John ConroeCritiques

A great 'snack' of a book. Entertaining enough to move on to #2

A swing and a miss. For me the formula doesn't work in the world presented.

Darkkin Queen
The Demon Accords, Book 16
By: John Conroe
Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
I never tire of these book! The great characters of a powerful witch, powerful vampires, werewolf, an angel, and more! So many terrific situations and great plots! Love this series!

Interesting developments

First, this is not anywhere close to the first book in the series. You would be better to at least read the previous book, College Arcane.
I love the series. This is very much more of the same. Declan is front and center with all his awesome powers. Natural laws are broken. Beautiful women threaten alarming levels of destruction. It's pretty cool.

The bad: not much really. I graded down mainly because this book requires a high level of knowledge of the previous books to be comprehensible. There is also a tendency to up the power level. It's getting a little ridiculous.

Final verdict: I am going to buy the next book as soon as it is published. I love the interesting ways science is applied to magic and vice verse.

I still liked it

Obviously, you shouldn't start here.

I liked the plot. Everything moved forward. New troubles arose and were dealt with or planned for, etc.

My problem is the arc. As in there isn't one. There isn't an issue at the beginning that all comes together at the end. It is more straight line than arc. Everything happens in order. And in my opinion, that makes it a bad novel.

I still enjoyed it. There were developments that hint at things to come. I love the world and the characters.

But there was no development. The previous book was outstanding. This one suffers greatly by comparison. It's very uncomplicated. It's too easy.

I am definitely looking forward to more novels in this series. But I cannot rate this highly. It merely moves the plot forward.

Amuse bouche

Excellent little stories. Seeing the events of the first book from a new perspective helped to ground the reality. The other stories nicely fill in some edges and refresh my love for the series.

A new Skynet

Very interesting world. The best part is I have no idea what direction the next book will go.

Near future combat drones, sniper training, A.I., Ghurka mythos, and a little bit of teenage lust. Add in some high level corporate intrigue and reality shows, and you have a real fun story.

I will buy the next novel as soon as it is released.

Strong reprise

In some ways, better than the first book. Now we see how dangerous the CThree drones really are.

I will definitely buy the next book. Plum Blossom is going to be tough.

Flaws: the drones did not take an obvious shot, even though it was defended against. Nothing hit the apartment!?!

Continued fun

This is part of a long series. Reading the earlier books (especially the short story anthologies) is not a requirement, but your understanding of minor characters and their relationships will suffer if you don’t .

Sneak gets some quality screen time. Hosokawa, the Duelist, appears for a brief but meaningful moment. Fairies comes in to play near the end, with interesting results.

Darci has a solid part, but Aunt Ask remains offstage. Most of the action occurs in two places: Burlington, home of Arcane College; and Paris, though the city has little impact on the events there.

There wasn’t a lot of character development, as most of the principles have firmly established roles. Nika does show a little more life and independence, but all within her previously known areas.

The continued growth of power was fun, as were the various battle scenes.

Some occasional typos, but not too many. At one point, Omega began referring to ‘Father’, but the transition left some temporary confusion as to who was speaking about what.

I will buy the next installment as soon as possible.

Odd

The format of the book is a bit unusual. All of the action is up front, with the latter half of the book being more resolution and building. Almost too much building, as it seems to be setting up something else. Which is really weird in the final book of a series.

A few more typos than I like to see.

You definitely have to read the book before this to have any idea what is going on.

Grrrl power

This is an excellent character study of one of the lesser characters of the series. Chris and Tanya are offstage throughout, as well as almost all of the vamps and weres. Declan is a constant thread, but he only appears twice.

There are some editing issues that should be cleaned up. Nothing that breaks the story, simply makes it less than it could be. ‘Defer’ instead of ‘differ’, some copyediting, and a few mixed up sentence structures. Sufficient to make me pull back from a 5 star rating.

I buy pretty much everything this author writes.

Interesting developments

First, this is not anywhere close to the first book in the series. You would be better to at least read the previous book, College Arcane.
I love the series. This is very much more of the same. Declan is front and center with all his awesome powers. Natural laws are broken. Beautiful women threaten alarming levels of destruction. It's pretty cool.

The bad: not much really. I graded down mainly because this book requires a high level of knowledge of the previous books to be comprehensible. There is also a tendency to up the power level. It's getting a little ridiculous.

Final verdict: I am going to buy the next book as soon as it is published. I love the interesting ways science is applied to magic and vice verse.

I still liked it

Obviously, you shouldn't start here.

I liked the plot. Everything moved forward. New troubles arose and were dealt with or planned for, etc.

