Criminals and Heartbreakers

Image Source: Someecards

Jane’s insightful review of The Devil’s Game by Joanna Wylde sparked a though-provoking twitter conversation about cracktastic reads, reader consent, and violence in Contemporary Romance. I was happy just silently following the discussion, but lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about violence in contemporaries, so I thought I should share those thoughts --which are in no way fully formed-- with you today.

Six Reasons Why I Won't Finish R. Lee Smith’s The Last Hour of Gann

That's a Lizardman-titty cover, alright!

The Last Hour of Gann is the new “it” book, at least in my little corner of the internet. It’s getting a lot of hype and positive reviews, and Twitter and the blogoverse is abuzz with the lizardman romance (yes, lizardman) that seem to have taken the community by storm.

The blurb should give you an idea of the overall plot:

It was her last chance: 

Amber Bierce had nothing left except her sister and two tickets on Earth’s first colony-ship. She entered her Sleeper with a five-year contract and the promise of a better life, but awakened in wreckage on an unknown world. For the survivors, there is no rescue, no way home and no hope until they are found by Meoraq—a holy warrior more deadly than any hungering beast on this hostile new world…but whose eyes show a different sort of hunger when he looks at her. 

It was his last year of freedom: 

Uyane Meoraq is a Sword of Sheul, God’s own instrument of judgment, victor of hundreds of trials, with a conqueror’s rights over all men. Or at least he was until his father’s death. Now, without divine intervention, he will be forced to assume stewardship over House Uyane and lose the life he has always known. At the legendary temple of Xi’Matezh, Meoraq hopes to find the deliverance he seeks, but the humans he encounters on his pilgrimage may prove too great a test even for him…especially the one called Amber, behind whose monstrous appearance burns a woman’s heart unlike any he has ever known.

I probably would have read the book eventually because I’m no strange to R. Lee Smith’s novels, which I find incredibly compelling but highly problematic. The same could be said about this book, except that this time the problematic parts won and I’m unable to finish it.

Here’s why:

DNF Review: Ghost Planet by Sharon Lynn Fisher

Warning: This review contains lots of spoilers.

Ghost Planet was my impulsive buy of last week. Its appealing blurb made me put all the other books on hold in order to read this one, but alas, we were not meant to be.  Here’s why.

Elizabeth is a psychologist who just moved to a new planet that’s been colonized by humans. Life in the planet would be pretty awesome if not for one tiny detail: the local aliens* take on the form of a person’s dead loved one and must remain close to them at all time. Not only do these ghosts look exactly like a dead person, but they retain their memories and personalities, which make things really awkward and creepy. Killing the ghosts is pointless because they just regenerate again and again, so the humans have established a protocol to deal with these aliens by completely ignoring them.

Review: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

Source: a review copy was provided by the publisher through NetGalley

This book caught my attention because of its interesting premise and because I seldom read Sci-Fi. The blurb did mention a love story, but we know that when the book isn't a romance, love stories tend to end tragically, so I wasn't expecting a happy ending. It took a couple of chapters for me to realize that as much as I wasn't expecting anything, what I got wasn't what I was expecting at all. 

The Best of All Possible Worlds tells the story of Dllenahkh. It’s not clear whether the book is set in an alternate universe that looks futuristic, or if it’s supposed to be a very distant future (1). Regardless, what we do know is that there are different planets and different types of humans that have some genetic differences between them that manifest in their appearance and some psychic traits. 

Extremely Long (review) and Incredibly Freaky (book): Heat by R. Lee Smith

I discovered Heat thanks to a review posted at Dear Author. I was very intrigued by the plot, and I’m sure that everyone else who read that review was as well. This is a book that elicits reactions, they can be positive or negative, but no one can deny that it’s an eye-catching story. So I was presented with the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and I decided to take it.

This is a simple story set in a complex world universe. Kane is a chemist and a pirate. His main business is a drug called Vahst, which he manufactures. Vahst’ main component is dopamine, a chemical that can be found in human’s brains. So Kane, his father and their crew, travel in search of buyers, using humans to harvest dopamine (the harvesting process is quite easy, just open their heads and rip the gland that produces the chemical) and also as slaves. 

Series Review: Silent Blade and Silver Shark (Kinsmen Series) by Ilona Andrews

I first heard of this series a couple of weeks ago when book 2, Silver Shark, was released. Since I’m a huge fan of the On the Edge series I decided to read these novellas because they looked promising and most importantly, short.

These are sci-fi stories set in a distant future were different planets have been colonized and where the most influential people have several enhancements that can be either mechanical or psychic, which gives them the upper hand when it comes to the world the live in thus making them the political and economic force. They are called Kinsmen and they are quite the tight group. Family is everything to them and they marry other Kinsmen in order to make them stronger in a political world where genes and family ties are everything.