Category Archives: Book Review

Title: Fury of Fire

Author: Coreene Callahan

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

Release Date: February 7th, 2012

Commander of the Nightfury dragons, BASTIAN leads by example and expects his warriors to follow Dragonkind’s code. Honor is everything, duty no option, but when both dictate he be the first to take a mate and sire a son, Bastian falters. For the woman given into his care is most the extraordinary he’s ever met and even as she steals his heart, he knows birthing his child will take her life.Nurse practitioner, MYST MUNROE puts herself on the line everyday, pushing past the limits of endurance to bring medical expertise to her patients when they cannot come to her. When a late night home visit turns deadly, she lands in the middle of a battle between two warring factions, dragon-shifters living in secret among humankind. Taken to the Nightfury’s lair, she must decide: return to the life she loves or risk everything to stay with the dragon-shifter who holds her heart.IVAR, leader of the Razorbacks, hates humankind and the band of warrior dragons who protect them. To break the spell that ties Dragonkind’s fate to that of the humans, every Nightfury must die. When the last one falls, he will have what he needs to wipe the planet clean of an inferior race, and once again be free to roam the earth in dragon form.

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: I you follow my blog or reviews at all you know that I have a serious weakness for dragons. I am fascinated by them and will read pretty much anything that involves them. I am also a member of the Amazon Vine program and when scrolling though the newsletter one day I saw this book. There was no cover, but the summary sounded awesome. Plus, it had my favorite paranormal creatures, that’s right, dragons! So I immediately requested it and could not wait to dive into the world Coreene created.

In Fury of Fire we get a great overview of the mythology, but are not bogged down by details. In some first books of a series, the author can take a lot of time to world build and it drags down the pace of the novel. In this book, Coreene gives us just enough information so we know what is going on and understand how the world works, but the plot continues to move forward. As for the paranormal elements, the dragon-shifters are men who can transform from human to dragon as they please. They can materialize clothing, have some level of magic and the only one I had not seen before was their sensitivity to light. That little attribute took me by surprise, but it did make it interesting when people needed help during the day and the dragons were stuck indoors. I would be interested to see where this sensitivity came from in the first place, but maybe Coreene will cover that more in future installments.

Bastian is the leader of the Nightfury’s and because of this he feels he must help carry on the dragon species. He needs to find a woman in order to do this, the only problem is no woman ever survives birthing a dragon child. His guilt over finding a woman just to lose her has him hesitating, but the second he sees Myst he knows he is in trouble. Myst is a nurse practitioner who feels the same pull toward Bastian when she meets him. She is human, but there is a lot more going on with her than what we see on the surface. She is an enigma to us and to Bastian for quite a while and I am interested to learn more about her. We do get quite a few answers about her in Fury of Fire, but there are some questions still left unanswered at the end that I am hoping will be looked into more in the next book. Bastian and Myst however, were great together. Coreene took the time to let us get to know them and grow attached to them. I was invested in these two characters and really wanted to see things work out for them. They have quite a few obstacles in their way, but I enjoyed watching them work through them together.

We also meet many interesting secondary characters in the ranks of the Nightfury’s. My personal favorite was Bastian’s best friend Rikar. He is Bastian’s right hand man and has no idea how Bastian has fallen for Myst so quickly. He thinks humans are just good for letting off a little steam with a one night stand, but he too meets someone later in the book that spins his world off its axis. I am so glad that he will be the focus of the next book because I loved getting little snippets of what was going on in his head and want to see more. There are other dragons that are not part of the Nightfury rank that are mentioned, but we do not get to explore them in detail. It does however, peak my interest and gives Coreene plenty of opportunity to expand this series.

As for the action, Fury of Fire did not have a dull moment in it! Since the rivalry between the Nightfury’s and the Razorbacks has been going strong for quite some time, the two groups come together multiple times throughout the novel. Thankfully, Coreene did not add in any extra fluff or erroneous details just to fill pages. Every word drove the plot moving forward and I appreciated her getting straight to the point. It kept the fight scenes exciting because they were not bogged down with unnecessary descriptions of the setting. She did use description when needed, but it was just the right amount. Coreene was creative with the action and each battle was different and invigorating. The romantic scenes were not any different. Bastian and Myst were fighting off their attraction for one another from their very first meeting and once they finally come together they burn up the pages. Coreene definitely knows how to write some steamy moments and I relished those just as much as the action.

Overall, I loved this book! It has all the elements I have come to adore in the paranormal romance genre and the dragons were a huge bonus. Luckily, there are still two more installments coming out this year so I don’t have to wait long to dive back into this world again. I highly recommend this book to any fan of paranormal romance!

FTC: I received this ARC for review as part of the Amazon Vine Program.

Title: King of Darkness

Author: Elisabeth Staab

Release Date: Februrary 1st, 2012

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

ETERNAL COMMITMENT IS NOT ON HER AGENDA…

Scorned by the vampire community for her lack of power, Isabel Anthony lives a carefree existence masquerading as human—although, drifting among the debauched human nightlife, she prefers the patrons’ blood to other indulgences. But when she meets the king of vampires this party girl’s life turns dark and dangerous.

