Danielle AnnettReseñas

I JUST LOVE ALL THE STORIES. AND THE LONGER I READ THEY GOT BETTER AND BETTER!! I really loved Willow and Freak, Saylor and Knox, and Felicity and Nolan the best. The best was they were all set in Chicago!

Thank you, NetGalley, for the chance to read and review Cruel Wolves and Devious Deceptions by Danielle Annett.

Cruel Wolves and Devious Deceptions by Danielle Annett came out earlier this year on the 1st of June and is the third book in the Hellbound Hearts series. The book was published by Coffee and Characters, but the e-ARC was courtesy of Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op. It's 227 pages long and counts as a paranormal romance. While I approved some time ago, I made use of my Kindle Unlimited subscription to read the book.

This short, fun smutty read has, or will probably make, rounds on BookTok. We have a wealthy but independent shapeshifter who has been obsessed with the same girl for a while. He can get anyone but holds back and gets super protective and possessive. Our main character is pretty and feisty, sexy but still a virgin, and constantly argues back.

So as a whole, I'm leaving the book three stars. I can see a significant amount of appeal, but there were some elements that I couldn't get with.

The book is billed as an enemy to lovers, but they aren't really ever enemies. They're in the same social circle, and they argue with each other a lot; that's all. The book is supposed to feature an academy, but it's just a prop to get them unsupervised together and show that the dude plays a sexy sport.

The age gap was a bit weird. What 17-year-old is into a 14-year-old? And later in the story, her age didn't matter. I think it kept getting thrown in simply to market the book as having an age gap. However, if you had made the character a bit older, it wouldn't have made a difference except make things less weird. Our main character was pretty pick-me at the start, which I disliked (but she is 17), and I hate it in this day and age when authors include the "You're not like other girls" line in the book. Even if you're characters are stupid, they're teenagers and college students, and they should know how to pass as woke. I was not a fan of some of the character names like KeAnne or Joaninha.

While this book was fun, I didn't want to read any others in the series.

i stopped reading after the first story....it was up to chapter 22, story was good and i liked it, but it ended at chapter 22 and the full book has not been released yet...i dont know if the rest of the stories are also half books because i did not read the rest

I really liked the story but it is like its missing a big piece of the story, what happend to the bad guys? you never get any ending to that part, a shame because the rest of the story was good, but because of this only 2 stars

I liked this story from Melissa Ivers. It is a very quick read but brings the heat. You could feel the sexual chemistry between Mick and Tessa. While, Mick may have been older than Tessa, they worked well together. He did have a bit of a horney teenage boy charm about him when it came to Tessa but he was all man behind closed doors. If you were looking for a short story to keep you warm these cold, winter months; you don't need to look any further than Jingle Devil by Melissa Ivers.

Danielle Annett’s BRANDED BY FIRE is scorching hot. The story takes place following book three, BURNED BY FIRE. After nearly dying, Aria Naveed was mate bonded to Pacific Northwest Pack Alpha, Declan Valkenaar. She is struggling to control her powers after being experimented on by H.A.C. (HUMAN ALLIANCE CORPORATION), while trying to avoid the catastrophic outcome of her prophecy. This PNR is suitable for adult readers.

Danielle Annett continues to do an amazing job with her character development and plot. The characters have grown and overcome numerous obstacles. I like that the story is told from both Aria’s and Declan’s point of view. I appreciate how their relationship evolved. There is some interesting tension with Inarus. My heart went out to Aria and everything she endured, especially with her mother.

BURNED BY FIRE was fast-paced and exciting throughout. There were fascinating twists with unexpected outcomes. My only complaint about this book is that it ended. I enjoy this story so much I wanted it to keep going. Needless to say, I am anxiously awaiting book five. I love this series. I would compare it to Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series. I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

I found this to be a really enjoyable read. I liked the premise of the book and found myself really hooked on the story. I liked the depth and personality of the characters and felt that the world had enough detail to make you feel as though you were truly a part of the story. It is a read that I would definitely recommend to YA and adults alike.

After reading this book, I look forward to reading more from this author and hope to see more from her popping up soon!

**I received this book for free and voluntarily provided my honest and unbiased review.

Danielle Annett’s BURNED BY FIRE takes place following book 2, KISSED BY FIRE. Aria Naveed is hired to find a witchling child. She soon discovers that she is being held by the Human Alliance Corporation (HAC) and needs to be rescued. Simultaneously, she is dealing with her mating to Alpha, Declan Valkenaar, and pack issues. This urban fantasy is suitable for adults.

