Alright thanks for waiting everyone, as promised some more reviews on books that I have read and given my personal thoughts on them.

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The Noble of Sperath

by

Siera Maley

So this was a book that I picked up mostly on a whim and it is probably not a good sign that my first thought after finishing this book was ‘does this mean we are going to do this eleven more times?’

So the basic concept is interesting. Woman wakes up with no memories of who she is and is told that she was appointed by this worlds gods to find the successor after the previous emperor was assassinated. After a little hemming and hawing about it she finally agrees and head off to find the first of twelve of these people. And the entire first book his her finding the first potential successor and ends with them going to find the second. And sadly not a whole lot happens in between.

The story is written well enough, no real problems to speak of but for a 340 page book it feels like a lot of time is just spinning its wheels. It was almost as if there was no third act. The was the beginning and a middle and [image error]then it just kinda ended and left me wondering what we had been doing for so long. There was supposed to be the underlining intrigue and a bit of a who done it mystery that I had guessed correctly almost immediately after it was introduced which left me sitting there waiting for the rest of the characters to catch up which is always annoying.

Now this kind of slow not much happening pacing doesn’t always bother me if I really like the characters and am truly invested in them. Sadly that is not really the case here. The characters are fine but there is nothing about them that would make me want to sit and read about their daily life for 200 pages.

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And as for the lesbian romance… there really wasn’t any. The princess is openly a lesbian and does a lot of flirting with our MC and I have little doubt that is the way the romance is supposed to go but nothing is really developed between them in this book as they don’t even really interact with each other until almost half way through, and even then it is a lot of dancing around will they wont they sort of thing.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This book was alright, good enough that I will probably read the second and based on what happens in that one will determine if I drop the series or not. Though if it does look like there is going to be twelve of these books it had better get a sight more interesting or I really will drop it. If you like fantasy set stories and have some time to kill and no other books on your reading list then go ahead and give this one a try and see what you think.

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Alexis’s Memories

by

Melanie Jackson

Alright now some of you might remember when I reviewed the first book I was really on the fence about it, ultimately saying that I would reserve judgment until I saw where the story went in the second book and in the end I came to a conclusive ‘Eh’. Not the best start when the tittle is spelled wrong. It should be Alexis’ Memories not Alexis’s Memories.

Now I am going to talk spoilers for the first book so if you haven’t read it yet and want to know my opinion just jump down to my final thoughts.

Now firstly, I still think it would have been far more interesting to have started with the second book and let us the reader discover things as Alexis did during the book. You [image error]have to reintroduce the world of Vampires anyway so we might as well do it just the one time. Also then we are right there with Alexis as she tries to decide if what Jaden is saying is true or not and feel just as surprised when she discovers the truth about things.

I am also not a huge fan of how the first third of the book played out. Here you have Alexis living her life with no memories of Jaden and shocker she has a boyfriend now to add to the tension and increase the drama only this guy is what I like to call the Hallmark Starter Boyfriend. You have the MC already in a relationship with another guy and to justify down right cheating on that person with the true love interest they either make him kind

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You know the guy.

but boring, with no real redeeming characteristics that the MC is dating mostly because she settled for him. Or he is a huge jerk and is actually using/cheating on the MC and it is only right that he gets dumped by the end.

The Author here decided to go with both options, he was nice enough but plane, and possible undertones of just wanting to marry her because she is rich and powerful until he found out that Alexis liked girls and then suddenly out of nowhere became a bible thumping fire and brimstone nut job. It reeked of the author trying to make a statement and nothing else. It was jarring as all get out and  I could only sigh every time he was present.

But seemingly aware of how bog standard the first half of the book was the author decided to throw a bit of a twist in a little after half way and had the entire tone of the book change drastically.

Then there was the actual Vampire stuff. Or Immortal stuff because these vampires want to be edgy. I’m not sure how to really describe my feelings in all honesty. They are in the middle of a civil war with other vampires and are constantly on the defensive mostly because they do not have any kind of unified military to speak of and the leaders refuse to organize one because of… reasons? But they are very quick to blame and demand that [image error]Jaden save them and win the war even after they so bluntly tie her hands and refuse to let her do anything.

