reviews – Jody Wallace, Author

Anybody like to review SFRs? I have a few ARCs of CATAGENESIS left to share if you have a proven track record of actually posting reviews OR we already know each other. How about it? Reviews can be short, a paragraph explaining why’d you’d recommend, are ambivalent about, or did not like the book in question — and I’m not the kind of author who’ll get ticked at you if you don’t give me 5 stars A+++. What kind of asshole does that?? But seriously.

Email me if you’d like to apply to be on my ARC team!

cover for catagenesis is a lady in a black futuristic style suit and a siamese cat in a blue spaceship background.

Here is a short blurb that a helpful cyber denizen helped me with, as opposed to the long one on the book page you can see if you click the cover.

Two humans, a bunch of cats, a space ship … and murder.

Until a talking cat interrupted a business meeting, Han-Ja Gee thought he knew everything. He made a living selling information and secrets to almost anyone willing to pay. If he could discover how talking cats actually exist, he could pay off the life-debt he owes and leave Trash Planet forever.

On a generation ship whose passengers woke up two thousand years late—and whose cats became sentient—Farah Shine Collins struggles to adjust. When she is asked to partner with a local citizen from the current century in solving a murder on board the ship, she knows it will be trouble.

Han-Ja dreamt of escape and Farah dreamt of a place to call home. Neither expected to fall in love. If they cannot stop the killer, the collateral damage will be more than their hopes and dreams. It will be their lives.

Thanks again to Aysha for helping me gain more perspective on revising my book blurb! Be sure to ask me about the Catagenesis ARCs today.

Jody Wallace’s 30+ titles in sf/f and contemporary romance feature diverse protagonists, action, adventure, and plenty of cats. Visit her at www.jodywallace.com and the cats at www.meankitty.com

Last month when my human shared a release day with author Nina Croft, I had the tingling experience of reading her book Unthinkable. And by “reading” I mean I sat on the book and absorbed the story through my posterior area. I read a lot of creative literature by sitting on it, so this contemporary romance with a hint of sci-fi was a gorgeous change of pace. Quite comfortable and glossy with the added attraction that my human was trying to read it, and my sitting on it was very inconvenient for her. In some ways the book reminded me of The Magician’s Nephew except with adult characters faced with boldly stupid situations. Oh, and no talking horses. Or Narnia. Or magicians. Sci-fi, remember?

The book starts off with protagonists Jake and Christa faced with a sparkling challenge. Kind of like when the sun hits an eastern facing window at my house, the one with the prisms in it, and there are suddenly rainbows and dancing lights all over the floor and walls that MUST DIE. Both characters behave unexpectedly about this. Humans, am I right? They’re so boring. Nobody does any parkour off the walls in order to kill a red dot, and there are no hairballs that get hacked up in revenge.

Soon thereafter, when the character Sadie is introduced, in a scene involving shooting, the plot really starts to get clumsy. The last thing you need in a contemporary romance with a hint of sci-fi is a clumsy shooter, even if the object being shot is metaphorical. I myself am very good at shooting—shooting evil glances, shooting across the floor in pursuit of an enemy, shooting up the stairs when a human is trying to navigate them while carrying a heavy load. Madly enough, Jamie is no Aiden Quinn.

And don’t even get me started about the colonel. The colonel. What can I say about the colonel that I learned through my posterior? The involvement of the colonel in the narrative will leave readers exhausted. It’s a HUGE effort to read through your posterior when there are red dots to chase and the humans keep trying to take the book out from under you. Over and over and over. It’s enough to make a cat hiss, I tell you. The story blindly continues after the exhausting part with the colonel until it seems all cells are lost, and the ending will escape you. It escaped me because the humans hid the dang thing. I think they put it on the top shelf of a bookcase, the one with the glass figurines on it, the one I have yet to scale. But never give up, never surrender! It’s on my things-to-do list. Climb shelf, break glass, finish Unthinkable. The pace of the book was like riding on a motorcycle with a driver who is fearless on a road that winds through a mountain. This is a thing, mind you, that I have never done, as I detest vehicles of all sorts, but it sounded good.

If you are looking for a way to spend a day, this book is definitely an option. The characters and plot are so immense compared to other books on the market today. It’s probably almost as thick as one of those Harry Potter books, you know? At least from a cat’s perspective. Granted, the feline content in the book was only two kilos, not nearly enough. This could have been better, but no author is completely brilliant…not even one with dogs, cats, and a three-legged pig. So I hear. All in all, Unthinkable is a blonde tale about joy, chasing things, and being terrified. You will not be disgusted if you pick this one up!

Rating: 42 squeaking mice and a brave doughnut

Sincerely,

Meankitty

Category: reviews

Still have a few ARCs…

Meankitty “Bad Libs” Review: Unthinkable