My problem is the arc. As in there isn't one. There isn't an issue at the beginning that all comes together at the end. It is more straight line than arc. Everything happens in order. And in my opinion, that makes it a bad novel.

I still enjoyed it. There were developments that hint at things to come. I love the world and the characters.

But there was no development. The previous book was outstanding. This one suffers greatly by comparison. It's very uncomplicated. It's too easy.

I am definitely looking forward to more novels in this series. But I cannot rate this highly. It merely moves the plot forward.

Amuse bouche

Excellent little stories. Seeing the events of the first book from a new perspective helped to ground the reality. The other stories nicely fill in some edges and refresh my love for the series.

Strong reprise

In some ways, better than the first book. Now we see how dangerous the CThree drones really are.

I will definitely buy the next book. Plum Blossom is going to be tough.

Flaws: the drones did not take an obvious shot, even though it was defended against. Nothing hit the apartment!?!

Continued fun

This is part of a long series. Reading the earlier books (especially the short story anthologies) is not a requirement, but your understanding of minor characters and their relationships will suffer if you don’t .

Sneak gets some quality screen time. Hosokawa, the Duelist, appears for a brief but meaningful moment. Fairies comes in to play near the end, with interesting results.

Darci has a solid part, but Aunt Ask remains offstage. Most of the action occurs in two places: Burlington, home of Arcane College; and Paris, though the city has little impact on the events there.

There wasn’t a lot of character development, as most of the principles have firmly established roles. Nika does show a little more life and independence, but all within her previously known areas.

The continued growth of power was fun, as were the various battle scenes.

Some occasional typos, but not too many. At one point, Omega began referring to ‘Father’, but the transition left some temporary confusion as to who was speaking about what.

I will buy the next installment as soon as possible.

Grrrl power

This is an excellent character study of one of the lesser characters of the series. Chris and Tanya are offstage throughout, as well as almost all of the vamps and weres. Declan is a constant thread, but he only appears twice.

There are some editing issues that should be cleaned up. Nothing that breaks the story, simply makes it less than it could be. ‘Defer’ instead of ‘differ’, some copyediting, and a few mixed up sentence structures. Sufficient to make me pull back from a 5 star rating.

I buy pretty much everything this author writes.

The writing was occasionally a bit stilted, but it was interesting enough. Not sure I'll go find the next books, though.

Audiobook review

I found the beginning of this audiobook entertaining, which led me to order book two. Bad move.

As the plot moved on it became less and less credible. I probably could have put up with this.

My problem was with the narrator. As the number of characters grew his choice of voices became more and more bizarre. That combined with an increasing tendency to end every sentence on a rising tone became Irritating beyond bearing . I won’t consider any more books narrated by James Patrick Cronin.

Overall 3 star
Book. 4 star
Narration. 1 star

C.A.E.C.O.
By: John Conroe
Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
She didn't have a loving or warm upbringing but she is well respected theaters of or maybe because of her futuristic body parts and she was taught to be a fighting machine. This is more about her and how she fits in with the whole team! A great gal that you feel for because her and others were made like this, no maternal nurturing yet she is totally amazing!
Excellent narration!

Demon Divine
By: John Conroe
Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
There's a big, bad she demon on the loose and it is going to take great power to bring it down. Chris and gang need a great plan, lots of help, and some luck for this one. They decide to use Declan for bait! Great action, excitement, and witty dialogue! I love this series!
Great narration!

A very fun-to-read book. Highly recommended to Dresden Files fans!

Zone Wars by John Conroe and narrated by James Patrick Cronin is a start of a new futurist sci-fi series! Boy is it exciting! MY and surrounding area is destroyed by drone wars 10 years prior. Now there are drone left that shoot any people that are seen in the area. Some people try to sneak in to get loot supplies and they can keep them. A boy has been doing it longer than anyone! He has a secret and the military wants his secret! There is a reality game show with contestants driving in, stealing things, and driving out. The boy has been asked but won't do it, he won't give up his secret!
Great battles, interactions between characters, great plot, witty at times, love the world building, and unique characters! Can't wait to see where this takes the reader next!
Terrific narration as usual from this narrator!

liked the main character a fair bit better than I was expecting, overall would read more by author if I did't have a prime title handy½

Summer Reign
By: John Conroe
Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
Series: The Demon Accords, Book 13
This book tells is Declan teaching, going back to Fae, finding out more about how his mother died, and more. Lots of action, battles, a ghost, a spy at school, more power growing in him, and him and his werewolf girlfriend's bond groves too.
The narrator is awesome as usual! Always a joy to listen to this narrator...perfect for this series.