Odesa

It's Werewolves, Leave Rationale at the Door

Revisado: 10-11-24

Billionaire Boss werewolf rejected mate romance. That's a mouthful, just like they had. haha. The book is great. I listened to the subsequent two as well. My only thing is that it gets too drawn out for me by book three and I began skipping ahead because I couldn't listen to them (it was either her being like, "i'm not good enough" or him being like, "How can I be alpha with a human mate.") one more time. The first ten times were okay but then I was like, Jesus, come on already by book three.

The romantic scenes are great and there are a lot of them. This book ends on a cliffhanger but it doesn't matter because the others are there. I only bought the first three and enjoyed them because after that I really didn't care anymore what happened to this couple, they weren't really moving forward. So I never got to married, just mated. But if you're just here for the intimacy then you're in the right place. Renee Rose is always hit or miss for me, but this was definitely a bullseye. The narration is good, especially the female voice.

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This was okay. I think I am too old

Revisado: 09-21-24

It's a good romance written by someone outside the werewolf vampire romances. As someone who reads in the genre, some of the *I'm just making this up as I go along* was a bit iffy for me and cringe worthy. As a grown woman I had a lot of eye rolling, but there were some good parts too. However, I expect most of these glowing reviews come from contemporary romance readers, not paranormal.

First, and this is a small thing, but it sets the stage for the book. I was annoyed that the author and apparently all her editors do not know that a viola would not play the main part in any quartet unless the first and second violin and the cello was violently ill and then to salvage something the viola would step in and make the best of a terrible situation. Honestly, don't write about things if you don't know especially in the beginning of the book because then I am questioning everything else.

Next, the FMC hating on a 6 year old child in the first half of the book is grating. I know a lot of young women struggle with the decision to have children, *as they ought to do*. It's life changing for women and every adult knows a man isn't going to be around to help, but honestly, don't be like, "Ick, I dont know anything about children." Everyone was a child once (and the MC refers back to her childhood on every page so it's not as if she joined the cut-throat world of business and hasn't been a child for 50 years. [Maybe this is because the MC is still acting like a child herself relying on her brother/father/husband to guide her life instead of making her own decisions]) and it was through the sacrifice of others, mostly women, that children are raised well. This is called humanity and I'm really tired of young women thinking they sprung from the sea like the goddess Aphrodite and don't owe mothers or children any kindness, respect or understanding.

But I listened on despite this because the author excels at telling a great story. She writes good conversation for young people and builds great characters (and her female character kind of understood about children in the end, I stress "kind of"). I might give her a few years to mature before I pick up one of her books again, I'm sure child free women in their twenties and younger absolutely love this book though. The immaturity around marriage, responsibility, and children, this book has it in spades.

Do not read this book for the author's intimate scenes if you're a paranormal reader. These were stunted and not very sexy. Despite there being all this talk of mating, the MMC is a reluctant and less than competent lover. In addition, the FMC despite talking all the time about how vampires have no morals around sex, she 's just as ridiculously prude as her husband. And in a book that society is clearly set by the patriarchy (but I don't think the author realizes how much men guide her life), with extremely rigid rules around the sexes in both werewolf and vampire society, the MC actually then says during a make out session, "assigned female at birth". It was so out of place, I laughed out loud.

Also, as husband and wife, they go looking for a condom even though it's been discussed at length that a child cannot be produced between the species or in the best case it would be very difficult (Anna the child is the product of one of these unions). But it's also unclear why this would be a bad thing if they were trying to untie werewolves and vampires in peace. It's the age old thing, forced marriage for a treaty and have as many children as possible. By the MMC not wanting to do this it makes him seem really foolish. And the FMC had already proved herself immature by this point so I was not surprised in the least that she would be afraid of being a mother as she's still a child herself. Like I said, if you're a grown woman you are going to roll your eyes hard at these scenes.

I listened to it on audio and the narration was good. It was interesting that the woman POV was in first person and the male POV in third (and had only 15 minutes throughout the whole book-but I suspect this is another modern woman thing, who cares what the man is thinking, it's all about me and my thoughts).. But this is probably what also made the audio less than what it would have been had they both in the same POV.

