Review - Burning Alive

Title: Burning Alive
Author: Shannon K. Butcher
Publishing Date: May 2009
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: C-
Sensuality: Hot

Helen Day has lived her entire life in fear of fire. She repeatedly has this one vision where she sees herself burning to death while a man stands by idly watching her and to top it all off he has a smile on his face. As she is dining in a local diner she recognizes the man from her vision. He is sitting in a booth across from her with two other men. She is certain her time of death is near and that her vision will come true.

Drake is a Theronai warrior who is fighting a losing battle against the Synestryn, animalistic beasts in order to save the human race and his own people. When he sees Helen looking strangely at him he is compelled to figure out why. As he approaches her and they make physical contact Drakes power transfers to Helen and she eases his pain that he has carried for centuries. Somehow these two are linked and Drake is determined to find out why.

Where to begin? I had a lot of problems with this book. First, of all the whole story takes place in two or three days. Helen goes from being a normal woman who brings meals to the elderly, to fighting battles alongside of Drake. We are not even talking about a normal battle, but a fight to the death with inhuman demonic creatures. Ummm, no I don't think so. Helen is a huge scaredy-cat, not a kick-ass fighting machine. I just didn't see the connection. It all felt so out of place for her character. Granted she doesn't want to fight and Drake is forcing her too, but still that aspect didn't work for me.

This brings me to my second dislike, Drake. I did not like his character at all. He took to many liberties with Helen, first by practically kidnapping her and then by withholding pertinent information from her that would effect her for the rest of her life. He was basically a selfish bastard. I honestly didn't see what Helen saw in him. Top that off with repeated mental lusting and I felt annoyed with the story.

The reason why I am so worked up over it is because while reading the story, I really felt like Butcher had something here with this new series. I could see its potential to become a really great series. She has interesting world building with the variety of different inhuman races. She also incorporated interesting side plots with various secondary characters, many of which I found exciting. It's just that all of this was overshadowed by the negatives. I am not sure if I will read more in this series. I will play it by ear when the next book is released.

Here is what others had to say:

The Book Lush
Darque Reviews
Babbling About Books, and More
Ticon4
Book Binge
Michelle's Book Blog

This book can be purchased in print or kindle format from Amazon.

Review - No Control

Title: No Control
Author: Shannon K. Butcher
Publishing Date: February 2008
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Rating: B-
Sensuality: Hot

Lana Hancock was captured by the Swarm and tortured brutally for days. Many of her friends who were also captured died. She was the only one to survive the torment. Caleb Stone, of the Delta Force, was working undercover infiltrating the Swarm when Lana was taken. He had to stand by and witness her torture without being able to intervene. He was able to save Lana and get her away from the Swarm but he has been haunted by those events. His boss, Monroe, believes that Lana knows something and that she is still in danger. Monroe sends Caleb to see if he can discover what it is Lana is hiding and protect her.

Caleb is an awesome hero. He is super sexy with his big strong body and all he wants to do is protect and cherish Lana. He feels guilty for not being able to do more for her when she was being tortured by the swarm. He finds himself falling in love with Lana but knows that she won’t want anything to do with him.

The suspense plot was well thought out. There are lots of twists and turns without any overtly gory bits. The part that dragged for me was Lana’s lack of trust of Caleb. I think she held onto her secrets for far too long. I wish that she would have come to trust Caleb much sooner in the story. Because of her lack of trust, the story dragged slightly in the middle. The ending was kick-ass though. I am so glad that Lana was able to vindicate her terror. Let’s just say the bad guy gets what’s coming to him in the end.

I think Butcher is someone to watch for. To me, her writing style is reminiscent of Christine Feehan or even Linda Howard. No Control was not as good as her first book No Regrets, but still not a bad effort.

Here is what others had to say:

Dear Author