Shachar Haad

TL;DR: very convoluted story where the characters are forced to take actions due to plot contrivance.

Character actions: Most actions characters take don't make sense, such as an assassin who's prosecuted volunteering to go to an organization that exists to hunt and kill every assassin on the continent. Or a plot about a group of people trying to access a place through the most convoluted and ridiculous plan that is utterly pointless from the start and that could have been resolved straightforwardly.

Death: The story also relies on death for the sake of portraying death with no emotional weight behind it, serving as either motivation for a character (in the most basic and boring way) or for making the story ‘mature' and “having stakes” rather than the death having meaning in the story.

The world races: The difference between the two primary races in this world boils down to outward appearance and minor innate racial characteristics that are relevant based on the need of the story. No cultural or behavioral difference is mentioned or tied back to the plot at any point.

Shock value: Apart from deaths, some scenes seem to be written to evoke an emotional reaction and create stakes without impacting either story or characters outside of an immediate plot point being conveyed. It also goes back to why characters behave the way they do, which is left unresolved.

Plot: The plot just ends. There isn't any conclusion to a plotline or an understanding of what everything leads up to, apart from telling the reader about a villain's resurrection that was so hamfisted and plot-breaking that it conveyed no emotion. Even before the ending, most of the story is very limited in its plot, and most of the time, characters are doing stuff to do stuff; rather than following any throughline (this also goes back to character actions mentioned previously).

Fight Scenes: Although the fight scenes were functional and engaging, most end when the losing side is decapitated, slashed in half, or otherwise ridiculously injured, making their death immediate. The author's blurb about him being first and foremost a fan of Sci-Fi explains this phenomenon as most swords behave like lightsabers, and no one is holding any melee weapon other than a sword.

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There are some positives, such as a complex plot that consists of several moving parts and an intricate political structure. Unfortunately, in this case, the bad outweighs the good.

TL;DR: A noticeable improvement over the last book.

There are people and interactions where you see the merging of cultures, relationship building, and the plot being formed.

While the last book was somewhat of a slog to go through, this was a breeze. The characters were compelling, and the relationships were interesting, and even Farrendel has dialogue, and we see his point of view.

The ending came to me so abruptly (even though I suspected that this was how the book was going to end), and I immediately started book 3. Unfortunately, there was no setup in the previous book, and a reader could start with War Bound with a blurb of what happened without missing anything substantial.

TL;DR: Not enough substance. Repetition galore.

Several times, I nearly DNF'd the book, as most of it is extremely tedious, with excessive repetition, little action, and too much monologuing, accompanied by minimal dialogue between characters. Apart from the FMC, I know nothing about any of the other characters.

For most of the book, Essie is repeating the same thoughts and feelings over and over, without breaks for side character development, without her romantic interest saying anything, and most of what does happen seem pointless. The book could have been a third of what it is currently, and nothing would have been lost; this seems to be a problem with the book being part of the series, trying to create multi-book suspense romance, but with nothing much to say for more than one book. Maybe if Grayce distilled the first three books into one book, it would have fixed the pacing and plot.

Will I read the next book? Maybe in the future but if the writing remains as it is in this book, I'll almost certainly drop it.

I thought that book had potential, and for a time, I enjoyed the story and the progression. Alas, the 'smut' and 'erotica' nature of the story left a sour taste in my mouth as the story progressed beyond the 50% mark.

The journey the pair takes starts to show the world, the characters in it, and how both are learning about each other, only that after the pair have sex for the first time, they stop learning about each other, talk about anything meaningful, and any aspect of the relationship and the characters identity becomes an obsession about sex. No progression. No one learns anything about anyone. The pages are filled with long and meaningless sex scenes that border on abusive (which I find way too common in novels that include mature content).

There were way too many mentions of "my mate" and obsession over treating relationships and the people in them as possessions, and, of course, the characters get off on the notion of them being possessed and owned (that works well with the premise of the FMC being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery).

And then there is the miscommunication and the MMC making weird decisions that make no sense, deriving facts from nowhere, and overall making them unpleasant to read.

For a time, I believed I could skip over the sex scenes, but that proved to be an exercise in futility because the author decided to shove more and more of them, having the main characters do nothing but have sex.

TL;DR: This could have been a good story if the focus were on the characters and what they go through instead of how imaginative the sex scenes are. Having them behave like adults instead of sex crazed teens would also have helped.

Suited For Luck is a story about playing Poker; and up until I dropped it at around 30%, that's all there was to that book. While those who like the game and appreciate its nuances might enjoy it, I am not among them.

The story is a mix between the Fantasy and the Western genre, and while that seemed interesting from the blurb, the content of the book doesn't utilize any aspects of either one. I learned nothing about the world, the setting, the region, what people do for a living, the problems occupying their minds, how the economy works, what are the stakes, or whether anyone does anything other than drinking and playing cards.

All you'll know is that the MC (who is as interesting as last year's tax returns), was transported to that world, thought about opening a business, saw that it doesn't pens out, and decided to play cards for a living (because luck is on his side).

Now, the chance that the story would start just when I put down that book is greater than zero, but considering the time that was wasted on playing meaningless Poker hands instead of telling the reader how that world functions, who are the characters, and what are the stakes, suggest that any explanation to come would not deviate too far from what I already read.

Even the aspect of different races is not being utilized, and aside from people's appearance sometimes being slightly different, we are not presented with different forms of speech, culture, mannerisms, or personalities.