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A review by alexauthorshay
Summoned by J.P. Jackson
4.0
Big thanks to J.P. Jackson and Nine Star Press for my first ever ARC! I'm excited to share this book with anyone who likes M/M fantasy with lots of romance in it but also wanted to give as honest a review as possible.
3.5 stars (70%) rated up for ingenuity and creativity
Because this is an ARC, I want to try to be a little more thorough than in my other reviews, especially because a lot of different variables inform my rating.
Overview:
Story: 4/5
Lore/Species: 5/5
Characters: 3/5
Ease of Reading: 5/5
Style: 3/5
STORY
I don't read a lot of romance-genre type fiction so it was an overall lighter story than I'm used to--the stakes weren't quite as high, the drama not quite as dramatic. But that isn't at all a reflection on the quality of the book, just my personal taste. I did like the story overall. A lot of elements (expanded on below) combined into a story I wasn't expecting and included takes on things both familiar and unfamiliar, making them fresh in unconventional ways. I couldn't quite give a 5/5 though because it left me wanting more. I wanted deeper into this story, as at times it felt a little summarized and breezed through during moments that could have been fleshed out and drawn the reader further in to the lives of the characters and the magic they live with.
While there were multiple plotlines within the story (Dev's journey, Dev's relationship journey, the bad guy's journey, Cam's journey, plus some others), I felt like none of them got enough space on the page to do them justice. It's a little hard to describe without spoilers, but it felt at times almost like the bad guy's story was separate from Dev's, and it definitely could have gotten an entire book to itself. Everything just felt so rushed and short, whisking me along as the pages turned when I wanted to slow down and dig into everything.
LORE/SPECIES
Vampires, werewolves, witches, all have been done to death... or so I thought. My absolute favorite part of this book were the creatures present and the history of magic sourcing and usage. I can't say with any certainty if any of these details have been "done" before, but they were new for me and I really enjoyed them. I definitely detected a little bit of a horror vibe from some species, especially the werewolves. Even the fae are nothing like Tinkerbell, and the more predatory, rough and raw, inhuman aspect of all the species was like a breath of fresh air.
Yes, there was romances between these various species, but it wasn't without pitfalls. How do you deal with a werewolf for a partner when they change on the full moon, or when their inner wolf says to hate witches and you are one? I had so many questions about why species were presented this way and how they came to be and where they came from, kind of to the point that I cared about the history more than the story on the actual page.
CHARACTERS
This was one of the less interesting aspects of the story for me. I am absolutely a character stickler, and by that I mean I want to know everything about the protagonist (and often their love interest), from what they like and dislike to what they think moment to moment to what motivates them to get up in the morning--characters are the #1 reason I read a book, trumping even the story itself. There were hints of character through the book (more detail under "Style" below), but as with the story, I wanted more. I kept getting little tidbits of interesting factoids and backstory here and there but then it got cut short by plot. History and current story absolutely have to be balanced, but to me the depth of the characters was sacrificed by how bare bones they came across. The non-witch and non-human characters in particular I would have loved to have a little more information from.
I was actually more intrigued by the villain(s) (though that's not new, I notoriously favor most bad guys over the heroes they face). They seemed to have a little more depth if only because their motives needed to be explained in more detail, whether to add sympathy or moral grey area. I still wanted to know LOTS more about them, but felt overall that I also learned the most about them.
I also feel obligated to mention that almost the entire cast of male characters are gay, and most of them are also bears (large, masculine, hairy men). Both of these things are rather rare in most of the books I read, so I think that was also a little bit distracting, in the sense of wondering how it's possible for such a high proportion of the characters to be gay and/or bears (though the gay part does have an explanation). I love LGBT fiction and M/M in particular, but for once I actually found myself wishing for a more diverse cast of characters, whether gender, appearance, or sexuality.
(I do find, however, that romance books and M/M in particular tend to cater to specific sub-audiences when it comes to "kinks". So those who like masculine bear romances, this book would be perfect for you. As a reader outside of this "sub-genre", I can't deny that it did put me off a little.)
EASE OF READING
I got through this book in a couple days (despite what my reading period shows). When I actually sat down and dedicated time to it, it was very easy to knock out a couple chapters in an hour or so. The language is accessible, not overly complicated or using big fancy words, and because Dev is new (relatively) to the world of magic, pretty much anything I as a reader wasn't sure of got explained to Dev by a more experienced character. In terms of why things happened, why characters did what they did, etc, I was never lost. Compared to the convoluted murder mysteries I've been reading lately it was actually a nice break to have only a few questions throughout the book instead of a constantly changing roster of them. I think sometimes you just need a story capable of entertaining without requiring a map or a family tree to keep track of everything.
