Review: The Dark Orchid Omnibus Edition

The Dark Orchid Omnibus Edition by Auryn Hadley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Superb Polyamorous/Reverse Harem Fantasy Series

I’ve reviewed all three books in this trilogy individually before and as can be read, if you choose, I really enjoyed all the books. It’s definitely one of my favourite Reverse Harem series and it’s really more of a Polyamorous series than a Reverse Harem one.

This box set has recently come out and as a subscriber to Auryn Hadley’s newsletter was able to get my hands on the box set at a severe discount on it’s launch day. Of course I got the box set as I’d only read the books on Kindle Unlimited and knew I’d want to re-read them in the future.

I decided to re-read the box set almost straight away and I’m so glad I did. This series is wonderfully written. I love the idea of the gods dying and the magic being passed onto mages over recent years. The system of magic is very clever and well thought out. The magic system sits along side the world building that is Auryn Hadley’s true strength. Her imagination knows no bounds and she is always consistent within her created social, political and magical creations.

The book is about a prostitute, Jaeda. She lived in a town that is being attacked by a mage, to conquer it for his Sultan. She doesn’t know which mage it is but after living through two other such events before landing in this town she’s not keen to go through it again. She is captured and brought before the mage, Lord Jackal, the Lord of Lust. In order to protect a young girl she captures the Lord’s attention and volunteers to be part of a spell that binds the town to the mage. As you can imagine the spell requires her to incite the lust of members of the town.

This spell is the start of Jaeda’s adventures. Her whole life is transformed by that one act of trying to protect a young teen. After meeting the mage she realises that the mage’s are not as all powerful as they would have normal people believe and their lives are dangerous and difficult. Jaeda finds herself befriending the mage and his assistant and they form a tight bond based on acceptance and understanding. They help Jaeda grow into her strength as a woman who owns her own sexuality and uses it.

If you want to know more about the individual books, then you can read the reviews for those books, but I do recommend you buy the box set because these books really shine as a trilogy read back to back. It’s more a story in three parts than three books.

As you can tell from the subject matter, this is a very sexual series, however it is also about love, friendship and community. It’s also about society and the power of the individual. It’s quite a deep set of books so if you are just interested in a smutty read you may feel a little overwhelmed and alternatively if you are interested in a straight fantasy you may find all the sex a bit in your face. If you can accept both sides of the coin you will relish this series as much as I did. It’s a fabulous read that I know I will read again and again.

Reviews of the individual books can be found here:

Power of Lies
Magic of Lust
Spell of Love

Review: Suffer Less By KB Everly

Suffer Less by K.B. Everly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Contemporary Reverse Harem

I’ve not read anything by this author before, but someone on one of my Facebook groups asked for recommendations of books with a disabled protagonist. As I’m disabled myself, reading about characters who face similar struggles to my own is always interesting to me. One of the things about books is it enables the reader to feel the same things the character feels, because you see inside their mind. It opens your eyes to their reality in a different way to watching them on tv or film. I don’t believe there are enough disabled characters in the media but wish even more that there were more in books.

When this book was listed in the recommendations, I decided to read it, especially as it’s a Reverse Harem book (always a winner for me) AND it’s on Kindle Unlimited. Basically I HAD to read it and I’m really glad I did, especially as the book was written by an amputee, so it was someone who really knew what they were talking about when writing about the reality of dealing with the loss of a limb.

The book is about Alessa, a 22 year old woman who has had a very hard life. Her parents were killed in the same accident that took her leg when she was a teenager and she had lived with her drug addicted aunt ever since. Alessa worked two jobs trying to save up money to leave her small town, where she’d been so miserable but her aunt made it difficult for her. It was at one of her jobs that she met three gorgeous men on motorcycles, Grey, Nash and Jude. Three friends who were touring around on their annual break visiting unusual pubs.

The three guys are not the usual motorcycle club members with being a therapist, paediatrician and a firefighter, but their club is just a riding club. This is not really an MC romance, though there is an issue with another club.

