Strange Neighbors

Strange Neighbors is a cure paranormal romance. Its many characters of varied supernatural flavors suggests potential for a long running, shifting perspective series. I look forward to future books in the series because while I didn't love this book, the premise itself is wonderful and I think some of Strange Neighbors's secondary characters will make perfectly fascinating leads.

Merry is a wonderful character. She's sweetly naive, yet not completely clueless to the world around her. She takes things in stride, and as a human about to discover an entire supernatural community in her new apartment building, that's important. The thing that threw me with Merry was her sweet demeanor didn't completely mess with her aggressive sexuality. At show more first I took it as a case of being proper outside the bedroom and wanton in it, but after a while it just seemed like a little girl trying too hard to be strong and sexy to entice a man. She states that she isn't too experienced, so at first it was normal, but towards the end the bedroom attitude still didn't seem to fit the rest of her personality.

Jason's big secret was alluded to relentlessly for the first half of the book, so obviously I was looking for either some clues along the way. The big revelation wasn't hinted at beforehand and I found it something of a disappointment. This disappointment was compounded by some of the secondary characters in the book. With a vampire, werewolf, ghost and pair of witches in the building already, I had expected the author to make Jason's supernatural type something a little less similar to another tenant. He obviously wasn't going to be a mummy or zombie, but he could have at least been a faerie or something.

I wasn't impressed with Jason's supernatural species, nor Merry's seemingly playacting sexuality. As the book progressed, I found myself caring less and less about the couple and their relationship which sort of ruins a romantic type book. The thing that really kept this book going for me was the pair of witches, Gwyneth and Morgaine, as well as the vampire, Sly. These characters are the reason I'll be continuing the series. show less

I wanted to like this book. I really did! It had so many elements that worked for me. Paranormals living together and the shenanigans that might/will happen.

I understand that shifters know when someone is "the one" because mating and stuff but when the female lead isn't a paranormal and feels the same I just couldn't believe in it. It was too rushed, Merry was too happy and rushing into the relationship. Yes, you're in love but you need to be a bit more realistic about getting into a relationship with someone you've only known for 2 months. Especially since the guy is a celebrity and Merry just believed his word a bit too much - yes we as the reader knows he's a great guy, won't cheat etc etc but SHE shouldn't know that and she should show more be having more dilemma about their relationship.


Underneath will have spoilers that I needed to share because it's part of why I gave this book 2 stars (maybe even drop it to 1.5).


1. I absolutely HATED. I mean HATED WITH A PASSION the lead man's Aunt and Uncle. More the aunt but the uncle later on as well. She literally ruined 50% of the book for me. No joke. Every time she was in a scene I wanted one of the paranormal characters to off her. Why do I hate her so much? A little background is the hero owns the apartment and he hired his uncle to do maintenance and his aunt became self-proclaimed building manager. She was nosy as hell, she was overstepping her boundaries like letting herself into her nephew's home, another tenet's home (WTF trespassing) and listening onto other people's private lives (literally has a cup to their door) and calling the police for every unusual noise that goes on. The worst of it is that the nephew (hero) and the uncle don't punish her other than "you shouldn't call the police" or try to make her feel like she's being silly if she saw/heard something she shouldn't. The uncle had no guts when it came to his own wife. The hero actually said that his uncle just "tunes her out". If you love your wife you don't tune them out, especially if you're a shifter, you're mated for life, you chose this woman and you're tuning her out and everyone is catering to her antics and basically just enabling her behaviour. The uncle has the master keys and just lets her SWIPE IT FROM HIM SO SHE CAN LET HERSELF INTO OTHER PEOPLE'S HOMES!!!

No just no. Kill her, get rid of her, fire her I don't care but not only did she not contribute to the story but she effected it negatively. Oh sorry, she did contribute, she gave the story fewer stars from me. Added senseless drama and craziness that the story didn't need.

2. Ok, I'm done with my rant and it felt a bit cathartic. I can't remember my second point now lol but I do know it had to do with people in the story who are non-paranormal just casually accepting shit like "oh he's a shifter", "oh my biological dad is a vampire". Everything was too rushed and I bet if you took out the AUNT AND UNCLE the author would have made a story with better pacing and relational development.


