Reading Fanatic Reviews
General Mysteries & SuspenseEnigma: What Lies Beneath by Ditter Kellen
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Enigma: What Lies Beneath*
Bonds Reinforced in Harrowing Circumstances
Abbie and Hauke have had a bond since they were children when he saved her from drowning. That comes alive when they meet again as adults when Hauke has been captured and is being kept for further study; he is due to be transported to Area 51. He is from an underwater race of beings that are unknown to humans. Abbie and Hauke are soon on the run, trying to protect each other and figure out all that is going on with the deadly virus. I like how this couple could communicate telepathically; the author made their bond, even before mating, seem very real. Abbie is a supposedly intelligent woman, but some things that she thought or said didn’t come across that way to me. I also thought that the beginning of the book was told in a too-detached fashion, almost clinical in places. The book is surprisingly sensual, and this is described in great detail. This is a very steamy read; it was a bit over-the-top on occasion. However, I enjoyed their relationship and watching the conflicts they faced unfold.
The Neglected Garden by Suzanne Winterly
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Paperback available at Thalia
The Neglected Garden*
Imbalance Hampers Story
Gilly the garden designer is asked to make a bid on a garden redesign for a swanky home. The relatively new owner lives there with his young son, and there are some apartments for tenants on the grounds. It’s a beautiful estate in County Kildare, Ireland, but danger and secrets lurk beneath its tranquil surface. A surprising amount of gardening talk takes up valuable story room. Clearly, the author either has a deep understanding of gardens and their designs, or she did a lot of research for this book. I found the level of detail perhaps to be a little too much. I don’t know enough about gardens and plants for the minutiae to make much sense to me without a Google search or five. I felt like the scenes at the beginning didn’t have enough motion; not enough happened or was revealed. They felt like slice-of-life moments and weren’t terribly interesting, which actually waste time in a story that supposed to have both romantic and suspense elements. I don’t feel that the romance was pulled off 100% successfully. I liked both Gilly and Marc as characters, but they just didn’t gel for me as a couple. All in all, I felt like it needed more romance and suspense and a little less gardening and day-in-the-life scenes.
Catnapped by Susan Golden
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, Smashwords, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Indigo (Chapters)
Catnapped*
Quirky Humor Falls Flat
I’m not quite sure what to make of this quirky little read. The cover itself is a little strange—suggesting a boudoir romance with a cat included?—but I found the book blurb suggested something more intriguing. Unfortunately, I think the author tries too hard at humor and can’t quite pull it off. This is meant to be a romantic “comedic” suspense, but the hero disappeared after showing up and was absent for a while. This made the timing and pacing of the book feel off to me, not allowing the romance to simmer and bubble. Too much of the book was just spent in the heroine’s head. Stories told in the first person can tend toward navel-gazing, and there was a little too much introspection and narrative prose at times. Some paragraphs themselves were exceedingly long, which I find hard to read. When he was there, I did enjoy Ryan as a character, perhaps more so than the heroine. The suspense part is told to us in the title of the book. The heroine is a pet sitter, and a cat gets taken. All in all, I found myself a little disappointed in this book.
Murder in Downfell Manor
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Murder in Downfell Manor*
Mystery with a Little Magical Chalk Dust
This book is certainly not what I expected it would be. From the blurb, I thought that it would take place at least in part at a magical academy where the female protagonist was failing out. But most of the blurb is actually backstory for what the real story is. While the book had magical elements and was grounded in a magical world, it is written in a straight-up fashion. It reads more like a traditional fugative mystery that just happens to have characters like mages and elves who are involved in the murder plot. The books have some issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage, and this was a little distracting at times. I’m wondering on the national origin of the author because some of the words were definitely strange, and when I looked them up, and they seem to be of either South African or Australian etymology. I typically enjoy paranormal mysteries very much, but this seemed to be just a straight-up whodunit with magical chalk dust.
Eros Element by Cecilia Dominic
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters), and Bol.de
Eros Element*
Fun Steampunk Romance
Oh, my gosh! What a fun book. This was my first foray into steampunk, though I had heard of the subgenre before. This particular author is able to convey her characters’ thoughts and words well, sometimes with gravity (when needed) and deliciously dry humor (most of the time). The characters are well drawn with very clear goals and motivations. There’s no gore or violence, and the plot did have some unexpected twists and turns. I think I especially appreciated the interactions between the characters. I loved the budding Romance. Just a delightful quasi-historical romantic read.
