One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Maggie's Grove, Book 2
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Length: 224 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





The mayor of Maggie's Grove, Dragomir "Dragos" Ibanescu, has a problem. Actually, a host of them. Four weeks after his town barely survived an attack by a psychopathic witch with a vamp obsession, the residents of the town are still trying to pick up the pieces and heal from the damage. Some of his people have gone missing. His father, a male Dragos has more than just an acrimonious relationship with, has contacted him for the first time in centuries. His ex-bed partner is stirring up trouble and teetering close to the line of black magic, if she hasn't crossed it already. And his sotiei, the dyrad queen Mina, who suffered the most under last month's vicious attack, not only isn't healing, but she refuses to even speak to him.

And that alone is enough to make his inner bad boy want to roar with frustration.

Being stretched thin isn't a new feeling for the vampire, but if Dragos can't convince Mina to at least give their relationship a try, the rest of his problems are going to disappear under the avalanche of destruction his inner beast will leave in its wake, and there is absolutely nothing Dragos will be able to do to prevent it.


It didn't take me long into this book to guess my feelings about it were going to be in the minority, because my biggest issue with the story is related to my personal preferences for my romance heroines. I have a very low tolerance for exactly the sort of wallows-in-her-misery damsel that Mina was for far too long in the book, and she just never redeemed herself enough for me to find her tolerable. And if I don't like one of the romantic leads, I can't like the romance.

Mina, who by all accounts should be one of the strongest females in the series as the queen of her people and the ruler of the Throne of Oak, just didn't cut it for me in this book at all. I would have had no problem being sympathetic to the grievous wounds she suffered if she'd been more proactive about dealing with them, but she wasn't, and every attempt by friends and potential loved ones to assist her was rebuffed out of a mix of fear and pride. I found that very unappealing.

As much as I love Dragos and enjoy the world that Bell has created for the series, with its imaginative mythos and fun, often funny, always quirky cast of characters, Mina alone was enough to temper the majority of the enjoyment I could have felt with the story.

But she wasn't the only problem. Like Dragos, I had a host of them.

Over two years have passed between the release of the first and second book in this series. That's a long time for a reader to remember details from a series debut. Maybe that's why Bell spent so much of the first part of this book outlining the events in that one...if outlining is the right word. To me it felt more like I was being force-fed a condensed version of the debut with all the info dumping that was in the first several chapters here. Much of it was completely tangential to this story's plot and characters, so it became a quagmire of unnecessary minutia that slowed the pace of the narrative to a crawl and distracted from the story threads that were being introduced here.

And tangential is the word of the day, too, because the narrative had a bad habit of trotting off on useless tangents rife with superfluous information throughout the whole book, a habit I found particularly annoying during several pivotal scenes. Something serious would be going down and everything for the characters would be tense or emotionally charged, then the narrative would veer off into a long-winded dissertation about something else completely unrelated to what was happening. Yes, details like those provided can add to the tapestry of world-building for the series, but in the wrong place it just yanks me out of the story and hinders the emotional impact of a scene. It was far too often in the wrong place in this book.

I also had issues with the plot's jerky timeline, abrupt transitions, and lack of relationship evolution in Dragos and Mina's romance. There was also a dearth of character definition, most notably but not exclusively when it came to secondary and ancillary characters.

Thing is, though, there were also several things I truly enjoyed about this book. I love Maggie's Grove and the imaginative, creative history of the town. I thought Dragos was a great romantic hero, and even though I never warmed up to Mina, I'm glad he got his HEA. The secondary characters, though two-dimensional, were another source of entertainment. That's where most of the humor was found, and I'm very fond of the sort of humor that Bell excels in weaving into her stories. There were a lot of lighter, chuckle-worthy moments that I enjoyed.

And of course the sex is always smoking hot. Bell gives great smutty good times, and she doesn't skimp on the number of them.