It's not all bad, there were some characters that I enjoyed greatly and want to read their personal stories but because of this first book I'm not sure if I want to buy more of this series... show less

While I found the story quite enjoyable the writing style left me a bit cold. Ashlyn Chase's use of cliches abound in this erotic paranormal romance. Her characters sounded somewhat the same, and some of the action was quite predictable. The sex scenes were trite, and often gratuitous which I found disappointing.



And yet I like this story. While Ashlyn's writing style got in my way, I was able to enjoy the characters, their predicaments and the conflicts that rose up around them. There were some conflict resolutions that were not believable, but then we are dealing with a story about four shape shifters, two witches, a vampire and smart ass ghost. That the story hangs together with such a cast of characters is a credit to the author.



I show more was disappointed in the ending as it was predictable (no spoilers here, you'll have to read it yourself). I was really hoping to find that Aunt Dottie was something other than she appeared, but she turned out to be quite ordinary in the end. show less

I will preface my review with saying that I understand that every book is an author's baby. They invest so much time and energy, working hard to create the best story they can.

I saw this book awhile back on Book Chick City's wish list post and thought it had a neat premise. The whole book had so much potential. Unfortunately the heroine was wishy washy, jumped to ridiculous conclusions, the hero needed to grow a backbone, too many supporting characters, the side stories overwhelmed the main story, there was too much telling instead of showing, and not enough pronouns or proper nouns used during conversations with multiple characters.

Merry has grown up with an overprotective father after her mother died, so I understood her driving need show more to live on her own. She moves into a building with a nosy apartment manager (Jason's Aunt Dottie) and a hot owner. She and Jason hit it off right away, and despite some reservations, she decides to go for it: a serious relationship with a famous baseball player. For Jason's part, he's very nervous, but really wants to make this work with Merry. He's half shapeshifter (making him lose control of his shifts when under a lot of stress) so he's very careful around the paparazzi. He doesn't want to freak Merry out about being constantly photographed or made up stories in the gossip columns. Ok, all of that made sense and that's where it ended.

Aunt Dottie calls the police about every little thing, Jason says she's going to alert the media to where he lives, but she doesn't listen and he doesn't stand his ground. Dude, grow a backbone and make yourself heard! He's so worried about his secret being found out but he doesn't take real steps to protect himself. Merry blames everything on PMS, I got so sick and tired of it. It's her standard excuse for being crazy. And she flips out over the dumbest things. She finds out that her birth father (Merry was adopted) is a vampire. She takes this information in stride. Jason gets really nervous on their way to her adopted father's house for Thanksgiving and he turns into a falcon. Merry totally flips out, leaves him, and goes the rest of the way to her dad's house. A little bit later Jason makes it to the house and her dramatic response is:

"Never having been exposed to anything so bizarre in her life - except a vampire father and a haunted apartment building - all she could think of to do was protect herself. Protect her family. How could she expose them to... what? A magician? A shaman? Some kind of weird animal spirit possession?"

What? Seriously? She's okay with her family visiting her in her haunted apartment building with her vampire dad living in the basement, but Bird Boy is too much?! Really? Another example: when her birth father was telling Merry about her birth mother, he described her as someone who spoke her mind, didn't let herself get pushed around and, "was passionate about everything she did. She stood for good causes. She believed in doing the right thing even if it wasn't the easiest thing." Sounds like a nice lady who tried to do what was right even it if was hard. Merry's response: "You mean she was some kind of an agitator? Or zealot?" I just wanted to bang my head agains the desk, that is such a ridiculous conclusion to jump to. I know it's a paranormal romance, but Merry's thought processes and reactions didn't always seem realistic. She also believed everything printed about Jason, she never listened to anything he said. She was so quick to go into punishment mode. Like the time he was going to be auctioned off for charity, he told Merry about this and she knew it was for charity. Later on she sees a tabloid article showing Jason in three pictures - one with her, one with the lady from the charity auction, and one where it looked like he was hugging/kissing someone (a fan jumped on him). She knew he was cheating on her and wouldn't listen. Eventually Jason got through to her and it was all okay, that darn PMS was just making her overreact. Argh!

By this point every little thing the characters did was irritating. Merry's adoptive father kept telling her she was too young and impressionable to live on her own. Excuse me? She sacrificed a lot to live at home and help out while not going to the college she wanted to. She's a grown woman with a good career in nursing, and you don't think she can handle herself? He was one more person on the list that needed to be smacked. Dottie whined constantly. I felt a bit sorry for her, she really believed that she was being helpful (in a horrifically rude way), but somebody needed to stand up to her and set her straight.

