Category Archives: Mystery

The Demon Who Loved Me (Big Bad Bite Series Book 4) – Jessie Lane

The Demon Who Loved Me
Big Bad Bite Series Book 4
Jessie Lane

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Paranormal romance murder mystery with too much repetition from book 2 and a rushed ending

Blurb:

He’s a gambling man…

One brunette bombshell with a devious mind and a potty mouth has thrust Kent smack dab in the middle of where he never wanted to be—his family. He’s spent most of his life avoiding his familial responsibilities, especially the one that required him to join the Ninth Circle Council—the demon society’s equivalent of judge, jury and executioner. Then one lost bet with the little Amazon flipped his entire life upside down. With worries about retaliation from the remnants of a rogue pack of wolves in Germany, he doesn’t have time to deal with his family, or his obsession with Chloe Demos.

And she’s the biggest risk he’ll ever take…

After her mother’s death, Chloe’s world crashes down around her. A secret Amazonian heritage. Aunts and a long lost brother she never knew about. Supernatural beings. With all of the sudden changes, she’s decided it’s time to step out from behind her façade of an air-headed, materialistic bimbo and show her sisters she truly does love them—she only hates their wardrobes. What better way to show she cares about her family than to help prove someone close to one of them is innocent of the bogus murder charges from some ridiculous council? Chloe has no scruples about calling in the marker the demon Kent owes her in order to do just that. It’s only too bad she’s underestimated Kent’s intelligence, and his playboy charm.

At the beginning of this story, the events in the overarching plot in the series had not progressed to where they were at the end of Book 2. It backtracks quite a bit. Since we backed up, there is a little too much repetition from scenes in Book 2. We don’t need all the same dialogue and action seen from Chloe’s POV that we saw from Elena’s POV in Book 2. A summary or reference to what happened with Chloe’s thoughts on it would be enough. A whole scene was copied from Elena’s book. It hadn’t been fully edited to be from Chloe’s POV and was far too much repetition.

The ending seemed very rushed. I suppose this is a standalone, but there are many unanswered questions about secondary plots. This is the last book that was written, and several years have passed. It doesn’t look like we’ll ever get answers to these or the other questions from the first two books. What was going on with the European shifters that had kept their alpha comatose? I’m not happy at all about this.

The relationship between Chloe and Kent didn’t have much build up or depth. I didn’t feel it. There are just two sex scenes in the whole book. Most of the story is the murder mystery, which was dissatisfying.

Occasional foul language.

Not SAFE. We don’t get details, but apparently Kent has tried to have sex with other women after meeting Chloe. We knew Kent was a slut from the previous books, so I wasn’t sure I would like his story, and it turned out that I didn’t.

3rd person past tense from Chloe and Kent.

Errors: 8 (wrong words, redundant words, missing punctuation marks and apostrophes, unnecessary dialogue tags, and line formatting errors).

Beyond the Night (The Heroes of New Vegas Book 1) – Colleen Gleason

Beyond the Night
The Heroes of New Vegas Book 1
Colleen Gleason

Rating: 4 out of 5.

SciFi Mystery Romance

Mystery, action, and romance. Elliot and his friends woke up in a cave they had been exploring to find 50 years had passed and the world as they knew it was gone. This is more SciFi than post-apocalyptic as significant time has passed since the upheaval. It’s not so much about survival as the mystery of what happened to the world and these men. We don’t get the answer in this first novel, just clues. But it’s not a cliffhanger. Subsequent novels in the series take up the mystery with other couples as the main characters.

The beginning drew me in with a sense of mystery, making me want to understand what was going on. It’s not an action start but a teaser start – a creepy feeling. We aren’t given a load of backstory at the beginning. The setting and action slowly revealed the state of the world. Great writing with quick pacing kept me reading. Little things like new slang words and names not matching the genders they are currently most often assigned to helped add realism to the future setting.

There were good action scenes, very good descriptions of the environment, good world building, and some humor to relieve the tension. The women are strong and don’t wait for the men to save them. I don’t want to give too much away, so suffice to say I adored Jade’s action during the climactic action scenes.

3rd close, past tense. Chapters from different characters, most from the mains, but a few from secondary characters. We also get some journal entries written by a secondary character at the beginning of the upheaval. I liked the glimpses of the beginning.

Occasional foul language. Significant violence. There are some graphic sex scenes. A lot of it is described with scatterings of verbs or adjectives in a poetic way.

No cheating, OW/OM drama, or nonconsent.  HFN

Error count: 11 – Pretty good. These were missing, extra, or misspelled words and missing punctuation marks. Commas are not routinely missing, so I marked where they were for a total of 38 missing commas. Head-hopping occurs in only one chapter.

Overall, I really liked this. I don’t see myself wanting to re-read it, so 4 stars. I am going to read the next in the series.