As you may have noticed, reviews have been scarce at Monkey Bear Reviews of late. There’s a reason for this. The last three books I read were ones I either could not get into or actively disliked. Instead of prolonging my torture by devoting three normal-length reviews to these books, I’ve decided to go the lazy route and feature them in mini reviews.

The first book on my (s)hit list did not suck as such, but I couldn’t engage with it.

Brief Synopsis: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber is billed as Historical Fantasy. Eighteen-year-old Miss Percy Parker arrives at the Athens Academy to finish her education. She is an oddity in both appearance and ability, and is quite self-conscious in consequence. Percy is albino which inevitably draws stares. To ensure that people stare even more, she tries to disguise herself by wearing a turban and lavendar glasses. (This made absolutely no sense to me, but whatever.) In addition to being albino, Percy can see and hear ghosts. She has never revealed this ability to anyone for fear of being considered insane. The Athens Academy is also not quite what it seems. It is run by the mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman. Together with five friends, Alexi is part of a select circle with supernatural powers. Their task is to prepare for the war against evil and to await the arrival of a seventh helper.

My Verdict: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker is not really a bad book and I’m sure it would appeal to many readers. Unfortunately, it failed to engage my attention and I gave up halfway through. While I’m not a fan of too much info dump, I felt as if I’d been thrown into the story with no adequate background knowledge. Much is assumed, little is explained. The circle of six all have distinct personalities – or so I assume – but beyond the odd one-liner, we’re not given a true glimpse of their characters. We learn a little more about Alexi and Percy, but not enough to make me want to spend a whole book in their company. Although Alexi has potential, Percy seemed cold and uninteresting. If I don’t care about the characters, the book is a lost cause. I also got the impression that Alexi and Percy were gearing up for a romance. The age difference bothered me (he is 36 to her 18) but the teacher-student relationship disturbed me even more. Grade: DNF

The second book on my list was one which I finished, but it is not one I can recommend.

Speed Dating by Nancy Warren is part of the Harlequin NASCAR series. I downloaded it for free from the Harlequin website. Given how bad the book sucked, I was glad I hadn’t paid money for it.

Brief Synopsis: Actuary Kendall Clarke gets dumped by her cheating fiance right before an important ceremony at which she is due to receive an award. Dylan Hargreave is a NASCAR driver in need of a date to his ex-wife’s wedding. Kendall humiliates herself in front of her colleagues with a tell-all speech in which she reveals her fiance cheated on her and impregnated another co-worker. Needless to say, she’s demoted and given a forcible stress leave. For some odd reason, Kendall fails to realize she acted unprofessionally. Dylan needs a fake girlfriend to stop him kissing his newly-married ex-wife. Only it doesn’t. Somehow, the ex-wife and her doormat new husband decide they are actually in love. After about five minutes of soul-searching, Kendall and Dylan decide they are, too, and they all live happily ever after.

My Verdict: This book was the worst I’ve read so far this year. It wasn’t even bad in a Susan Mallery sort of way whereby I could at least laugh at its ridiculousness. Apart from having a beginning, a middle and an end, this book has no redeeming features. Grade: F

The last book on the list is J.R. Ward’s Covet. After five days, I’m only on page 203 and I’ve started skimming. I’m not quite prepared to label it a DNF just yet, so I’ll put it aside with the intention of trying it again at another time. At the moment, it’s boring me and I want to devote my limited reading time to a book I might actually enjoy.

Brief Synopsis: Following a fatal accident at work, carpenter Jim Heron is sent back to earth with a mission: to save his boss’s soul. Vin di Pietro is a self-made man. He’s described as ruthlessly ambitious and has no problem with being on the shady side of the law. He lives with his beautiful fiancee, Devina, but is fighting his attraction for the prostitute Marie-Terese. Marie-Terese is also attracted to Vin but she is busy trying to pay off her debts and protect herself and her son from her evil ex-husband.

My Verdict: Jim is a good character. I could have done without his Harley-riding sidekicks, but I had no basic objection to Jim. Vin’s actions and Ward’s description of his character seemed at odds. She tells us he’s ruthless, yet I haven’t seen evidence of that up to the point I stopped reading. He seems cold but basically a good guy. The character I had the most problems with was Marie-Terese. Her portrayal was so very different from that in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. In those books, she was described as the head ho in Rhev’s club, ZeroSum. In Covet, she’s metamorphosed into a typical J.R. Ward doormat heroine. She’s a reluctant prostitute and seems to be pretty low on the totem pole in the club in which she now works. The part which defied all logic was when her boss, Trez, offered her the money to clear her debts and she refused because she was too proud to accept help. WTF? She’ll sleep with men for money, even though she despises herself for it, but is too proud to accept help from a friend? I think I need to move on to another book. Grade: TBF/DNF