The Aristocrat’s Charade by Joyce Alec
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The Aristocrat's Charade*
An Unlikely Couple Embroiled in Mystery and Romance
This novel turns some Regency romance tropes on their proverbial ears. I love how in the prologue Ophelia, the heroine, was quite pleased when her noble suitor, Peter, broke off their courtship after only two weeks. She, too, believed they were ill-suited. So imagine her surprise when the next day, I think, he is back and requesting that they resume their courtship. He is actually quite adamant about it, but she resists until her aunt insists that she should give him a second chance after he spouts a flowery declaration. His attempts to woo her back (and her reaction to it) made me smile as it was quite humorous What Ophelia doesn’t know, and Peter doesn’t say for quite a while, is that her fickle suitor has received a threat against his brother unless he continues the courtship and even marries her. When he does reveal his reason, Ophelia understands and wants to help. As they try to unravel the mystery, will this become a real courtship?
Like some of this author’s other works, I found the language in this one to be stilted at times; the attempt to sound “historical” yet realistic doesn’t always work. There were some pretty big informational dumps at the start of the book, both on Ophelia’s side as well as Peter’s. However, I found this intriguing plot to be just different enough from the common Regency ones that I could pass over these issues and still enjoy the twists and turns of the suspense plot (and the budding romance), as the couple eventually worked together to figure out who was threatening his brother. I ended up enjoying this book more than I imagined I would!
The Duke of Ravens by Jennifer Monroe
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The Duke of Ravens*
Too Melodramatic
What a peculiar historical romance. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I was put off right away by a word choice mistake in the first sentence. The book also suffered from several information dumps, which I always find annoying as I think background information is better when it is scattered throughout a novel as needed or shown in some way. I also thought that the author made the heroine’s life with her awful husband far too melodramatic to be believable. The author didn’t always use the proper forms of address for nobility. There is a suspense plot in this, and I thought that was better done than the romantic aspect of the book. The suspense plot does have some red herrings. Some characters’ behavior didn’t make sense until the end, which made for a confusing read at times. The cover doesn’t go with the book at all, as the hero would not have dressed like that for the bulk of the book.
Palatino for the Painter by Jessa Archer
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Palatino for the Painter*
Mystery of Friend’s Past is Solved
In this second installment of the series, a ghost from Wren and Ruth’s past comes back to haunt them. Their dearest friend from high school in the 1980s disappeared back then. The girl’s parents just said she went to Nashville to seek fame and fortune as a singer, but the best friends knew that something wasn’t right, but no one would listen to the teenage girls. Flash forward to today, and the friend’s car is pulled out of the local lake on the same day that their deceased high school English teacher has left behind a set of eerie paintings of the lake for Ruth. What happened to their friend?
Just a Simple Little Holiday by Bea Kendall
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Just a Simple Little Holiday*
Short Book Packs Quite a Wallop
Holy guacamole! This is a super short and quick read, but oh, my gosh! The author has packed more into these few little pages than many pack into novels. This is a girls’ holiday/vacation that goes completely sideways. We think we know the characters as we start off, but as more and more gets revealed about the individuals, all bets are off. The book took some surprising twists and turns that one doesn’t expect in such a short book. Exceptionally well-done book, and I look forward to the official first book of this series; this is a prequel.
The Eyewitness by Nancy C. Weeks
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The Eyewitness*
Romance Fell Flat, But Suspense Plot Was Good
This contemporary romantic suspense starts with an unfortunate bang as the heroine’s father is murdered just after they had a big argument. The book details the investigation into this as well as the budding romance between the heroine and the hero, who happened to be her dead father’s partner.
This book was mostly well written, but I didn’t quite buy the romance aspect. This is an enemies-to-lovers spot, and I think that is hard to pull off in general but especially when there’s so much else going on in the story (like there is in this one). We need to see a pivotal shift for both characters that’s believable and contextually correct. Yes, I got that the two had a bad history, which sets up the enemies part, and they continue to butt heads even while they have an undeniable attraction to each other. Neither part rings true for me. Another thing that didn’t quite sit right for me was the idea of a hot-headed person being a forensic scientist; the two ideas just don’t blend well together in my mind. I know one of the themes that runs throughout is that she is working on that aspect of herself, but it seemed like an oil-and-water combination that would be unlikely to happen in real life. I also didn’t feel like the initial hospital scene was accurate in several ways; I won’t detail all the reasons, but I am an RN, and I wondered if the author had done much research into what goes on in a hospital and what it’s really like (including security).
The familial relationships in this story are complex in a way that feels accurate to real life. I enjoyed the dialogue in that it seemed natural, but I didn’t think that the key characters had enough differentiation in their voices. The suspense aspect was better done than the romance aspect. There were plenty of twists, turns, and surprises. While the book didn’t technically end on a cliffhanger, there are some unresolved issues. All in all, despite the glowing reviews for this book, it doesn’t inspire me to read the next book in the series to see how those loose ends to tie up.
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