Richard Amos

Well - that did not go well at all. The story went into a spin cycle and never really came out of it. The main character becomes this ( okay not becomes but is more of) an angst-ridden teen. The plot disappears in a series of weird events and nothing makes sense.
Now I am stuck hoping the wonderful idea returns and the story will re-gel. Damn, this OCD-compulsive behavior when it comes to series. The only time I can shake it is when the whole thing is so boring and there is no hope available for salvage.… (más)

Hmmmm. This is a puzzler. Loved the idea. Great world-building. Nice character development - odd, but well done. I think it is the dialogue that throws me. I get that it is supposed to be street London in the future, but still . ... .
The story, ?? great concept but everything kind of stutter stopped around the MC for me. Very street-aggressive, very young in tone and attitude. Too young? almost teen-winey and self-centered. There are flashes of some maturity. I think I am going to soldier up and read on to make a fair decision.… (más)

Fables Retold is an MM Urban Fantasy anthology composed of six stories written by six different authors. This collection is over 1,200 words, which makes these stories more novella length rather than shorts. So far, I’ve read two of these stories and will base my review of this book on those two. As I finish the others, I will adapt the rating.

The two stories I chose to read first were The Demon’s in the Details by Megan Maslow, and Blake and the Beast by Rhys Lawless.



Demon’s in the Details by Megan Maslow - 4.5 Stars
I chose to read this story first. It is a retelling of Rumplestiltskin. I’ll admit that Rumplestiltskin isn’t one of the fairytales that calls me to re-read it, so I don’t recall all the details about the original fairytale. This is also the first story I’ve read by this author although I’ve seen her books around. I don’t know if this is the author’s usual style of writing, but I found it difficult to follow because of all the groups and beings involved which I’ll mention in a bit.

Boy, was this story convoluted. I need to give some plot background to help explain my review. In this story, Rumpstiltskin is a Demon who goes by the name of Tommy. He owns a hair and skin salon and makes deals with beings who come to him for help. Those beings almost always end up coming back for more help and the bargains grow more difficult to fulfill on their part, which means in the end the beings sacrifice their lives. It’s made to work that way. Poe is a raven shifter who has to make a deal with Tommy because he wants to save the rook from his drunken step-father, Alpha Ethan’s, gambling debts. Poe is responsible and has in fact been acting as the Alpha, but it’s not as simple as challenging his step-father’s position. Also, Poe likes to consider himself a ‘free-bird,’ and doesn’t consider himself Alpha material. Got all that? And that’s just the simple part.

The part I had trouble with, and it carried on until the big conference, was there were lots of different groups and side characters. The author didn't clearly explain what these groups were and who belonged to each. There was something called the Rogers, the Hons and some other groups. These groups were composed of vampires, fairies, mages and shifters. I can understand not explaining about these groups if the narrator, in this case Poe, didn’t have any knowledge about who and what these groups were and he was learning about them along with the reader. But he did know. We are thrown in blind and expected to figure it out. Instead, all it did was make me feel lost. To top it off, Tommy’s dealings and twisted mechanizations with the groups and other beings made it even more confusing to figure out what was happening and to whom. Instead of me caring and drawing me even more deeply into the plot, it did the opposite and made me not care because it felt like there was a 'black hole of missing information'. I just felt lost. As I mentioned, it wasn’t until the big meeting near the conclusion that each group and being was clearly explained by Poe. This for me, was the biggest flaw in the story. Not enough info up front about the groups and side characters so that I felt lost, confused and didn’t really understand what was happening to the groups and why should I care when they involved Tommy and Poe?