I really liked Alessa, she’s feisty even when she’s not feeling particularly brave. She picks herself up every day and does her best to get things done and she is compassionate even when some people would be bitter with the way life had turned out.

I liked the way the relationship was handled. There were open communications between them all, everyone was pretty honest and straightforward and despite this being a romance it wasn’t overly emotional. There were some sex scenes but there weren’t too many and they weren’t long and explicitly detailed either.

I really enjoyed this book. I will definitely be keeping a look out for others written by the same author.

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Review: Dark Dancer (Rosie O’Grady’s Paranormal Bar and Grill Series Book 3) by BR Kingsolver

Dark Dancer by B.R. Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

More Fun in Westport

As always, BR Kingsolver has written a creative and entertaining read. The third book in this urban fantasy series continues the story established in the first two books.

Erin is still working at Rosie O’Grady’s Paranormal Bar and Grill as a bartender and is happier than she thought possible. For the first time in her life she has friends and she is helping people rather than killing them. She is looking for love, but as yet hasn’t found it, but in the meantime she has her friends and that’s more than she’s ever had before.

There seems to be a problem still in Westport, with young people going missing and vampires causing trouble. There also seems to be a distinctly alarming number of Hunters in town, leaving Erin panicking about what or who they want. However, she has friends in various parts of the paranormal community who she can ask for help or information. She’s no longer alone in facing off against her old organisation, and that makes them slightly less scary.

Erin is an interesting character who is at once naive and very very worldly wise. She has lived through real trauma during her training and also been kept very isolated. This leads to an interesting dichotomy in her character. With this third book she is more educated in the ways of ‘normal’ people and has learnt how to trust others. This book shows how all the hard work, she’s put in over the previous books to understand her new reality, has paid off.

I also really enjoy reading about the paranormal community in Westport. The characters written to surround Erin are entertaining and well thought out. Erin’s friends are written to be well rounded, consistent and they are fully fleshed out.

The writing in this book is as good as always. The standard of story telling employed by this author is very high and I enjoy reading her books tremendously. Whenever a new book comes out I try and read it within the first week. This book is another example of why I will continue to do so.

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Review: What the Fox (The Chaos of Foxes Series Book 3) by Emma Dean

What the Fox by Emma Dean
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Perfect Ending

I loved this series from start to finish, but this ending was perfect. This book wrapped up everything neatly, but still managed to give several big surprises.

It’s in this book that the mate bonds needed to be established between Kenzie and her foxes and she needed to learn about her new magical abilities.

I love how Kenzie finally gets to make the family that she needs, even if most of it isn’t blood family. In particular I love her demon godfather, who has taken her under his wing.

This books shows us who the foxes really are, we see them in all their twisted, feral, unbalanced glory and we can love them for it, in the same way Kenzie does. There is nothing they won’t do in order to protect Kenzie, and she feels exactly the same way. There is also plenty of heat in order to balance out the stress of everything being played out.

This series has been really well constructed from start to finish, the characters are well developed and consistent (which always pleases me), and the world building really makes me want to learn more about all the other supernatural races that we don’t read about in this series.

I will certainly be looking into the other books that are set in the same world, by this author, as I believe there are several. I always love it when I find a new author to enjoy.

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Review: All Foxed Up (The Chaos of Foxes Series Book 2) by Emma Dean

All Foxed Up by Emma Dean
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Plot Heats Up

Whew! This is a rollercoaster ride for sure! This book is fast moving and filled with captivating plot twists.

In this book Kenzie moves in with the foxes as payment for giving the potion to her in order to save her sister’s life. She welcomes it as a chance to get to know her mates and to see if they all decide to give the mate bonds a chance to take.

After moving in, Kenzie goes on dates with her mates, which are fantastic ways to get to know them better and understand some of their history

Alongside the relationship stuff, Kenzie and her sister have to help the Alpha Tiger secure his labs from vandalism, as payment for stealing the potion from his safe, and they have to find a way to destroy Brad whilst protecting his victims.

It’s a plot filled book, with romance and steamy scenes thrown in for good measure. The characters in the book are really starting to shine

This series just keeps getting better. Roll on book number 3!

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