Skye MacKinnon

A very short story about a lonely goddess of winter who seeks companionship. But upon creating a companion for herself, everything seems to go wrong, and she finds herself lonelier than ever. It's a very short read (especially if you're listening to the audiobook version which is just under an hour long). It's more about the main character's loneliness and while she talks about wanting to bang her brains out, the book is actually extremely light and very brief when it comes to mentioning sex, sexual acts, and sexual activity. As an asexual person, I mostly enjoy the plot of erotica and stories featuring sex in them. I'm not sex-averse by any means, but because the mentions of sex are either the main character's pining or the acts themselves are described very briefly, I imagine it might not be a big deal to someone who's more sex-averse than I am.

This book is also a prequel, so as an intro to the series it's meant to be a prequel to, it's a pretty decent introduction when it comes to giving me a mental picture of how this world works with magic, and how it's godly characters act, socialize, etc. It also makes you feel for the main character, a goddess of winter who's lonely and desperate for companionship, and this story alone makes me wonder how she'd act in the rest of the series. It's a good hook from the perspective of an older character who's actions drive the plot of later books. As such, I'm curious about the rest of the series and might look into it later on.

It's a short read, easy to digest, and works great as both a prequel, and as it's own short story. A bit rushed, but again, it's short... And not much really seemed to happen over time skips, plus reading about a single character's romantic and sexual pining minute by minute, day to day would've been far too much. It's good as is, so if you're looking for short audio books and other short reads, I'd recommend this one.… (mais)

This was just all around really bad.
I have a hard time to even motivate myself to address some of the major issues.

The book tries to be dark and gritty but instead only manages to sound like a self-insert fantasy of a 14-year-old edgelord.
The protagonists have the same issue but additionally, they are somehow supposed to be the good guys and display morals while leading a professional hitmen company? It's all incredibly contrived and unbelievable.
Furthermore, they all constantly pat each other on the back telling each other how badass and edgy they all are which is incredibly cringeworthy. The author is basically smashing the reader's face in with a sledgehammer but a gentle nudge with a feather would've been enough. This... *smash* world... *smash* is... *smash* dark.... *smash* and... *smash* gritty... *smash*.
That issue is compounded by the audiobook narrator who emphasizes every even slightly edgy statement in this wannabe badass way. See the word "death" anywhere, regardless of context? It's not pronounced "death" but "DeaTHHH". It basically throws the biggest flaw of the book in your face constantly. It's so extreme that I have the suspicion that the narrator did this to make fun of the book while appearing to try hard. It sounds much more like a caricature than an honest attempt at engaging narration.

The next big issue is that the author never stops to consider the consequences of all the differences to our world she introduces. Cats with human-level intelligence would never live as strays on the streets. They would inevitably end up as part of society in some way and that is just one example of many.

And there are plot holes. A lot of plot holes. I've read up to roughly 70% before dropping it so I don't know the full extent but it can only have gotten worse from there.

Why this is tagged as RH I couldn't tell. The only love interest appeared very late in the book. It's probably a case of one guy a book or something.… (mais)