by Penny Angeles-Tan | Nov 21, 2022 | Book Reviews
It is nearly Christmas I decided to give Shy Girls Can’t Date at Christmas by Milly Rose a try. This book is definitely targeted at a younger audience such as teenagers.
The story for me was confusing because it didn’t feel like the author had her thoughts together when she started writing. This is why outlining is essential. It takes several chapters to answer basic questions like … what happened to the neighborhood? How can the death of Ava’s mom have such a devastating effect on everyone who lived in their cul-de-sac that everyone (literally everyone!) seemed to cease functioning normally? Why is Beau’s mom upset with Ava? Why does Ava’s dad hate Beau? I don’t understand!
I don’t even think calling Ava shy is appropriate. Before her mom passed away she wasn’t so freaked out all the time. Being freaked out is not synonymous with being shy. If at all, the only time she really exhibited behavior that could be deemed shy is in the first two or three chapters.
After ten chapters we discover that Beau’s “acting out” started as a way to get his parents’ attention. How original! (sigh) And, apparently, four years later, even after he acknowledges this as truth, he still can’t help but continue to do it even though he says “it is useless”. How does that make sense? Also, he stopped being a bully when he was able to spend time with Ava.
Twenty chapters in and while a relationship develops between the two, I still don’t know why there is a stick up the parents’ collective butts. I think it is an important detail that will help explain and perhaps resolve parental issues in the book.
To be honest, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I hoped I would since I love young love and Christmas stories. At best I would say it is okay. It’s on Amazon if you want to give it a try.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Nov 18, 2022 | Book Reviews
In all ghost stories I’ve ever read, it is said that ghosts don’t age but are frozen at the age they died at. Haunt by Rachel H. Drake says otherwise. I initially thought it would follow the same story arc as the movie Ghost starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. But this story is nothing like it at all unless you count the fact that William is a ghost.
Yes, it is a love story. Yes, The guy, William is not corporeal … but is he really a ghost? William has been Emily’s constant companion since she was 6 years old and was crying because of her father. He could only make his presence felt with cold breezes. Over time they develop simple communication to answer yes and no questions.
William never left her side and as time passed their relationship changed and matured and Emily started to fantasize about having a sexual relationship with her ghost. A glass dildo and a visit to a medium started the ball rolling in that direction.
There is a lot of sex between William and Emily in this book, especially once it is revealed that William is actually an incubus who was killed by an energy vampire. But since he found an anchor in Emily, he did not move on but instead grew up with her. When William died he was only 11 years old, making him 5 years older than Emily.
To make this story interesting there are critical moments, all of which have sex involved (of course!) as an important medium of energy transfer. One instance was a ritual to make William “real” and involved a stinky douchebag.
Things to note:
- William’s dick is like a Stojo collapsing cup. It is ridged and gets wider the further you go down.
- They started their communication with cold breezes so where cold showers kill the mood for most people, it just turned Emily on.
- William’s family had the foresight to set up his estate so that when he came back he was nowhere near destitute and Emily would not have to work, ever! They could just spend their days having sex.
- As an incubus and part-energy vampire, their relationship is perfect because they can just feed off each other.
Haunt by Rachel H. Drake is a sex-filled light reading with a guaranteed HEA and will be on Amazon soon.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Nov 14, 2022 | Book Reviews
I was not prepared for the emotional roller coaster I’d find myself on once I started reading Huge Dare by Stephanie Brother.
Ellie is a beautiful young woman who tends to live her life cautiously but once she is dared to do something she throws caution to the wind and does it. The dare becomes her reason to be reckless and free. One dare after another leads to her participating in a childish game of 7 minutes in heaven at her best friend’s birthday party. She is guided into the closet blindfolded expecting to ward off one man, only to discover that she was locked in there with three!
Things take a surprising turn when instead of being scared, Ellie finds herself excited as one man holds her from behind and kisses her neck, another worships her breasts, and another has his face buried between her thighs.
7 minutes of heaven indeed! As time runs out her best friend calls out her name and reality seeps in. The men let go when they realize who she is. As she stepped out of the closet disheveled and dazed she looked back and saw a tattoo she recognized and she realized the same thing they did … she just made out with her stepbrothers!
