Urgh.

I would just like to alert the judges to the fact that my reading month was TERRIBLE-AWFUL-NO-GOOD-HORRID.

Where have all the good books gone???? I think they hide and make faces at me from their secret corners.

So I am listing all the HORRIFICALLY bad books I suffered through. For  Shallowreader’s Bingo. For the World at large. For my own sanity.

Oh. Hello Pretties.

The following is a basic list of sucky readings. Ignore the poop emojis. That’s just me, venting my spleen. 😉

Scratching: The Hating Game, Sally Thorne. 💩💩

Which. I. Hated.

Oh I so wanted to like this book – it had everything that would make a most perfect movie, possibly starring a Meg-Ryan-esque type and a surly-but-hot-man figure. But I didn’t. Lucy was a frustrating manic-pixie completely obsessed with everything about herself: her clothes; her tiny feet; her librarian chic clothing choices (NOT A THING PEOPLE) her lipstick.

I can’t believe Josh didn’t just decide to strangle her with her ‘wild mane of hair’

Ick.

One Beating Heart: Dragon Bound, Thea Harrison 💩💩💩

Well. Gosh Darn It. This was a nightmare of dragon ridiculousness. And I am a FAN of draconian-type things.

Pia is a magical being that no-one knows about, but which super-hot-dragon-macho-person can *smell* from miles away. What is this thing with smelling????

We’re not cats. We don’t need to sniff each other’s asses. Why do writers insist on putting this crap into books?

NO. Jeremy, You don’t smell like a pine forest with a hint of sandalwood – and women DON’T find your sweat comforting.

Trust me on this.

So Pia is magical and Dragos wants her. Pia resists. 300 pages and far too many deep smells later and Pia gives in. The End.

Yeah, I was shocked too – I didn’t see that coming at all.

Uncup Me: Amour Amour, Krista Becca Ritchie. 💩💩

I am starting to wonder if I should be wary of authors with multiple names…kind of like how serial killers seem to have superfluous middle names???

21 yr old Thora has only ever wanted to be in the circus. She meets stereotypically hawt Russian Nikolai Kotova. A circus god apparently.

The words Spellbinding and Sinful are used FAR too much.

This was like wallpaper circus fodder.

Lots of sweating. Lots of bending and yelling – so very little circus-ing. And it’s not like I am an expert in this field. My sole experiences of circuses (circi???) include:

• Wright Bros with a sad elephant and a scary clown when I was 8
• Watching a documentary on Cirque de Soleil.

But if my sum total knowledge of the Big Top can be counted on one hand and it STILL feels light?

That’s probably not a good thing.

Also uncomfortably rude Russian stereotyping which just made it all very unpleasant

DNF

Kind: Lucian Divine, Renee Carlino. 💩💩

Sigh.

CBTC. Caught by that purdy cover. Again, dangnabit.

Lucian. Alcoholic Angel. Evelyn Casey: perfection in the form of a twenty-something.

It’s like City of Angels. On Crack. Without the decency of good prose.

Instalove: Check

Slutty Best Friend: Check

Horny, Childish Angel-Men who are supposed to be a thousand years old: Check

Damn you cover.

That would be Grand: The Golden Spider, Anne Renwick 💩

Ahh Steampunk. You giant bucket of hit and miss.

It’s not that this was terrible….but…it could have been maybe 467 times better.

In essence a kind of gas-light murder mystery, only there was so much other crap thrown in, I kind of kept forgetting we were supposed to be after a bad guy.

• Lady Amanda, studying to be a doctor.
• Lord Thornton, her professor (who doesn’t like her because of REASONS) who moonlights as a spy for the government.
• Gypsies who keep getting operated on and then murdered
• Lady Amanda, who has invented a mechanical spider that can spin artificial nerves and make people walk again (yeah – I found that a little hard to suspend disbelief over as well)
• Lady Amanda’s brother who is in a wheelchair and won’t wait for Amanda to finish inventing her spider to mend his legs
• Lady Amanda’s father who would only pay for her medical school if she husband hunted at the same time
• Lady Amanda’s overly emotive and slightly creepy beau
• Lord Thornton’s dicky leg and addiction to a powerful painkiller
• Lord Thornton, who is inventing a mechanical replacement eye.
• Kraken swarms
• Volcanically sulphurous lakes.
• Overly friendly colleagues of Lord Thornton…who all have their own issues which are expounded on at large.

Wait – weren’t people getting murdered somewhere??? I can’t remember – I have been drowned in too much STUFF.

Also: Krakens. Really, Krakens? Why? You have absolutely NO PURPOSE in this story.

Grr.

Black: The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce 💩

‘Easily the year’s best fantasy’ Yes, well the year was 1982. I think that pretty much covers it.

But for those of you that would prefer a little more info:

Weird. Long. A sort of odd hybrid between Beauty & the Beast and a Vampire Thing that had a secret love child with a 12 Dancing Princesses and voila: this is what was cast forth.

Very little character development, lots of journeying, and a love that no-one (not even the reader can understand)

I’ve read worse.

Octopus: Never Kiss A Rake, Anne Stuart. 💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩

What is with that cover??? Is she sleeping upright against a curtain? Or lying on a doll-sized bed? I don’t get it….

Deep Breath. Because I promised myself I wouldn’t rant.

So. Bryony Russell and her two sisters are left destitute and in disgrace after the suspicious death of their father.

To prove his innocence Bryony disguises herself as a housekeeper in the home of her father’s business partner, who luckily has never seen her before.

Adrian Bruton, Earl of Kilmartyn thinks there is something suspicious about his new housekeeper. But he is too busy talking about fornicating with anything that moves to make himself feel better about being married to a beautiful but evil wife.

Bryony has scars, (which seem to magically shrink the longer she is around Adrian). She thinks she is far too unattractive to tempt the Earl. The Earl is short sighted. Doesn’t notice the scars.

So you know what is going to happen right? No big surprise there.

But really, the thing that COMPLETELY ruined this book for me (apart from its ridiculous plot, terrible characterisation and stereotypically tepid story arc), was the amount of times I had to read the word VIRGIN.

I am so f***ing tired of this insane fixation with people’s hymens. Seriously.

28.

There are 28 references to the fact that Bryony is a virgin. That’s 1 reference every 9 pages.

I don’t even think there are that many references in the BIBLE. And if there are – well, it’s the Bible.  It’s probably allowed to.

There are apparently another 2 books in this series.

Oh look. A fork. I’m just going to stab myself in the face and get it over with.

Grumph.

Wishing y’all waaaay better luck in the reading stakes, than yours truely.

Sincerely,

Valancy: did you know there are beany-baby poop emojis? I just bought two.

🙂

Header Image: William Morris Wallpaper; Strawberry Thief, Indigo/Mineral, 1833