As a whole, though, the good bits didn't provide enough balance to the less favorable elements for me to be okay with this one, and I was pretty far removed from liking it. I still have hope for the series. There's a lot of great story potential and a cornucopia of characters I would love to see mix it up in their own books. I just think there has to be a tighter, more controlled execution of the plot and a bit more depth given to the characters and their romantic evolution before any of that awesome potential is reached.


The Maggie's Grove Series:

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Maggie's Grove, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 4566 Locations
Formats: Kindle


Vampire Parker Hollis took full advantage of the free love and hippie lifestyle of the sixties...right up until he ignored a friend's warning and dallied with someone he would long regret ever meeting. Sure, he learned a valuable life lesson: hell hath no fury like a witch scorned, but he paid dearly for that lesson. Determined to be Parker's blood wife, the batshit crazy witch captures the vampire, then casts a dark spell that will change Parker...and his existence...forever.

That's how Parker Hollis becomes the world's first vegetarian vampire.

Decades later, the deathbed vision Parker's best friend Greg has moments before his passing prompts Parker to move to a town called Maggie's Grove. What he and Greg's ghost find astounds them, a town dedicated to the various supernatural races. It isn't long before Parker meets his neighbor, a dryad and for some inexplicable - and inexcusable reason, the town outcast, Amara Schwedler. Her scent makes him yearn for a taste and her heart calls to his.

Amara's used to the petty hurts from being ostracized her whole life. She knows she's different. Heck, even other dryads avoid her - and that's the cruelest hurt of all. Still, she lives her life and she has a few select friends, even a job with a boss who understands her need to occasionally commune with her tree. Still, when Parker moves in next door, Amara is captivated by him...if a little perplexed by his diet, and his easy acceptance of her is a balm to her soul that puts hope in her heart.

When psycho witch sweeps into town smelling of putrification and decay, intent on destroying anything standing in the way between herself and Parker, Amara considers her nothing more than a weed in need of pruning. A pervasive weed with an evil streak. When she messes up Amara's garden, then targets innocent townspeople, Amara gets very, very angry. And when Amara is angry, she's very, very scary. The witch may be almost impossible to kill but Amara is something else altogether, and she and Parker have every intention of finally plucking that damned weed and ending her reign of terror. The trick is going to be making sure they don't get mulched in the process.

Without a doubt, Bell's new series debut definitely offers something new to vampire fiction. Its first vegetarian vampire botanist. Poor, cursed Parker, with his dietary restrictions, ghostly best friend, town-appointed Renfield...who keeps getting it on with his gay ghost - all over Parker's furniture, and, of course, the homicidal and seriously messed up witch who wants to be Parker's one and only chew toy. I'd feel really bad for him...if I wasn't having such a darned good time chuckling at his plight.

Actually, I just had a darned good time with the whole book. It had its serious, threatening moments, but the majority of the focus stayed towards the more comedic and sexier end of the spectrum. And the sexier end, in traditional Bell style, was quite yummy.

Amara was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't sure I was going to like her, worried she'd be a bit too naive for my tastes given her social seclusion. As it turns out, she totally kicked butt - even more so than Parker did, and had a dry but sharp-witted sense of humor I appreciated. She was a definite force of nature, and I enjoyed how she fit with Parker. Other characters, secondary and ancillary, were plentiful and delightfully quirky, as is also typical of Bell, and they provided a nice preview of future main characters for the series.

I wish the plot of the book had developed a little differently, with Amara and Parker's relationship evolving at a more gradual pace than it did. I thought the weedy witch of the west could've been introduced to the town a little farther along into the story, allowing for more time for all the characters and interpersonal relationships - especially but not exclusively the romantic one - to develop a little more thoroughly. And I would've liked Parker to have been a bit more successful in his endeavors. Seems he was mostly getting his butt kicked - or cursed - fairly often throughout the book.