Colby, Seb, and Micky are identical triplets. Their dad married Ellie’s mom 7 years ago and from the moment they saw Ellie, they fell for her, hard. Each triplet handled their attraction to Ellie differently based on their personalities. Micky is playful and friendly, Seb likes to joke around, and Colby is broody and snarky. Ellie, on the other hand, always seemed to treat them with disdain, mostly because she was quietly jealous of how much her mom seemed to love them more than her.
But the dare that led her into the closet proved to be the catalyst for her recognizing her attraction to them. A dare from another friend leads her to seek the bed of one brother, which led to another and another.
Huge Dare by Stephanie Brother ends with happily ever after. Reading from the perspective of each of them brought me to such emotional highs and lows that I just couldn’t stop reading! I needed to finish this book before I could sleep! In the end, the only thing I feel is good.
It will be available on Amazon on Nov. 15 for only 2.99.
After reading this book you can read the bonus content here.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Nov 9, 2022 | Book Reviews
Stories like The Wallflower and the Alpha’s by Addison Winters annoy me because it has a lot of potential but the author is lazy, inattentive, and uncaring. Let me list down the reasons why this author gets my goat.
Massive proofreading/editing issues
She does not edit her work or get a proofreader or editor to help her make her story better.
- She can’t make up her mind if she is “speaking” in the first or third person.
- She messes up her pronouns. Male pronouns are him, he, and his. Female pronouns are her, she, and hers.
- She messes up her tenses.
- She can’t keep track of her POV.
- She does not know how to use figures of speech correctly. She just uses them because she feels like it whether they are appropriate or not. Research first!
- An apostrophe is used to denote ownership, so the title of the book should be “The Wallflower and the Alphas” not “The Wallflower and the Alpha’s” which is the actual title. It is so wrong that my spellchecker keeps telling me to fix it.
Now, for those of you who have been reading my reviews, you know that I tend to be forgiving with spelling and grammar IF the story is good enough. What gets my goat is grammar and spellcheck are FREE! Word has it, GoogleDocs has it … there are even free apps available! Use any of them!
She doesn’t pay attention
And, like I said, this story has potential but needs a MAJOR REVAMP to be worth selling on Amazon (for 4.99 a pop!) and on Goodnovel for almost 3.5k coins. Other things this (I assume YOUNG) author needs to do:
- Know your proportions … two halves make a whole. Avery can’t be half-wolf, half-witch, and half-Veela … that is one “half” more than a whole person. To be precise you should have said PART wolf, witch, and Veela.
- Don’t get lost in the minutiae. We don’t need to know her entire “getting ready for school” routine from how she washes her hair, what body scrub he uses and why, applies makeup, applies deodorant and perfume, dries her hair, fixes her hair, walks naked to her room, chooses underwear, chooses clothes to wear, puts them on … and so on and so on. It’s unnecessary unless you were just after the word count.
- Keep track of where you are in the story! If you are confused, we are confused! Avery comes out of the shower of her ensuite in a towel, then Elijah and Jake come in and make out with her on the bed but she is suddenly in a dress. Then Avery is in a shed with Andrew (whoever that is) and walks away to go to the house then suddenly she is dry humping Elijah. What in the world?!? Make up your mind, are her clothes on or off? At one point she takes off her dress, and she is wearing it again, then you have her in a towel, then in a dress again.
- In love scenes, keep track of where everyone is … some of the positions you have them in is just not possible unless your participants are snakes or contortionists.
- Be aware of where your characters are supposed to be physically and mentally. You cannot have Avery scared of them one moment then suddenly okay with them eating her out at the back of the truck, and then scared to let them near her again wondering why they are looking at her “like that”.
- At the point where Elijah acknowledges that she is his mate and decides to win her over … why, oh, why are you still making him bully her? WTF is the logic in that? He just said he was going to stop doing that and would try to win her over then he trips her and embarrasses her in front of the entire school?!? Does that sound logical to you?
A very easy solution is to reread what you have written before writing the next chapter and then going from there.
Freytag’s pyramid
This is one of the reasons I felt the need to post about Freytag’s pyramid on my socials a while back. Anyone who wants to venture into writing with the intention of possibly making money out of it should care enough to make sure their audience enjoys the experience and to do that there has to be structure.
I am not ruling out non-linear storytelling. Non-linear can be fun! Case in point, Pulp Fiction … one of my favorite Quentin Tarantino movies. But even with non-linear stories, it still makes an effort to hit all the stars.
