Fiction – Page 9 – Nonfiction and Nonsense

Her Seduction by Felix Alexander

This is closer to the length of a novella or a short story than a book, it took me about ninety minutes to read the entire thing, hence posting this review for Short Story Saturday. Much like the review from last Saturday, I also found this Voracious download to be a disappointment. You can find the author on Amazon if you are interested, and you can get his stories on Kindle. I, however, would not be tempted to make the purchase of any of his stories after having read this one.

After I finished this story and started doing my research for the blog, I found out that this novella is book three in a four part collection. I do not believe any of the stories have anything to do with each other, so you can start with any one and go from there if you so choose. Moving away from that, my first problem with this novella was that the story was kind of spoiled in the first few pages. It started off with the female and male characters reminiscing on where they were before they met each other, and then went to the present in which they state what happened after they began their affair. So the introduction skips over the entire bulk of the plot in which they meet each other, seduce and get seduced, and pursue a casual but intense relationship, while shoving the end of the tale right into your face. It’s like, what is the point of even reading the story if the author is giving you the end at the very beginning.

Secondly, I had a real problem with the tense in this story, it was kind of all over the place. Some parts were written in present tense, some in past tense, and it didn’t flow well. I think I am remembering this correctly from way back in my elementary and middle school days, but when you are writing a story it is very important to keep everything in the correct tense. Others may not notice it, but I absolutely did. I am not sure if this is because I read a lot or because I am just a stickler for the rules or writing, but it was glaringly obvious to me that the tenses were not what they should be. I am not saying that my writing is perfect, although I do try to keep everything I compose in the correct tense and have a nice flow, but I am saying that I expect more from a professional writer regardless of whether or not they have professional editors assisting them. There are plenty of programs out there that can help a writer with these sorts of things and they should be implemented.

So those two things really bothered me. It took away from my ability to try and enjoy the story. It was ok as far as spice goes, there were some decent scenes. I wouldn’t read it again, but I can see it as something moms with exhausting children and a disappointing husband mighty enjoy. That is probably one of the most brutal things I have ever written here but I am not going to feel sorry about it. I am actually holding back my laughter as I write this. It feels good to be a little evil sometimes.

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Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin

Fiction

I first read the A Song of Ice and Fire series a few years before Game of Thrones was adapted for the screen. It was an exciting time, nothing gets me more pumped up than when I hear that a book I love is going to be turned into a movie or a show. And for the first five seasons, Game of Thrones more than delivered everything a reader would have wanted. The show stuck to the plot of the books very well, the chosen actors suited their roles and played the characters admirably, and the special effects were excellent. But once the show started to go further than what we readers currently had available to us I started to experience feelings of trepidation and happy thrills. It gave me joyful shivers as I watched the show with my friends that did not read the books, knowing what was going to happen and waiting to see their shocked faces when things went bad or took unexpected turns in the plot. It was equally amusing to turn towards my one friend who did read and give them a knowing smirk. When the screen went further than the page, I became one of the non readers, doomed to be surprised with every minute. I was looking forward to being surprised, but also disappointed that Mr. Martin was lagging behind with getting his story on the page. I won’t go into what we all know happened towards the end, that being one of the greatest disappointments in show history. I will only say that I wished for better for certain characters, namely Jon Snow.

I miss those days. I don’t know if there will ever be a cinematic event like that again in my lifetime. I keep looking for the next best thing. The closest I have come to that is having recently picked up Fire and Blood, which dictates the Targaryen rule in Westeros. It begins with a short history of the first Targaryens who lived on Dragonstone, of whom were there a few centuries before the conquest, and it starts to get detailed after the birth of Aegon the conqueror and his sisters Visenya and Rhaenys. The three dragons were born to their parents Aerion and Valeria Velaryon on Dragonstone, and due to Valyrian customs, Aegon married his older sister Visenya, but even stranger, he also married his younger sister Rhaenys. Due to endless squabbles between the seven kings of Westeros, and an offensive offer made by one king to Aegon, he decided that the best course of action would be to eliminate the seven kings and have a single king to rule over the seven territories. The kings would become lords, still ruling over their individual territories, but answering to a single king. Aegon also decided that the king would be himself. And that is how Targaryen rule began.

That is all I am going to give you here. The end of this book ends with the individual that came out as victor at the end of the Dance of Dragons, the Targaryen civil war. I won’t say who wins and who ends up as the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, you will either need to read this hefty volume or watch Fire and Blood on HBO. I don’t think the end of the Dance will happen this season, I think there will be a third season and possibly a fourth if they drag it out. So if you really want to know what happens you can either be incredibly patient or read this very detailed history. I will say, I am not satisfied with the end, only because I wanted more. I wanted to know everything that occurred from the end of the Dance all the way to the Mad King. There are about one hundred thirty years between the end of the history as detailed in Fire and Blood and the end of the reign of the Mad King. The only thing you get is a family tree and a chronological succession at the very end of the book. There are two more books that I think may give me what I am looking for, those being The World of Ice and Fire and The Rise of the Dragon. Let me see how long I can hold out until I need to get both of those.

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

Fiction

I had a really great time with this book. Until the very end I could not tell if what was going on in the village was real or a paranormal incident. I won’t spoil anything for you, I’ll just give a little background on the plot.

