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authorrubyduvall's Reviews (154)
DNF 28%
The plot and characterization is a mess. Gabe and Eve's chemistry just comes off wrong. I also keep seeing weird, bad syntax in the narration.
The plot and characterization is a mess. Gabe and Eve's chemistry just comes off wrong. I also keep seeing weird, bad syntax in the narration.
DNF at 38%
When reading a book, I know I'll end up tapping out before the end if I keep taking breaks from it. With Igniting Ivy, I took a lot of breaks.
Some of that is on me. I'm a new mom (after years of struggle), so the reason for Ivy's "sad eyes" was pretty personal. However, I don't think I would have enjoyed the book (or finished it) even without my difficult experience with motherhood because the first third is completely bogged down by Ivy's grief. I remember checking my percent-read at one point and being shocked that I wasn't even a third of the way through. I was also really uncomfortable with the protags starting up a sexual relationship when one of them was clearly not in the right mental space for it. (The hero was also in a rough spot romantically, but he at least was on the road to recovery.)
Igniting Ivy wallows in Ivy's pain, and its obsession with every detail of her trauma kept driving me to seek out other stories. Most egregious was the presence of multiple flashbacks—painful ones—and I began skipping them entirely. Never did I have trouble understanding the story despite not reading more of Ivy's tragic past, which only proves that the flashbacks were unnecessary—that is, unless the point of them was to exhaust the reader.
I'm pretty bummed, to say the least. I was excited to start a firefighter romance series, and even though Bass seems like a great guy who saves little girls from drowning, he was on vacation the whole time (no fires to put out) and the poor guy was tiptoeing around Ivy, who was either crying or on the verge of crying the entire time. Rather than enjoy the anticipation of their barriers to each other crumbling, I was constantly cringing with worry.
When reading a book, I know I'll end up tapping out before the end if I keep taking breaks from it. With Igniting Ivy, I took a lot of breaks.
Some of that is on me. I'm a new mom (after years of struggle), so the reason for Ivy's "sad eyes" was pretty personal. However, I don't think I would have enjoyed the book (or finished it) even without my difficult experience with motherhood because the first third is completely bogged down by Ivy's grief. I remember checking my percent-read at one point and being shocked that I wasn't even a third of the way through. I was also really uncomfortable with the protags starting up a sexual relationship when one of them was clearly not in the right mental space for it. (The hero was also in a rough spot romantically, but he at least was on the road to recovery.)
Igniting Ivy wallows in Ivy's pain, and its obsession with every detail of her trauma kept driving me to seek out other stories. Most egregious was the presence of multiple flashbacks—painful ones—and I began skipping them entirely. Never did I have trouble understanding the story despite not reading more of Ivy's tragic past, which only proves that the flashbacks were unnecessary—that is, unless the point of them was to exhaust the reader.
I'm pretty bummed, to say the least. I was excited to start a firefighter romance series, and even though Bass seems like a great guy who saves little girls from drowning, he was on vacation the whole time (no fires to put out) and the poor guy was tiptoeing around Ivy, who was either crying or on the verge of crying the entire time. Rather than enjoy the anticipation of their barriers to each other crumbling, I was constantly cringing with worry.
DNF at 65%.
This book needs some work. Another round or two of developmental edits, for starters. An intriguing premise, but the execution was abysmal. Overall, the writing is artless. The plot careens from one scene to the next. It's almost like the author made a ton of notes for her first draft's outline (if she made any notes at all), and instead of condensing things or tossing out ideas that were a little too tiresome or really diving deep into character relationships/arcs/motivations--instead of doing any of that, she just put it into some semblance of an order and then wrote it. "A Certain Wolfish Charm" read to me like a serial fanfic: lots of horniness at all times with a very seat-of-the-pants sort of plot.
I also didn't like certain aspects of the relationship between the hero and heroine. He's pretty much an "alphahole" half the time, and she never seems to have a normal reaction to most things. Oh she does cluck her disapproval a bit, but she lets other characters bowl her over constantly. Many times, she lets something drop that a normal person really would not just let go. And as a reader, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, if she were normal, she'd be out of there in two minutes and never go back, and then the book would be over." But of course the book can't be over, so the heroine ends up simply wringing her hands over things like "the duke and my nephew keep getting into violent altercations in private."
I really wanted to like this book--regency werewolves, how fun!--but this author's writing just isn't for me.
This book needs some work. Another round or two of developmental edits, for starters. An intriguing premise, but the execution was abysmal. Overall, the writing is artless. The plot careens from one scene to the next. It's almost like the author made a ton of notes for her first draft's outline (if she made any notes at all), and instead of condensing things or tossing out ideas that were a little too tiresome or really diving deep into character relationships/arcs/motivations--instead of doing any of that, she just put it into some semblance of an order and then wrote it. "A Certain Wolfish Charm" read to me like a serial fanfic: lots of horniness at all times with a very seat-of-the-pants sort of plot.
I also didn't like certain aspects of the relationship between the hero and heroine. He's pretty much an "alphahole" half the time, and she never seems to have a normal reaction to most things. Oh she does cluck her disapproval a bit, but she lets other characters bowl her over constantly. Many times, she lets something drop that a normal person really would not just let go. And as a reader, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, if she were normal, she'd be out of there in two minutes and never go back, and then the book would be over." But of course the book can't be over, so the heroine ends up simply wringing her hands over things like "the duke and my nephew keep getting into violent altercations in private."
I really wanted to like this book--regency werewolves, how fun!--but this author's writing just isn't for me.
DNF 33%.
