B-
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Mandi. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Best First Book, Paranormal Romance category.
The summary:
An angel, a demon and a vampire walk into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it’s just another day in the life of Kyle McKinley.
Kyle was born with the ability to erase memories, and the inability to keep her opinions to herself. She and her teammates – a vampire who looks like a sexy pirate with fangs, and a Shamat demon with a penchant for Italian pastries – provide supernatural damage control when humans see too much. Today’s problem? A sword-wielding angel and a demon had a supernatural smackdown during happy hour in a Cleveland bar, leaving behind a headless vampire and a dozen human witnesses.
This latest supernatural slip-up is attracting all kinds of attention. So much attention that the police step in, and Kyle has to deal with Joe Dalton, a know-it-all human with the sexiest turquoise eyes she has ever seen. Kyle has no room in her life for yet another human who will treat her like a freak. However, Dalton definitely makes her naughty parts sit up and take notice, and it’s more than mutual. But before they can act on their attraction, they must join forces to solve a dangerous puzzle. And when they uncover the truth, the apocalyptic ripple effect forces Kyle to make a choice. Learn to trust again, or risk losing everyone she cares about, including Dalton.
Here is Mandi's review:
Confession time: As much as I love my romances (and I REALLY love my romances) my first love was (and probably always will be) fantasy. Combine fantasy with a strong romantic element and I’m in near heaven. So after reading that fantastic description you can imagine why I jumped at the chance to review Mind Sweeper. And, while it was a good book, unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to its description.
Kyle is our protagonist and the book is completely written from her first person perspective. She is part of a three person team that gets sent to investigate supernatural mysteries. (The author’s Charlie’s Angels‘ comparison is pretty great. Actually, all of the many television references are pretty awesome and one of my favorite things about this book.) Kyle is on the team (she self-identified as the Kate Jackson of the trio) because she has the ability to change people’s memories–a much cooler superpower than just erasing people’s memories when you think about it. Rounding out the team is a vampire named Jean Luc (the Farah Fawcett) and a demon named Misha (or Jacqueline Smith).
A. E. Jones does a great job of creating secondary characters and I found myself really caring for Jean Luc and Misha. In fact, I ended up caring more for several of the secondary characters than I did for Kyle’s love interest, Joe–which is problematic in a romance. But this book didn’t really feel like much of a romance to me, not even a paranormal romance. It honestly felt like a straight up urban fantasy with a light romance subplot. I actually forgot that it was supposed to be a romance until the author utilized a somewhat literal deus ex machina to ensure the HEA happened. To be honest I would rather the couple hadn’t ended up together (in this first book of the series at least) than end up together the way they did.
There were also other issues with the plot. Like, why was Joe even added to the team to begin with? I know it was supposed to be to handle any extra media attention attached to the case, but he never really did anything like that. Instead, he just took over the case and pretty much replaced Jean Luc and Misha as Kyle’s new partner. There were a few other plot issues, but delving into them would be too spoilery.
This really is a fun read and a pretty good book, especially for it being a first book. It’s funny and engaging, with well-rounded characters and a great storyline. After first finishing it a week ago, I had planned on giving it a B+. But the more I thought about it, the more the weak-sauce ending and plot issues bothered me. When I add to that how little Romance there seemed to be (at least for me), the final score is a B-.
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Thanks Mandi. I fully agree with this review. Loved Misha, wanted to see more Jean Luc, felt the ending was too forced. Having said that, I immediately looked up AE Jones on Amazon to see what other books were available.
This is from someone who also loves SF/F first and romance a strong second.
Boooo! I was soooo looking forward to this book. It sounded so delightfully insane. But weaksauce endings sound pretty awful, so I’m conflicted. But thanks for a great review!
I had so many problems with this book. I ended up DNFing it out of sheer frustration with the many plot holes and the weirdness that was Joe.