≡ PDF New Beginnings Others of Edenton edition by Brandy L Rivers Paranormal Romance eBooks

New Beginnings Others of Edenton edition by Brandy L Rivers Paranormal Romance eBooks

Download As PDF : New Beginnings Others of Edenton edition by Brandy L Rivers Paranormal Romance eBooks

New Beginnings Others of Edenton edition by Brandy L Rivers Paranormal Romance eBooks

This was a painfully bad, clearly self-pubbed book. I truly do feel rather badly that I'm writing this review, but I always appreciate when reviewers save me from reading terrible books, so I wanted to return the favor. The story itself is amateurish, the characters are wholly unlikeable - especially Jess -- the pacing is bad, and gah, the melodrama! Seriously, it is like reading a story about young teens who Overdramatize! Everything! "Woe is me! Why does he hate me? Is it just because I act like I hate him? Or perhaps he loves me, but I don't want him to be nice to me because it's clearly just lust!" *Pout* *scattered curse words* *punches wall*

There's the story, in a nutshell. Doesn't make sense? Illogical thoughts and actions? Welcome to the world of "New Beginnings."
- We have a character who is just repellent, nasty and negative in all her interactions with people, but somehow she is quickly liked by virtually all.
- There's a minor character who, in his first interaction with Mary Sue, er, "Jess," tells her a huge secret that no one else in the town knows.
- Jess then tells a relatively new acquaintance something she and the Alpha had agreed to keep secret ... five minutes after they agreed to do so.
- The characters will laugh and say something is funny because we are clearly supposed to believe it is, but evidently the only way we would know is to have it spelled out for us. (Nothing that is deemed "funny" or "hilarious" by the characters is, in fact, humorous at all, btw.)

Just for kicks, an actual excerpt I highlighted as illustrative of the quality of writing.
"She would never let him force her hand, and he knew it, but he wouldn't. That didn't stop him from wanting her to want him on her own. She would deck him if she thought he was trying to push for more than she wanted, he knew it."
- That's verbatim, folks, and it's not trying to be cute or funny, that's just a moment of thought expressed by the hero.

Some of my notes while reading:
"revulsion" (written as "repulsion" in the text).
"Learn to punctuate!:
"OK, so we've now introduced about half a dozen new characters by name but with virtually no context or way to distinguish them. I read the paragraph through twice before I realized that by 'favor' she meant right-hand man."
"So, just to be clear, that's 3 people now -- her sister, Gabriel, and Fallon -- who knew she was making a horrible drunken mistake she would regret, and they all just shrugged and said, 'Eh, none of my business.' And two of them proceeded to giggle and act like voyeurs while Jess made her huge mistake. Wow. With friends like these..."
"Um, does she even know what an acre is? Seriously, that's a 45-second walk if you walk sloooowly."
"How the heck does that even make sense? This author is just making it up as she goes and then saying, 'Well, it was only fair/logical to do this completely arbitrary/illogical thing.'"

I could go on. The worst part is that I really am usually a Sally Sunshine, but every time I picked up this book to read it, I became as irritable and angry as Jess, the heroine! In a way, that is impressive. I'm considering giving it a second star for being at least coherent enough that I could/was led to finish it. I kept thinking, "It has to get better." In terms of grammar/typos, it's probably in the top 30% of self-pubbed books I've read, but when it comes to content ... there's no redeeming value.

*Edited 10 minutes after original post to add* I notice that among these glowing, 5-star reviews, several reviewers indicate they clearly know the author, and most only write one or two vague sentences about how amazing the book is. And oddly enough, they all have one or two "helpful" votes, while my review *immediately* received an unhelpful vote. So a statement like "This book is so amazing! You should totally read it!" is helpful, but a negative review citing actual text, problems with plotting and characters, etc., immediately gets a down vote? Something seems rotten in Denmark...


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New Beginnings Others of Edenton edition by Brandy L Rivers Paranormal Romance eBooks Reviews

Jess is a bad-a*^ woman who relocates to get away from one Alpha (before she kills him) only to fall into the lap of another Alpha, who her wolf instincts say is hers.

Wow, just wow!!! I haven’t cracked open an actual book since I got my tablet. But I got The Others of Edenton boxed set from Passion in Portland last September and figured that since I am no longer allowed to use my tablet while parked at the school waiting for my students (I can still take my tablet on trips with me though), that I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and took this book to work with me. The only real dilemma I had with this new circumstance is that when I came a crossed an area that needed an edit, I had no way of making notes because I just could not bring myself to violate a work of art with my pen or pencil so I am now carrying around a pad of post-it notes. Sorry for the babbling of my rabbit chasing but thank you for letting me get that out.