Alice is an aspiring filmmaker, and by aspiring I mean that she went to school for it and has had no success or real life experience in the field yet. Everyone she had classes with seems to be doing well and having success in their careers, yet she can’t seem to land a job. Filming a documentary about an abandoned village in Sweden has been something she has been dreaming of doing her entire life, and she finally has gotten enough money, volunteers, and resources together to begin the project. She’s done the research, rented all the necessary equipment, and sourced together a few good friends to help her scout out the area and take preliminary photos and videos. It seems that she has done all the necessary prep work to make the project go smoothly, including intense research of the area and sourcing former residents of the village to interview. But once she and her crew are in the village all the research in the world has not prepared her for when things start to go wrong almost immediately.

The back cover has it right, it does feel like you are reading a book that would be akin to the Blair Witch Project. It’s a little spooky, mysterious, and has psychological elements. I also really enjoyed reading a thriller that took place in Sweden. I love the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and while this book was nothing like those books it for some reason made me want to go back and read the whole series again. It also made me want to read another book by this author, titled The Resting Place. So if you decide to read The Lost Village and enjoy it, maybe you will also be interested in another work by the author. If you get to it before I do, let me know what you think!

Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller

Fiction

I did it, it may have taken me a little bit longer than I anticipated but I finally finished the Monsters and Muses series. We’ve gone full circle here, ending the series in the same way that it began with my least favorite trope, the virgin. I was hoping it would have gone out with a bang. There was banging, but it could have been just so much better if the female main character wasn’t a virgin. I will say though, that everything was wrapped up fairly well.

Our female main character in this story is Violet, the half sister of Kallum, of whom we meet in the very first book, Promises and Pomegranates. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about getting a book focused on her, I have never much liked her in any of the books where she has made an appearance in the past. And honestly, out of all six books and the book one prequel, this book was my least favorite. I didn’t really like Violet any more by the end of this story than I had liked her in book one or any other time she was mentioned in any of the other books. I kind of didn’t care for the male main character either. His name is Grayson James, and if that name sounds familiar, it is. He is the uncle of Aiden from Vipers and Virtuosos, although they are fairly close in age due to Grayson’s father being kind of a lecher. There are sort of a lot of messed up men in this family of musicians. I don’t really want to discuss the plot any more because I just can’t find the motive to make the effort over a book I didn’t enjoy all that much. If you have read the rest of the series, and you are a stickler for finishing things you’ve started, and you don’t care what I have to say, then I encourage you to read it. If you were a fan of the series overall, you will definitely want to read the epilogue.

Because I don’t want to discuss the plot, I will give my final opinion on the series. I thought it was really excellent. I loved how everyone is connected to everyone else in some way. It can be a little overwhelming at times, but it is not overly confusing. I was a little let down that I didn’t get a book about Boyd and Fiona. That was, until I went to Sav’s website and saw that she has a trilogy of King’s Trace novels and one of them focuses on these two. I am very excited about this because ever since I finished book two, Vipers and Virtuosos, I wanted to delve deeper into King’s Trace. On top of that, it looks as though another trilogy of books is going to come out in January of next year, and I believe these stories will star the offspring of some of the Monsters and their Muses. I have a lot to look forward to with this series and I am anticipating great things from Ms. Miller.

Souls and Sorrows by Sav R. Miller

Fiction

I was very excited when I learned that the male lead for the fifth book in the Monsters and Muses series would be Cash. I was intrigued by him the first time he came onto the page. He and his twin brother, Palmer, couldn’t be more different. Palmer is lively, friendly, and social, while Cash is reserved, serious, and consumed by his work. We get to know Palmer a little bit in Oaths and Omissions, as he seems to be the brother Lenny is closer to, but whenever Cash entered the scene he just stood out to me in the best way. I wanted to know from the get go why this guy was so stiff and serious. From what I got, he has just always been this way.

Cash has done very well for himself in life. He is a young, successful lawyer working environmental cases. He seems to have very little involvement or care for the Primrose family business of realty, of which his father had done very well for himself in collecting investment properties for the mafia. Cash and Ariana meet for the first time purely by chance, she was out for her bachelorette night and he was reluctantly dragged out by his brother to celebrate their birthday. Cash reflects on how he has never been interested in any woman, emotionally or physically, until he sees Ariana. Nothing comes to fruition that night, but through another chance encounter not too long after, Cash finds himself with Ariana as his wife. There are extreme similarities between what happens to Elena in her quick marriage to Kallum, and Ariana, as she was also promised to an abusive mafia husband that she had no wish to marry. So while Ariana is happy to have an out for the one marriage, she finds new struggles in this harried contractual arrangement with Cash. Cash meanwhile struggles with emotional and physical feelings he has never had before, and he slowly loses control of the tight leash he keeps himself on.

I enjoyed this book a lot, much more than I predicted I would. I wasn’t sure about a story with Ariana as the female main character at first, but the calm and collected lawyer and the wild and emotional ballerina end up being just what the other needed. There was only one thing that I found bothersome. It really irritated me that several times throughout the story we are reminded that Ariana quit dancing because of an injury. But we never get an answer as to what that injury was, or if that even actually happened. The way Ariana speaks of it I think it was a cover up and she had to quit dancing because of something with her family. Given that she was still dancing when Elena began her relationship with Kallum, I think it might have had something to do with all the scandal that came after Elena ratted on her father’s mafia ties. I don’t know if this is something we will ever know for sure seeing as there is only one book left. However, the author mentions at the end of her books that you can sign up for her mailing list and get extra content. I think I might do this, not to see if she ever reveals what happened, but because there are other characters that I would love to get some more time with. I am still in love with Lenny and Jonas, but maybe the couple in the last book will be even more interesting and could become my new favorite.