Book Review

Graveyard Shift (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. #1) By: Angela Roquet

Graveyard Shift

Graveyard Shift (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. #1) By: Angela Roquet

Plot:

The Inferno has Evolved… Lana Harvey is a reaper, and a lousy one at that. She resides in Limbo City, the modern capital of the collective afterlives, where she likes to stick it to the man (the legendary Grim Reaper himself) by harvesting the bare minimum of souls required of her. She’d much rather be hanging out with Gabriel, her favorite archangel, at Purgatory Lounge. But when a shocking promotion falls in her lap, Lana learns something that could unravel the very fabric of Eternity. If the job isn’t completed, there could be some real hell to pay.

Review:

Reapers are not something you read about often, at least not something I read about often. I think I read an Eve Langlais EROM about one once, but Graveyard Shift was in no way an EROM.

I enjoyed the world Roquet created and the detail she included. She really put forth the effort to have details about several different religions. She made a world that seemed well researched and fleshed out with characters that can’t magically bend the world to their whims.

There were characters I liked but also characters I didn’t. I hate when I read a book with no likable characters or a main lead that’s wishy washy and weak. Lana is definitely not that, she’s figured out exactly what she needs to do to get by in life and just tries to forget about the fact that she can’t do anything to change her lot in life. Sadly for her things keep getting thrust into her life that she’s forced to deal with and overcome.

I liked Graveyard Shift and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

4/5

Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser #3) By: Meghan Ciana Doidge

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Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser #3) By: Meghan Ciana Doidge

Plot:

I hadn’t set foot in the human world for more than a few hours in over three and a half months. Sure, I was stronger and faster than I’d ever been before, and I had a shiny new sword, but I was seriously chocolate deprived. I don’t recommend quitting cold turkey. And the new sword was a problem — to my mind, anyway. It represented all the expectations of a powerful father and a new otherworldly life. A life that wasn’t the one I’d worked so hard to build. It also represented the responsibility I had to bring my foster sister Sienna to … what? Justice? I didn’t know if that was even possible. What I did know was that Sienna wouldn’t stop, and that I couldn’t just leave everything up to fate and destiny … or maybe I was. Maybe I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. If you believed in that sort of thing. I just hoped that before the chaos and mayhem renewed, I’d manage to get my hands on some chocolate. It didn’t even have to be single-origin Madagascar. I was utterly prepared to lower my standards.

Review:

When Jade first appears it’s like she’s the badass I’ve wanted her to be all along. She’s spent the last three months with the dragons and she’s learned to kick some serious ass. Then she hooks up with her old friends and she can still kick ass but there’s an adjustment period, and she’s not as smart as I thought she would be after three months spent learning. By the end she gets her shit together, but she’s still not able to do what needs to be done. Admittedly it’s something I’m not sure I would be able to do myself. I’m being purposefully vague because you should really read the book.

Book three was probably more action packed than the other two books combined. The build up for the first battle took some time and then the battle itself was a lot. I’m not sure if the last battle was as long but it was certainly more satisfying, as last battles should be.

Jade is never going to be the badass that I kind of want her to be, but she’s a good flawed character. She’s always going to be more prone to baking cupcakes than trying to figure out what she should do next. Though baking cupcakes does center her so it’s not a waste of effort. Cupcakes are never a waste of effort.

I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

4/5

Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (The Dowser #2) By: Meghan Ciana Doidge

Trinkets Treasures and other Bloody Magic

Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (The Dowser #2) By: Meghan Ciana Doidge

Plot:

Three months ago, I lost my foster sister, Sienna, to the darkness. As in blood magic and chaos and general mayhem. No one saw it until it was too late, but I should have. Now, I have a wounded heart and soul that I can’t even reveal to anyone around me, because I’m supposed to hate Sienna with the fiery passion of the justified. And I do. I just wish I didn’t feel so lost without her, so unsure of the path I thought I had carved for myself, and so outclassed by the powerful Adepts constantly by my side these days. I’m not even sure if they’re with me for my own protection or because my shiny new powers are rare and valuable. Assuming I ever figure out who or what I am, and how my magic actually works.
Even chocolate can’t save the day every time … just most of the time. At least I’ve got that going for me.

Review:

I’m not sure why I thought the first book was supposed to be a cozy mystery because this series is very clearly an urban fantasy now. Maybe it was the book cover? Not sure.