Still, for a light and humorous paranormal romance dripping with sizzling sexuality, Blood of the Maple was a fun read and fairly classic example of the type and quality of funny, sexy fiction by Bell. I plan on continuing the series, as there was quite a lot of interesting and original mythos and world building here. I'm looking forward to seeing where Bell takes it all. I just hope we won't have to wait too long to get back to Maggie's Grove and its quirky coterie.

Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance, Menage a trois
Series: The Gray Court, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 4053 Locations
Formats: Kindle


Despite being swept away by the half sidhe, half leprechaun Moira Dunne as soon as he saw her, the sidhe Lord Duncan Malmayne wasn't as happy as he should be upon finding the mate he'd hoped for for five hundred years. In fact, despite being certain that Moira was his, he just couldn't seem to bring himself to complete the claim and exchange their vows. And Moira was starting to worry. Not only did she sense the spiraling depression in her mate, but she, too, felt something was not right. Some part of her heart still felt empty.

And she couldn't get thoughts about a kiss with the vampire Jaden Blackthorn out of her mind.

As members of the Malmayne clan conspire with the nefarious queen of the Black Court and plot to topple Lord Duncan from his position as head of the clan, it is Moira who figures out that Duncan and Jaden must accept that all three of them are meant to be together in a rare tribond mating before their separation kills them all and destroys everything they hold most dear. And she's got more than enough Irish in her to make her stubborn mates see the light.

Personally, I blame Jaden for this. See, I didn't like Dare to Believe, I'm sad to say (for reasons that can be found here). Despite considering myself a fan of Dana Marie Bell and thoroughly enjoying her Halle Pumas and Halle Shifters series, it just didn't work for me. I hadn't really expected to continue with this series after that first book. Then I found myself in a bit of a reading funk and started searching around for a light, sexy bit of paranormal brain candy to jolt me out of it. I was actually hoping there would be another Halle Shifters book out already, but when I looked I came across Noble Blood instead.

That's where Jaden comes in.

With his dark past and the sinfully delicious contradictions in his personality, not to mention his nature, he was my favorite character in Dare to Believe, and that book ended a bit grimly for him. Knowing that this one featured him poked, nudged, and niggled at me until I decided I just had to make sure he got his deserved HEA. So really, I blame Jaden. Because now I'm hooked on this series, too.

Bell writes the sort of fiction I most enjoy for my brain candy cravings: likable, sexy characters and a lot of fast, sarcastic, often humorous and sometimes sentimental dialogue. A heady mix of touching and touchy-feely. A little bit of yum and a lot of fun. It was just what I needed, and just what I got in Noble Blood.

The plot surrounding the characters is a continuation of events that were kicked off in the first book and the characters were introduced and fleshed out there, so I would recommend a reader new to the series start with that first book. Bell doesn't spend much time on exposition or world building here, and there really isn't much in the way of character description in this book, either. Instead the story and its characters hit the ground running and while I appreciate that from the perspective of someone familiar with the first book, that may not work for everyone.

As a book that's shorter than a traditional mass market paperback, Bell keeps the narrative of the story trim and the plot arc on the thin side. That style works for this sort of light, easy read, where conflicts rise and fall with relative ease and without an abundance of angst. What worked best for me in this book, though, is that while the plot does lean a bit towards the shallower end of the story pool, it's executed well, transitions smoothly, and evolves and expands through the book as it moves towards conclusion.

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of Menage a trois romances. My romantic preferences lie in pairs instead of sets, regardless of gender. When I do read them, though, I prefer them to be like they were represented here, where each of the involved characters has an obviously deep and abiding love for each other equally, instead of a more two-on-one style. That may create a problem for some readers, though, as this book includes sexual scenes and discussion of the romantic relationship between Duncan and Jaden.

Every time I finish a book by Bell, I wish for the same thing. I wish they were longer. Even though I liked the book and love the characters (and I can't wait for the hybrid and the dragonness to get their story), a hundred more pages in Bell's fun, fast, ferociously imaginative world would have provided the opportunity for a more robust plot with added dimension and a deeper and broader evolution of the romance. Okay, so that's me being greedy. I know.

