Location: United States
Member Since: July 01, 2010
BarkLess WagMore
Books
This member has not published any books.Smashwords book reviews by BarkLess WagMore
- Bloodraven
on Dec. 09, 2010
I should not have started this book when I did. I had books to read for review (with deadlines looming over my head), several reviews to write and another book halfway finished. But after being drawn to it by a review from a Goodreads friend, I bought it and started it immediately. Everything else came to a screeching halt until I finished. This book gripped me in a way that very few books can manage. It starts off with unimaginable sexual brutality but if you’re able to recover from the first few chapters of grue and pain you should be ready to deal with all that happens later. I knew what I was getting into, having read some spoilerific reviews but it was still . . . shocking. Yhalen is a young, beautiful, carefree forest dwelling human who spends his time flirting and having sex with his closest male friends. He is blissfully ignorant of what lurks beyond the boundaries of the safe haven his people call home. Political machinations mean nothing to him but everything in Yhalen’s world is shattered when he is attacked by a group of violent ogres. REALLY bad things happen to Yhalen. He only manages to survive by tapping into power he hadn’t realized he had. Scary, awful, forest destroying powers that frighten him and shake him to the core. And as if all this weren’t bad enough he’s given to Bloodraven, a half-human/half-ogre warlord who chains him up like a dog and uses him as a sexual toy. Sounds truly awful, doesn’t it? Well, it is! But I’ll be honest. I could not stop reading. The world is vivid, the writing thoroughly captivating and it never lets up. Yhalen maintains his spirit despite everything and does not make a good submissive slave. He has a strong will to survive and after all he’s been through at the hands of the ogres he has to admit that Bloodraven isn’t as bad as all that. He’s afraid, he’s tormented and he despises Bloodraven’s touch but he submits because he hasn’t a choice. As time goes by he realizes that there is more to Bloodraven than his brutal ogre side and he is shamed to find his body responding to Bloodraven. Though raised by ogres he is much smarter than any full blood ogre, he’s ambitious (some may say insanely ambitious) and has grand plans to save other half-lings from the torment they’re currently exposed to in the ogre camp. Bloodraven’s plans include Yhalen, who he’s growing increasingly fond of. As the story progresses the two forge an uneasy relationship that will be tested time and again. Their relationship is a slow building and tenuous thing that changes as circumstances change. Both characters have major struggles to overcome and inner issues. This is not a “shove all the bad stuff under the carpet and forget about it while you declare your undying love and live happy ever after” type of story. It’s rough and pain-filled and in the end very believable. There are no unrealistic revelations of undying love on either side but what they have is strong and it worked for me on so many levels. I could have spent another 500 pages with these two and still wanted more. The story was darkly fascinating. 5 stars all the way.
- Bloodletter
on Sep. 07, 2011
Bloodletter reminded me a bit of an early serious Bones episode, minus the super nerdy forensic bits and dreamy David Boreanaz. It had a fast pace, lots of twists and turns to keep me guessing and a handful of lead characters with a good dynamic but who could use a bit more development. Kelly Garrett is a criminologist. She and her team are investigating a series of gory murders where the killer appears to be toying with them. On each victim the killer hides a “clue” in the form of a commandment of his own making. In addition to this high profile case, Kelly is also receiving troubling phone calls, dealing with fiancé troubles and experiencing flashbacks to her own troubled past. Poor Kelly has a lot on her plate and the reader gets to know her pretty well during all of this turmoil. The same can’t be said for many of the secondary characters who show up either as victim, potential suspect or friend, take up a bit of face time, but either aren’t overly important to the story or aren’t fully realized. If a few of these characters had been omitted and more time spent on the core characters I may have felt differently. As written though, the book felt like a whirlwind of characters and I had to take notes to remember who was who because my pea brain could just not keep up. The book speeds along at a good clip and never slows down. It has a decent amount of blood splatter and gore but doesn’t go over the top. I enjoyed being kept guessing and was surprised by the reveal at the end but after thinking about it realized the author threw in a slew of clues along the way, I was just too dense to put it all together. I’d definitely give this author another shot and wouldn’t mind following Kelly and her team as they track down more criminals.