Danielle Annett continues to do a great job with her character development. Aria persists in growing her powers. She is also struggling with her unwanted mating to Declan. She is attracted to him but doesn’t know if it is because of the bond. She discovers some disturbing news that she is unsure of how to handle.

In the prior books, I didn’t trust Declan. My opinion of him has changed. I do like him and think his feelings for Aria are genuine. Being the Alpha of the Pacific Northwest Pack he has a lot of responsibility and a stressful job. Aria is adding to his stress.

I like that Aria hires Inarus as a mercenary. He ends up becoming a good friend to her. Furthermore, being a fellow psyker he is an excellent resource.

HAC makes an interesting opponent. Aiden can be a brutal individual. There were many interesting scenes with him, especially at the end of this story.

BURNED BY FIRE has an excellent plot. The novel is exciting from beginning to end. Danielle Annett does a great job of including information from the previous stories. I love the ending and cannot wait to find out what happens in the next book. If you haven’t read the previous books, I recommend starting with book one, CURSED BY FIRE, to become more invested in the series.

Complimentary copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

There are a bunch of things that I love about this box set. I love reading books that are part of a series. So the fact that all the stories that are included in this set are the first of its series is incredible. I love PNR and Urban Fantasy. There is definitely, a wide variety of supernatural creatures included in this set to keep me interested.

One of my favorite books included in this set is Cursed by Fire by Danielle Annett. The supernatural community was revealed to humans six years ago at an event known as the Awakening. Mercenary, Aria Naveed, was hired to find a little boy and uncovers a bigger mystery. Cursed by Fire is a fast-paced action filled novel that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Aria is a worthy heroine. She does not shy away from difficult situations, and she does what she feels is right. I like that she is effective at playing ignorant to learn things. She is smart and good at her job.
The mystery in Cursed by Fire is great. I was never quite sure where things were going to lead, so the plot stayed interesting. The epilogue definitely has me wanting to read the next book in the series. It left me a bit stunned.

Fated and Forbidden: An Otherworldly Boxset has nice diversity. It’s a great addition to and paranormal library.

Complimentary copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

I liked a lot of things about this book. Some were similar to other stories about shifters. However when I read a story I expect resolution of the story line. There was NO resolution. I don't like so many unanswered questions. Yes I expect some questions not to be answered. Now I'm unclear of what the point of this book was. And I want to rate it lower because what was the point of the story. I was going to do spoilers but I just don't care anymore. Right now, I would NOT read the rest in this series because the author didn't give me resolution on any story line. I will admit this book and story had good potential. But no. It's not worth your time.

Kissed by Fire takes place right after book one, Cursed by Fire; Aria Naveed is on a new case while simultaneously being attacked by rogue vampires.

I loved Kissed by Fire by Danielle Annett. It had some interesting twists and built on the foundation set in book one.

Aria is struggling with some of the aftermath from the first book. In addition, her association with Alpha, Declan Valkenaar, goes in an unexpected direction. The two are extremely strong-willed making every encounter attention-grabbing.

Aria’s mother and leader of the HAC, Viola Reynolds, makes an interesting adversary. Aria uncovers some questioning things happening at the HAC (Human Alliance Corporation). I am interested in seeing the direction this takes in future books.

Danielle Annett does a great job with her plot and character development. She creates a lot of depth and emotion. It is easy to visualize every scene. The story is exciting from beginning to end.

Complimentary copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Watch out another late night is close, especially if you get your hands on Cursed by Fire! Fast paced, surprises, twisting plot and well rounded book basically. I can’t find anything negative to say about it.

The characters are well turned out, making you feel the way they are feeling. Aria is the lead in this one, she’s a young girl of 17 I think who has the power to control fire. (could use that myself!). She is investigating the death of a 7 year old boy who like herself was a Psyker. She finds herself working with a shifter and ends up dealing with vampires too.

When Aria is in danger and gets hurt you feel her pain, not too bad a book at all really.

NB: I received this book free for an honest review.

