Book Review: Fatal Embrace by Aris Whittier

Review: Fatal Embrace
Author: Aris Whittier
No of Pages: 251
Release Date: 2 October 2005

Several years ago, Michael Craven gave up his career as a detective when his fiancé was killed and her killer never caught. Living with the guilt, he throws himself into his Montana ranch and his solitary existence. But, when a serial killer starts making his way through a nearby town, Michael is asked to come back and help a good friend and fellow detective, solve the crime. In doing so, he must hire someone to take his place on the ranch.
When horse trainer, Jess Stanson shows up, it takes Michael by surprise. Jess turns out to be Jessica. Jessica convinces him to let her stay. Over time they established a fragile friendship. Although, on the inside both feel more but, Michael's past prevents him from being anything but distant and serious.

As Michael works diligently to track down the killer he finds that Jessica is the only witness to the case. Vowing to protect her with his life and keep his growing feelings separate is no easy task. When Jessica becomes a target it becomes personal for Michael and he can no longer deny his love for this spirited woman. He will do anything to protect her, including giving his own life.

My Thoughts:

Fatal Embrace was nothing if not predictable.

Jessica Stanson is a horse trainer, a female one, and when she shows up at Michael Carven’s farm for her first day of work, he flips. He doesn’t want a girl running his stables let alone a woman living in his house.

But they grow closer as Jessica helps Michael finally get past his traumatic loss and simultaneously fight the common enemy in the form of a serial killer that is after her.

Jessica was a nice enough character, feisty and intelligent, but iin many ways she was also extremely stupid. If there was a serial killer after me I would barely want to leave the house let alone go flouncing around by myself for drives out to other farms or going into a not very busy town by myself.

Michael was a complete contradiction of himself. One minute he is angry at Jess, the next he can’t stand to be without her, but before even finishing that breath he is pushing her away again. He just couldn’t make up his mind and his emotions were all over the place, but not in a good way. Michael was not an asset to this story, no matter how major his part was.

The writing in Fatal Embrace, for me, was very frustrating to read. Facts didn’t add up, leads weren’t followed up and obvious clues were completely looked over. Basically I had the killer worked out as soon as all of the main and secondary characters were laid out on the table, which wasn’t that far in.

Then we have the writing itself, which was jerky and badly formatted. Most formatting errors I can overlook but words were in the wrong place and the wrong “there” was used a couple of times. But what killed Fatal Embrace for me completely was Whittier never seemed to know whose head she was in. The POV would jump from Jessica to Michael in a sentence, no breaks or obvious change overs, it took a lot of re-reading on my part to keep up with whose head we were in at any one time and even after you thought you had it figured out, you still weren’t right.

I also had a lot of trouble with some of the major details in Fatal Embrace, Michael might be working on the investigation, but he isn’t a cop, he’s just a ranch owner, he used to be a cop, but he quit the force, and yet he is questioning people, knocking on peoples doors and acting like he is the chief without so much as a flash of a badge? Women are scared of what’s out there and yet here they are letting a strange man who claims to be a cop, but has no idea, into their house while they are alone? It doesn’t make sense.

My other pet peeve for Fatal Embrace was the sex break we took right towards the end, instead of finding the serial killer Jess and Michael decided to bed down for the last ten to fifteen pages so we could cram the climax into two pages of broken action.

Fatal Embrace had a pull over me, because I wanted to confirm that I was right. Other than that it was a very frustrating and predicatable read.

Book Review: The Shadow Seer by Fran Jacobs

Review: The Shadow Seer
Series: Ellenessia’s Curse – Book 1
Author: Fran Jacobs
No of Pages: 337
Release Date: 2 April 2009

For generations prophets have foreseen the birth of the Shadow Seer, the oracle of dark visions and fallen kingdoms. But by the time of Sorron, King of Carnia, their warnings have mostly been forgotten and his name is known only to a handful of scholars. When Sorron's grandson, Prince Candale, falls deathly ill, the Seer's legends are brought to light once again by his saviour, a witch named Mayrila. She believes that Candale is the fulfilment of those long forgotten prophecies. She believes that he is the Shadow Seer...

