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Saturday, December 20, 2014

Trilogies - I hate 'em - Part 3

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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