Reviewing the Based Romance Sale
Epic battles, a side of romance.
The other day, we announced that the Based Book sale was live.
We just wanted to point out a few books in the sale that our reviewers have already covered.
As the graphic says, everything here is $0.99 or less … usually free.
The books we reviewed in the sale are as follow:
Book Review: John C Wright's Iron Chamber of Memory
What started out as a romantic comedy, Nora Roberts style, and then, Jeffery Deaver-like, ended in an epic battle on the scale of Mary Stewart and her books of King Arthur and Merlin.
Let's call it a fantasy romance, of sorts. Where's the soundtrack for Excalibur! I need O Fortuna to accompany the knights charging out of the mists!
Trust me, when I say it was epic, I mean EPIC.
Review: The Raven, the Elf, and Rachel by L. Jagi Lamplighter
A magical girl ended up at a magical school, collected nearly a dozen magical friends, joined a fraternity, investigated a mystery, saw an omen that heralds the doom of worlds, headed off an attack by an army of dozens of mind-controlled students, saved the entire campus, and provided support for a battle that involved the dragon that used to be Professor Moriarty... It's not bad for the first five days of school.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a slow burn novel with this big a payoff, ever. I mean that seriously. Roy Griffis’s Holding the Line: Book One of The Long Watch is a novel that starts off pretty slowly. It’s the first day of school at the New Territorial Military Institute. Some plebes wanted to be there. Others had been sent there by their parents and had no desire to attend the school. They were flat out disrespectful, but it was all low stakes conflict.
By the end of the book, I found myself in a nightmare world.
This next book, Honor at Stake, is going to be a bit of a mess. It’s been reviewed three different times by three different reviewers.
Review: Honor At Stake (Love at First Bite, Book 1) by Declan Finn
Urban Fantasy lovers who want some meat on the bone. Finn brings his trademark worldbuilding skill to this novel, making it a dense, action-packed read. Those who like a bit of steam with their to their romances will find plenty to satisfy, while those who would prefer the steam not be dialed up too high will be happy to know it leaves plenty to the imagination. Anyone looking for non-stop action that still lets the characters breathe will enjoy this
Honor at Stake will appeal to those who want drama with a side of practicality rather than soap opera for this reason.
Review: Honor at Stake by Declan Finn
What happens when you drop all the modern nonsense about vampires, bring them back to the creatures that don’t like holy water any more than they like sunlight and throw them into the modern world?
I personally have read everything from Bram Stoker's Dracula to P.N. Elrod's I, Strand: The Memoirs of a Vampire to about the first hundred and forty or so pages of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles will always have a place in my heart. I've literally read and watched so many vampire stories that I can't remember them all. I have never seen vampires done quite like Declan Finn did his in Honor at Stake. His take is new and refreshing and I loved it. The story itself was both entertaining and action packed, but vampire lore as interpreted through Catholic philosophy a la Thomas Aquinas is both new and interesting. The fact that he seems to have added a scientific explanation for the existence of vampires was a lot of fun as well. The nerd in me approves of this for the simple fact that I like to know everything and Finn offers me the answer to one of Fantasy's oldest questions.
The two main characters, Marco (the borderline psychotic killer) and his new wife Amanda (the vampire) keep running into problems that can only be solved with the application of high amounts of force, often ending in a permanent stoppage of breathing for those that have attacked them. That’s assuming that the offenders were breathing in the first place, which isn’t always true. Zombies tend to show up uninvited on a fairly regular basis.
Unlike the last time this happened, we haven’t reviewed a quarter of the sale. This should be a touch more manageable. Also, this is obviously, less comprehensive. The sale itself has around a hundred books.
Happy hunting
I've got books in this event as Odessa Moon.
They have such a good array that if you like romance, you'll find authors you'll love and books that fill your heart.