Carries Book Reviews

Rebound by Nicole Dykes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having been raised by his mother and grandmother, Ryan is a good guy and treats women with respect. His girlfriend Maddy has asked to wait for sex and he has no problem with that. When Ryan gets accepted on a full scholarship to Auburn and will be leaving the state he thinks that the best thing to do would be break up so the two don’t hurt each other. However when on break and visiting home Ryan meets up with Maddy and thinks the two have gotten back together. When Maddy breaks his heart he vows to give up dating.

Rebound is actually the third book in the Soulmates series but it’s the first of the series that I have read. The book read fine as a standalone as far as I could tell having not read the others. The only thing I think maybe it missed a bit that might have been in the others was the depth of Ryan and Maddy’s relationship. The first couple of chapters are basically their year together so having time passed that quickly it wasn’t really clear as to why Ryan felt so deeply for her as it just didn’t seem they’d even been together that much.

My other little critique would be there were several typos I noticed throughout in my copy which brought my rating down a bit too. Otherwise this would have probably scored four stars.

Overall, good, quick romance story from a male point of view.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Warm Bodies is the tale of a zombie named R. While R still craves brains he is quite different from most zombie stories, R has feels emotions and can speak. When he eats the brain of a teenage boy he gets the memories and feelings including the intense feelings for his girlfriend Julie. R decides he will protect Julie and keep her safe.

I have to admit starting this book I had to catch myself from thinking zombies can’t do this or that. Once I convinced myself this is a work of fiction and it’s really a good thing to think outside the box and have a completely different type of zombie novel I really began to enjoy this read.

The story is told from the perspective of R the zombie. All of his thoughts make him seem completely human and as he points out in the story, he is human, he’s just an undead human. The more R is with Julie the more I liked him. I really didn’t think I’d be the fan of a brain eating zombie but this book changed that.

Overall, great read that is different from the normal zombie tale.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cruel Beauty is a Beauty and the Beast retelling. In this novel Nyx was born a twin and is the twin that was chosen to be the one to be married to Ignifex, a demon. She has been raised to be a sacrifice so that after she is wed she will kill Ignifex and save her family and homeland. Nyx doesn’t expect to survive when killing Ignifex but vows to do anything to save every one else from the horrible demon.

Cruel Beauty isn’t a bad novel but there were parts that I found somewhat slow or sometimes phrases repeated so I would find myself a bit bored. The story follows the normal Beauty and the Beast tale loosely with some new things added but unfortunately some of the new parts were ones that I could have done without too, most notably the love triangle added in. Nyx was also a character that I wasn’t a huge fan of either. There was just something about her back and forth with things and her anger at times that just kind of annoyed me.

Overall, felt it was an average read with nothing really grabbing me and making me love it more.

The Demon Of Synar by Donna McDonald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Demon of Synar is the first book in the Forced to Serve series. This is a novella length book that is basically an introduction to the characters, and a brief glimpse of a story line. Synar and Ania were bonded but shortly after there is an attack and Ania is mortally wounded. Synar is a demon master and the host that his demon was in was killed to in order to save Ania, Synar forces his demon into her to save her life but he fails to tell Ania that she’s hosting a demon and would die without it.

The story then jumps forward two years. Synar had left Ania with her own people to chase those that had attacked but failed to ever return to her. Ania has been accused of murder so Synar goes to explain it was the demon and Ania is forced to leave her people and board Synar’s ship.

What we basically have here is a soap opera in sci-fi alien form. The characters are all different species and seem to travel to all different planets. We obviously have demons also involved but they are controlled by masters. With as short as it is it somewhat fails to do much introducing to the series because of the complexity of all the characters and setting. What you do get a good look at is the relationship of Synar and Ania who end up fighting over the demon.

Overall, not a bad read. A lot of species/characters to sort out in a short time though.

Romance: Healing Love – A Mystery Romance: by Paige Powers
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Dr. Michael Randall works as a trauma surgeon. He has been dating another doctor at the hospital for quite some time and had plans of proposing but the plans were interrupted by an emergency at the hospital. Shortly after the two end up parting ways and Michael’s boss moves him to the coma ward at the hospital to have some cooling down time. Michael finds himself intrigued by a patient in the coma ward named Rachel that he tries to do everything for to bring her back.

Unfortunately I really don’t have anything good to say about this story. It seemed rather far fetched and unbelievable and read like a bad medical drama and I do mean very bad. Michael would win an award for the worst doctor ever in the first few chapters of the book which was a huge turn off to his character. He “saves” a patient in 15 minutes only to have complications that oh well, it’s the end of his shift so someone else can deal with it. He later loses a patient and tells someone to go inform the family, pretty sure that is always the doctor’s responsibility whether the news is good or bad.

Also, it felt like the author had random thoughts of let’s toss in this drama or that drama just to have something to include. For such a short read it was just way too much to jump from one thing to the next.

Overall, definitely not recommending to read this one.