geleeregina's review against another edition
3.0
It took me a while to get into the book, but once I did, it was cute. I liked the creative evilness of Angelica. Who wouldn't laugh at having men punished by taking up women's hobbies such as cross-stitching, knitting, and painting. LOL I'm not sure I understand all that happened in the book. It was very fast paced, but definately a different kind of paranormal.
alexiachantel's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 Stars
When a drop dead sexy man is sitting on a motorcycle telling you to submit to him and the bike, don’t think just get the hell on.
Rowe has created these tough guys that have had these feminine characteristics drilled into them. For the first bit of the book you might be confused as these warriors are preparing to battle their way out of captivity yet still think about things like cross stitching. Once the big bad of the book is introduced it will all make sense.
Blaine is an amazing character, with some hot powers. Despite hundreds of years of torture and captivity he still has honor. It is great to see how he interacts with his fellow captive brothers. But even better is to see how he reacts to Trinity and her personality that changes how he sees women.
Trinity is a good woman struggling with a horrible curse. To kill the guy you love, talk about heartbreak. When she meets Blaine he comes across as someone she could never fall for, which is a great relief. Sparks fly, and not just from Blaine’s hands.
Even the villain is so well written you may find yourself feeling slightly sorry for her and wishing for her to get her own happy ending. Of course the happy ending you may have in your head can’t begin to reach what Rowe has in store; it is perfect.
A great start to this series. Can’t wait to laugh my way through the next one!
When a drop dead sexy man is sitting on a motorcycle telling you to submit to him and the bike, don’t think just get the hell on.
Rowe has created these tough guys that have had these feminine characteristics drilled into them. For the first bit of the book you might be confused as these warriors are preparing to battle their way out of captivity yet still think about things like cross stitching. Once the big bad of the book is introduced it will all make sense.
Blaine is an amazing character, with some hot powers. Despite hundreds of years of torture and captivity he still has honor. It is great to see how he interacts with his fellow captive brothers. But even better is to see how he reacts to Trinity and her personality that changes how he sees women.
Trinity is a good woman struggling with a horrible curse. To kill the guy you love, talk about heartbreak. When she meets Blaine he comes across as someone she could never fall for, which is a great relief. Sparks fly, and not just from Blaine’s hands.
Even the villain is so well written you may find yourself feeling slightly sorry for her and wishing for her to get her own happy ending. Of course the happy ending you may have in your head can’t begin to reach what Rowe has in store; it is perfect.
A great start to this series. Can’t wait to laugh my way through the next one!
drey72's review against another edition
3.0
Kiss at Your Own Risk started off the laughter early, as the guys--Blaine, Nigel, and Jarvis--are escaping from the wicked witch who's held them captive for a hundred and fifty years. And it continues throughout the book, that smart-alecky humor that makes you snort and giggle as you read (and causes funny looks to get thrown your way). Read it for that alone, unless you're into the romance part, which isn't half bad at all if you ask me. Yes, that was me attempting snarkiness... And yes, the romantic parts of the book were as good as the funny parts of the book.
Character: Blaine has issues. LOTS of issues. Then again, if your family had sold you to a witch and you've spent the last century and a half trying to survive her trials and tribulations, you'd have issues too. Trinity has issues as well--because as soon as she loves a fella, the poor thing's toast. As in "hasta la vista bay-bee" toast. You can only kill so many boys before you get a complex, y'know... The supporting cast of characters are pretty neat, especially Trinity's BFF, who's one of Death's assistants. And the witch? She's just misunderstood... Hah! All in all this is quite the cast that Stephanie Rowe's come up with.
Pace & Plot: The story is rockin' from the get-go, and doesn't let up on the gas. Storyline was a bit confusing (just a bit) until all the pieces clicked and you go "ahah!"
This page-turner had me constantly chuckling at something... Definitely pick it up if that's your thing!
Character: Blaine has issues. LOTS of issues. Then again, if your family had sold you to a witch and you've spent the last century and a half trying to survive her trials and tribulations, you'd have issues too. Trinity has issues as well--because as soon as she loves a fella, the poor thing's toast. As in "hasta la vista bay-bee" toast. You can only kill so many boys before you get a complex, y'know... The supporting cast of characters are pretty neat, especially Trinity's BFF, who's one of Death's assistants. And the witch? She's just misunderstood... Hah! All in all this is quite the cast that Stephanie Rowe's come up with.
Pace & Plot: The story is rockin' from the get-go, and doesn't let up on the gas. Storyline was a bit confusing (just a bit) until all the pieces clicked and you go "ahah!"
