Review: Not their best works
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2012
This anthology was quick enough, I was able to knock it out in a day.The Blushing Bounder by Meljean Brook ~ My first introduction to a Brook's work was in the Burning Up anthology. Brook's work was entitled Here There Be Monsters. I totally loved her writing style. Later I picked up The Iron Duke. Though I'm not a fan of detective stories, her writing was still A+.Once again, Ms. Brooks does an excellent job with bringing her Iron Sea world to life in The Blushing Bounder. Brooks definitely has style when it comes to writing. My biggest gripe with this work was it seemed incomplete. The romance was cold then hot. It really lacked any sort of build up. One moment the heroine was standoffish and completely uninterested. Next thing I knew, she was in love. In my prior experience with Ms. Brook, she presented herself as a STRONG mystery writer. In this story, the mystery lacked substance and was only solved on a basic level. What was the motive?Vixen by Jill Myles ~ If I'm not mistaken, this was my first encounter with a Jill Myles work. It wasn't bad and I may or may not look for more of her works. One thing for certain, paranormal romances are a tough sell these days. It seems like everything's been done. That's the issue I faced with Ms. Myles' story. Like I said, it wasn't a bad read, and still entertaining, but the story lacked freshness and was quite predictable. Still, the sex scene was quite steamy.One item which has me all twisted is the idea of wild cats with a fox... odd to say the least. I wonder if her other books mix and match like that.Kitten-tiger & the Monk by Carolyn Crane ~ Of the three stories, Ms. Crane's work was the weakest. I was actually rather bummed, because she was the main reason I purchased this anthology. Majority of this story was backstory... I wouldn't be surprised if 75% of it was backstory with the remaining working on the relationship between Kitten-Tiger and the Monk. Even the relationship portion was highly predictable.One interesting item about this work is it's in past tense. I remember Mind Games throwing me for a loop when I first started reading it. I don't recall ever reading a book in present tense before Mind Games. It took some major adapting for me. After reading Kitten-Tiger and the Monk, I kind of wished Ms. Crane had stayed in the present tense. It might have discouraged her from loading the work with backstory.