Now about New Beginnings, I really liked Jess, Slater and Brody. The preconceived rules that both Slater and Jess have imposed on themselves certainly made the whole courtship interesting and I was certain that Jess was going to kick Slater in the balls although I think Liam’s bizarre behavior towards Jess saved Slater his balls. Liam is the definite a*^-hat in the story but Jess, being the bad-a*^ in her own right running out a back door to get away from him confused me as much as I think it confused Jess herself because it was the only contradiction to her personality. I also really liked the steamy lake scene that was more like a claiming between Slater and Jess. Back to Liam, I think that was one wolf that should have been put down for turning rabid, I would really like to know what triggered his downward spiral because I am almost convinced that it was something that happened long before what Brody and Slater think it was. I was expecting a lot steam after reading Nights Embrace but there wasn’t as much action in the this one, someone was obviously getting something but it wasn’t as graphically steamy but not disappointing.

I suspect I will be reading this book again someday and look forward to it so the five-star review that I want to give this book would be justified except for the edits that I found but thankfully those edits only reduce my rating by one star.

This version of my review was edited with the sensitivities of in mind.

Happy Reading
From
Laura Lu's Book Reviews
I’m gonna have to go with, “No.” I read this as part of a compilation of the first 3 books in the series. I’m fairly sure it’ll be the only one I actually read. My god, the main character is so incredibly unlikeable. Why do so many authors fail utterly when they try and write strong, independent women? This is no doubt what the author was going for, but instead she wrote a raging, insensitive witch . The sort I’d cross the road before saying, “Good Morning,” to for fear she’s respond, “Ef off,” even if we’re perfect strangers. She was rude to everyone on sight. There was nothing likable about her, so I have no clue what the male main character saw in her.

Characters were presented with no history and developed to have no depth. The ‘romance’ was ultra-instant, as in the fell in lust OVER THE PHONE, during a conversation about moving logistics. The villain was bad for no apparent reason and just happened to have been turned bad by his secret boyfriend, which I read as he’s gay, therefore he’s evil. The whole thing was as subtle as a stun gun to the temple and it’s chocked full of subtle, internalized misogyny.

Nope, I need no more of this series.
This was a painfully bad, clearly self-pubbed book. I truly do feel rather badly that I'm writing this review, but I always appreciate when reviewers save me from reading terrible books, so I wanted to return the favor. The story itself is amateurish, the characters are wholly unlikeable - especially Jess -- the pacing is bad, and gah, the melodrama! Seriously, it is like reading a story about young teens who Overdramatize! Everything! "Woe is me! Why does he hate me? Is it just because I act like I hate him? Or perhaps he loves me, but I don't want him to be nice to me because it's clearly just lust!" *Pout* *scattered curse words* *punches wall*

There's the story, in a nutshell. Doesn't make sense? Illogical thoughts and actions? Welcome to the world of "New Beginnings."
- We have a character who is just repellent, nasty and negative in all her interactions with people, but somehow she is quickly liked by virtually all.
- There's a minor character who, in his first interaction with Mary Sue, er, "Jess," tells her a huge secret that no one else in the town knows.
- Jess then tells a relatively new acquaintance something she and the Alpha had agreed to keep secret ... five minutes after they agreed to do so.
- The characters will laugh and say something is funny because we are clearly supposed to believe it is, but evidently the only way we would know is to have it spelled out for us. (Nothing that is deemed "funny" or "hilarious" by the characters is, in fact, humorous at all, btw.)

Just for kicks, an actual excerpt I highlighted as illustrative of the quality of writing.
"She would never let him force her hand, and he knew it, but he wouldn't. That didn't stop him from wanting her to want him on her own. She would deck him if she thought he was trying to push for more than she wanted, he knew it."
- That's verbatim, folks, and it's not trying to be cute or funny, that's just a moment of thought expressed by the hero.

Some of my notes while reading
"revulsion" (written as "repulsion" in the text).
"Learn to punctuate!
"OK, so we've now introduced about half a dozen new characters by name but with virtually no context or way to distinguish them. I read the paragraph through twice before I realized that by 'favor' she meant right-hand man."
"So, just to be clear, that's 3 people now -- her sister, Gabriel, and Fallon -- who knew she was making a horrible drunken mistake she would regret, and they all just shrugged and said, 'Eh, none of my business.' And two of them proceeded to giggle and act like voyeurs while Jess made her huge mistake. Wow. With friends like these..."
"Um, does she even know what an acre is? Seriously, that's a 45-second walk if you walk sloooowly."
"How the heck does that even make sense? This author is just making it up as she goes and then saying, 'Well, it was only fair/logical to do this completely arbitrary/illogical thing.'"

I could go on. The worst part is that I really am usually a Sally Sunshine, but every time I picked up this book to read it, I became as irritable and angry as Jess, the heroine! In a way, that is impressive. I'm considering giving it a second star for being at least coherent enough that I could/was led to finish it. I kept thinking, "It has to get better." In terms of grammar/typos, it's probably in the top 30% of self-pubbed books I've read, but when it comes to content ... there's no redeeming value.

*Edited 10 minutes after original post to add* I notice that among these glowing, 5-star reviews, several reviewers indicate they clearly know the author, and most only write one or two vague sentences about how amazing the book is. And oddly enough, they all have one or two "helpful" votes, while my review *immediately* received an unhelpful vote. So a statement like "This book is so amazing! You should totally read it!" is helpful, but a negative review citing actual text, problems with plotting and characters, etc., immediately gets a down vote? Something seems rotten in Denmark...