The writing also tended to get fairly repetative and explanations could get very long and tedious. For example, The Seasonal Pill of Doom. Merry decides to go on the seasonal pill. Fine, great. And for those who don't know what the seasonal pill is, the author explains it. At great leangth. Twice. I felt that The Seasonal Pill was taking over the book. The first time around I got tired of the explanations and just wanted it to end. The second time around, I became frustrated and irritated. Enough with The Seasonal Pill already, lets get on with the story!
There were also tons of support characters. These characters were interesting and I had assumed might have spinoff stories. Unfortunately It was like Chase was trying to make their stories fit in with Jason and Merry's story. The entire narrative started to feel really crowded and I was having a hard time keeping up with who was who. Then there was the side plot of Chad the ghost (a reporter who was possibly murdered by the government in the 60's) that could have been interesting, but it started to compete with the actually story. There was one scene where there were several people in his old apartment arguing. Unfortunately, I had no idea who was talking. It was just a list of dialogue with the occasional gender specific pronoun thrown in (that helped a little). I re-read the section three times, Thinking that maybe I'd skipped a name in there somewhere. I gave up and put the book down for several weeks after this particular exchange.

When I finally picked it up again, I found that I just didn't care. I didn't want to devote any more time to this book. I was done. This is only the second book, after Little Women, that I've refused to finished. Then I started looking for reviews to include links to, and it seems that everyone enjoyed this book. What? Where did I go wrong, why didn't I like it also? I feel bad because I really did not like this book, I'm writing a negative review about somebody's hard work, and now I'm a bad person because I'm the only one who didn't like it. (I'm not even listing all of my negative points because it would be overkill.) Ok, maybe not a bad person, but I must have missed something to dislike it when general opinion is fairly positive.

Verdict:
I'm sorry guys, but I just could not stand this story, it's characters, anything. I didn't find it funny, romantic, or fast paced. I didn't even finish the book, which makes me think it's probably not fair for me to review it, but I need the closure. Half a star guys, this story had so much potential but it fell so, so short. show less

Ms. Chase is a good story teller but she is in desperate need of a good editor. Overall a fun book, though.

This was a really fun book that I almost put down after the first couple chapters because of some corny aspects. I am so glad I didn't!! It turned out to be a very interesting read, with lovable characters. I found myself rooting and cheering (ok, that was internally) and sympathizing... without giving spoilers, I'd just say go ahead and read this if you would like something a little different. And bonus! Its part of a series! I can't wait to read the second book.

Now after some time has passed, I can only say that this book hasn't left my mind. I am constantly on the look for the rest of the series when I am book shopping. I think I am just going to have to get it for my kindle. But I think that says something, when you keep thinking show more about a series.

This book was wacky. Yes, wacky. There were some really far fetched things. But that's what we love about paranormal, right? The fact that it is far fetched? Ok, so maybe I believe in some of this stuff, but that's not something I am going to discuss right out here in the open. Yet.

Anyhow, at this point its hard for me to get into some of the particulars, since its been a while since I read the book. But I thought the twists in it were pretty unique. I was shocked to see what kind of a shifter Jason is. It certainly wasn't what I expected! Which isn't to say I don't remember what happens, but I don't want to give away the secrets. It's truly something you should read for yourself!

And everyone else who lives in this apartment building, lets just say that right there is a set up for some comical romantic mischief. This book has it all. Mystery, secrets, witches, ghosts, werewolves, shapeshifters, vampires, paparazzi! show less

Awkward. That's the word that kept coming to mind as I read this book - whether it was the dialogue, the choice of which events to include and which to leave out or the action and decisions taken by the characters. I was expecting a light, humorous read, but instead had to force myself through the first two-thirds of the story before finally garnering enough interest to finish reading it.

Too often unnatural dialogue (and monologue) was a vehicle for filling in information. Some events that could have been highly charged take place "off stage", while lots of trivia which didn't seems to advance the plot is presented instead.

The characters' emotions seem strangely flat and actions often bizarre. Yes, I can suspend my disbelief for the show more vampires, shapeshifters, and witches but not for the male character phoning his mother and initiating a discussion about his sex life! As for the humour, the author kept emphasizing when something was *supposed* to be funny, but it rarely was. show less