Review - Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

Series: Captive Prince #1

Genre: Fantasy

Age Group: Adult (Mature) 

Paperback - 314 pgs

Berkley - January 2014
Source - Library 

Add it // Buy it 

Rating - 3/5 

Trigger Warnings: Rape, physical abuse, torture, pedophilia.

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.

Beautiful, manipulative and deadly, his new master Prince Laurent epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.

For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else

There a lot of mixed reviews about this book. I come down somewhere in the middle of it all. I see why this story is highly criticized but it did keep me engaged and interested to see where else this story will go. I kept turning the pages because the characters are so well developed and have a lot of layers to them. Laurent seems irredeemable at this point, but I want to know what happens to Damen and the hype around this series has me interested enough to continue reading.

The trigger warnings I mentioned are not given lightly. This story is intense to read. I don't think I quite knew what I was getting when I started it. Slavery permeates across this world and every culture has slaves. It took me about half the book to really wrap my mind around the world and customs Pacat created. I wasn't looking for romance in this first installment, but I wasn't expecting the brutality either.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this book and how complicated my feelings are about it. On one hand I found the characters fascinating and the complex political situation that played out in this story made me read this story in a day. Several months later I'm still disgusted by parts of this and enthralled by others. 

My Last Review - Magic Stars by Ilona Andrews

If We Were Having Coffee

Since I've hit a blogging slump again, I thought I would try out this post I've had on my list for ages. Jamie from The Perpetual Pageturner has a series called If We Were Having Coffee. I love this series and I've always meant to write one of these for my own blog. So here is my first crack at it!

If we were having coffee...I'd tell you I'm thirteen books ahead on my Goodreads Challenge and right on track to read 40,000 pages in 2017. This summer has been amazing stretch of reading for me and I've plowed through quite a number of books. Right now I'm listening to Norse Gods by Neil Gaiman and finding the audiobook quite addictive.

If we were having coffee...I'd tell you my vacation in Cape May was gorgeous and I've had trouble staring at a computer since. The beach house we rented had finicky WIFI and my cell service was terrible. Hence, I was cut off from most of the world's news and social media for a whole week. Since I returned to Pennsylvania, I've had a hard time doing technology things. My brain is still in vacation and disconnected mode.

If we were having coffee...I'd mention I'm having trouble keeping up with everything. On top of adding a new, larger library selection to my Overdrive (I joined the Free Library of Philadelphia recently and so should you if you live in PA), I also discovered Hoopla thanks to a friend. Right now I am overwhelmed with choices and I've borrowed a lot in the past few weeks. Hopefully I actually finish most of this, but right now I'm feeling stretched thin.

Tome Topple/Beach Weekend TBR

It seems like I just returned from vacation, but my friends and I have an annual tradition of doing a girl's beach weekend. This year it falls right at the beginning of the Tome Topple Readathon. So my plan is to kick off this readathon in a serious way by hitting the beach and reading ALL day. However, I have a few more things on my TBR than just Tome Topple books. Check it out to see what I'll be reading!

Top Ten Things I've Been Doing to Avoid Writing Blog Posts

I'll be honest. Over the past few months I've been really lazy here on the blog. Summer has been passing so quickly and I've been doing just about everything except working on blog posts. Mostly, I've gotten out of the habit of writing reviews and brainstorming posts.

What have I been doing you might ask? Well, let me tell you!

1) Reading (Glad this one made it to the list) 

2) Vacationing

3) Starting a Free Trial of Hulu

4) Staring at my books

5) Comparing Netflix and Hulu

6) Watching baseball games (Go Yankees!)

7) Making lists of reviews I need to write 

(then being scared stiff by the sheer number)

8) Giving my dog belly rubs

9)  Getting enough sleep

10) Anything and everything

So hopefully I'll be back working on my posts and get back in the habit of writing reviews too! Here's hoping that will work out!

via GIPHY

July Wrap Up

This month was a great reading month for me! I'm really excited to share my thoughts on the books I read in July and hope things go as well in August too! 

The Magpie Lord by K.J Charles
Interlude with Tattoos by KJ Charles
The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher (audiobook)
The Truth About Mr. Darcy - Susan Adriani (DNF)
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters (DNF)
The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas (audiobook)
The Abyss Surrounds Us by Elizabeth Skrutskie
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
Code by Brenden Reichs and Kathy Reichs
Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Fruits Basket Vol 7- Natsuki Takaya
Prince's Gambit by C.S. Pacat

Review - Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs

Series: Mercy Thompson #2

Genre: Paranormal

Age Group: Adult

Kindle Edition  - 335 pgs

Ace Books - 2007

Add it // Buy it 

Rating: 4.5/5

Mechanic Mercy Thompson has friends in low places - and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind. 
But this new vampire is hardly ordinary - and neither is the demon inside of him.

After the first book, I thought I had a good handle on how these books were going to go. As we all know, paranormal series tend to be a touch predictable and formulaic. And I like that! Blood Bound still had some of those elements, but its dark turn at the beginning took me by surprise. Mercy is a stronger character in this book and the cast of characters is more developed. I liked how we mainly focused on Mercy in this book with some asides about some romantic interests.