So it's a 4* from me. As I said in my title I think I am just too old for this one. Give me a bodice ripper any day of the week, but those are no longer PC and this book couldn't get any more PC.

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I cannot believe I waited two years plus numerous

Revisado: 07-19-23

The forward read by Robin Miles (which is what is used for the preview, [so you think the narration is a middle-aged woman is okay, but she only reads the forward for five minutes]): Geez, and the forward... I imagine Kathleen Woodwiss wouldn’t have cared for any of this. So, I continued listening, but seriously there’s no need to have a prefix for 99.9% of the population. Or an explanation about why a romance novel was written the way it was in the 1970s (or make excuses that the people in the book are white. [It takes place in England and colonial America in the 18th century]). Even the narrator was probably an adult in the 70s. It’s not an ancient, obscure historical era to English speakers, and especially not to romance readers.

I listened to all 29 hours of this while I did the housework over the past three days.

The narrator Cassandra York is at least 70, if not 80 years old. She is not someone you want to listen to portraying the part of young men and women or narrating romance; no offense to Ms. York, she's a very capable narrator, just not right for this, in my opinion. I cannot believe that Harper Audio produced this book, and all the people behind the production thought, “Yes, let’s choose a mature woman to read this.”

In addition, I wouldn't normally mention other books in a review, but this has to be said as it's the elephant in the room since Diana Gabaldon uses the same name 'Beauchamp' and even though there is a small section in book one, "Outlander," where she uses the English pronunciation of the name still, with the popularity of the Outlander series and the use of the French name and since "Shanna" it’s not said how the surname is pronounced, (it could very much have been the French way) it would have been prudent if Harper Audio knew anything about the romance readers/listeners of the 21st century to choose the French pronunciation for this narration. Also, the other male accents are all over the place, but that is nothing new for Americans and can be overlooked. However, Beauchamp though is a big mistake, in my opinion, and it really took away from the audio every time I heard it.

You can check all my reviews, folks; my bar is very low when it comes to bad audio. I listen to indie authors and indie narrators, I just love a great story and audio. But Harper Audio ruined this wonderful book.

I am sure it was commissioned by one of these people who think that audio listeners don’t matter and will listen to anything (I mean, some of the authors putting their audiobooks up with AI narration and think that we want to listen to that or it’s the same. What? I would like to ask them if they would watch a movie with AI actors and if that’s the same?)

This audiobook needs to be redone by a younger narrator with a director, and the forward needs to be written and read by an actual romance author or reader, not a woke person who is clearly very confused about romance and why it exists in human societies and what it means to women who read romance.

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I'm working my way backwards through these

Revisado: 04-14-22

Which I probably shouldn't do.

I really liked this one though. Our lead character werewolf is looking for her place in the community since she doesn't fit in that well with her pack. I don't want to say too much or else I will give away spoilers and since there are already 2,000 plus reviews on this audiobook anyway, you all can read and find what you want.

Molly Harper and Amanda Ronconi once again have created a very sweet and nice romance about a werewolf and a vampire falling in love in Half Moon Hollow. I can highly recommend this book for a feel-good listen.

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Not a favorite from the series but still worth it

Revisado: 04-14-22

I have listened to all of Molly Harper's Mystic Bayou and now I'm working my way sporadically through her backlist. I think Amanda Ronconi does an excellent job narrating these stories. However, I wasn't just a big fan of Gigi and the rest of the gang. Maybe it's because I haven't listened to the first books in the series that these people that seemed to like each other and get along way too well it bothered me. This is the only thing about Molly Harper that can really make me roll my eyes when the friends are "too perfect" "too caring" etc. I would still recommend this to any Molly Harper fans though.

