Day: May 28, 2015

Guest Review: Last Light by M. Pierce

Posted May 28, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: Last Light by M. PierceReviewer: Tracy
Last Light by M. Pierce
Series: Night Owl Trilogy #2
Also in this series: Night Owl
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: October 28th 2014
Genres: Erotica
Add It: Goodreads
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two-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

Matt Sky is missing. After a solo ascent of Longs Peak that left only a large blood stain, tatters of climbing clothing, and the tracks of an animal in the snow, he is presumed dead.

Hannah Catalano is guarding a secret: she knows Matt is alive. After Matt's memorial service, she lingers on the East Coast with his family, but it soon becomes clear that his brothers' motives are less than gracious. Nate Sky is bent on tracking down the author of Night Owl, a book that charts the last days of Matt's life with uncanny and scandalous accuracy, and which appeared only after his death. Seth Sky is bent on getting Hannah into his bed.

Hidden away in the woods, Matt and Hannah strive desperately to maintain their ruse and their relationship-but their web of lies only tightens as Matt struggles with the consequences of his decision, and Hannah tries to escape Nate's libel suit and fend off Seth's advances...until Hannah is put in danger, and Matt must make a life or death choice.

Tracy’s review of Last Light (Night Owl Trilogy #2) by M. Pierce

When we closed the cover on book one in the Night Owl Trilogy we left Matt and Hannah together and doing well…until the epilogue. That lovely short epilogue led us to believe that Matt had died. Not true.

Matt had taken enough of being hounded by fans and reporters after his identity had been revealed. He couldn’t even seem to walk down the street without being accosted. He decided to take matters into his own hands and faked his own death. He holes up in a cabin 2 hours from Hannah and deals with his loneliness by writing. He wants Hannah to disappear with him but she likes her life, her family and her job. Yes, she misses Matt horribly but sees him on the weekends.

In book one he had written a book, called Night Owl, about his life with Hannah. It was very detailed about their life and was incredibly explicit with the sex scenes. Matt ends up posting it on a forum where someone else picks it up and starts publishing it under the name W. Pierce (Matt published under the name M. Pierce). Matt eventually finds out who published it and actually becomes friends with the person. Which is weird as Hannah is supposedly the only one who knows he’s truly alive.

While Matt is having his neurotic breakdowns and keeping secrets, Hannah is trying to figure out how to live the secretive life she now has to endure. She’s upset about a lawsuit that Matt’s brother Nate started surrounding the publication of Night Owl (which she has no idea that Matt posted online); having to attend a memorial service for Matt when she knows he’s not dead and fending off advances from Seth, Matt’s rockstar brother.

Matt continues to lie to Hannah about a multitude of things – just like in book one – and his house of lies comes crumbling down around him. Hannah decides she can’t take the deception any longer and calls it quits.

This book was good when it came to being well put together with good grammar and punctuation. You know a book can’t be all that and a bag of chips when that’s about the only good that a reviewer can say about it. That’s what I’m sayin’.

The love story – if I can even call it that – was so incredibly dysfunctional I couldn’t handle it half the time. Matt is a neurotic nutbag and Hannah ends up being his enabler. She tries to make a stand at one point in the book (as she did in book 1) and of course that doesn’t work because she LUUUUVS him. Puuuhlease. Spare me. They’re both whacked in the head if they think that they can keep doing the same things time and again and expecting a different outcome. Matt lies like he breathes. He’s honest with the people he shouldn’t be honest with and the people he should love and be truthful with he keeps in the dark and is constantly chasing his own tail to try to cover one lie with another.

Hannah seems like a decent character but as the story went on I started to lose all respect for her. She kept believing Matt’s lies and coming back for more.   I wanted her to grow up and show some self-respect but that was a pipe dream on my part.

The story is an erotic romance in the fact that it’s a book of sex with a story added in for good measure. The characters are weak, narcissistic, enabling and just all around crazy. The story ends with the couple getting back together but with Hannah giving Matt certain stipulations – which he agrees to but we know he will never follow. I’m definitely not interested in reading any more of this series. I’m done with Hannah and Matt and wish them luck and just hope they don’t ever have children because I’m pretty sure they’d be psychopaths. Just sayin’.

Rating: 2 out of 5 (and I think that’s stretching it a bit)

This title is available from St. Martin’s Griffin. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

two-stars


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Guest Post – #BEA15 – Day One

Posted May 28, 2015 by Whitley B in Promotions | 6 Comments

My first BEA adventure technically started yesterday, when I left the house.  No, this isn’t a story about how long and arduous my travels were (though they were).  It’s an excuse to show you my dog.  This sweet little thing came to see me off at the train station.  It was almost enough to make me try and fit her in the suitcase.

How could I not share that precious face?

Alright, on to more relevant matters.

The tiara has a story behind it. Two stories, actually.

 

Behold the entrance hall, in all it’s glory.

Once I finally got to BEA, only a few hours late, I headed off to the Book Blogger’s Conference.  It was not as populated as I had expected, and I later found out that was because a vast number of bloggers were elsewhere, waiting in line for the exhibit hall.  Apparently it’s not normal to have the Blogger Con and the opening day of BEA going on at the same time, and I can see why.  Some of the especially hot books of the day are given away right at the start, and they go fast!  Tickets for the Truthwitch signing were gone in about two minutes.  I wasn’t particularly hot and bothered for any of the books that were up for grabs right out the gate, but if I had, I probably would have camped out at the front of the line as well.

It’s really a shame, because the Blogger’s Con was pretty interesting.

The panel for “Tactics to Create Killer Content Fast”

There were two main ‘tracks’ – “Blogging At the Next Level” and “Building A Better Blog,” each with four panel sessions.  Basically intermediate and beginner blogging, respectively.   The panelists all had some impressive (almost intimidating) credentials, and they had lots of good tips to share.  I wish they had gone into some of the more technical aspects — a lot of things discussed were very general and easy to find by googling the class titles — but still.  A good overview, and there were plenty of people asking followup questions at the end, which satisfied my need for details a little.

After the last panel I wanted, it was off to the event hall to valiantly try and track down people I knew from Twitter and attempt to figure out how this whole ‘get books’ thing works.  At first I just wandered around, keeping any eye out for giant piles, which I quickly realized meant anyone could just take one.  Then I started stalking displays, waiting for someone else to take books off it and clue me into whether or not I’d be stealing if I did the same.  Finally I got up the courage to just outright talk to the people working the booths, and they were (usually) happy to hand over books, take my info to contact me later, or let me know when the next ‘big pile ‘o books you can take’ drop would happen.

These are, thankfully, separate lines and not all for the same author.

The signing tables took me a while to find, and that was a trip.  Half of them were so full they were turning people away, and the other half had staff members standing at the ends, hawking their authors, asking “don’t you want a copy of this book?  You do, I know you do.  Look how shiny it is!”

Overall, it was a pretty chill day for me.  (Not so for pretty much everyone I met, though; they were frazzled right from the start!)  I got to ease my way into things, look around, get the lay of the land.  It helps that I wasn’t super attached to anything going on today and today only.  No, that pleasure is reserved for Friday.  Sigh.

Alas, I do need to work on my envy.  All these years and I envied people going to BEA, and now I’m here and envying people who get invited to the cool parties or publisher events.  It’s a never-ending cycle of “damn, I want that.”

And now for some random pictures.

Sitting in line for Tonight The Streets Are Ours
The absolute prettiest book I picked up today.
I don’t know who he is but check out that coat.
I don’t know who he is but check out THAT coat.
Jennifer Donnelly signing copies of These Shallow Graves
Book haul for day one!


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Guest Review: The Knight of Ambra by Lyn Brittan

Posted May 28, 2015 by Jen in Reviews | 0 Comments

The Knight of Ambra by Lyn BrittanJen’s review of The Knight of Ambra (Mercenaries of Fortune #1) by Lyn Brittan

Brant Jacobs is determined not to screw up his first mission as a Knight of Ambra. Sneak in, retrieve the stolen artifact and disappear. Easy…right up until a woman in yoga pants stumbles through the wrong door at the wrong friggin’ time. She’s too cute and too innocent to be left on her own, but bringing her along might put them in the greatest danger of all.