The writing was very dry. The romantic tension was next to nonexistent. Several times, a scene would pause for multiple pages to recall a conversation in the past (in too much detail, all of it dry and boring). I kept thinking to myself, "Why is this conversation here? It's not adding anything to the story and could be summarized in one paragraph."
One scene had the H/h meeting unexpectedly in the library at night, and the resulting conversation was so polite and bereft of desire that I wondered what the point of it was.
I began skimming, which is never a good sign. Then the H/h had their first kiss. I did a literal double-take because it was so out of nowhere. There's no buildup. The H/h are still just so polite. What is going on??
I feel this book would've greatly benefited from (another?) round of thorough developmental edits. Re-arrange conversations, cut the unnecessary detail, and dig deeper for more meaningful interactions (or at least more unspoken longing). The writing overall is competent, but the story itself was, in a word, boring. :(
The writing was very dry. The romantic tension was next to nonexistent. Several times, a scene would pause for multiple pages to recall a conversation in the past (in too much detail, all of it dry and boring). I kept thinking to myself, "Why is this conversation here? It's not adding anything to the story and could be summarized in one paragraph."
One scene had the H/h meeting unexpectedly in the library at night, and the resulting conversation was so polite and bereft of desire that I wondered what the point of it was.
I began skimming, which is never a good sign. Then the H/h had their first kiss. I did a literal double-take because it was so out of nowhere. There's no buildup. The H/h are still just so polite. What is going on??
I feel this book would've greatly benefited from (another?) round of thorough developmental edits. Re-arrange conversations, cut the unnecessary detail, and dig deeper for more meaningful interactions (or at least more unspoken longing). The writing overall is competent, but the story itself was, in a word, boring. :(
DNF. Got about halfway and just wasn’t invested anymore. The pacing was sloppy, Blythe (heroine) came across as a little too perfect, and Michael (hero) didn’t confess all when he should’ve (namely, before bedding her). I also came across more typos than usual (they exist in almost every book but this one has more of them) and the Kindle version of the book had weird paragraph spacing. Overall I just didn’t see chemistry between the hero and heroine.
DNF. But if you like your stories subtly contemptuous of fidelity and overly obsessed with women but only for their potential for sexual gratification to a male narrator, then this book might be for you.
In the first three short stories, all from the perspectives of different male narrators, the author describes a nonwhite woman with the word "exotic"—which is not only othering but is also repetitive.
I did like the fourth story about a widower finally realizing that he needs to do housework that he formerly left up to his wife. The narrative weaves in a story about what makes up house dust, and uses it to suggest that the dust in his house still has traces of his wife, even if her ultimate "manifestation" in the story is horrific.
But then the fifth story of a man whose been married for 20 years begins, and he lays blame for his discontent (and his "indiscretions") on his wife for not fucking him often enough. That they have a routine makes him think of the adage "familiarity breeds contempt," and I closed the book in disgust at that.
Overall, I wished the stories I did read had done more to ground the characters. In a couple, the male narrators are simply living their lives and the horror that slips in does so without any thematic or metaphoric relationship. To put it simply with my own made-up example, "John is worried about losing his job. We'll talk about that for four pages and slip in references to a 'headache.' The morning of his annual performance review, he wakes up to find he now has the head of a horse. The end." Like, where is this horror coming from? How does it relate to the character's actions or their existential dread or ANYTHING? Honestly, the reason I liked (not loved, LIKED) the widower story was because it at least tied into SOMETHING else in the narrative. (Caveat: the first story about a drug addict cheating on his doormat of a girlfriend and turning into a literal monster does at least make metaphorical sense.)
In the first three short stories, all from the perspectives of different male narrators, the author describes a nonwhite woman with the word "exotic"—which is not only othering but is also repetitive.
I did like the fourth story about a widower finally realizing that he needs to do housework that he formerly left up to his wife. The narrative weaves in a story about what makes up house dust, and uses it to suggest that the dust in his house still has traces of his wife, even if her ultimate "manifestation" in the story is horrific.
But then the fifth story of a man whose been married for 20 years begins, and he lays blame for his discontent (and his "indiscretions") on his wife for not fucking him often enough. That they have a routine makes him think of the adage "familiarity breeds contempt," and I closed the book in disgust at that.
Overall, I wished the stories I did read had done more to ground the characters. In a couple, the male narrators are simply living their lives and the horror that slips in does so without any thematic or metaphoric relationship. To put it simply with my own made-up example, "John is worried about losing his job. We'll talk about that for four pages and slip in references to a 'headache.' The morning of his annual performance review, he wakes up to find he now has the head of a horse. The end." Like, where is this horror coming from? How does it relate to the character's actions or their existential dread or ANYTHING? Honestly, the reason I liked (not loved, LIKED) the widower story was because it at least tied into SOMETHING else in the narrative. (Caveat: the first story about a drug addict cheating on his doormat of a girlfriend and turning into a literal monster does at least make metaphorical sense.)
I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Fleshed out characters, believable motivations, overall fantastic writing, and A+ chemistry between the hero and heroine. The one disappointment was the love scenes. They were shorter and less explicit than I’d have liked. (There’s lots of lovely kissing but any oral is brief and spoken of vaguely, and the culmination is a little purple prose-y.) After all the de-light-ful sexual tension, I was really looking forward to something more explicit but alas. As this is simply a personal preference, I didn't dock the rating and I'll certainly read the next book in the series, but I figured other readers might want to know.
Something about this story just seemed...abbreviated. I felt like there should've been another layer, somehow. And the last 15-20% or so was the MCs wrapping up their old hurts, which is...fine, but it really undermined any tension.