Aria Naveed is a mercenary and a pretty good one; but one with a secret. She’s a pyrokinetic, when she gets angry, things burn. This makes her very deadly – but very much in demand

But when her investigation into the death of murdered child uncovers a complicated plot that could bring the vampire Coven and shapeshifter pack to open warfare, she finds her secret perilously close to be revealed

And an intriguing stranger is ready to recruit her – but even with her long dead family involved, she’s unsure about exactly what it is he wants her to join

I was immensely frustrated by the writing in this book. It is so terribly overwritten and full of redundancy and repetition that it made it a bit of a slog to read. Descriptions maundered on for far too long, dialogue was just a bit too long winded to be taken seriously, everything was drawn out and repeated over and over in an attempt to establish setting and theme while failing to do either. Like the opening scene of the book is Ari being upset about a dead child – but she maunders on for so long, repeating herself in the most melodramatic way that any actual emotional impact the scene could have is just rather lost.

Or there’s how she describes Mike, her colleague at the mercenary agency, is no longer in peak shape for active duty:

“Did he seriously think he was up for this? I mean he was great and all but he’d been playing desk duty ever since the day he hired me. And in those two years, Mike had visibly grown soft in the most literal way. A good twenty pounds of softness if you asked me. He was nowhere near the shape he needed to be in to hunt down murderous vampires. At best he’d slow me down, at worst, he’d get both of us killed. Having Mike along was a liability and he knew it.”

Just look at the redundancy in that paragraph! The point was made by “the day he hired me” but we have to revisit it in 5 more sentences each saying exactly the same thing. Or there’s this on how vampires don’t like sunlight:

“The draperies though, I assumed were either new or had been relined to block out the sun during daylight hours. Vampires were not impervious to the sun but neither did they particularly care for it. It had something to do with their chemical makeup and the reaction sunlight caused. There was a reason that legend said vampires couldn’t go out in the sun they were almost right on that point. The truth of the matter though is that if exposed to the sun for a long enough length of time, their bodies experienced something like an allergic reaction. The effects varied based on a vampire’s age, the newer vampires were able to withstand the sun’s harsh rays for a longer length of time since their bodies contained more moisture. If they were less than five hundred years old, they could typically withstand sun exposure for anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour as long as it wasn’t direct. Any old and the vampire’s skin would begin to wither and if they were out for more than a minute or two, they would die. It had something to do with the lack of water contained in their bodies after the change and the sun basically causing extreme dehydration. I’d seen a vampire die from sun exposure before. Several years ago when I was visiting Seattle, Washington the local Coven decided to make a demonstration. I wasn’t sure what the crime had been but the coven tied a vampire to a post in the middle of Pike Street Market with silver chains and left him for dead. When dawn came and the sun began to rise the vampire’s skin began to boil and blister. Within minutes his body had withered to a dry husk. Within an hour, he has deteriorated further and nothing but ash remained. It was a ghastly sight and the stench of the burned, rotting flesh was one I’d never forget.”

Good gods WHY?! Even aside from the fact the mere description of the draperies being lined in the very first sentence gave us ALL the information we needed to know, this vast dump makes no sense (even ignoring the sentence that suggests the author doesn’t know what “not impervious” actually means). Is the vulnerability an allergic reaction, chemical make up or dehydration? If the latter how do they “blister and boil”. If allergic, how do they turn to dust. If burning how come they smell rotten? Don’t try to EXPLAIN a supernatural element if you don’t actually have an explanation and are just throwing word salad around (also, Seattle is in Washington there’s no need to specify).

This is how the whole book is written – the same thought will be reworded 4 or 5 times to hammer home points that really don’t need hammering home.

The worst part of this is that it’s not actually a very long book and so much of it is spent on redundancy that there’s a sore lacking in development. A character dies, for example, and clearly this is supposed to be a devastating loss to Ari but we’ve had very little development of this character and of his relationship to Air.

Similarly, one of the characters she begins to form a connection with seems to turn on her – but it happened pretty soon after she met him, there hasn’t been a whole lot of work in making that connection real and tangible. Even Ari’s relationship with her mother, which becomes especially relevant, is shallow and completely fails to deliver any emotional impact

There are also lots of things hinted at that haven’t really been expanded on. When the supernatural was revealed to the world (how? Why?) society and civilisation seemed to collapse. Now one thing that was really well done was presenting all these little hints to the dystopian world without overwhelming it (such as treating pain killers as a huge luxury) but there’s no real indication WHY society collapsed. Another example is where Ari‘s father decided to train her how to fight as soon as he learned she was a psychic, even criticising her for having long hair that was a liability in combat. But there’s no connection as to why learning she was a psychic drove him to train her in battle – no indication she would be attacked or that her attackers couldn’t simply be burned to death or even if fighting techniques were a way to focus and control her powers. It’s like someone saying they realised they had a legendary talent for bass so their dad taught them the intricacies of fly fishing; it’s just presented as an obvious thing when the connection completely eludes me. Or there’s her panicky claustrophobia which, again, begs for some explanation or development (though “tragic past” is stamped large all over her).

