Saturday, 26 September 2015

Flora Reviews... Beyond The Veil (The Veil Series #1) by Pippa DaCosta




Beyond The Veil (The Veil Series #1) by Pippa DaCosta

Read: 21st – 25th September 2015
Format: Kindle
My Goodreads Rating:  5 Stars

...So what’s this book about?
This is an urban fantasy novel featuring humans, demons and half-demons and is the first book in a 5 book series called The Veil (although there is also a prequel “Wings Of Hope” which I haven’t read yet that you get for free by signing up to Pippa DeCosta’s Newsletter). I was lucky enough to download Beyond The Veil for free from Amazon UK – what a bargain!
The blurb says:

“They say I’m half demon, but I like to think of myself as half human, especially as the demons want me dead.”

Charlie Henderson is living a lie. Her real name is Muse and her attempt at a normal life is about to go up in smoke.

When a half-demon assassin walks into her life, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Muse must return to the one man she hoped never to see again and ask for help. The Prince of Greed isn’t known for his charity. The price is high, and the cost could tear her apart.

Trapped between the malevolent intentions of a Prince of Hell and an assassin with ulterior motives, Muse must embrace the lure of chaos at her core; the demon inside her, in order to survive.

When your ex is the Prince of Greed, you'd better be ready to raise hell.

(Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2014 Quarter-Finalist Top 100 in Genre.)


 ...So, what did I like about it?
I found Ms DaCosta’s writing style very easy to read and I never felt lost in the plot. I liked the premise for her world; humans know about the existence of demons (but we don’t know the full truth of their power) some of which have chosen to live in our world (in a human look-a-like shell) while the rest live in their realm the “Netherworld”, half-demons are considered abominations/scum by the full demons and usually killed at birth.  I appreciated the way that Ms DaCosta revealed the complexities and practises of the demon world without upsetting the pace of the tale.
I loved that our main male characters were not your typical “good” or “evil”, making it hard to tell who was Muse’s real hero but then people are a myriad of greys with the potential of great kindness and great evil in us all which is what added a very believable dimension to Ms DeCosta’s characters for me.
The plot kept me guessing right to the last page, it made me laugh, cry and had me, literally, on the edge of my seat at times.

...So, ummm, was there anything I disliked about it?
In a word - no.
That’s not to say that I didn’t find the actions, reasoning and behaviour of some of our main characters frustrating at times but (in my opinion), that’s deliberate; it’s all part of the journey and character/story development that Ms DaCosta  makes us, the reader, experience to make the whole tale so involving.

...So, basically what I’m saying is...
I really loved this book!
I found it well written with a huge amount of twists & turns that kept me guessing throughout this action packed, emotional rollercoaster of an urban fantasy tale!
At the time of writing this, I have already bought the next 4 books in this 5 book series!

So, have I sparked an interested for BEYOND THE VEIL (THE VEIL #1) in you? Just click on the links below and check out the book yourself.



Sunday, 20 September 2015

Flora Reviews... Dark Dreams (Progeny of Sin) By Dawn Treadway and Aaron Speca




Dark Dreams (Progeny of Sin) by Dawn Treadway and Aaron Speca

Read: 5th – 17th September 2015
Format: Kindle
My Overall Goodreads Rating:  3.5 Stars

...So what’s this book about?
This is a paranormal romance novel featuring an empathic human female, a muscle-bound hunk of a Djinn and various other species of daemons with three “all-knowing” goddesses thrown in to the mix. ;-) 
The blurb says:

The Devil wants his due … The Daemon wants his out … and Jade just wants it all to be over. You don't always get what you want.
Jade Shear is an ordinary girl with an extraordinary ability that’s literally about to send her to Hell. When Daemons discover Jade’s power to read and manipulate others true feelings, they force her to assist with the rescue of their sibling; thrusting her from her everyday normality deep into the Underworld with the tall, dark and deliciously demonic Nias Hu’dor assigned as her guide.
All Nias wants is to live out his life without being involved with anyone else. No more emotion, no more connections, especially to pain in the ass humans. But when he sees Jade twisting a long curl of her wild red hair, and showing off the most amazing backside he’s ever been privy to; Nias just knew he was staring at a world of trouble. How could his family have enlisted him to obtain this girl’s help to traverse Sheol?
This dark paranormal romance takes you from Jade’s everyday existence into the world of the Djinn Sentry; an army of demonic solders determined to protect the human race; and then plummets you straight down into the seething malevolent Underworld where a multi-levelled caste system of Shaitan and the Devil himself welcome you.

As I understand it, Ms Treadway and Mr Speca are busy writing the next book in the Progeny of Sin series to be published by HarperImpulseRomance sometime in the future.

I was lucky enough to receive a digital version of this book for free from the publishers via Netgally.com in exchange for an honest review.