Like I said, I blame Jaden. Though Bell gets to take some of the blame for that, too.

Warning: This book contains a M/M/F Menage a trois relationship that may disturb some readers. M/F, M/M/F, and M/M sexual situations, including anal and oral sex, are included.

Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance
Series: The Gray Court, Book 1
Rating: 2 Stars
Length: 200 Pages, 3764 Locations
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


For a good portion of his nearly century-long existence, Leo Dunne has been waiting and hoping to catch that one elusive scent that would bring love and joy to his life, the scent of the one person born just for him. When he caught scent of Ruby Halloway, saw her bent over a file cabinet in his company, he knew he wanted her desperately and thought she may be the one. Ruby, who has had a crush on Leo for ages, did what any shy girl would do when the object of her deepest desire focused on them...she ran away and hid.

For a year she's avoided him. For a year he's watched her and tried to get close. Finally, with the help of her best friend and all the charm he can muster, the alleged playboy gets Ruby right where he wants her, and when he tastes her lips for the first time he knows he was right. She's his. And there will be no more hiding or running.

Unfortunately, just finding his true mate isn't enough. He's still got to tell her he's fae, explain to her his Sidhe mother and leprechaun father. Gently introduce her into a world she couldn't possibly even dream about and explain the benefits and consequences. Before he can even get close to approaching that daunting task, however, his father calls with somber news. A rival family has kidnapped his brother and is holding him ransom. Leo doesn't need to ask what ransom they're asking for his brother's release. He already knows.

They want him.

Dana Marie Bell has kicked off this new series with a lot of potential and the backbone of an intriguing world and fun mythos, populating it with personable characters and a couple of neat plot twists. I've long been a fan of Bell and have read and enjoyed her Halle Pumas and Halle Shifters (looking for more of that one!) series, and am familiar with her writing style and characterizations. I particularly enjoy the humor that she injects and how adeptly she partners humor with stressful, sometimes threatening situations, to the benefit of the story as a whole.

She's done that here in Dare to Believe: The Gray Court, Book 1. I enjoyed Leo and was charmed by Ruby, who, despite her shyness and some issues with body image, was an appealingly silver-tongued quipster who was good for a cute, humorous line. Some of Bell's greatest strengths as an author lay in her abilities to write fun, bantering dialogue and provide appealing and individual character definition around a solid story concept or idea.

The depth and breadth of the plot suffers, though, by this book's shorter length. The narrative doesn't do much to flesh out the developing story and too much of it remains bare-boned to the point of emaciation. The pacing is disjointed, coming in forced fits and starts, not always clearly defined and suffering from several awkward transitions. Creating the world for the series, then stuffing a satisfying romance and a dangerous family threat together is a good idea in theory, but that's a lot of story and there just wasn't room to tell it all fully - to the detriment of the whole thing. Bell has the skill to tell a fully developed story that satisfies on all levels. She's done it before. Had she taken another 100 or so pages to fill out this story, she could have done so here.

Unfortunately, as it stands, the romantic couple comes together far too quickly for my personal tastes, Ruby accepts her new world and gets over a lifetime of insecurities far too quickly for my tastes, and the kidnapping plot thread starts, and ends, with far too little development and depth. What's most disappointing is that with the appeal of the characters, I wanted much more of them and was doubly disappointed for not getting it.

And then there's the sex.

I vacillated on how to classify the genre of this book. Technically, there's too much plot and story development for me to consider it erotica in the manner in which I normally make that determination. There are also, however, sex scenes far too graphic and unconventional to fit into a mainstream paranormal romance - or even an edgy paranormal romance. I don't mind that - I like erotica. The problem is, though, that in this book there is a sex scene that is so egregiously out of place and disparate from the tone of the romantic relationship, the character development, and the plot at the point it was introduced, that I found it jarring and distasteful when read in context.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Halle Shifters, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 5964 Locations
Formats: Kindle