My Thoughts:

The Shadow Seer was an extremely interesting read, but it was a little slow in its movement.

Candale is a prince with a secret; he is having prophecies, hearing voices, and seeing people that aren’t there. The Shadow Seer starts with Candale being gravely ill and close to death. All we hear are snippets of conversation between his relatives, arguments between his father and grandfather about how to best help him.

His grandfather sends for a woman named Mayrila, a conniving, gold-digging witch, who seems to be the only person who can help him. Mayrila saves Candale, but she also changes his life forever, revealing herself as his birth mother and him as the Shadow Seer, a dark prophet whose visions will only ever be of death and destruction.

Candale is an interesting character, if a little naive. He is intelligent and easily relatable being a quiet, odd child who fits in well enough at court, but is always dreaming and looking for something more. Candale did get a little infuriating at times when he went off by himself without thinking things through only to nearly get killed by his enemies. At times I wanted to shake him, but mostly I felt empathetic and a little sad about his situation.

The Shadow Seer was well written and completely engaging because it didn’t seem like you were racing to the finish line. Each new event in the timeline was well paced and flowed seamlessly into the plot.

The only problem with The Shadow Seer was that we never really get answers to our questions, the world of Carnia that Jacobs created was superb, but there was so much groundwork to lay that we only got to see snippets about the myths behind the shadow seer and those myths were relentlessly repeated.

The Shadow Seer was an excellently written story with an engaging main character who kept me entertained and continuously coming back for more. The mystery behind who Ellenessia is and how she is going to affect Candale in the long run has me itching to get my hands on the second book in this promising fantasy series.

Book Review: Blood Song by Cat Adams

Review: Blood Song
Series: Blood Singer – Book 1
Author: Cat Adams
No of Pages: 364
Release Date: 8 June 2010

Bodyguard Celia Graves plies her trade in a world where vampires roam the alleys of Tinseltown and movie stars openly practise witchcraft, where street corner psychics have real powers and cops use memory enhancement spells on witnesses. An ordinary human, Celia relies on street smarts and charmed weapons to protect the rich and famous from mortal and supernatural threats.

She’s landed a plum job protecting the prince of a small but politically vital nation while he tour’s Los Angele’s least savoury hot spots. But what should be a routine assignment goes badly wrong: Celia is attacked by a master vampire and knows she is about to die.

To her shock, Celia wakes on a cold metal table in a university lab. Celia Graves has become an abomination, neither fully mortal nor fully vampire. Her “master” is hunting her, to destroy her or finish what his bite began. She’s accused of murder, and the cops aren’t sure whether she should be locked up or staked. And then there’s the demon she glimpsed during the vampire attack....

Struggling to cope with her new powers and trying not to terrify everyone she meets with a flash of fang, Celia reaches out for help from her once (and future?) lover, a powerful mage; his warrior-priest brother; a handsome werewolf who keeps his lupine nature concealed from the world; an elderly clairvoyant; and one trustworthy cop.

Celia Graves has three days to save the world, her sanity, and her soul.

My Thoughts:

Blood Song was definitely not what I expected, but I am in two different minds about whether or not I like it.

Blood Song follows the story of bodyguard Celia Graves. On a very high profile assignment, she is attacked and turned into an abomination a partially turned vampire. She can still go out in daylight, but the sunburn is terrible, isn’t affected by holy items but can only consume liquids.

Celia is tough; there is no questioning that, she has the training, the knowledge and the intelligence to put it to good use. Yet I didn’t connect with her at all. I think this was my main drawback with Blood Song. We were told that she was traumatised as a child, but that was it, no depth to that, no details no show of emotion. Instead of feeling what Celia was feeling, we were just told. For a good chunk of Blood Song I thought she was a weak minded whinger because we weren’t told anything.

Blood Song was a shallow read, even though it kept me coming back for more. There was an extremely funny part that had me laughing out loud, but I can’t actually remember it. There was a smattering of secondary characters that made no impact on me and I had a hard time remembering who they were when they were mentioned later on.

