 stars (500 out of 5 stars)

The Tech: a Fascinating FBI Thriller

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. First off, I would like to thank Dawn Hill Publishing for allowing me to read this book and to Mark Ravine for writing this book.

The Tech is an FBI thriller that will have you guessing until the last page. The pacing was neither too fast or too slow and was perfect for this type of book. I fell in love with the characters, especially Alexandra and Mike. Oh, Mike, I am at a loss of words for him because I did not know if he was helping them or if he was helping the bad guys (if you want to find out which you will have to read the book). I did not see some of the twists coming, especially at the end. Dear Mike, if you wanted to prevent Alexandra from being almost killed again, you should have told her your little dark secret earlier. Although in hindsight, it makes sense.

My only quarrel with this book is that the chapters are too long, especially with the page breaks, I kept thinking the section was over only to find out that it kept going. Depending on the device you read, chapters are anywhere from over 60 (on my computer) to over 80 (on my phone). The most extended section I had ever read before this book was 20 pages, so it took some getting used to, but in the end, I pretended that it was to add to the suspense of the novel. Thankfully, there were only 13 chapters, so thank you to the author for doing that.

I feel like I would have no problems reading more books from this author if Mike and Alexandra were in it because I loved every moment with that because it felt so human when those two interacted. I was yelling at the pages that Alexandra should just tell Mike that she had feelings for him. Honestly, they made the book for me, and they will always have a place in my heart.

While there were a few grammatical errors unless Dry is some jargon in America for Doctor or there was some joke that I missed? The writing was exquisite although I did have to puzzle out what some words meant as I had never come across them too often, it did not take away from the thrill of reading it. Okay, okay, it was all because of Mike that I would have no problem reading this book regardless of what happens (just don't tell Mike, okay, and do not tell Alexandra).

The ending had me laughing because it was his apartment, but Mike should not underestimate Alexandra. The biggest disappointment was that the book ended because Mike and Alexandra were finally starting to get somewhere, and then it stopped before some things were resolved. I really hope there are more books with these characters because if there is, then sign me up, please.

I highly recommend reading this book if you're looking for a good FBI novel.

5 out of 5 stars (500 out of 5).

Dry is Right

Dry Souls by Denise Getson looked and sounded interesting because I have read many dystopian novels where the world is toxic, there are people living in protected areas and those that are not, and there is this magical place on earth where everything is still perfect. I hoped this book would not be that trope because of the water bit, but nope it is that trope down to a tee.
It was not a memorable read for me and started making excuses to not read the book and I even almost fell asleep at one point because there was nothing special about the book in my opinion. I dnfed at 10%. I tried, but it was starting to feel like a chore to read it.
It also made no sense why Mary all of a sudden became best buds with Kira after discovering the flower when they despised each other before. Does anybody know of that ever happening?

1.5 out of 5 stars.

My Heart is Bursting

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review contains spoilers please read at your own risk.

Time Dancers and other Fantastical Tales by Christine E. Schulze is an anthology collection of fairytales that will stay with you long after you finish the last page. The characters will melt your heart and leave you in tears, but also hopeful at the same time.

There are water elves, curses, time-travel, magic mirrors, wars, illness, family, sacrifice, dragons, blind/deaf people, and cat-like human characters. A prince who gave up his throne to go on adventures that may or may not get him killed, an eagle with ruby and sapphire eyes, gargoyles, kelpies, and ground and earth elementals. A princess discovers that her father did listen to her wishes (more on that later), a human star, a knight with a troubled past, a girl who turns a forest into eternal autumn to save people from her evil sister. It also mentions cannibalistic mermaids that I wish we got to meet and so much more. If any of these things catch your fancy, then this is the book for you.

*Now onto some spoilers if you do not wish to read this please skip ahead to the bold part of the review.*

In Labyrinth: Heart of Stone oh, Corie. Oh, Catherine. Catherine only longs for freedom and all Corie wants is for her to be safe from him. Since her uncle managed to transfer the curse the Druids had placed on him onto Corie and so at night, he is no longer human. And Catherine realizing that he did it out of love was, ugh, I died at that point. Corie needs to exist for real.

In Autumn Falls, do not believe the blurb of the book. The blurb is all an eternal forest of autumn with two sisters yadda yadda yadda. I thought the sisters lived in the forest, but they do not. It had a sort of Snow White vibe to it and Andy, poor sweet Andy, he made me cry because he thought he and Autumn would get married, but she had to leave him to save him and his people from her sister and I want to cry just thinking about it.

