Heidi

I loved it

Revisado: 06-14-19

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

The Reapers, by Ali Winters, is the first book in The Hunters series, and already halfway into the story, I knew I’d read the second installment as well. It engaged me from early on with a riveting hook, and Ali kept it interesting throughout the entire book.

Her characters are complex and vibrant, and each of them is unique. They all have their own point of view, and their own problems – making them quite realistic. Through her compelling storytelling, Ali painted a wondrous world with a rich backstory and lore.
Many authors turn to the infamous info-dump, but Ali Winters spread everything out and sprinkled it into the story when it was called for. It kept everything alluring, and I kept listening for hours because I wanted to know more.

Nivian, one of our main characters, struggles to know who is with her, and who’s against her. Thanks to the recent events in the story, her entire life has been uprooted, and she has no idea who she is, or who to trust. Because I couldn’t quite figure it out myself, I found her to be highly realistic in her reactions and line of thought. In a world where Reapers and Hunters hate each other, she turns to her mortal enemy, Kain, for support – the most unlikely companion she could have chosen.
There’s no black and white villain here, and multiple characters enter the antagonist category once or twice. With both the Reapers and the Hunters believing they are in the right, who’s truly in the wrong?

Everything I didn’t get in Scythe by Neil Shusterman, I got in the Reapers. Both our main characters are destined to kill the other, but through their growing friendship, they become quite protective of each other. Both Nivian and Kain are torn on what to do, and they struggle to take sides. They both agree they don’t want the other one to die.
Their world is at war, everything is in chaos, and the veil between the realms are becoming thin – threatening to destroy life as we all know it.

There’s a little bit of Romeo and Juliet going on here thanks to Nivian and Kain’s growing friendship and feelings towards one another. With their people being enemies, and them having to kill the other, those closest to them are not happy about their growing relationship – which is quite understandable given the circumstances.
But, oh boy, there’s a love triangle in here too. Nivian, who’s utterly oblivious to the fact, have both Caspian and Kain’s attention. While she kisses Kain once or twice, she’s also very touchy-feely with Caspian, and he’s not exactly subtle about his feelings towards her. Kain asks her if Caspian is her boyfriend, and first of all, she doesn’t quite grasp what a boyfriend is, so she says both of them are – thanks to her believing a boyfriend is a male friend you care about. Ah, the cringe.

Anyhow, the Narrator, Sarah L. Colton, deserves heaps of credit. With her pleasant and engaging voice, she brought the characters to life and gave each of them their own voice. For a few characters, she changed the accent a bit, and my absolute favorite was the one she gave to Caspian.
Sarah managed to catch the emotions of the story throughout everything, making the dialogue and the reactions of the characters believable.

I’m giving The Reapers 4 out of 5 stars because of the love triangle trope. It might be harsh to pull an entire star because of a trope, but unless the story is a Reverse Harem, love triangles should be thrown into purgatory.
Otherwise, if you want a slow paced, intriguing story with vigorous characters, worldbuilding, and backstories, then The Reapers is absolutely for you!

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Looking for Dei

Revisado: 06-05-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Looking for Dei is the debut novel by David A. Willson, and it was published 22nd of March 2018. There were parts I enjoyed about the story and parts where I had to turn up the reading speed to be able to get through.

While it’s far from a bad book, it did have some points that irked me while listening to it. Mostly, Looking for Dei felt like a build up for the next book, and it was unable to stand on its own as a complete story. However, I enjoyed it enough to be on the fence about reading the next book or not. I haven’t quite decided yet because I am picky about where I put my attention.

Through different POV’s, Willson builds his world through magic, politics, religion, and war. I think this was amazingly done because characters will naturally have various points of view. Some will be more religious while others more political, and due to this, we got to learn about quite a few aspects of the world and the magic. I think he tackled this pretty neatly.

I found myself caring about what happened to the characters, and this is something I rarely do. The characters all had backstories, some more than others. It helped with understanding their motives, and it made them more human and relatable.
While I enjoyed learning about them, I felt like the backstories vs current events was way off in balance, though. A few backstories were so long I forgot what Nara, Bilo, and Mykel were doing when the POV switched back to them, and this happened regularly through the story.
Thanks to this, the narration felt a bit stilted, and it was too much of it in between the dialogue.

Nara’s entire first chapter was a huge information dump about everything but Nara herself. At the end of the chapter, I still didn’t feel like she was presented accordingly. I’ve said it so many times before, and I’ll say it again – authors need to trust their readers more! Information should be given in smaller chunks throughout the story when the setting requires it. When the first 10% of the book is information, you can bet your life that I’ll forget it right away because I don’t care about the story or the characters yet.

The pacing is slow from the beginning, and it doesn’t pick up much through the book, especially because a large chunk of it is training alone. Nara and Mykel spend a lot of their time training with an old crone named Anne. While Anne herself was by far the most interesting character, it still baffles my mind that authors think reading page up and pages down about training is engaging to the readers.
While I understand they need to learn about their powers and become stronger, it becomes horrendously boring after a while.