Anyway, there was a lot of world building in this book, and some of it seemed to really be channeling Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels series. Jade now sort of has a thing for the “beast lord” even though I don’t remember that in the first book. I thought she was afraid of him. Jade is nothing like Kate, though, so that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Jade is still more willing to let others tell her what to do and not as eager to learn about her new world as I would like her, but she does seem to be giving it some sort of attempt. Her mother played a larger part in this book and I really enjoyed that relationship a lot. It wasn’t toxic and Jade started to really understand why her mother let her grandmother raise her.

The ending was great and leaves a lot up in the air. You finally find out what the other half of Jade’s heritage is and it opens up a whole new world in this universe. I’m excited to read the next installment.

4/5

Cupcakes, Trinkets, and other Deadly Magic (Dowser #1) By: Meghan Ciana Doidge

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Cupcakes, Trinkets, and other Deadly Magic (Dowser #1) By: Meghan Ciana Doidge

Plot:

If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you that the best cupcakes were dark chocolate with chocolate cream cheese icing, that dancing in a crowd of magic wielders — the Adept — was better than sex, and that my life was peaceful and uneventful. Just the way I liked it. That’s what twenty-three years in the magical backwater of Vancouver will get you — a completely skewed sense of reality. Because when the dead werewolves started showing up, it all unraveled … except for the cupcake part. That’s a universal truth.

Review:

So looking at this cover and reading the blurb I was excited at the prospect of reading a supernatural cozy mystery. After finishing it I’m not sure if I would still classify it as a cozy. It had some cozy elements, like dead bodies and a normal civilian being dragged into things, but it was much more a Supernatural book than a cozy. I didn’t have a problem with that, though.

Jade wasn’t quiet curious enough, for my tastes. She just seemed to accept what she’d always been told and never tried to figure stuff out for herself. Which is an okay trait for a young adult to have but when you’re older you really should start thinking for yourself. By the end she was a little better, but I’m not sure if it’s a quality that will continue through the rest of the books. I hope it does.

I figured out who the bad guy was fairly quickly, or who I hoped the bad guy was, and I was right. There will probably be backlash in the following books from what happened and it looks like there will be a love triangle in the future as well.

The world created was very interesting and Doidge seems to have the rules of magic nailed down so that’s a positive for her. Though Jade is just starting to figure things out so we’ll see if things change. I thought the Vancouver setting was nice and different and there were mentions of Australia so maybe we’ll go there in upcoming books.

All and all I really liked this series and I’ll be looking up the next one as soon as I’m finished here.

4.5/5

Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8) By: Bella Andre

Always On My Mind

Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)

Plot:

Lori “Naughty” Sullivan finally falls in love in ALWAYS ON MY MIND, the new book in Bella Andre’s New York Times and USA Today bestselling series about the Sullivan family. After a tragic loss three years ago, Grayson Tyler left his life in New York City behind and started over in the rolling hills of the California coast. He’s convinced himself that all he’ll ever need again is the blue sky, a thousand acres of pasture, and the crashing waves of the ocean. Until one day, Lori Sullivan barges into his life and promptly blows his emotionless and solitary world to shreds, driving him crazy as only a woman nicknamed “Naughty” can. But will Lori be able to convince him that it’s safe to love her…and that forever isn’t actually out of reach?

Review:

Lori was not the character I was most looking forward to read, but I ended up liking her more than I expected. She could have easily been a wild child that just has things work out for her, but that wasn’t the case. She worked hard and didn’t expect things to magically go her way.

Grayson was gruff and incredibly rude. Lori’s capacity to forgive was amazing but Andre explained it well. I could have easily been turned off and thought the story unbelievable if Andre hadn’t taken the time to say why Lori was able to forgive.

Overall their romance wasn’t the strongest or the sweetest or the most intense, but I liked it more than the two previous. There was no pushing away because their lives were too difficult to work out. Sure Grayson thought that Lori would leave him and get swept up in her career once she went back, but he still planned and hoped that she wouldn’t. I liked that. It was a break in the formula that was needed.

I’ve finished the first eight book in the Sullivans series and I think it’s time for a change. I’ve read about the eight siblings so the rest to come are cousins. The series, so far, has been good, though I have noticed a formula. That’s completely fine, I love Nora Robert’s formula, but some things have started to grate. One of the things that bugged me, that I haven’t already mentioned, is that one of the past siblings will wind up pregnant or engaged and she only mentions it in passing, almost like you were already supposed to know about it. Oh well, I’ll get around to reading the rest.

4/5