STYLE
A bit related to pretty much every category previous, the style for me left a fair bit to be desired. I liked that this wasn't a book filled with large, complicated words, and it didn't take me 10 minutes to read a page because it was so dense with text. Instead, I wanted more text. I wanted more context, more character, more story, more everything. So on the one side, I feel like that means the author has technically done their job properly, because it had me wanting more. But I feel like wanting more in the "when is the next book coming out" sense is different from the "I want to know more about this book I'm reading right now" sense.
There was a lot of white space, a lot of placeholder dialogue (especially damn and what?) and shallow dialogue (stuff that didn't directly advance the plot), but what bothered me the most was the lack of description. I'm still not going to say this has anything to do with the quality of the book because this too is probably influenced by my personal preference. I have been told by a lot of other writers not to use "-ly" verbs or state emotions, and both of these occur in startling abundance in this book.
While on the one hand that means you don't have to guess what a character's mood or intention is because it's rather directly told on the page and thus you're unlikely to miss much, as you work through a book and get to know a character you get to know what certain things they do mean and over time those actions come to speak for themselves to save both author and reader from the paragraph detailing "he did X because Y, and Y always made him feel Z" etc.
I think this may be related to how many characters are cycled between throughout the book. It's not that long in terms of page count, and yet we jumped between 4 (I think even more at certain points) characters. Possibly part of it was the times when there were back to back page breaks as the perspective jumped between characters within a single scene (though I am VERY thankful there were at least the breaks as some writers just cover all the characters in the same scene and it gets clunky and confusing. So another point to 'ease of reading', for sure).
I think this also contributed to my feeling of needing more, because I never truly got comfortably situated in any one character's head; I was never with any one character long enough. Dev, as the protagonist, did have the most page time, but I think if you balanced Dev vs all other characters, he'd only have maybe 50% lead time. Considering that it felt like it was supposed to be his story, I felt like I didn't actually "see" him all that much.
FINAL VERDICT
In sum I am a super nitpicky person and it is no fault of this book for not scoring an 11/10 from me. I know what I like in my books and very rarely find all of those things together in one place. I would consider this book a tiny ways outside my usual "comfort zone", more heavy on the romance and lighter on the drama and violence than I usually go for, but I would not in any way call this a bad book. Not a perfect match for me but I'm just one reader, and no book is going to work for every person who reads it.
If you're like me and like deep characters and a complicated plotline, you might find this title lacking. But if you go more for a unique setup, steamy romance, and only a splash of horror with your drama, this book might be for you.
3.5 stars (70%) rated up for ingenuity and creativity
Because this is an ARC, I want to try to be a little more thorough than in my other reviews, especially because a lot of different variables inform my rating.
Overview:
Story: 4/5
Lore/Species: 5/5
Characters: 3/5
Ease of Reading: 5/5
Style: 3/5
STORY
I don't read a lot of romance-genre type fiction so it was an overall lighter story than I'm used to--the stakes weren't quite as high, the drama not quite as dramatic. But that isn't at all a reflection on the quality of the book, just my personal taste. I did like the story overall. A lot of elements (expanded on below) combined into a story I wasn't expecting and included takes on things both familiar and unfamiliar, making them fresh in unconventional ways. I couldn't quite give a 5/5 though because it left me wanting more. I wanted deeper into this story, as at times it felt a little summarized and breezed through during moments that could have been fleshed out and drawn the reader further in to the lives of the characters and the magic they live with.
While there were multiple plotlines within the story (Dev's journey, Dev's relationship journey, the bad guy's journey, Cam's journey, plus some others), I felt like none of them got enough space on the page to do them justice. It's a little hard to describe without spoilers, but it felt at times almost like the bad guy's story was separate from Dev's, and it definitely could have gotten an entire book to itself. Everything just felt so rushed and short, whisking me along as the pages turned when I wanted to slow down and dig into everything.
LORE/SPECIES
Vampires, werewolves, witches, all have been done to death... or so I thought. My absolute favorite part of this book were the creatures present and the history of magic sourcing and usage. I can't say with any certainty if any of these details have been "done" before, but they were new for me and I really enjoyed them. I definitely detected a little bit of a horror vibe from some species, especially the werewolves. Even the fae are nothing like Tinkerbell, and the more predatory, rough and raw, inhuman aspect of all the species was like a breath of fresh air.
Yes, there was romances between these various species, but it wasn't without pitfalls. How do you deal with a werewolf for a partner when they change on the full moon, or when their inner wolf says to hate witches and you are one? I had so many questions about why species were presented this way and how they came to be and where they came from, kind of to the point that I cared about the history more than the story on the actual page.