Quite honestly, I do believe Mykel would have been a better main character than Nara. She spends 90% of the book being doted on by those around her while being utterly useless and in need of rescuing. Mykel trained hard and earned what he deserved from his own determination, and he fought hard throughout the entire story.
Towards the end, Nara ended up being a Deus Ex Machina. Even though we’d heard through the story that she posed great magic and power, it didn’t feel adequate when her powers saved the day. She had trained next to Mykel, sure, but not even close to the amount he put himself through.

All in all, it read like a debut, but it was far from being a bad book. Willson has some solid ideas going on. It kept my interest, except for the training, throughout the story, and I am considering picking up the second installment. Now that their backstories and training are out of the way, I believe the next one will be better and more to my liking.

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Apollo Is Mine - By Mila Young

Revisado: 05-16-19

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Humans destroyed more than they created.

Elyse is a warrior in human skin. Her family, blessed by Zeus to have three human lives, has battled whatever X throws their way. From smaller Greek mythology creatures to centaurs and minotaurs.
Now that she’s the only one left in her family, she feels the pressure, and she trains more than ever. Her mentor, Hercules, is assigned to make her ready for the troubles she has to face next.
When Hades enter the human world, he somehow brings X with him and sets him loose in the world. Elyse and Hercules notice the shift in the atmosphere, but when it comes to hunting down creatures and gods, Elyse is on her own.
When she encounters Hades, she experiences something she never would have thought possible – they attract each other instantly in a wave of lust. Their clash of passion leaves Elyse confused and more determined to get rid of X than ever, and she blames Hades for it all.
Fate has something else in mind, though, as the same thing happens with Apollo. Forces outside of herself are bringing her close to both men, and she tries to deny their attraction. Both men try to stay away from her as well, but when the universe is forcing them together, who are they to resist?

For one reason or another, I can’t get enough of Reverse Harem stories. With this book, I discovered a new author I want to explore. Mila Young creates fantasy romance novels from her favorite fairy tales, and she brings them to life in sexy and alluring ways. Reading about sexy, Greek gods can’t go wrong, in my opinion.
Without further ado, Apollo Is Mine is a Reverse Harem paranormal romance, of the erotic kind. Meaning, there’s one girl with multiple guys. No love triangle, as she gets them all. In this case, the Greek gods are real, they walk the Earth looking like supermodels, and they want Elyse.

Their encounters are filled with passion and lust, and it gets pretty steamy between them. Still, Mila doesn't dish out everything right away, leaving me wanting more.
Often, in books like these, there’s no chemistry between the characters, but Apollo Is Mine creates it and keeps it going. Give me a romance where the characters try to stay away from each other, but can’t, and I’m all in.
Even better, the men here are the ravaging type of guys, they want what they want, and they take it. However, they ask Elyse if she wishes to continue before they go all the way – taking consent into the picture. They also wear condoms during sex, at least when they want to orgasm. At one point it was skin to skin contact, but I guess gods don’t have STD’s? That’s how I filled the blank, so no complaints from me.

The cast of narrators from Spectrum Audiobooks did a splendid job, and all the characters had their own voice and way of speaking. It made it interesting, believable, and quite enjoyable. I adored how they brought the story to life, and even though it was a 7 hour long listen, it ended too soon. To be honest, I could listen to Hades’ voice all day. He’s got a talent for narrating.

I'm annoyed at the abrupt ending, though. The story didn’t have enough closure for my liking, and it ended on a cliffhanger – which seriously should be forbidden. It brings down my stars by a point because it left the story feeling unsatisfactory, and that’s a big no. That’s my sole complaint, so nothing major!

If you’re looking for some paranormal romance – or a new kink – then Mila Young’s books are the way to go.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Beautiful retelling

Revisado: 02-16-19

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Once upon a time…
A town will only suffer the presence of a witch for as long as she is useful. Aisling watches the flames lick her thighs and prays for a quick death. But when an Unseelie prince appears through the smoke, she does what any self-respecting witch would do.
She curses him.

The Faceless Woman is a Swan Princess retelling told with witches, familiars, and Unseelie princes, and it captivated me within the five first minutes.
The story starts off right before Aisling is to be burned on the pyre, and once it happened the excitement picked up and pulled me into the story. Emma paints her retellings within her worlds so beautifully it’s easy to get lost in, and her language and descriptions make it feel like a proper fairy tale. I had to stop myself from listening to everything in one go because I wanted to savor the enjoyment of the story.

All the characters are interesting, they have great dialogue, they have an enjoyable dynamic and inner monologue, they are likable and badass, and we are provided with a great backstory for each of the main characters which also leaves room for our own imagination. What I truly enjoy about these characters is that they are not perfect, and their looks are variated and well described – I must admit I fell in love with Bran’s looks the moment he was introduced.

The plot is fast moving and keeps things interesting all the way through the story. For a 315 pages long book, the romance is slow burning and well written. I truly enjoyed reading about their developing relationship, and I found the ending quite pleasant in regard to the dark tale.

Because I listened to the audiobook, I also need to give credit to the narrator, Siobhan Waring. She captures the atmosphere and the characters in a brilliant light. Each character has its own voice and accent, and I especially loved Aisling’s voice. Siobhan added the dot over the ‘i’ and truly made this feel like a fairy tale.

I would absolutely recommend this book to others, and I’d say you should listen to the audiobook for the extra fairy tale feel Siobhan Waring adds to the story.

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