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It reads like a fumblingly of a teenage boy

Revisado: 03-23-22

Oooppps, oh my goodness, I must have accidentally bought this one too. I decided to listen to this just in case the author got better in book two as she touts herself as someone who knows all about erotica on social media and is always plugging her books and saying it’s a bestseller (I guess anyone can say they are a ‘bestseller’ somewhere these days). Anyway, fellow listeners don’t believe the hype. This audiobook is also not good. It’s worse than the first audiobook in this series. If it were more expensive, I’d be exchanging it. This is a shot in the dark by an inexperienced writer about what they imagine sex might be like. I would reckon Ms. Sommer is in her early twenties, at most, and really hasn’t got much first-hand experience with erotica which is why her stories come off flat, immature, and unsexy.

I also didn’t like the narration. Words were mispronounced or missed altogether. I don’t know if that is Ms. Sommer’s manuscript with the problems or the narrator’s issues. I would not recommend this audiobook, it reads like a fumblingly of a teenage boy with a girl for the first time.

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I would not recommend this title.

Revisado: 03-23-22

This audiobook is not good. It’s worse than not good. If it were more expensive, I would be returning it for my $6.08 back. However, my wasting that small amount of money is worth being able to warn other audiobook listeners that this isn’t really erotica, it’s a shot at sex by someone who is unfamiliar with sex, men, or what erotica is really supposed to be about. I do not recommend this at all unless you are in the mood for scenes written by someone either very inexperienced or very young. Not for me at all.

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Hmmm when rensonance is turned off

Revisado: 03-23-22

I am not sure how I felt about this story. It was a good story for sure, but was it romantic? Yes, I guess so, Was it sexy? Questionable.

Mari has a healer turn off her parasite's resonance to save her mate. He is still resonating with her but she is not with him. So she needs to learn how to like his touch. I know this is just science fiction romance, but you cannot really learn to like someone's touch. You either are attracted to them or you are not. It is nature and biology and nothing that can be controlled which is what is so fun about the Ice Planet Series that for the most part everyone is more or less equal and all the men are more or less of good character and are built like Chris Hemsworth but with horns and blue. And then no matter who you resonate to that is fine because you are attracted to them like crazy for Blue Planet evolutionary purposes. Fine.

However, in the real world so many women, especially in places like the US, marry men they are not necessarily attracted to because they need to or because he is good enough. Not to say that these are bad people or bad guys, but there's not a spark of lust. The relationship between Mari and her husband was so reminiscent of some of my middle-aged friends telling me about a lack of spark in their intimate relationships and even though it works out for Mari and her man, in the end, it doesn't in real life and I didn't want to even be reminded of the relationships my friends, both men and women signed up for because it is kind of depressing. I love Ruby Dixon to escape the reminder that people don't have. The narration by Sean Crisden and Felicity Munroe was great as always. They are the Ice Home voices and although they are similar in style to Hollie Jackson, et al. I find their different takes on this alien world refreshing.

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I always liked Z

Revisado: 03-23-22

This is a very short novella (for JR Ward short) 3 and a half hours long about Bella, Z, and their newborn daughter. As always JR Ward does a great job of taking us through the tragedies some of her characters have been through and how they struggle to come out the other side without being completely crazy. I think Z struggled a lot walking that line and for good reason.

One of the things I love the most about JR Ward's books is that bad things sometimes happen to her characters and they must deal with those things. It's not like other romances where bad things happen but then suddenly everything is fine. Unfortunately, life isn't like that and as I am not a child, I want to read about characters that struggle with things too and also have amazing sex lives. Doesn't everyone want that?

I would recommend this book to anyone familiar with the BDB series and of course, Jim Frangione does an amazing job narrating this novella.

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It's always a bit creepy when you see someone who

Revisado: 03-23-22

It's always a bit creepy when you see someone who looks like your dead wife. Tres meets a vampire who looks exactly like his dead wife and you can imagine. This was a great short (short for JR Ward coming in just shy of ten hours) narrated by Jim Frangione who I am totally taken in with now even though I was so skeptical in the first audiobook I listened to narrated by him.

I can recommend this book if you are already well aware of the BDB world. I would not recommend it as a standalone and even though some of the brothers make appearances it is all about the Tres and more his life. I enjoyed it.

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