Continuing my review of free ebooks in regards to whether they are stand-alone adventures, and therefore part of a series worth buying, we start with the fourth book from the "Paranormal 13" set.
"Rest For the Wicked (Clair Wiche Book 1)" gets away from the romance
angle featured in the first 3 books, although you can see enough that it might come up later. That's acceptable;
as long as it's not the focus of the book, I'm fine with it. The
characters did almost overcome an obstacle, but it just didn't seem
complete to me. Without reading other books, I can't tell whether that
"adventure" is complete and the next books will be new ones, or whether
they will continue the same adventure after the characters find they
didn't really finish it. Regardless, that's not enough for me to go on
to be willing to buy the second book, and it didn't overall interest me enough to check a library for it.
"Drowning Mermaids"
is another female-lead book with some romance angle, but again, not the
primary focus. In this case, it does end up being an integral part of
the story. Not to say it couldn't have been written some other way; but
the way it is written, the adventure wouldn't work without one
character in particular being driven by the love interest. Like a
horror story where one of the pivotal characters chooses NOT to spend
the night at the abandoned cabin. Sure, it's still a horror story for
the ones that go in, but they die in the first few chapters while the
other character goes out and orders a pizza. But I digress. The book
creates a new mermaid mythos and could create a realm in which different
books could be different adventures. But it probably won't, since the
first book didn't only really served to prove the love interest and get
the characters fully introduced to the realm. Spoiler: the entire book
talks about this big war, and one quick battle is fought at the end of
the book. So, maybe the next book turns it into a military strategy
series or something, and the battles are the adventures, but it didn't
grab. I enjoyed reading it, but won't buy or even check the library for the next one.
I
had high hopes for "I Bring the Fire Book 1 (A Loki Story)".
It is a new twist on the Norse mythology, and again is ripe for
multiple adventures. And I kept hoping they were going to finish this
adventure to the point that I could say, "Yup, that's not a cliffhanger,
let's read the next book." But no such luck. The book ends up just
spending a lot of time hinting at problems in magic, possible twists to
the mythology that even Loki is as yet unaware of, and possible memory
augmentation, and then you need to buy the next book. It was a good
read, with humor thrown in to boot, and I enjoyed it. A series I'll
check the library for, but another one I won't buy on principal.
"The
Wich Hunter (Witch Hunter Saga Book 1)" was another one I had high
hopes for. And right up until the end, I thought they were going to
finish an adventure. In fact, I thought they did, and then the author
threw a twist in so that the next book has to start at the cliffhanger.
It was a good story, and if the author had not thrown in the twist, I
might have bought the second book. Not now. It also had a little too
much gratuitous romance in it for me, but YMMV.
"Beyond
the Fortune Teller's Tent" is the first book in the set that seemed to
finish an adventure. I have no idea where another book in the series
would go, but I'll try and find out. The problem is that the adventure
involved the lead character (a girl if it matters) getting sent back in
time against her will. She finishes the adventure and then ends up back
in modern times. But the way she traveled seems to indicate a
one-time-deal. I've read other series that started on similar
principals, but the character stayed in the new world and the adventures
took place there. So the author is either going to have to continue
one-time travels similar to "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", or
the further adventures will be modern and completely unrelated. It may
mean a completely different feel and I may not like the next one, but
we'll see.
That's as many as I've read so far. I'll try to make each post a single review from here on out.
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