Review: Pass the sap
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 20, 2012
Nightshifters is an anthology by Tamelia Tumlin of two very short stories and a longer one at the end. The copy is clean--I found one missing quote mark. Clean copy makes IBR happy. That's about all that made me happy.In For Better or Worse, Kate discovers her husband is a werewolf, and follows him at that special time of the month to confront him. Nothing much happens, likely because of the brevity of the tale.Blind Love finds a cursed doctor rescuing a woman blinded by a plane crash. Can she love him despite his deformity? Hints of Beauty and The Beast.Seducing The Night is by far the most interesting of the trio, and the lengthiest. There's an actual love scene involving "pulsating manhood," an evil villain, even a Magical Negro! Our heroine discovers she must save her son by killing the boy's father. Rana is a Dhampir, and supposed to be a big bad vampire hunter. Mostly she drops her stakes.Nightshifters, though not incompetently written, is full of cliches and awkward phraseology. The dialogue is stilted at best, and there is no differentiation between one cardboard character and the next. There are small continuity errors in each story. For example, in the first story it's clear that the couple have been married for at least a year, as they keep referring to their vows, yet, near the end of the story, the hero says: "...if you still want to marry me..." Uh, what? In the second story, I was left wondering where the heroine got plumeria perfume when all her belongings were destroyed in the plane crash, but that one is easily shrugged away.I want to say don't write off Tumlin, because she has plenty of room to grow. The problem is, this is her eighth and most recent title on Amazon, so the growing should have happened already.If it's free, and you are up for a romance cliche drinking game, I recommend Nightshifters. Otherwise, not so much.Reviewed by Indie Book Reviewer