In Time Dancers, Calina is all upset because she wanted a husband that was close to her age who was handsome, kind, shared the same interests as her, instead she gets Lorenzo who is twice her age (36 to her 18!) who has wrinkles showing around his eyes and she gets so mad at her father for not listening to her. Then Lorenzo gifts her a mirror (and despite what the blurb says she does not need a crystal ring to enter the mirror) that allows her to see herself dancing with a handsome prince who is her age. When she enters the mirror she discovers that Aarwyn (forgive me if I spelled the name wrong) was the one she was engaged to be married to, but the Brownies had planned an attack to get the ring, so her father found a way to time travel and brought her eighteen years into the future to protect her. When Calina realizes that it is priceless and you should read the story if only for that moment. I figured that the father knew something that Calina did not because he was so insisted on getting her and Lorenzo together, but Calina was so stubborn. Ugh, the ending was so cute I was crying.

In fact, the last three books had me in tears and wanting to go back for more. It gave me all sorts of feels.

*You can continue from here if you wish to skip the spoilers*

These stories are satisfying and make the hopeless romantic in me feel like there is hope to find a person like those characters do. Guess what? Despite everything true love will always find a way, so let us all take hope in that. I highly recommend that you read this book because it has a little something for everyone.

5 out of 5 stars (100 out of 5 stars 😉)

A Bizarre Book

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Masterpiece by Chiemeka Nicely is the most bizarre book I have ever read. It was so disjointed that I struggled to follow along with the storyline, and because of that, I could not quite be astounded by any plot twists that occurred in the novel.
I really needed a who's who and vocabulary list to follow along because suddenly this person is this relationship to this person when they were not before.
This book rubbed me the wrong way because it felt too preachy like I know better than you. Everything I know is more important than what you know. The POV is supposed to be first-person but came across more like the third person. It should only be what that person is privy to, and not all of a sudden, let me tell you about what this other character did, and I suddenly miraculously appeared on the scene.
I needed more information because I found it hard to get into the story when it starts out in a textbook-like manner and then goes into the story with random textbook-like things at the end of some chapters. Also, the name of the country/continent should be changed, if you are creating this whole new world and planet that you don't want the earth to know about. Maybe you should change it so that it does not start and end in a because here's the funny thing about brains. They only need to see the first and last letter in the right order with all the letters in a different order to automatically rearrange the words (in this case, I kept reading it as Africa, not Acirfa).
I don't know what the author was trying to accomplish, but I haven't had a book rub me the wrong way since Harry Potter. So, who knows, maybe this book will become a classic (because I cannot stand classics with a passion), but this book did nothing for me except make me feel like I should drown my Kindle, so I never had to read such a disjointed book ever again.
I will not continue the series.
The three positive things about this book are that the cover is gorgeous and drew me to pick the story. The novel blurb sounded fantastic because who does not like colonialistic stories where the main character needs to rise and save herself and her people? (Kudos to the author for not having the white savior trope.) Lastly, near the end, when she started going through her chakras and identifying what they represent, I wish that kind of detail was in the rest of the book.

2.5 out of 5 stars

The King's 100: They are human.

The King's 100 by Karin Biggs is hard to categorize because the beginning was a confusing mess. I thought they were on a spaceship for some weird reason because of how it was described because I have never met a lab where they did not have windows like I am sure that would be a fire hazard.
There are multiple holes in the story, and Piper helped with creating the holes.
I only continued reading because I loved Ari, Layla, Reese, and the rest of the gang. I only started to like Piper/Paris when she stopped talking like she was trying to be the next Sherlock Holmes or was competing to be a robot. She is human. I am happy to report, and the book became magical when she stopped thinking and just acted like doing a death-defying stunt because she wanted Ari to not kiss Heather or when she realized that Ari was the one for her. Or when she made that revelation in the end about her sister and a particular enemy.
That is another thing I do not fully understand, which I am hoping that if there is a second book, there will be more explanation as to why they are enemies and how old is ancient. Paris is an ancient city, but there is no explanation as to how far into the future we are in. Also, another little thing a real Romeo and Juliet vibe was going on with the kingdom names (Capalon and Mondaria), who are mortal enemies.
It is worth pushing through the beginning, though, and reading the book. I would be curious to read a second book if it came out.
4 out of 5 stars.