Mini Reviews: Bleeding Hearts + Red Dawn

BLEEDING HEARTS
Book One of the Demimonde
Ash Krafton
Adult Paranormal Romance
370 pages
Pink Narcissus Press
Available Now
Received from author for review

*Please note I only categorize this as adult paranormal romance due to the age of the protagonists, there are no sex scenes at all in this book.

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Sophie Galen is an advice columnist who is saving the world - one damned person at a time. 

 Shy and sensitive Sophie has all but given up on love until she meets Marek, a mysterious stranger who seduces her with his striking good looks and his take-charge attitude. Yet the darkness she senses within him may be more than she is prepared to handle when Marek draws her into a world of vampires, werewolves, and treachery. Forced to leave behind the comfortable routines and certainties of her past, Sophie makes unbearable sacrifices and uncovers hidden truths about herself and the world around her.

MY THOUGHTS 
Bleeding Hearts is a story that starts out a bit rocky, a connection to protagonists Sophie and Marek extremely slow in forming due to a series of very heavy conversations between them that ultimately tell us very little about who they are as individuals. For the first several hundred pages, both remain but sketches, quick strokes on a page giving us a general outline of them as people, but those sketches never become fully detailed portraits, missing the light and shadow that would bring their features into stark relief. Their relationship seems to develop almost entirely off page, with only a couple brief meetings happening before things seem to fade to black, and when we’re brought back into the story, we find them in a solid relationship complete with the word “love” in place.

Their entire courtship seems to happen in the blink of an eye, preventing us from having an emotional investment in their romance, so when the conflict leaps from the pages to grab our attention with its darkness, it takes us more time than we might like to shake off our previous indifference. Luckily though, it’s nearly impossible to maintain any type of distance in the final chapters, and the link we’ve been searching for to Sophie and Marek finally–and brutally–snaps into place, leading us away from the loneliness of character intangibility and into the warm, though painful, embrace of emotional connection.

Rating: 3.5/5

RED DAWN
Crossroads Academy #2
J.J. Bonds
Paranormal Young Adult
282 pages
Self-published
Available now
Received from author for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Katia’s done running. She’s fought fiercely to protect her identity, her secrets, and those she loves most. And while it hasn’t been easy, she’s finally making peace with the past. Katia’s even looking forward to the start of a new school year at Crossroads Academy.

Too bad things at Crossroads are going to be a little different this fall. There are new rules, new students, and new relationships. Katia quickly discovers that navigating the halls of Crossroads is as complicated as ever.

When a friend’s life is at stake, Katia will be forced to choose between the safety of Crossroads and an enemy more dangerous than any she’s ever faced. Will Katia have the courage to risk it all -including her life- for a friend?

MY THOUGHTS
Much like its predecessor, Red Dawn proves to be a story that focuses primarily on plot rather than character development, though unlike Crossroads, it doesn’t quite hook us as easily, stringing us along for a number of chapters before finally letting us in as to where the tale is heading. The first third of the book simply details the day to day life of Katia’s return to Crossroads Academy, hinting at the events of book one without giving us a full recap, and while were grateful we don’t have a multi-chapter reiteration of events past, we can’t help but feel a little in limbo – a touch fuzzy with our recollection of previous happenings, and completely unclear as to what the future holds in this second installment.

Once the main conflict is introduced, things pick up and Katia shows a darker side of herself as she and boyfriend Nik embark on a crusade to help a sick friend, allowing us to finally settle in comfortably as Katia’s purpose is made known. Ms. Bonds writes an engaging story with characters who are likable even though they don’t necessarily tug at our heart strings or haunt our memories with their many pains and passions, but Red Dawn is a second book in the truest sense, merely giving us a peek at events that will clearly be set in motion in the third installment while denying us any concrete information. Overall, this is a quick read with a great deal of potential moving forward, but it may frustrate readers who typically struggle with middle books that provide a great deal of build up and very little resolution.

Rating: 3/5