I have always hated stupid rulers. Like here you have people thousands of years old and have ruled for just as long and yet dont seem to know the first thing about ruling. If history teaches us anything it is that incompetent leaders are either manipulated by the competent, are quickly deposed or run whatever they are running into the ground. As none of those three things have happened in, like I said, thousands of years I am only forced to assume that these are competent leaders even if everything I see is evidence to the contrary.

To me the whole war subplot always seemed a little forced, something tacked on just to add action into a story that really doesn’t need action. I’m not reading this book to read about vampire politics I am reading it to see the love story.

FINAL THOUGHTS: In the end I find that it is an interesting story but just about every aspect of it could have been done so much better. The author created an interesting world and an interesting set up enough so that I will probably read the third, and presumably final, book but I can’t really recommended it.

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Ancient Ruins

by

Benjamin Medrano

Now this is an interesting one. I am going to go ahead and review both books as almost all the problems I had with the first book are present in the second book. I will be spoiling the first half of the first book but nothing really happens in the first half that will really detract by having it spoiled here. But if you want to go into completely blind then just skip down to my final thoughts.

That said. I both love and hate this book. Now please understand I read the entire first book in a single night. It did good in hooking me and I am still firmly hooked, that being said, this book had so many problems with it. So while I will tare a little into it, please know that I am doing it out of affection… and hate.

Now most of my problems don’t even start until after the first half of the first book. The story is intriguing, you have a demon who was betrayed and trapped in a gem for

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Our main character everybody

presumably thousands of years, slowly forgetting anything and everything slowly losing her sense of self and all of her power. Then she manages to escape and binds herself to a seed and becomes a druid basically. She then starts to expand her domain, regains her power and we slowly start to experience the world just as she does. And this world is a very interesting one.

It is your typical fantasy with elves and ogres and the like. With magic and spells, and beautiful elven princesses who have been branded with a slave brand and now must follow the order of anyone with a command brand without question or even ability to resist.

I’ll admit this book deals with some dark content that it walks a little tightly. And I don’t hate it. In fact there was something enjoyable about how uncomfortable some of the things made me. Feeling my heart break as good people are forced to do things that they don’t want to do and the helplessness that the characters feel as they can’t even try to rebel as they have been ordered not to.

As the story progresses many of these slaves for various reason find themselves in the MC’s layer, or dungeon, and she has the ability though her former demon magic to re-brand the slaves so they only have to take orders from her. This also gives her more[image error] power but she does it for altruistic reason as well as sheer boredom. As such she has lots of beautiful women continuously joining her harem, though most of the sexy times are implied more than stated.

Now when the story is focused on the MC or the Priestesses I am fine. Those two plot threads are interesting and are intertwined enough that I want to read more. Also in the second book, the plot thread with the queen and her daughter is also interesting. The problem is the other dozen or so plot threads that keep getting introduced that I actively began skipping and at the end of the book never felt lost or confused which really begs the question of how important they really were to the story to begin with.

Now I can point to the exact moment where the book started to run into problems for me. It was the moment the dungeon was discovered and Adventurers were called in to clear it. So understandably the MC druid lady not wanting her home destroyed started building defenses, but actually said that they were to strong and weakened them to give the adventures a fighting chance.[image error]

Like I understand the lore behind dungeons in this book and I quite liked it actually. I thought it very clever and original. But none of those rules apply to the MC because she is actually a demon not a true dungeon so why is she playing by those rules. This is off handedly explained in the second book that she enjoys watching the adventurers try to clear the dungeon but I don’t buy it.

But from there we have the problem of constantly jumping around as the author tells us all this other interesting stuff that is happening or showing us people reacting to things we already know about while almost completely ignoring the actual people that we have come invested in and want to see more of.

Again I started blatantly skipping parts. I understand fully why the Author felt he needed to this but he really needs to narrow it down to maybe three different people and focusing only on them. For instance our MC, the Jewels, and the Queen. Keep all other hopping around to a minimum and I think it would have been a far better book.

FINAL THOUGHTS: All in all, I am really enjoying this series and can’t wait for the next book. It has a little dark subject matter but it is handled well and there is nothing graphic. Well nothing graphic that is shown anyway. It could have been a lot better with a little tightening up and better focus. But even with all it’s faults I still say give it a go and see if you like it.