Review: Shattered Heart (Z series Book 2)

Title:  Shattered Heart, Z series, Book 2

Author:  Jerri Drennen

Genre:  Romantic Suspense

Book Size:  93 pages/338 KB

Covert Z operative, JT Malone, is in Oregon on assignment. By taking an engineering job, he’ll investigate accusations of possible threats to national security made by an informant, who has since died under suspicious circumstances. He didn't plan to fall for the dead man's widow.

Two years after her husband's accidental death, Charlotte Delaney will do whatever it takes to save her cafe from foreclosure, even accepting a marriage proposal from her late husband’s boss. That is, until an appealing stranger insinuates that her husband's death was no accident and the person responsible could be the same man who's asked her to marry him. The attraction between Charlotte and JT is instantaneous and explosive, making her question everything she thought she knew about herself and her life.

Together, the two battle against an unquenchable desire while scrambling to thwart a terrorist act that could thrust the country into epic tragedy. The closer they get to the truth, the higher the stakes, with Charlotte at risk of becoming collateral damage. Now, both will be forced to put everything on the line: for life, liberty, and love.

By all indications from the blurb, this book looked like a great read. The synopsis seemed like everything I look forward in a book.

By Chapter 5, I gave up.

JT Malone's character started out great. Ms. Drennan portrayed him as experienced, yet apprehensive going into his new assignment. All good stuff. Charlotte Delaney's character, though a bit flat, was believable at first too. A widow of two years, she still loved her husband and found it hard to move on. More good stuff.

What curled my lip was how both characters went from JT's ambition of catching the bad guy and Charlotte's desire to save her beloved cafe, to suddenly both having Fourth of July sexual fireworks and wanting to spank the monkey in her front living room.

One minute she's crying in her deceased husband's untouched-since-he-died office to tongue wrestling outside that very door. The flinging of eye-rolling emotions moved faster than a reader kept up with and eventually left me in the dust with a bad taste for this book.

I had such high hopes from everything the blurb promised. Sadly, this book couldn't keep me interested.

DNF

Review: Dark Wolf Rising (Bloodrunners series Book 4)

Title:  Dark Wolf Rising (Bloodrunners series, Book 4)
Author:  Rhyannon Byrd
Genre: Paranormal Romance (werewolves)
Book Size:  302 pgs / 638 KB

Eric Drake, a powerful Dark Wolf, has never trusted himself around human females—preferring to mate only within his pack. That is, until he encounters Chelsea Smart snooping around Silvercrest pack land in search of her missing sister.

Secretly, Chelsea thinks Eric is the sexiest man she's ever seen, though she is wary of his potent Alpha energy. Then it's discovered that Chelsea's sister is being held by a pack of vicious Lycans, and Eric heroically leaps into action. Now, Chelsea will risk everything—her body and soul—to surrender to the passion that will mark her as Eric's woman for all eternity…if they survive.

The book started off strong and immediately sucked me in. By the end of page two, I started having doubts.

Eric Drake doesn't trust humans, females or not. At night, though it's so dark he can't make out her features, somehow he enables Xray vision and is able to suddenly make out everything from the shape of her nose to the curve of her cheek. Mind you, he's far away while she's sitting in her van, in the dark, hidden under the cover of trees. 

Yeah. Only it gets worse from there.

I'm not an English major or an expert on how to write a story, but I learned enough in my high school creative writing class to know when someone abuses the word "was" when writing a fiction story. Why Ms. Byrd's Harlequin editors failed to properly edit this book is beyond me. It could have been so much more...

Enter the heroine Chelsea Smart. She's short on cash, lost, can't afford a place to stay, and for some reason chooses to be uncooperative with the local law enforcement. I didn't find this believable in the least. 

When Eric approaches her driver's side window, after two other agents proved unsuccessful in terminating her illegal camping, she suddenly finds him hot, attractive, and her girly parts take notice. Oh! But wait. Although he's law enforcement, she's a bitch and treats him like crap.


Yeah. It got worse. Between the lousy writing and stupid story, I couldn't force myself to go on. Why torture myself when there's other, better written books available.

DNF

Review: Kidnapped the Wrong Sister

Title:   Kidnapped the Wrong Sister
Author:   Marie Kelly
Genre:   Erotica
Book Size:   138 pages / 424 KB

Blurb taken from Amazon:

 “I had a phone call from my brother not long after I left you … he told me that you had ripped up the cheque, he had a lot to say about that, along with a few other things, none of which I will bore you with…. Not a smart move Miss Brown”

“And why is that Mr Dranias” she had bit back her eyes angry daggers

“Because you forced my hand….I told you there was no way that I was letting you get your greedy little hooks into my brother.. so welcome to my island”

Diona had looked at him, the confusion on her face so clear

“Wh…what do you mean” she stuttered

By now Nikias Dranias had moved so close to her that there was only about a foot between them, and she could see his dark eyes as they looked down on her with triumph on his face

“I mean Miss Brown that you will be staying here, until you’re due to return back to the UK, when I personally will put you back on the damn plane and out of our lives. My brother, has a very short attentions span Miss Brown, and I’m sure that once you are out of the way, he will quickly find other little playmates with which to fill his day.

Diona had looked at him with shock, her eyes wide with disbelief

“You can’t do that “she cried out

He had smiled back his eyebrow lifting

“I think you will find I already have”

Mistaken for her sister, Diona Brown had been tricked into visiting the island home of the Billionaire Nikias Dranias, who planned on keeping her there as his prisoner to stop his brother from marrying the woman he believed to be no more than a gold digger.

However passion had quickly flared between the two, and now Diona had found that she has to escape to not only save her sister but also herself from the enigmatic and distrustful Greek.

Oh. My. God.
DNF
I was able to choke down a sizable amount which enabled me to say: this is quite possibly THE WORST book I've ever read.


Why, you ask? Just look at the blurb copied straight from Amazon. Do you see all the punctuation errors? News flash - it gets worse!

The writing is worthy of a grade school graduate. I'd say junior high, but I've corrected those students works whose writing exceeded that of Marie Kelly. The story is weak, the plot predictable, the characters fall flat.

With too many abominations to the English language, I decided the best course of action would be to quit reading before I ruined my eyes.

DNF