Review: Amber Sweetapple - Djinn and Tonic

The Houri Legends Series:

Book 2:

Djinn and Tonic: Detective Carson Hale and Leila Najafi

Summary:
From Goodreads.com
A strange and inexplicable attack in his favorite watering hole leaves Detective Carson Hale with stitches, bruised ribs, and a concussion but yet Leila, the bartender, is mysteriously uninjured. While her lies and evasions set off Hale's instincts, her body sets off other alarms.

Dangerous secrets and a complicated past drove Leila Najafi to Detroit, where she hoped to escape her family. Now, she's been discovered by the one man who could destroy her. At the worst possible time, sexy Detective Hale blows into her life and forces her to make a decision that could cause both heartbreak and war.

Review:

This book picks up pretty much right where the previous book lets off. Carson is in the bar where Leila bartends and the next thing Carson knows he’s in the hospital where the building had basically fell on top of him yet he managed to survive and Leila has not a scratch on her. Despite the fact things are not adding up with Leila, Carson decides to pursue her anyway.

So the book starts off promising, you have a fight within the first couple of chapters. However, the book for me quickly derailed. So in the first scenes Carson can barely remember Leila’s name, but after one kiss all of the sudden he can’t live without her. Eh, I wasn’t buying it. I think I liked Carson better in the first book, he got every other chapter and he seemed to have more depth to him then. Not that I disliked him in this book, but something seemed to be off from the first. We find out more of Carson’s past which is truly heartbreaking and you can see why he took up law enforcement. You completely understand why he took up law enforcement. I did think that he would get to there being something special and accept it sooner when it came to Leila since he had just come off Miriam’s case and he knows there are just some things you can’t explain, but alas it took a huge gesture for it to really sink in. Although it still kind of bugs me that no one else noticed that huge gesture considering it was basically a tornado, but I guess you just have to kind of go with it.

Leila, I was pretty much eh with from the beginning. I never connected with her and I found her “woow is me” attitude somewhat off putting. She really did sounds a lot like a spoiled little rich girl that she accused herself of and she just kept pushing Carson away and getting mad when he took a step back. Girl you pushed him away! What do you want from the man!? Tho, I don’t blame her for running from her betrothed he truly was a complete dickwad.

This book somewhat lacked the substance first book had. With the first book we had some serious subject matter and you were truly rooting for Miriam and Jack. This one it was all about Carson getting his head out of his ass and Leila trying to decide how to get out of her betrothal.  It was quite the come down from the previous book. The book lost momentum after the first attack and didn’t quite pick up again until the end. I found myself bored a few times, not enough to put the book down and not pick it back up again but enough to produce a few sighs. Now the ending was great! I really enjoyed the ending, finally it picked up and we got what we were looking for from the rest of the story. Leila’s dad surprises you and Carson steps up in a big way! I’m still a bit confused on how the whole binding works but whatev’s the end is still great! Oh and you may remember Nadira from the 1st book, well she makes an appearance and kicks total a$$! We also have cameos from Jack and his grandfather Shawn, who I quite enjoyed. Jack is really coming into his powers. Overall, it was a decent story, it lacked some momentum but the ending made up for a lot of it.

*This book was provided to me by the author for an honest review

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Review: Amber Sweetapple – Jack and Djinn

The Houri Legends Series:
Book 1:


Jack and Djinn: Miriam and Jack
 

 
Summary:
From Goodreads.com:
Miriam's life is a hot mess. Her boyfriend Ben is no longer the man she fell in love with, and he won't stop knocking her around. Every time she tries to leave him or stand up to him, she gets hurt even worse.
 
Then one day she's saved by a sexy stranger named Jack. He's kind, handsome, and sweet: everything she could ever want and more. And he's determined to protect her at all costs.
 
As her passion for Jack ignites, so does the rest of her body...
 
But Ben won't give up his girl so easily, leading to a violent confrontation with deadly consequences no one could have predicted.
 
Review:
Miriam has led a very difficult life, he father dying at 13 has left an incredible void in her life. Her mother basically ignores her and then abandons her when she is still in High School. With no other options, Miriam goes it alone. She ends up going to abusive relationship to abusive relationship, thinking she doesn’t deserve better. Her current relationship with Ben has spiraled out of control, it doesn’t take much for him to turn his fists onto her these days. It is when she is being beaten that she meets Jack, a kind soul that steps between her and Ben. Jack means well but as he and Miriam get closer the more the violence escalates.
 
Reading this book, I have found that I don’t really enjoy reading about domestic violence while it is occurring in the book. I am a lot more comfortable with DV after the fact, when the character is healing from the bad relationship. My best friend is a DV councilor so, this issue hits a little too close to home for me and I have a hard time separating, since I do know how prevalent it is in today’s society. That being said I think Ms. Sweetapple, did a great and very realistic job of covering this topic. It felt real and very believable; despite myself I found that I was getting swept away by the story. I think my feeling uncomfortable with the subject matter really showed just how realistic the portrayal was. Miriam was perfect in her fear and abused mentality. When weird things start happening to Miriam things start heating up, literally. I liked that Miriam didn’t freak out about her power but seemed to accept it and starting using them the best that she could without any training or even knowing what in the world she is. I liked her interactions with Jack, he was so good and patient with her. She tried pushing him away for his own safety, but he stuck in there with her through thick and thin.  I do have to admit there were times where I wished that I could yell at Miriam and say “WTF are you doing girl! Wake the F up!” and this is why I would never be a good councilor! LOL
 
Ben was one scary SOB! He was perfect in what he was supposed to be, an abusive, controlling crazy town guy. He just got crazier and crazier each page, each encounter, until you knew things were going to reach a boiling point. I liked how when the book starts you are at his scene of death so you know he’s going to get it in the end, so you keep that in mind and each chapter you alternate between the past events leading up to the main event and the investigation into his death. It really makes things interesting to see how we got there. I liked that it was structured every other chapter so it was consistent. I think if the spacing had varied it would have made the story disjointed instead of flowing easily between the two time periods.
 
Jack, I wasn’t too sure of. I mean I liked him; there was nothing not to like. He was charming, caring, accepting and an all around good guy, but maybe too good. I mean he was willing to risk his life for someone he had just met. I mean there is protecting and then there is dying. I don’t know, it just seemed a bit quick when there is not a mating situation involved. You really kind of had to take a leap of faith and just go with it. Jack did have a decently cool second site ability which kept things interesting. I really liked Jack’s grandfather, it was quite fun and funny! I loved that he knocked Ben out flat. Go get’em gramps!
 
Overall, this was an intriguing well written, interesting story and a great start to this series. It kept my interest from beginning to end, it had enough going on that you were never bored. I am very interested to see where Ms. Sweetapple is taking us with this series and I will be continuing on to see where it leads.
 
*This book was provided to me through the author for an honest review.


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