BUT TIME’S RUNNING OUT FOR THE KING OF VAMPIRES…

Dead-set on finding the prophesied mate who will unlock his fiery powers, Thad Morgan must find his queen before their race is destroyed. Their enemies are gaining ground, and Thad needs his powers to unite his subjects. But when his search leads him to the defiant Isabel, he wonders if fate has gotten it seriously wrong…

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: King of Darkness is the first book in a new series from Elisabeth Staab. It focuses on Thad, the king of the vampires, searching for his mate to help him rule. When he finally finds her, the situation she is in is the very last one he ever expected. I did not quite see it coming either and loved that the first chapter we get with this couple was filled with humor and unexpected situations.

I like the idea behind this book and the direction the storyline was heading, but it felt like something was missing. I think it was the emotional connection between Thad and Isabel that was lacking the most. Once I did get to know Thad and Isabel better, I grew to like them, but it did take a while. I think that this story has a lot of potential; I just wanted more of an emotional connection. This was one of those books when the characters leap in with lust and grow to love later. Their dialogue also seemed to be a little inconsistent. The way they spoke did not always line up with their actions and it was almost like two different characters words were coming out of the one characters mouth.

There were also multiple storylines going on in this book and it took me a little while to adjust. Being a lover of paranormal romance, I know that multiple stories go on at the same time, but there are at least five going on in this book and at times it was a lot to take in. I did get into the swing of it eventually, but just a heads up that you will have a couple of people’s fates running through your head as you read this book. I am sure getting into the heads of both Anton and Tyra will help set up their book since we already have a connection with them from this one. I am interested to see where their story will take them, especially since they are on opposite sides of this war.

Overall, I am intrigued by this world, but I am not in love with it. I wanted to connect with Thad and Isabel more and I just didn’t. When the next book comes out, I will give it a try and just hope for more of a connection. Since we do get to see so much from Anton and Tyra and this book I think I will enjoy their book more. I would read a couple other reviews or read a few of chapters before you give this book a try to see what others think and get a feel for the multiple point of views.

FTC: Thank you to the publisher for letting me read this ARC through NetGalley.

Title: Eternal Captive

Author: Laura Wright

Release Date: February 7th, 2012

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

*If you have not read Eternal Hunger (review here) or Eternal Kiss (review here) this may contail spoilers*

Since feeding her his blood, Lucian Roman has struggled with his obsession with Bronwyn Kettler-fighting an uncontrollable desire to kill her, if he has to, and the vampire she has sworn to wed. But when a dangerous enemy threatens Bronwyn, only Lucian can save her life. Even if it means sacrificing his own…

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: Wow! I am struggling with words for this book. It was just so awesome; my heart was going a mile a minute for the last fifty pages! Alright, I am going to try and calm down and put my incoherent excited squeals into actually words, haha. So, we are back with the Roman brothers and I will admit that this is the book I have been looking forward to the most. Lucian has always commanded my attention whenever he was mentioned and I could not wait to see what trouble he was going to get into! I started it one night hoping to get about halfway through and I ended up consuming the entire thing in one sitting. I could not do anything else until I read every single word.

Onto the characters, let’s talk about Lucian, shall we? I really liked the other two brothers, Nicky and Alex, but I LOVED Lucian. He is such an obnoxious, arrogant, pompous jerk. You would think those would be bad qualities, but not when it comes to Lucian. He manages to spin those normally negative qualities into something incredibly lovable in spite of his rough demeanor. I don’t know how Bronwyn resisted him for so long because I know that could not have been easy. Out of the three brothers Lucian’s journey is the toughest. He is sure he will be the breeding male and that thought terrifies and torments him. My heart broke for him when he thinks he is never going to have love for himself and yet he desperately craves it. Bronwyn is just as tormented trying to guard her heart from someone that will never have a true mate, but fails miserably. It is impossible not to feel for these two and pray that they find a way to be together.

The plot in this story was addicting! I was going to read until I found a good stopping point for the night, but that never happened. There is so much going on and so many stories that tie into this one that I could not bear to part with it. So many lives are affected in this book and Laura does an amazing job of developing the characters so you care about what happens to each and every one. Lucian and Bronwyn’s journey has so many twists and turns that I did not see coming and it kept me on the edge of my seat. There is not a dull moment with the action or the romance and Laura’s writing just keeps getting better with each book.

The secondary plots in this story are equally intriguing. We get to see brief glimpses into the mind of the villain, which I always find fascinating, Synjon, the paven Browyn is set to marry and we get to see what Gray and Dillon have been up too. Synjon is a character I did not expect to like since he is in direct competition with Lucian, but he grew on me as the story progressed. He is a puzzle and has a tragic past that helped me empathize with him. I cannot say too much more about him without spoiling things, but I am desperately hoping we get to see more from him. The way we left him at the end of Eternal Captive was heartbreaking and I would love to see his story develop further. As for Gray and Dillon, wow! There is a huge revelation about her and I am hoping that she and Gray will get their own book so we can see this explored further as well.

The only thing that caught me off guard was the ending. It just happened so fast, I did not realize things would wrap up that quickly. I just wanted there to be a little more detail there, but overall the book was still fantastic. It could also be that I was reading so quickly the resolution just snuck up on me. Either way, it did not at all dilute my love for this book.

I could keep going on about all the reasons why I love this book, but instead I am just going to tell you to go read it. I dare you to try and read this book without finishing it all at once. I don’t think it is possible actually, it is just too good. So, what did we learn from this review? Go read this book and if you have not read this series, then go to your bookstore, find Eternal Hunger and start! Or download it to your e-reader immediately! Got it? Good!

FTC: Thank you very much to the publisher for sending me this book to review.