Now the one great thing about this story was Poe. His unique voice jumped out from the page as soon as I started to read it and he pulled me right in. The first-person narrations I’ve often read have almost all lacked a unique quality and tend to be monotonous. Not Poe. He was one of the most entertaining first-person narratives I’ve ever read. Poe is smart, sassy, irreverent, loves sparkly objects of course, and finds danger exciting. He’s also kind-hearted and genuine. What you see is what you get. When he asks Tommy for help, he always asks for others, never for himself. Which brings us to Tommy. Tommy is an over two-thousand-year-old demon who wasn’t sent back to hell. He isn’t what you think of as a demon. His human form is a slim blond twink, which is just Poe’s type. It’s instant lust when the two meet for the first time. Tommy doesn’t want to get involved with Poe because it’s easier than getting hurt emotionally and he knows if Poe keeps asking for help, eventually Poe will fail and Tommy will have to kill him and eat his soul. The thing is, Poe isn’t afraid. The rook and his half-siblings mean everything to him and he would die for them, but preferably not. My feeling is Tommy is drawn to Poe, not just because of ‘fate’ but because Poe is so genuine and protective. Poe even protects Tommy even though Tommy doesn’t need help. Poe also isn’t afraid of Tommy’s demon, which Poe can see as a shadow. Poe likes Tommy’s power even if Tommy is a killer and Tommy is attracted to that. They’re made for each other and I could totally see them as a couple. But the author kept us in suspense by dragging out the commitment.

The side characters within the rook had great voices also. The siblings, and Poe’s female friend, Kennedy, who worked in the jewelry store Poe owned. I believe she was human but had a killer’s instinct also. I’d love to learn a bit more about her.

There are a lot of push and pull struggles that happen in this plot. Between Poe and Tommy, and all the groups and beings in the groups. A lot of clashes, claiming territory and giving up territory. Usually a book has a theme, and in this one it was about choices. Every choice has a consequence. Every being needs to think carefully about what they want and the consequences that can arise from that choice. The question is are they willing to accept the consequence, especially if the consequence is high.

A big event happens at the end of the story because of the ‘meeting.’ I kind of was hoping that Tommy would have been offered one of the Roger positions and a little more territory, maybe part of the ravens’ old territory, but not as much as the others. I mean he did help the other Rogers out quite a bit. There’s also something going on between Garrett the Griffin and Ollie that could lead to another book. Also, if there are new Rogers, that could also mean additional stories. But this one about Tommy and Poe is complete and has a HEA.

I do have a question about something Poe mentioned numerous times about Garrett and Ollie. Poe wanted to know what it was Ollie saw when Garrett looked at him, and also what Tommy saw/knew. This question isn't answered in the book. I don’t know if the author intends to write follow-up stories or leave this question dangling. I really dislike dangling questions like this, it feels unfinished or as if the author forgot to complete the book.

There's one thing I almost forgot to mention. Poe versus Ethan at the end. Birds cannot fly with broken wings. Poe breaks Ethan's wrist. Shifters may heal fast, but not instantaneously. Even Poe had difficulty healing after his multiple beatings from Ethan. There's no way Ethan could have flown, let alone flown straight. If the scene was written as 'Ethan flew erratically towards the clock tower, due to his broken wing,' I could've stretched my belief. But birds cannot fly with broken bones in their wings. This is a big 'no' for me in this story.

For an ARC, this was a well edited. I found few errors. The biggest problem I had, as I mentioned before, was the lack of clear indication about the groups and who belonged to each group early on.

The author also included a short story at the end of the book that was from Tommy’s pov when he meets Poe. It was nice to read about Tommy’s reaction, but I didn’t feel like it was Tommy’s voice compared to the character shown through Poe’s eyes. Tommy’s voice actually felt kind of flat. I don’t think it’s necessary to read the short story from Tommy’s pov unless you’re curious. Poe’s pov is much better.

I give Demon’s in the Details, 4.5 Stars. If this story was listed in Goodreads on its own, I would give it 5 stars, even though there are some large issues I had with it. The five stars would be due to Poe’s voice and his narration. The world building is also great. But since its part of an anthology, I can give it a half star rating. I recommend this book if you’re looking to read a truly unique first-person character voice.




Blake and the Beast by Rhys Lawless - 3 Stars
Beauty and the Beast is the fairytale I love the most so I had to choose this as the second story to review. This book is told in first person from Blake and Archer’s povs.