Briggs has a tendency to info dump on her readers, but I hope this will fade as the series goes along. Overall I like the world and how it has a twist on the traditional humans knowing/not knowing about magic. It makes the story interesting in other ways and forces Briggs to be creative about how things get done.

Mercy is relatable and believable. I like how she doesn't want to be treated like a weakling but knows her limits. I hope we continue to learn about her powers (I'm sure we will) and find some answers to that mystery. Really hoping Briggs doesn't stretch that bit out for ages. Will continue very soon! 

Review - Magic Stars by Ilona Andrews

 

Series: Kate Daniels #8.5/Grey Wolf #1

Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy

Age Group: Adult

NYLA - December 2015

Ebook -64 pgs

Add it // Buy it

Rating- 5/5

Scarred, solitary Derek Gaunt has separated from his Pack, and is truly a lone wolf. With no family he answers to no one; but is fiercely loyal to a chosen few. So, when several of those close to him are murdered, he’ll stop at nothing to hunt their killer through the magic-drenched streets of Atlanta.

Never one to be left on the sidelines, equally determined—some might say stubborn—Julie Lennart-Olsen soon joins in his pursuit; and what began as revenge turns into a race to save the city. Their search pits them against powers they never imagined and magic so old, it predates history. It may cost Derek his life, but there are things for which even he would risk everything.

Honestly, I could read a million of these Derek and Julie adventures. Julie, like Kate, is smart, witty and knowledgeable. She can kick butt and outsmart her opponents. Derek complements her well and has a lot of experience and brute strength to balance their teamwork out. I like how this story follows the same basic format we see in the Kate Daniels Series and I am holding out hope we will see the two of them again after the Daniels Series finishes. There have been vague mentions of it on the authors' social media. Please please please give me the Julie and Derek adult romance right now!

The pacing and story structure are familiar like I mentioned, but it is on a condensed scale.  I enjoyed the plot line a lot and sincerely hope there are more to come. The novellas in this series are just as much fun as the full-length novels!

My Last Review---> Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

June Book Haul (2017)

Happy Sunday Book Haul! This month has been a book buying craze for me! Check out all the awesome books I picked up in June.

Review - Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Series: Mercy Thompson Series #1

Genre: Urban Paranormal Fantasy

Age Group: Adult

Mass Market - 288 pgs 

Ace - January 2006

Add it // Buy it

Rating: 3.5/5

Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy's next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she's fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy's connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water...

Since I caught up on the Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews, I have been anxious to read Moon Called. I've been looking to replace the paranormal/urban fantasy kick ass heroine sized hole in my heart. This did a good job of filling that hole.

This first book was a good set up for the series and the world. The plot was a little slow to start, there was a lot of set up, but I enjoyed the results. Mercy and her friends went on a fast paced adventure that had me glued to the page!

Mercy was a middle-of-the-road badass character. She had good instincts and her knowledge of the paranormal world provided a great foundation. At times I was frustrated she let other people take charge of the situation and she was written to be weaker than a lot of the other characters. However, I'm hopeful she will hold her own in the rest of the series.

My only big issue so far was I could not gauge the relationships between characters very well. The explanation of Mercy and Adam's antagonistic relationship at the beginning of of the novel  didn't seem to justify the lengths she went to to help Adam and his daughter. Personally, I needed more background on them to believe that part of the story.

I already have my hands on book two and I'm going to keep rolling through this series I think!

My Last Review ---> The Winner's Crime 

Top Books I Want to Read Before the End of 2017

There are a lot of books on my TBR and all the book buying I've done in June has wiped out my progress to reduce it! So here are a bunch of books I want to read before the end of the year. Look out world I'm a girl on a mission!

Review - The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski

Series: The Winner's Trilogy

Age Group: Young Adult

Genre: Fantasy
Hardcover - 402 pgs
Published- Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2015)
Add it // Buy it 

Rating: 4/5

A royal wedding means one celebration after another: balls, fireworks, and revelry until dawn. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement: that she agreed to marry the crown prince in exchange for Arin's freedom. But can Kestrel trust Arin? Can she even trust herself?

Kestrel is becoming very good at deception. she's working as a spy in the court. If caught, she'll be exposed as a traitor to her country. Yet she can't help searching for a way to change her ruthless world...and she is close to uncovering a shocking secret.

It took me so long to get through this book. After the first one hundred pages, I hit a wall. The story was slow to start so I put it off for months. After a couple of months of ignoring it, I read the rest of it in about two days. So I have mixed feelings about this second installment.

I mean this in the best way possible. This entire book was SO frustrating and STRESSFUL! Even though it hurts me, I enjoy how much tension is in this story and how even now after two books, there isn't much resolution. Unlike many young adult novels where I think the resolution for the problems and the characters to be quick and easy, the relationship between Kestral and Arin is so complicated. My expectations for the finale book are very high now so I hope Rutkowski follows through.

Throughout the novel I knew Kestrel's indecision and her scrambling would cost her in the end. While she tried desperately to play both sides of the game, it never seemed like she had enough information to do it effectively especially knowing what Arin was doing on the other side. I thought it was realistic how different the two characters were and how each of them had to deal with their all of the decisions they made in book one. The friendships, relationships and political alliances in this story were built so well and I loved the political elements of the story.

I'm dying for book three. (Good thing I have it)

My Last Review - The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan