Werewolves can be boring

Wolf Moon by Cullen Bunn
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The story was very generic, run of the mill werewolf lore, adding nothing to the genre.

The larger, full-sized pages have nice artwork. The actual artwork of the story is ok, but not great. Anatomically so-so and I wasn‘t always sure what I was supposed to see. A bit sloppy and indistinct at times.

The underlined words in the text bubbles irritated me quite a bit.

I started skimming a third into the story. Not recommended, unless you are a fan of B-movie-level horror-trash. Which is ok and can be fun, but in this case it was not my cup of tea.

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Same old, same old

Triad Soul by Nathan Burgoine
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

„Luc, Anders, and Curtis—vampire, demon, and wizard—sidestepped tradition by binding themselves together.“
Without this sentence in the book synopsis I would have been completely lost. Even with it I struggled to keep the characters and names straight.

Minimal to no set-up or world building. All the characters felt the same. The magic kept reminding me of other UF or PNR I have read. Same old, same old, read this many, many times over.

Everybody else seems to like this, but it is not for me, DNF at 24%, 2 not very sparkly stars.

In a galaxy far, far away I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you! Sorry that it took me so long. Too many books, too little time. I will try to do better.

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Boring werewolves chase boring zombies…

Broken by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Some spoilers ahead. This was boring, sorry.

I developed no interest in Elena or Clay. Clay was one-dimensional. Elena was whiney. All other characters stayed flat.

The pregnancy lacked interest. Usually supernatural beings with a pregnancy have some interesting character development going on. Not here.

These are some of the most boring werewolves ever. Not impressed with the world building in general.

The sex scenes were not sexy. They just seemed like a required plot point to tick off.

The portal and the Jack the Ripper angle sounded like fun at first, but then devolved into a zombie hunt that lacked tension. How inept are these werewolves, that they can’t catch them? Over and over again. TWO zombies. The apocalypse can be boring, who knew. And the bad guy was dull, too. Plus it was the guy I suspected from the start. It all seemed pretty pointless.

After 250 pages I was hoping for Clay to fall deadly ill from his infection or to start changing into a zombie, just so something interesting would happen.

I can’t believe I liked some of the books of this series so much and others just dragged. Maybe it’s me, who knows. Maybe if the book had been a hundred pages less, it would have had more momentum. I guess I am finally calling it quits with the Women of the Otherworld, at least for now.

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The wilds of Montana

Burn Bright by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very early in the book there is a brief conversation between Charles and Anna, that upset some of my goodreads friends quite a bit. It might cause them to stop reading this series and also Mercy Thompson. I was surprised when I read that conversation, mulled it over a little, but was not massively perturbed by it. It might or might not be a plot bunny for later books, we shall see.

Unfortunately the comment thread of that review had spoiled me by revealing who the traitor in this story is. That obviously took some of the suspense out of the story.

The plot as such was pretty straight forward and simple, the action was good, we get a deeper look into Anna‘s ever developing skills with her gift. Leah gets some page time that helps to make her a more interesting character. I liked it, solid addition to the series.

Playlist:
Johnny Cash, Hurt
Bobby Dylan, Knockin‘ On Heaven‘s Door
Waylon Jennings, I‘ve Always Been Crazy
Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus
Patsy Cline, Crazy
Dolly Parton, The Company You Keep

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Boats, gates, portals and nodes…

Dragon Blood by Eileen Wilks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Best read back to back with the previous book. Avoids frustration at the end of that one, due to the massive cliffhanger, aka it stopped practically in the middle of a chapter. Some heavy editing of this one here with some massive cuts and publishing those two books in one might have been the way to go…

The book starts with immediate action (middle of the chapter, remember?), followed by a veeery looong info dump. 70 pages in, I starting skimming just a teeny-weeny bit. 100 pages later I was still knee-deep in explanations, more explanations, details upon details, portals, gates, Dis, Hell, magical philosophy, snore, skim skim skim…. And more skimming. Oh boy, this really did not do it for me. Large parts of the plot just felt like boring attempts to rack up the page count. Jumping here, jumping there, more detailed explanations, pages after pages of… I don’t even know, because I was skimming so much! The only highlight was Grandmother.

What the heck was that? Possibly the end of me reading this series. 2 catatonic stars, whimpering away, possibly through a gate into another dimension, that might or might not have a congruent timeline. I wish I had a gate to go through, back to the time before I started this book!

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Full points to Mercy Thompson

Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“I’m a mechanic; I fix things that are broken. I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote. I have powerful friends. But when it comes right down to it, my real superpower is chaos.”

Changing points of view, that’s a new one for this series! I liked it, although I am not quite sure about the off-set timeline. It added an interesting dynamic, but probably made it unnecessarily complicated.

Nice revelation there at the end, makes me want to re-read the whole damn book right away… I missed all the clues, if there were any.

Some great character additions. Libor was fun. Lots of vampire politics, which I usually find tedious, but they were well done here. Great visuals, good plot, entertaining, three very late nights of not wanting to put this down…

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Holy Avon, Batman!

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There is humour…
Holy Avon, Batman, I thought as worry relaxed into annoyance-tinged humor, I’ve been attacked by a multilevel marketer.

And profound stuff…
Death is not to be feared. Death is easy. It is living that is brutal.

And swearing…
“My croaking fat frog will shag my fucking Aunt Fanny before I’ll go now,” he said.

And a very nice, feel-good ending…
“Nudge,” he said.

I took me a while to warm up to Adam, but by now I love him. And Mercy still is an excellent character. The Pack dynamics are very well done, truly believable, UF for grown-ups, without silly drama. Love the fae, love the settings, good action, great world building.

Still going strong. Looking forward to the next book.

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