Michaela Alberto only took the stupid delivery job out of necessity. How the crap she wound up here – between the barrel of a mobster’s gun and some super secret government agent – is beyond unfair. Now they’re on the run and Brant promises her safety, but what happens to all that when he has her life…and her heart…in his hands?

I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this book as the author is new to me, but I am always looking for adventure romances so I decided to give it a shot. It wasn’t a great book, but I thought it had some potential, and it interested me enough to keep me reading to the end.

Brant Jacobs is a new member of a secret organization called the Knights of Ambra. The Knights rescue famous historical artifacts in order to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. His very first mission is supposed to be easy–buy the sword of Hannibal from a collector trying to sell it on the black market. However, when he arrives he walks into a bad situation, with a room full of guys with guns, one of whom is about to kill Michaela Alberto. Michaela has a crappy life. She has no family and seemingly no friends. Her job as a bike delivery person for a laundry service is barely keeping a roof over her head, let alone helping her pay off her debts. When she inadvertently gets sucked into this confrontation, Brant can’t let her get shot so he ends up taking her with him to go after the sword. The two have to evade mobsters and drug dealers, keep Brant’s mysterious boss off their backs, and rescue the sword.

I love the set up for this series. I adore stories about secret organizations tasked with protecting the world’s treasures (e.g., TBS’s The Librarians show, Zoe Archer’s Blades of the Rose series, etc). So I was 100% ready to love this book. Unfortunately, the world building is frustratingly light. There’s nothing but the most cursory explanation given for the Knights and what they do. Where did they come from exactly? Who runs/funds them? Why do they feel the need to protect all these treasures (and why are they worth killing to obtain)? What do they do with the treasures once they have them? I desperately wanted to hear answers to these questions and more, but so little information is given I was left without even a fuzzy understanding of the Knights other than they collect these artifacts for…something good? HUGE missed opportunity here!

The book is also pretty sketchy on Brant and Michaela’s backgrounds. There’s a little discussion of life history, but it’s brief and not particularly logical. It’s not clear why Michaela’s hauling around people’s dirty underwear for a living (or how what is presumably a rock-bottom paying job could even begin to pay for her apartment) or exactly how she ended up in such a woeful financial situation. It’s not that it’s totally unbelievable, but the book just doesn’t do much to connect any dots. We know Brant has been training to be a Knight for quite some time and wants to succeed, but we don’t really know why. These characters just drop from the sky as they are, and little consideration is given to what came before.

There’s a lot of action, but when I thought back over the book I realized there’s no complex plot. It’s basically just “chase after the sword.” Brant and Michaela have to go to Honduras in pursuit, where they also tick off some kind of drug runner. Who exactly has the sword, why they want it, or how that party relates to the drug runner is never explained. Brant has a seemingly inexhaustible (and, of course, unexplained) supply of cover stories and identities. He knows how to hotwire cars, create explosives from simple chemicals, survive in the jungle, etc. He’s very MacGyverish, which isn’t necessarily a problem but does get a little silly sometimes.

It’s not all bad, though. The relationship between Brant and Michaela kept me interested. Michaela is a blunt, straightforward person, and she’s not afraid to share her feelings with Brant. Some of the dialogue is a little contrived, but for the most part it’s funny and snappy. I like how Brant can’t help but take care of Michaela, and I enjoyed their growing attraction. I also enjoyed some of the adventure aspects, like their trek into the jungle or the way they smuggle Michaela to Honduras. It’s not realistic, but it is fun.

Maybe I’m just being optimistic because I am such a sucker for the premise and romantic adventure, but I’ll probably give the series another shot in the future. It has so much potential! I just hope we can get a little more world and character building next time.

Grade: 2.75 out of 5

This book is available from Gryy Brown Press. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.


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