CHARACTERS
This was one of the less interesting aspects of the story for me. I am absolutely a character stickler, and by that I mean I want to know everything about the protagonist (and often their love interest), from what they like and dislike to what they think moment to moment to what motivates them to get up in the morning--characters are the #1 reason I read a book, trumping even the story itself. There were hints of character through the book (more detail under "Style" below), but as with the story, I wanted more. I kept getting little tidbits of interesting factoids and backstory here and there but then it got cut short by plot. History and current story absolutely have to be balanced, but to me the depth of the characters was sacrificed by how bare bones they came across. The non-witch and non-human characters in particular I would have loved to have a little more information from.
I was actually more intrigued by the villain(s) (though that's not new, I notoriously favor most bad guys over the heroes they face). They seemed to have a little more depth if only because their motives needed to be explained in more detail, whether to add sympathy or moral grey area. I still wanted to know LOTS more about them, but felt overall that I also learned the most about them.
I also feel obligated to mention that almost the entire cast of male characters are gay, and most of them are also bears (large, masculine, hairy men). Both of these things are rather rare in most of the books I read, so I think that was also a little bit distracting, in the sense of wondering how it's possible for such a high proportion of the characters to be gay and/or bears (though the gay part does have an explanation). I love LGBT fiction and M/M in particular, but for once I actually found myself wishing for a more diverse cast of characters, whether gender, appearance, or sexuality.
(I do find, however, that romance books and M/M in particular tend to cater to specific sub-audiences when it comes to "kinks". So those who like masculine bear romances, this book would be perfect for you. As a reader outside of this "sub-genre", I can't deny that it did put me off a little.)
EASE OF READING
I got through this book in a couple days (despite what my reading period shows). When I actually sat down and dedicated time to it, it was very easy to knock out a couple chapters in an hour or so. The language is accessible, not overly complicated or using big fancy words, and because Dev is new (relatively) to the world of magic, pretty much anything I as a reader wasn't sure of got explained to Dev by a more experienced character. In terms of why things happened, why characters did what they did, etc, I was never lost. Compared to the convoluted murder mysteries I've been reading lately it was actually a nice break to have only a few questions throughout the book instead of a constantly changing roster of them. I think sometimes you just need a story capable of entertaining without requiring a map or a family tree to keep track of everything.
STYLE
A bit related to pretty much every category previous, the style for me left a fair bit to be desired. I liked that this wasn't a book filled with large, complicated words, and it didn't take me 10 minutes to read a page because it was so dense with text. Instead, I wanted more text. I wanted more context, more character, more story, more everything. So on the one side, I feel like that means the author has technically done their job properly, because it had me wanting more. But I feel like wanting more in the "when is the next book coming out" sense is different from the "I want to know more about this book I'm reading right now" sense.
There was a lot of white space, a lot of placeholder dialogue (especially damn and what?) and shallow dialogue (stuff that didn't directly advance the plot), but what bothered me the most was the lack of description. I'm still not going to say this has anything to do with the quality of the book because this too is probably influenced by my personal preference. I have been told by a lot of other writers not to use "-ly" verbs or state emotions, and both of these occur in startling abundance in this book.
While on the one hand that means you don't have to guess what a character's mood or intention is because it's rather directly told on the page and thus you're unlikely to miss much, as you work through a book and get to know a character you get to know what certain things they do mean and over time those actions come to speak for themselves to save both author and reader from the paragraph detailing "he did X because Y, and Y always made him feel Z" etc.
I think this may be related to how many characters are cycled between throughout the book. It's not that long in terms of page count, and yet we jumped between 4 (I think even more at certain points) characters. Possibly part of it was the times when there were back to back page breaks as the perspective jumped between characters within a single scene (though I am VERY thankful there were at least the breaks as some writers just cover all the characters in the same scene and it gets clunky and confusing. So another point to 'ease of reading', for sure).
I think this also contributed to my feeling of needing more, because I never truly got comfortably situated in any one character's head; I was never with any one character long enough. Dev, as the protagonist, did have the most page time, but I think if you balanced Dev vs all other characters, he'd only have maybe 50% lead time. Considering that it felt like it was supposed to be his story, I felt like I didn't actually "see" him all that much.
FINAL VERDICT
In sum I am a super nitpicky person and it is no fault of this book for not scoring an 11/10 from me. I know what I like in my books and very rarely find all of those things together in one place. I would consider this book a tiny ways outside my usual "comfort zone", more heavy on the romance and lighter on the drama and violence than I usually go for, but I would not in any way call this a bad book. Not a perfect match for me but I'm just one reader, and no book is going to work for every person who reads it.
If you're like me and like deep characters and a complicated plotline, you might find this title lacking. But if you go more for a unique setup, steamy romance, and only a splash of horror with your drama, this book might be for you.