Book Reviews: December 2021
It’s that time again: book reviews! This month I was looking for holiday/winter themed books and found a few titles that hit the mark.
The book images link directly to the Amazon page for each, and additional information (or links to buy) can be found on the author websites, listed at the end of each review. The books are listed in the order I read them.
Please note: The opinions below are my own. Writing is subjective to the reader, and not everyone will share my conclusions about the books listed below.
Jack Frost – Rebecca F. Kenney
The book begins with Emery, a photographer who is part of a team to study penguins in Antarctica. When she becomes separated from the team in a storm, she winds up falling through the ice into a deep cavern that leads to a castle sculpted deep beneath the frozen earth above. The castle belongs to the ice god/elemental Jack Frost. He saves her from hypothermia and takes an interest in her, though she is very resistant to his advances even after he follows her home to North Carolina.
While there are some supernatural/fantasy elements to this book, it is a romance novel—and one I really enjoyed. There is some action in the story (Jack is at war with a fire goddess), and it helps to cement the relationship between himself and Emery.
My only complaint (it’s a minor one, and I suspect the author did this on purpose) is that Emery took so long to figure out what she wanted. I was starting to get a little irritated with her character’s tendency to bounce between being enamored with Jack and being thoroughly suspicious of his motives to the point of hostility—as a reader, it was pretty clear Jack was a good guy and she was being ridiculous. But a few pages after I started to feel annoyed, she finally realized what she wanted and the rest of the story was great from that point on.
Jack Frost is a fun holiday-ish read with a very nice happily ever after ending. I definitely recommend it for fans of supernatural romance tales.
Author website: Rebecca F Kenney Books
Speed Bump – Barbara Avon
This is something of a prequel to Owl Eyes Motel, which I reviewed in September 2021. You can read my review of Owl Eyes Motel here.
Tony Mancini is a truck driver with a load of antiques to deliver on Christmas morning. He has a long way to travel, and hopes to get home in time to celebrate with his fiancé before the holiday is over, but is forced to stop on Christmas Eve in order to catch a few hours’ of rest. He makes the decision to stop at a strange motel off exit 666, known as Owl Eyes.
After several strange encounters that he can’t explain – and fears are the result of hallucinations – Tony resumes his journey. Unfortunately for him, things become stranger and more disturbing from there.
I purchased Speed Bump a few months ago after reading Owl Eyes Motel. When I learned it was set during Christmas, I decided hold off reading it until December, since it would fit the theme of this month’s blog better.
This is the third book I’ve read by Barbara Avon, and each one has a unique story and is wonderful in its own way. While this isn’t a happy holiday story, I enjoyed it very much. It’s definitely creepy and has one heck of a twist at the end. I recommend it for fans of the paranormal and horror genres.
Author website: barbaraavon.com
A Snowstorm of Magic – Robert L. Arrington
I picked this book up because the premise sounded interesting – paranormal meets sci-fi with some suspense thrown in. It begins with a young couple who were invited to a client’s/boss’s mountain mansion for the Christmas holiday. A blizzard is forecast, and they’re expecting to be there – and possibly stuck – for a few days. What they didn’t expect was to be confronted with hostile aliens intent on mind-controlling the human race, or several government agent witches sent to stop the alien threat with their magic.
The beginning of this book starts off a little slow, but once the action starts, things move relatively quickly. I liked the idea of this story, but the author had a tendency to solve problems with new uses of magic, which I felt detracted a bit from the overall tension/resolution of certain scenes.
There are a number of references in the book that made me believe another book (or possibly two) came before it. Nothing was confusing in that respect, however, and this book seemed to work well enough as a standalone. A Snowstorm of Magic was a unique take on paranormal investigations with a good dose of magic thrown in.
Author’s Twitter page: @rarrington5
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