  
...So, what did I like about it?
I really liked the premise of this book; an ordinary (ish) girl thrown into an extraordinary adventure, who finds romance and the value of her own gumption along the way.
I quickly fell in love with our main character Jade; she was intelligent, with a heart breaking fragility caused by her gift’s (curse) effect on her relationship with others around her but she had courageousness I greatly admired; going into situations to help others despite her own fears.
I used Wikipedia when the story introduced a new species and appreciated the fact that all the creatures of Sheol can be found in actual mythology; I think that added a further dimension to the world-building and gave it an edge of reality that I liked.
I found myself gripped at times, unable to read fast enough, completely engrossed in this tale, enjoying both the evolving relationship between Jade and Nias, the pace, twists and turns of the adventure they were on and the development of the background story arc.

...So, ummm, was there anything I disliked about it?

Ms Treadway has mentioned online that she had read both Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and loosely based her levels of Sheol on their ideas. I haven’t read either of these classics and the faith that I live by does not feature a “hell when your soul goes to be eternally punished for a perceived sin” so at times I found this aspect of the story confusing and a little frustrating. However, after a while I decided to view this aspect as I would any other fantasy created world and just accept it as a part of the world-building of this particular story and go with the flow!

...So, basically what I’m saying is...
I like this book; you’ve got two strong main characters but both have soft, warm hearts, a passionate blossoming romance (with both teasing sexual tension as well as graphic sexy scenes this is not a YA tale) and a battle between good and evil. What more do you want from a paranormal romance?! I’m looking forward to seeing where the authors take the story next.

So, have I sparked an interested for Dark Dreams (Progeny of Sin) in you? Just click on the links below and check out the book yourself.

Friday, 11 September 2015

Flora Reviews... Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down by Lisa Olsen



Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down (Forged Bloodlines #1)

Read: 7th – 10th September 2015
Format: Kindle
My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars

...So what’s this book about?

This book is the first in Lisa Olsen’s Forged Bloodlines Series (I see it’s got 9 other books listed in the series as I write this) and is a vampire paranormal romance novel of about 264 pages which I downloaded from Amazon UK for free. (I do luuuv a bargain!)

The blurb says;


It was ironic that this happened to me; I was never a night person at heart. So you can see right off the bat why a vampire was the very last thing I would have chosen to be.

Anja Evans wakes up in the morgue with a hell of a hangover. It takes almost eating her best friend before she figures out... she's a vampire. When a dark and dangerous vampire shows up at her door asking to see her license and registration, Anja assumes Bishop is a regular cop. But breeding among vampires is strictly controlled, and her unlicensed status makes her an enemy of The Order. Struggling to find a balance between her former life and her undead one, Anja tries to blend school and living up to her new identity, all while searching to find the elusive Viking, whose blood gave Anja the strength of a vampire hundreds of years old.


This might also be found in the new adult section, not that “adult” because we find our main character, Anja, 3 years out of high school attending The Central Coast Academy of Fine Arts.

...So, what did I like about it?

I haven’t read anything by Ms Olsen before; I found her writing style easy to read and I was impressed at how quickly she managed to submerge me into her world. 
All of the characters we met were complex and multi dimensional and I found them all to be very believable. 
I liked that Ms Olsen wrote her male main character, Bishop, as an alpha who wasn’t tortured  about feeding and/or killing humans (“Anja, that’s part of our nature. We’re killers, it’s what we’re built for”; it’s a refreshing change in a paranormal romance story. 
I found my chuckles came when Anya’s best friend Bridge or Bishops’s friend Mason were in the scenes.
I liked Anya very real mix of intelligence, strength and naiveté and I found myself pleasantly gripped with her tale; wondering who her sire was and what she would do if she had to abandon her “human” life.

...So, ummm, was there anything I disliked about it?

Not really, just small niggles that took the edge off. 
Of course I wished that the ending hadn't been a cliff-hanger because, well, it’s frustrating, but I’m sort of ok with that because it’s more of a soft one rather than “oh no Anya’s plummeting to her death will she survive the 1000ft drop to the bottom of the ravine??” type hanger more just lots of questions left unanswered.
I must confess to finding Anja’s behaviour and thought process a bit annoying at times but as I’ve said in other reviews, that’s just because I have no patience for teenage style romantic angst.

...So, basically what I’m saying is...
I really enjoyed this book, perhaps more than I was expecting due to my aversion of young adult/new adult main characters. 
I’d recommend this book if you like reading paranormal stories based in our contemporary world where the main character has to come to terms with a new ability/lifestyle, where the relationship/romance/sexual tension part is very real to life (I don’t jump into the sack immediately – I luuv the anticipation and build up though) and all without stereotypical pnr characters!

So, have I sparked an interested for Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down? Just click on the links below and check out the book yourself. 


Check out LISA OLSEN’s own website