Adam Pepper

Symphony of Blood features Hank Mondale, a down on his luck, gambling P.I. Hank is a stereotype wrapped around a stereotype. He never has any money, he's got collectors coming from every angle and he spends an inordinate amount of time ogling his extremely annoying and perky secretary. None of these are exactly new to the genre. The chauvinistic thing got old fast. It's not really funny, mostly it's annoying. In a genre mostly read by women it's also a little ridiculous.

So, Hank has finally gotten a case. A rich real estate mogul hires him to protect his spoiled rich girl daughter. A monster is trying to kill her. It just so happens Hank's cop friend is investigating a weird case of his own. The more Hank goes searching the more weird deaths he finds. Hank finally goes to his new employer demanding some answers as nearly all the deaths seem to circle around them. Suddenly rich spoiled girl is less terrified and more spoiled, annoying and crass than believable. Definitely no strong females in this book. Rather, more stereotypes.

Spoiled brat daughter reveals the monster's reasons for obssessing over her just in time for "Symphony" to attack. I expected the story to really pick up here, as the previous investigation kept things moving but it was slow. No such luck. Instead we review everyone Symphony has killed from the beginning, only from Symphony's point of view. Seeing as nothing new is revealed and mostly the descriptions of Symphony's method of killing are more gross than horror-worthy it became boring very quickly for me. If Symphony's point of view and Hank's point of view had overlapped rather than Symphony's POV just repeating what we already knew had happened it would have been interesting and kept things from stalling out. Once Symphony's POV catches us up again we have our hero and our heroine(???) fleeing. Cue stupid rich girl trying to seduce our much older hero. Stereotype. Gross. An old used one that only worked in the 50's or 60's genre and is now just demeaning.

The end resolution is ridiculous. All in all the author has a good voice but the rhythm was thrown off halfway through and I didn't find a single character interesting except Symphony. The good news is Symphony is really very interesting and a sympathetic character. Unfortunately as I said by the time we see Symphony's POV it's only a re-hashing of what's already happened.… (plus d'informations)

Book source ~ ARC. My review is voluntary and honest.

This story is about Sean O’Donnell, a poor Irish-Italian kid who ends up working for a snob mob boss. Then he falls head-over-instalove for said mob boss’s daughter despite all the warnings to stay away from her. Damn. This guy is a moron. At least the mob boss’s daughter is also stupid, so they have that in common.

I was so close to just giving up on this one. Sean isn’t a very good character. He calls himself stubborn to a fault. Yeah, he is that. He’s also not smart. And he’s a tool. There’s also instalove between him and Nicole. Sure. Let’s believe that. Nicole is a caricature. The pretty, bratty, mob boss’s princess. She has no other identity other than this. Gag me. The whole book is one huge flashback. The best part was the ending. Not because it was the ending, but because the ending was pretty awesome. Other than that, it’s an entire book of meh filled with two-dimensional characters and clichés.… (plus d'informations)

I got this book to read and review from Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Fanatics! I liked Sandy, as soon as I started the book. She was a quirky character. We moved on to the scene where Mackenzie told Hank that the monster was coming for her and I thought..Oooh is this book going to be good! I was disappointed. Even though Hank annoyed me, I stuck with the book thinking its okay even if I don't like the lead character. Then came the monster's point of view. Not only was it unnecessary but it bored me no end as well. But I have to say that I loved the description of the monster's change-it was icky and gross, just as it should have been. The ending was another let down.… (plus d'informations)