I need to give a little background first and I hope I get this correct, because the story was a bit vague on exactly what happened to cause the events to unfold. Again, in this story just like in Demon’s in the Details I wish fantasy stories were written more clearly about what is happening at the beginning so readers can understand. Especially if the narrator is a character who knows what’s happening in that specific world.

In this Earth there are humans and Fae. The Fae are Unseelie and Seelie, plus other types of seelie. Seelie are pretty much shifters and beings with super-human abilities. Unseelie are beings that can be half human and half creature or all creature. They went to war with humans and lost. Evidently, the Fae hid from humans, but when they revealed themselves there was a war because the Fae wanted to take control, but they lost and now Unseelie are discriminated against because of their appearance. It seems most look human until puberty when their Fae genetics kick in. Blake is a geneticist/scientist working on a ‘cure’ for those Fae who want to appear human again but then he discovers something about the people he’s working for and then he’s kidnapped by Archer’s Fae team. Archer is known as the Beast.

Blake and Archer are mates and being mates there are some weird consequences of that. Not everyone on Archer’s team is happy Blake is a captive and still alive. The Fae find out, and now they’re out to kill Blake and Archer’s team. Everyone is now a renegade. There are battles within Archer’s team because of Blake, and battles with other teams hunting them. Blake is trying to find out what happened to Archer and they are trying to figure out how to stop everyone from getting Blake’s research. There’s a lot of action, it pretty much doesn’t stop. I felt like the author tried to cram too much into this novella so it was a bit choppy jumping from action scene to sex scene and back again. I didn’t feel like the scenes were delved into as deeply as possible.

I don’t feel like I as the reader, was given a chance to believe in Blake and Archer as a couple. They couldn’t resist the pull as mates and had sex within a day or so of meeting each other. They were written as ‘Blake and Archer are mates’ and we had to accept it whether we believed it or not. There really wasn’t any work on their parts of trying to grow and become a couple.

As I mentioned this is told in first person from both MCs povs. At first Blake and Archer had somewhat distinct voices. Blake sounded more like a scientist and Archer had an authoritative/leader type voice. But once Archer went through the change, his voice changed and became weaker. I don’t think it should have since his personality was as it always was. I’m not sure when it happened, but it seemed that the more the two MCs got involved, the more similar their voices sounded alike. Their voices lost any uniqueness they may have had at the beginning.

When I read a fantasy story, I want it to still be realistic. In this particular world, Blake is human, he will heal like a human. Here's something that happened, which I will put behind a spoiler, that was completely inconsistent with human anatomy. Blake is under attack by Rage, leader of the team hunting him down. Archer feels Blake's pain as Rage crushes Blake's face bones. This means Blake's bones are broken! In another instance Rage crushes the air out of Blake, meaning he's crushing his ribs, because Archer can also feel Blake's pain. Blake probably is suffering broken ribs. But after the battle is over, Blake is talking, kissing, and moving around like nothing is wrong! That is impossible. His face bones are broken, meaning his jaw, maybe even losing some teeth, and maybe ribs cracked, but other than being tired he seems fine. That isn't possible! Inconsistencies like this do not work, even in a fantasy story and huge mistakes like this keep me from believing in the fantasy world.

One thing I noticed the author did, was that they mentioned just about every LGBTQ and gender possibility in the story. It felt like the author deliberately wanted to get a point across, but the only thing it felt like to me was as if I was being hit over the head and being told, ‘pay attention!’ It wasn’t subtle. It felt awkward.

Blake and Archer get their HEA, but this story is written as if it’s the first in a series, because the ending sounds as if there is more to come.

I realize this story is an ARC so it won’t be perfect in terms of grammar etc., so I’m not rating that. However, I will say that it has a lot more errors in it than Demon’s in the Details which had only a few.

Rating this book as part of this anthology, I give it 3 Stars because of the issues I mentioned above and especially the broken bones inconsistencies.



I received an ARC from one of the authors. I’m leaving an honest and unbiased opinion about the stories. I’ll also add to this review about the other ones as I finish reading them.… (más)