E.R. Baine

This book reads like a 12 year old from the 90s found a thesaurus and decided to gleefully throw words together. With that said, I will admit I laughed more at this book than I have at any other. The character descriptions, the painful sentences, the eye-roll inducing dialogue and cinge inducing sex-scenes were almost too much.

Some examples:
"His hulking six foot four inch frame blocked the doorway. His thick, mahogany, James Franco-mimicking-James Dean hairstyle mussed from a frustrated show more comb through with long, strong fingers."
"He looked all kinds of crazy-sexy-cool with his right leg bent outward at the knee and the foot resting against the column at his back. His other strong leg was straight."
"Viktor’s bark was combined with a hiss."
"Viktor bit down on his canines"
"...had leaned back to nurse one corner of his cushioned seat..."
"His smile made his cheeks beam."

And randomly, proudly bolded and italicized in the middle of one page: "He shelved his pride in the face of Lincoln’s hard core sex."

It just gets worse from there. A few typos, a random use of commas, grammatical issues here and there are one thing ... but so many words are used incorrectly or strangely, such as "nurse one corner of his cushioned seat" or "Bodies gyrating so close together the heat deference caused Mat’s shades to fog up" and "he retracted his phone from his pocket."

I could go on. And on. This book has more examples than I have room in this review. The plot - such as it is - has ... stuff? And things? Information is thrown at us and never dealt with, random characters step into scenes as though they've been there all along, with no introduction or explanation. There is a confusion of scenes that is supposed to serve as a plot, but as I read I got the impression the author either expects us to know what's going on without having to tell us, or has no idea, either, and is just writing as fast as they can.

If you paid money for this book, I'm sorry. In my opinion this book is in no way ready to be published, not even self-published. However, it made me laugh. I didn't laugh with the book, mind you, but at it, so I'll give it it's one star and warn people to stay far, far away from "And The Heart Grows Fonder." show less

I received this book to review. It is a short book and is well written. The imagery is vivid and the characters interesting. However, I can see why some of the other reviewers thought it jumped around too much. Although, I liked the way it hinted at a bigger story to come, it still seemed like I was missing some of the history that had been before. Who is Viktor? What is the secret involving his wife. Why does he hide the paranormal from his security staff? I look forward to the next book show more hopefully it will expand on this one and explain some of facets. show less

For the second time in as many months, I'm faced with writing a critical review of a book I've personally been asked to review. As I've said in the past, this isn't something I relish doing, but I feel I have an obligation as a reviewer to be as honest as possible in expressing my experiences with each book I read. Quite frankly, I finished Do or Die feeling dazed and confused. I pride myself in having excellent reading comprehension, so until now, I don't think I've ever read a story where show more I couldn't really fathom exactly what was happening. Reading this novella was kind of like wandering through someone's dreams. It felt like little more than a series of disconnected scenes that lacked a cohesive flow. I easily could have been lost in the jungle of its Trinidadian setting for as well as I understood the plot. It was a highly unsatisfying read on a number of levels, not the least of which was its abrupt and bizarre ending. I read the final words thinking, “That's it?” I realize that this is supposed to be the first in a series, so I'm guessing that the story will be continued in future novellas. However, I've never read a book before, series or otherwise, that ended leaving me with more questions than answers. If this was intended to be a serialized novel, that should have been made more clear in the cover blurb. Without a knowledge that the story is 'to be continued,' I think the vast majority of readers will go into reading a romance with the expectation that it will have some sort of happy and satisfying ending, but this one certainly didn't.

I couldn't honestly tell you whether I liked Viktor and Audrianna, the hero and heroine, or not. They and all the characters in general were one-dimensional and markedly underdeveloped. Even after reading the entire story, I can't tell you much about either one of them, because precious little information is given about them. Viktor is a Russian tycoon and diplomat, but I have no idea how he came by his fortune or why he was chosen as a diplomat or what his jobs entail. He also wields supernatural powers that it appears he has suppressed for a time until his wife is kidnapped. I think he is some sort of sorcerer, but I'm not entirely certain. He is, however, extremely arrogant and scarily possessive of his wife, which isn't really my cup of tea. Audrianna is mentioned at one point to be the Chief Information Officer in Viktor's company, and at another point is said to be an amateur scientist, but I couldn't tell you anything about what she does in either capacity. She is also a werewolf who never phased, but who mysteriously summoned an energy ball that was never explained. This is really all I learned about either one of these characters. There is no backstory, no meaningful introspection, no emotional journey, nothing that really speaks to who they are, what they do, or why they do it.

