S. C. Stokes

Dying to Meet You
(Conjuring a Coroner #1)
by S.C. Stokes
Great story! A witch that works at the coroner's office uses her gift to help solve crimes. With just a touch, she can get visions of the person's life or death. The problem is that the bodies that have been coming in all have been looking very similar to her! Who would be after her and why? Great mystery and story!

This book did have some funny spots with an alpha female medical examiner who couldn't always control her mouth and who saw visions from touching people even the dead. The unbelievable part comes when everyone just suddenly starts killing off everyone else without a moment's thought. No thought, no guile, no believable accidents just have at them now. Still if you don't mind all lack of logic not a bad read.
I got this book free off Amazon.

A Coronation of Kings by Samuel Stokes is the first installment of the Chronicles of Meldinar. Tristan is son and heir to Marcus, Lord of the Listarii. Never knowing his mother, Tristan was raised by his father. After losing everything he loved, Tristan vows revenge on those who destroyed his world.

This book has so much potential; it has all the elements for an excellent epic fantasy, but the execution and the lack of editing had me pulling my hair out! It is truly a shame. Hopefully the show more next installment will be better executed, and better edited. Also, the characters could use a bit more fleshing out. I'm willing to give the next installment a try because of Stokes' potential. show less

A passable first book from a new author. Unfortunately there's a lot of repetitive repetitions of words and phrases, especially names. It got quite grating how everyone and everywhere would refer to people by name rather than nickname or other moniker. A thesaurus and some anaphora would have helped immensely.

The story itself barely does anything for the first half of the book, and then rushes through full of nothing but action for the second half, which is a very odd pacing dichotomy. Add show more to that the lack of depth, and it really doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's a story we've read many times before.

The mix of cultures and eras is also jarring. There's the usual medieval European basis, but then throw in East Asian ninjas and age of sail naval combat and it's all a bit of a mess.

But, it's not poorly written and I didn't dislike it. Just could have used a critically eyed editor to tighten it up a bit. show less