I loved Adams version of vampires though. They are the old-fashioned truly evil mind controlling kind. Not sexualised with people wanting to join their ranks, but with people holing up in Holy places just so they feel safe.

The world of Santa Maria de Luna was interesting enough. Adams created it from scratch, although not everything made sense, it was easy to picture and the strongest imagery was created when they described the ocean through Celia’s eyes. I could hear the gulls and taste the air as well.

From the description, you expect a story about a bodyguard. You don’t get one though, you get a half vampire chick that is constantly driving somewhere and losing weapons. But that in itself is realistic in an odd way. The way Celia reacted, fought and dealt with the situation – sometimes crumbling, trying to keep it together, looking for help – was realistic. I think that was the draw point for me. She was playing tough chick, but not to the point where you thought you wouldn’t do it yourself.

Although I had trouble connecting with Celia, or really feeling much of what was going on for the duration of the story. I want to go back into that world. I want to find out what happens even though we seem to be taking a completely different turn. I want to find out if anything will ever happen with the obviously forming love triangle.

Blood Song draws you in, and doesn’t let go even if you are confused for a good chunk of the story. It becomes a need to find out what will happen, and I intend to find out.

Also in this series:
Siren Song

Book Review: Stray by Rachel Vincent

Review: Stray
Series: Shifter Series – Book 1
Author: Rachel Vincent
No of Pages: 618
Release Date: 1 June 2010

I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.

Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.

I’d been warned about Strays – werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.

This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back... for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I'm no meek kitty. I'll take on whatever and whoever--I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays--'cause I got claws, and I'm not afraid to use them...

My Thoughts:

I can’t believe I didn’t read this earlier, it was absolutely fantastic.

I will be honest and say that the sheer size of Stray did deter me from it for a couple of months. But once I started I couldn’t stop.

Faythe is not only a tom-boy and extremely stubborn. She is resourceful and smart and can absolutely kick butt when she needs to. She is trying to lead a normal life away from her Pride by going to college and having a normal boyfriend.

Inevitably she gets called home, because someone is hunting down tabbies (females) and she could very well be next on the list.

Even after being put under 24 hour surveillance Faythe is kidnapped by a psychotic jungle stray, one of the most dangerous breeds of cat known to them. She is held against her will in a prison with only a sobbing teenager, an empty coffee can and the stench of blood to keep her company.

Faythe could become one of my favourite female characters with the way she is going. She is smart mouthed and not afraid to pick a fight with someone bigger than her...and win. No matter what kind of situation she was put in, she never lost hope and always tried to find a way to escape, whether that be her prison or her bedroom. She could be a complete girl at times as well though which brought her character flawlessly together.

Vincent also did very well in fleshing out the other characters even though we were told the story through Faythe's eyes, we got a good insight into her father, brothers, ex-lover Marc and close friend Jace.

I will be honest and say that I don’t like Marc; I am definitely on team Jace for this one. Marc is too intense for my taste, which is understandable because of his job as an enforcer (which is like were-cat FBI) and background as a mistreated stray. Although it’s understandable, I still don’t like his possessiveness and short temper with other males. What I do like however is Faythe’s strength to stand up to him.

I really liked Jace; he was definitely my kind of guy, funny, laid back yet serious when needed. His role as close family friend and brother like relationship with Faythe maturing after she comes home is really sweet and well paced, too bad Marc kept getting in the way.

Vincent had an odd style that noticeably changed throughout Stray. In the first ten chapters there were too many words, too many embellished sentences and too many unneeded statements memorably the three sentences needed to describe how Ethan (Faythe’s brother) pulled himself off the bed using the end post.

Yet after the initial greetings and falling back into rhythm at Faythe’s home, the style changed to exceptionally good writing and gut wrenching emotion. Stray literally pulls you in after those initial chapters and literally will not let go.

The only other thing that got on my nerves was the ending. It ended just like that, no tying off loose ends or wrapping anything up. It just stopped.

Aside from the minor flaws Stray is absolutely incredible. It has strong characters and an even stronger plot. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next in this series as soon as possible.

Others in this series:
Rogue
Pride
Prey
Shift
Alpha

Also reviewed by:
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