The prologue made some sense, but from the moment I started the first chapter, I felt like I'd been dropped into the middle of a story and was grasping for some sort of foothold to understand what was going on. If it hadn't been for the cover blurb mentioning that Audrianna had been kidnapped, I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out even that much. The characters and situations were introduced at a rapid-fire pace with no background and little description as to who they were and what was happening. It took a long time to figure out werewolves were a part of the story, and I'm still not sure what type of powers they possessed. The action sequences were very confusing to follow. Half the time, I didn't know who were the bad guys and who were the good guys. As an aside, I normally have a fairly high tolerance for violence in books, but for me, the violence level in this one was bordering on gratuitous. The head-hopping was very distracting as well. Frequently, there were abrupt switches from one character's POV to a different character and scene entirely without any warning at all which was extremely jarring. Overall, this story was in desperate need of a lot more transitions and details to pull everything together in a comprehensible way.

As I mentioned earlier, even after finishing the story, I find myself with more questions than answers. In addition to the things I've already mentioned not understanding, I still have no real grasp on why Audrianna was kidnapped in the first place. I don't understand why Viktor didn't sufficiently trust the former military men who acted as bodyguards for him and his wife to reveal their supernatural abilities to them, or why he allowed them to go on their own rescue mission to save his wife when he was already taking his own team in. It seemed like a situation that easily could have ended in disaster. I couldn't figure out how Audrianna survived the explosion set off by the villain. I have no idea what the two bodyguards, Lincoln and Mat, were talking about at the bar in New York, who the Carlos person was that they were discussing sending to Mexico or why they were sending him, or who the person in the car was who picked them up when they left the bar. I'm even more in the dark about the mysterious, unnamed person who actually was in Mexico and blew up a jail. And last, but not least, I'm baffled as to whether Audrianna was channeling another person at the end, and if so, who, or if she simply wasn't Audrianna at all. Every one of these things have left me perplexedly scratching my head.

My last issue with the story is that for a book that appears to be billed as romance, there really isn't any to be found within its pages. Yes, there was a proposal in the prologue, but I'm sorry to say that a man hanging the supposed love of his life over a cliff to get her to agree to marry him isn't romantic to me at all. There are also two love scenes, one of which is very erotic, but again, sex does not equal romance. This story contained no romantic gestures and no tender moments of any kind. Even after Audrianna is rescued, Viktor goes around acting like a caveman, making veiled threats towards practically any man who comes near her, and even threatening her life if she ever cheats on him, not to mention, said erotic love scene takes place right after the rescue when she's still in the hospital. I suppose the fact that he went after her in the first place could be taken as a romantic gesture, but it just didn't work for me on that level. To me, it seemed like he did that more because he viewed her as his possession that he wasn't going to allow anyone else to have, rather than because he loved her deeply. I don't even recall them saying that they loved one another, which is usually an absolute must for me in a romance.

Overall, Do or Die had way too many weaknesses to be an enjoyable read for me. I could see some potential in it though, which is why I gave it two stars. There were some decent ingredients that could have made an intriguing story if only it had been fleshed out a lot more. If more care had been given to shoring up details, explaining events better, and character development, instead of leaving everything to the reader's imagination, I think this novella could have been a great story, and with those additions, probably would have been even better as a full-length novel. As is though, it felt like little more than the bare bones of a story.

Note: This novella contains explicit language and sexual situations including anal sex and exhibitionism, which may offend some readers.

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. show less

I hate to give bad reviews, but I couldn't even finish this book, and that's a rare for me. I usually try to finish a book even when I don't like it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it for this one.

The conversations and thoughts of the characters were juvenile. Examples include "If I could just get my Johnson to play cool and stop actin' the fool..." and "Say what, bitch? I don't know what you talkin' bout."

There were also instances of words that were run together, such as "Lincolnthought show more adamantly" and other grammatical issues.

Honestly, there were so many characters and different story lines jumping around so much I wasn't sure what was going on and what the plot was supposed to be. Maybe if I finished it I would have figured that out, but I simply couldn't do it.

I hate to say it, but I can't, in good conscious, recommend this book. There are plenty of other paranormal series out there that are well-written and actually have plot lines you can follow along with that would be better worth your time (by authors Carrie Ann Ryan, Rebecca Zanetti, and Vivian Arned just to mention a few). show less