Book Review:
Wicked Ink
Wicked Ink
Yet another paranormal romance—I seem to be
firmly entrenched in this genre. NOT that that’s a bad thing…
So Wicked Ink came as part of a special launch
bundle with three other UF/PNR books from Harlequin’s fairly new Digital First
line. I don’t believe the four-bundle is available any longer, but the stories
will be available for purchase as standalones sometime June. (Again, don’t take
my word as law).
All right-y, side-tracked
a bit. Wicked Ink by Misty Simon’s was an entertaining
read. I particularly enjoyed the brevity (whatever 9 chapters translates into
word count-wise). The hero and heroine have officially become one of my
favourite couples thus far in my 2014 reading foray.
Heroine Dory isn’t so
successful with the whole “cooking one’s way to a man’s heart” approach, and
hero Garrett doesn’t have people skills—it’s a perfect recipe for a
boy/girl-next-door trope. They both have their flaws. Some they see and some
that need to be pointed out.
Wicked Ink didn’t get a 5-star
rating for some reasons. There were story elements I didn’t like or that caught
me off guard in an unpleasant way. First, I want to warn anyone who’s going to
dive into this story expecting a sizzler. What you can expect is a simmer. An
itty-bitty sexual tension, I wouldn’t even call sexual tension is all that is
offered. This doesn’t detract from the story, unless you’re looking. I just
think it was a bit misleading, because this story is placed in the box set
offered by Harlequin DF right after Lisa Medley’s Reap and Repent and that story is much sexier. It’s
just that you’re in for reading a mild paranormal romance. Which is actually a
nice change from the more prominent sexier adult romances.
Secondly, it lacks
in-depth mythos. One question I still have, and I’m not sure if I just missed
because of my own poor reading skills or something, is a full explanation on
the tattoo-weapons origin. I mean we’re told how Garrett came to have his body
riddled with these tattoos, but that’s about it. I understand the story is a
novella, but I think a bit of an explanation could have really rounded the
paranormal plot thread.
And finally, the main
antagonist was a let-down. They didn’t put up a fight at all, even though there
was this huge build-up of how they were an assassin, cold-blood killer and the
present fact of their controlling a group of mean and dangerous thugs. Ugh.
But overall, I recently
found out that there is a Book 2 to this series. Protective Ink doesn’t have a release date, but I
imagine it will be out later this year as it is also going through Harlequin’s
eBook program. And if the H/h is anything like Dory + Garrett my excitement
knows no bounds.
My verdict:
✮✮✮✮
(4 stars)
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