Sadly, I can’t say I’m a big fan of the plot. Again, I have to emphasise that this isn’t a very long book so there’s not a lot of space. So when a substantial chunk of the book is given over to a very shallow love triangle, complete with her having lots of sexy thoughts about James and falling in insta-lust with Inarus, all in the middle of trying to solve the murder of a child and stop a war was pretty frustrating. It had no real compelling

To finish that off, the actual mystery wasn’t that mysterious (you want your organisation to sound like something a character would want to join? Don’t call it PsyShade. Seriously. Evil Geniuses United or Bad Guys Social Club would be more subtle). Most of it was predictable and Ari solved what she did simply because the Coven (vampires) and Pack (shapeshifters) were apparently so gung-ho for war (or written as lacking logic simply because it makes Ari look better) that they missed the blatant attempt to drive them both into a mutually destructive battle. The actual big bad that is behind it all appears briefly but, again, isn’t really developed – and the book ends without really addressing anything. The murder isn’t solve, some monsters that attacked Ari are never really explained, the defeat of the enemies is more of a twist you’d normally find in the middle of the book. This is didn’t feel like a cliffhanger set up for book 2 – it felt like book 1 simply hadn’t been finished.

Read More½

The supernatural community was revealed to humans six years ago at an event known as the Awakening. Mercenary, Aria Naveed, was hired to find a little boy and uncovers a bigger mystery.

Cursed by Fire is a fast-paced action filled novel that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Aria is a worthy heroine. She does not shy away from difficult situations, and she does what she feels is right. I like that she is effective at playing ignorant to learn things. She is smart and good at her job.

I really like James Shields. First of all, because I’m partial to wolf shifters. Second, he is a really good partner and friend to Aria. I appreciate his calm disposition.

I was never certain about Inarus. My feelings for him kept flip flopping, needless to say; he made the story thought-provoking.

The mystery in Cursed by Fire is great. I was never quite sure where things were going to lead, so the plot stayed interesting. The epilogue definitely has me wanting to read the next book in the series. It left me a bit stunned.

Danielle Annett did a fantastic job with this first book in the Blood and Magic Series. I enjoyed her writing style. The story was attention-grabbing and creative. I look forward to reading what she comes up with next.

Complimentary copy provided by author/publisher in exchange for an honest review.½

I want to start out my review by talking about other reviews saying that CURSED BY FIRE is basically a rip-off of the Kate Daniel Series and Psy/Changeling Series. I have not read the Psy/Changeling series so I can not say if this book is similar in any way, but I have read the Kate Daniels series. Although I won't go into every single detail that are alike (because others have already done that), I have to agree that there are quite a few things in CURSED BY FIRE that have the same feel as the Kate Daniels books/experiences and that makes it hard to write this review.....sigh.

SO, if I had never read the Kate Daniels series I would tell you that I enjoyed the characters, world and plot line of CURSED BY FIRE. I would have told you that I wish it was longer because I didn't feel like we got enough in the 157 pages and I would have loved some more detail. I would have said that the story flowed well and I liked the twists and turns that were thrown at us when we learned about the group that was trying to recruit Ari. I would have said I was extremely disgusted by the Alpha proclamation at the end and how I hope that Ari finds out quickly and makes him pay for his scheming were she is concerned. Having said all of that, I don't think it really matters what I thought because of the fact that I have read the Kate Daniels series and there are just too many similarities. Because of this I have decided I will NOT be giving my review a star rating.

* This book was provided free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A great entry in the paranormal/UF genre. Original heroine Aria is smart & kickass mercenary trying to keep the peace between shifters & vamps in Spokane, Washington. Other non-human races are involved & scary moments of suspense are nicely balanced with light humour. It's a fast paced read that is the start of a promising new series & although not my usual genre, I'll be on the look out for book #2.

I have no memory of what this book is about, so I am shelving it under series-tbr.