A. C. Katt (1951–2017)

Reviewed on Hearts On Fire... http://heartsonfirereviews.com/

Jim Menetti had a good life as Reed and Bear's BDSM night club Indiscrete. Jim and Reed had a working D/s relationship and Jim's life revolved around pleasing his Master and helping to run Indiscrete. That all fell apart when Jack came back to town. Jim got the boot, a percentage of Indiscreet which Bear forced out of Reed and a start at a new life. Reed got Jack which was no bargain for either of them. Tensions ran high between Bear and his sub Brian and Reed while "Papa" Bear and Brian helped Jim get back on his feet.
I loved this story. I admit that the cover is what drew me to it in the first place but the cover was deceiving. What I found inside was a well written story about four men that I couldn't help but become emotionally invested in. Ms Katt developed the characters of the four guys perfectly and wove a complicated dynamic between them. Bear and Reed had been friends since childhood and co-owned Indiscrete. Bear and Brian had a solid, loving D/s relationship and Jim and Brian were best friends. When Jack re-entered Reed's life, the whole dynamic changed. Bear or Papa Bear as the subs called him became the man caught in the middle. He needed to balance his friendship with Reed and his sub's friendship and the need to help Jim begin a new life. The further I read in the story the more I saw the dichotomy in Jim's personality. He played the flouncy sub but beneath that was a strong individual who ran a business and pretty much ran Reed. Both Jim and Reed had a boat load of baggage and I found it amusing that the psychiatrist that they both saw was a sub himself. The bond between Jim and Brian was wonderfully endearing to me. Caleb was just a sick bastard who's only redeeming factor is that he brought about the story's HEA. Aside from being a thoroughly entertaining story, the reader catches a glimpse of just how a healthy D/s relationship works and how a faulty one easily crumbles. I have not read book one in this series but it is next up on my plate although it seems that the books can be read as stand alones. I highly recommend this suspenseful, moving book.… (mehr)

His Omega is the first book in the ‘Werewolves of Manhattan’ series. The MCs are Armand Le Marche, Alpha of part of North America, and Sean Quinn an Omega, but he doesn’t know it yet. The book is I think told in third person from both Armand’s and Sean’s povs, although it often sounds like the book is omniscient because there’s head-hopping.

2.5 Stars



We meet Sean on the streets. He once attended college studying for his master’s in Art. But when he came out to his father he was tossed out on the streets. He now had no money and was going to prostitute himself. His friend, Leroy was going to help him, but they ran into someone called “The Russian” or Dmitri, and Leroy told Sean to run. Leroy was killed by Dmitri and Sean was attacked. He ran for help and encountered Armand’s limousine. Armand, an Alpha wolf living in Manhattan, took Sean to his place. His pack had run-ins with Dmitri before. Once Armand scented Sean, he knew Sean was his mate.

This story has a lot of the typical werewolf tropes. Scenting, knotting, Mine! are just some of them. But this story reads more like a YA teenage girl/Harlequin novel. There’s Armand, the super-rich and powerful guy coming to the rescue of the lost and very much younger man. Sean is twenty-four at the start of the story and turns twenty-five towards the end when he comes into his powers, although he acts like he’s about sixteen. In the YA/NA genre, there’s usually the protagonist who has special powers but doesn’t know what they are until they meet the special someone or people who can tell him/her and then they end up saving everyone.

The writing is not very polished. There are many grammar mistakes, continuity issues, issues where Sean is told some information and then later asks the same questions over as if he doesn’t know the answers. There was even an issue about him knowing something he had no way of knowing. There are also multiple povs in the story, not just the MC’s. The multiple povs didn’t bother me as much as I thought they would, but what did bother me was the head-hopping. At first I thought this was self-published because often self-published books are full of these kinds of errors, but it’s not. So a lot of the blame can be laid at the publisher’s feet for not pointing out the problems. I think the author also needs to find some competent betas to help with the technical issues, not simply betas that say they like a scene or not.

Another big problem with this book is it’s all ‘told’ rather than shown. I couldn’t get into the story because the telling kept me at a distance. Even the dialogue was telling with lots of explanation of the werewolf community and pack life. The dialogue is also stilted with hardly any use of contractions. I can possibly see Armand speaking this old and formal way since he's one hundred and fifty years old. But Sean? No way, but once with the pack, he does. Their voices also sounded the same. I kept wanting to put the book aside and not finish, but since the writing was simplistic I kept reading. As to the conflict in the story, every event that came up was easily and quickly solved so there really was no tension. The sex scenes also didn’t draw me in and also the author got fancy at numerous points and used words that didn’t fit or stood out like “sotto voice,” instead of saying ‘he lowered his voice,’ or ‘whispered.’ The proclamations of love were flowery and mushy, something like in female romance novels and how women want to hear them said by a man. It took away from the story.

Back to the MCs again. Sean was gentle but reminded me of a young female. Armand was supposed to be this strong Alpha, but the only impression I got was that he often got angry, liked to order people around and growled. They were caricatures of an Alpha and Omega. There was a young girl in the story, Elena, and I actually thought she was the best character. Elena didn’t overtake the story and she acted like a young child.

Anyway, I’m sure you might be wondering why I read the whole story. Despite all the issues, there was a decent plot below all the problems. The subplots were also interesting as was the world-building. I liked the author’s take on werewolves. If the author decides to make another edition, I think the story needs a lot of fixing, starting with showing instead of telling. Next fix all the grammar, continuity errors and head-hopping, which would probably be one of the easiest things to fix. Also write the MCs as men, make them unique, not so cliche. A man can be gentle, but he doesn’t have to act like a teenage girl.

There are other books in this series, but I probably won’t read them unless they were free like this book. I give His Omega, 2 Stars because I was able to finish the story and the plot was interesting, but there was too much wrong with it for me to give it any more stars. Would I suggest this? I don’t know. Some other readers really liked this, I’m just not one of them.




… (mehr)

I'm sorry but I didn't like this one at all.

The theme I liked so two stars. But for the love of God. Seriously?! The main characters are two of the most whiny, selfish and overall weirdest persons I ever read about.

I hated Milo for being an overall jerk. I hated Rick for being a coward. I didn't like Sam because he made things just so much harder and Rick well funny enough I liked Rick most of all. He was honest with himself without being a whiner.

But what really bugs me about this book is the writing style. It sucked. It didn't flow for me. Sounds vague but when you're reading a story sometimes you get in a zone. You can't stop because everything is just right. The atmosphere, language, rhythm of the story. This book didn't had any of those things. It was one long summary of incidents. I can see why some people would like this but for me it just didn't work.… (mehr)