Bullying
I am not a fan of bully romances, although I have read a few. I try to keep an open mind and endeavor to understand the psyche of the characters to see why they are the way they are. Here are my thoughts:
- If the bully is an Alpha then he will not make a good alpha at all because he should be taking care of his pack members not making victims of them.
- Make her do his homework? OMG! So pathetic! Elijah is not just lazy, he is also stupid! And this is supposed to be their Alpha? I’d transfer to another pack.
- Big, burly boys stringing girls up a flagpole? Seriously? And everyone is just watching? How sick are the people in this school that they can just condone that? And where the fuck are the adults? What, not even a janitor in sight? Unbelievable!
- Avery’s mates bullied her for AT LEAST SIX YEARS which included physical, mental, and verbal abuse. Now that they all know that they are her mates they expect Avery to just forgive them … let bygones be bygones … because they will spend the rest of their lives making it up to her? Why did they pick on her in the first place? What did she do to them? NOTHING!
Ugh! I’m getting angry. I HATE BULLIES. And, honestly, considering how long they have been bullying her she should have either rejected them or at the very least made it more difficult for them to win her over. Her having a crush on them all this time DESPITE their bullying her leads me to think Avery seriously needs psychiatric help. I wish I could say it is masochism but, unfortunately, based on the author, she is always devastated and in tears when they bully her … so, why?!?
If you want to give this book a chance because there is actually a good story under all the junk you can find it on Goodnovel and other reading apps. If you want to “save money” and buy the book on Amazon, be warned that it comes in four parts at 4.99 each. The advantage of reading it on Amazon is you can return the book and ask for a refund. But you can only do that within a short period so read fast and if you love it, keep it. Otherwise, return it.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Nov 8, 2022 | Book Reviews
Dirty Talk with my Dad’s Best Friend by Flora Ferrari is a fairy tale. Love at “first sight”, forbidden love, figurative dragons to slay, and a happy resolution.
Hallie (19) is a freelance video editor. Her father, Graham, is a doctor, her mom, Janine, is a nurse, and her sister, Lila, to a psychology student. For the last 2 years, she has had a secret crush on Hayden, her dad’s best friend, and only her sister knows about it.
Hayden (45) is an independent news correspondent. For the last 2 years, he was overseas and spent the last few months a prisoner of terrorists. Upon his return, he is invited by his friend Graham, Hallie’s dad, to come and visit.
Although Hayden has known Hallie since she was a baby, he was never attracted to her until he sees her as an adult for the first time during his visit. Uncharacteristically, he found himself tongue-tied and lost for words as he gazed at her.
A late-night encounter in the kitchen for a glass of water between Hallie and Hayden quickly becomes heated as one look between them sends their passions soaring … but no sex. The following day, they resolve to tell Graham about what happened because they don’t want to stop (and want to go further) but fate has other plans as Graham announces that he was leaving for the West Coast that same day for a month-long work trip.
Out of respect for Graham, since they haven’t spoken to him yet, they decided on no more encounters … just on the phone. I think phone sex can be super hot if both parties are really into it. It could make the next physical encounter that much hotter.
Things get really hot between the two and for both, it is not just about sex. From the get-go, they are both secretly thinking of marriage and family. I thought that was really fast (and unrealistic) but that is not to say it cannot happen. Hallie is only 19 and has barely lived let alone dated, but from the moment she had a crush on Hayden, she was already dreaming of happily ever after with him.
For Hayden at 45, it is probably partially a biological clock thing, but how many men see a woman and decide that they want to get her pregnant from the first moment they see her? He even “saves his seed” by choosing not to masturbate because he says “all his seed belongs inside her”. rolls eyes
It is a feel-good story so if you are looking for light, fast reading, this fits the bill. Dirty Talk with My Dad’s Best Friend by Flora Ferrari is the 311th book of the “A Man Who Knows What He Wants” series. It will be available soon on Amazon.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
In all ghost stories I’ve ever read, it is said that ghosts don’t age but are frozen at the age they died at. Haunt by Rachel H. Drake says otherwise. I initially thought it would follow the same story arc as the movie Ghost starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. But this story is nothing like it at all unless you count the fact that William is a ghost.
I was not prepared for the emotional roller coaster I’d find myself on once I started reading Huge Dare by Stephanie Brother.
She does not edit her work or get a proofreader or editor to help her make her story better.
Dirty Talk with my Dad’s Best Friend by Flora Ferrari is a fairy tale. Love at “first sight”, forbidden love, figurative dragons to slay, and a happy resolution.
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