This page-turner had me constantly chuckling at something... Definitely pick it up if that's your thing!
slc333's review against another edition
2.0
Would have been a 3 star except that I found it very difficult to like any of the characters aside from Trinity.
lynseyisreading's review
3.0
This is a bit of a weird one to review. Part of me really, really enjoyed it, the rest of me thought it was kind of silly.
Let me try to explain.
The things I really liked were the originality of the characters in terms of what they are. There were some great new ideas here- Ms Rowe is clearly a very creative lady and she has written some brilliantly imaginative creatures and beings. Okay, so we've heard of witches before and we've heard of a black widow before, but the four warrior guys in the story and their abilities - they were really interesting. The only way I can think to describe them is as human mutants. They've been tinkered with by the witch who has held them captive for the last century and a half, using Black Magic. The main character we follow in this book, Blaine, is a sort of fire warrior....think of The Human Torch from the Fantastic Four movies and you'll be close.
The other thing I really appreciated was the overall plot. It was a great race against time thrill ride with high stakes and a love story that took place along the way. All good stuff.
What kind of spoiled it for me, I'm sorry to say, was the writing style. It was written in a sort of conversational tone- only it was like a conversation with someone with really weird speech patterns and a hard to understand accent. I found myself having to do the literary equivalent of lip reading for the first 50 or so pages of the book. She would also miss words off the beginning of sentences and substitute words for slang phrases and I had a hard time trying to understand just what the author was trying to convey at times. Also annoying was the overuse of brackets. It was like (Hello? Use brackets much?) every other paragraph. And the Hello? thing would have been annoying all by itself without drawing a circle around it.
Also, she just tried just a little too hard to be funny, to that point that it wasn't. I like humorous books, but it would be better if the humour was limited to the banter and dialogue between characters, rather than the entire prose sounding like some kind of comedy farce. I'm sure some people will appreciate the added humour, and to be fair, it did work in some scenes, but I personally found it was just trying too hard.
In summation, I'd say it's still a good book and people that enjoy light-hearted PNR should definitely give it a go. I just think the author could have made something more of her ideas than this type of paranormal comedy romp. I'd love for her to write a straight up paranormal series one day, with her great ideas and creativity it would certainly be worth a look if she did.
Let me try to explain.
The things I really liked were the originality of the characters in terms of what they are. There were some great new ideas here- Ms Rowe is clearly a very creative lady and she has written some brilliantly imaginative creatures and beings. Okay, so we've heard of witches before and we've heard of a black widow before, but the four warrior guys in the story and their abilities - they were really interesting. The only way I can think to describe them is as human mutants. They've been tinkered with by the witch who has held them captive for the last century and a half, using Black Magic. The main character we follow in this book, Blaine, is a sort of fire warrior....think of The Human Torch from the Fantastic Four movies and you'll be close.
The other thing I really appreciated was the overall plot. It was a great race against time thrill ride with high stakes and a love story that took place along the way. All good stuff.
What kind of spoiled it for me, I'm sorry to say, was the writing style. It was written in a sort of conversational tone- only it was like a conversation with someone with really weird speech patterns and a hard to understand accent. I found myself having to do the literary equivalent of lip reading for the first 50 or so pages of the book. She would also miss words off the beginning of sentences and substitute words for slang phrases and I had a hard time trying to understand just what the author was trying to convey at times. Also annoying was the overuse of brackets. It was like (Hello? Use brackets much?) every other paragraph. And the Hello? thing would have been annoying all by itself without drawing a circle around it.
Also, she just tried just a little too hard to be funny, to that point that it wasn't. I like humorous books, but it would be better if the humour was limited to the banter and dialogue between characters, rather than the entire prose sounding like some kind of comedy farce. I'm sure some people will appreciate the added humour, and to be fair, it did work in some scenes, but I personally found it was just trying too hard.
In summation, I'd say it's still a good book and people that enjoy light-hearted PNR should definitely give it a go. I just think the author could have made something more of her ideas than this type of paranormal comedy romp. I'd love for her to write a straight up paranormal series one day, with her great ideas and creativity it would certainly be worth a look if she did.
adubrow's review
4.0
Kiss At Your Own Risk has it all – romance, action, fantastic characters, scary and hilarious villains, plot, humor, sweetness, sadness, ridiculousness, and even cross stitch. (Click here to read the rest of my review.)
librarianryan's review
2.0
If you pick up this title and feel like you are in the middle of book #2 or 3 then you are not alone. This story starts with Blaine and his crew escaping a special hell designed to turn men into something women can appreciate, which includes learning needle point. It’s incredibly odd and even by the end of the first novel this series is hell. Who goes where and how they get there is miss-mashed. Trinity has problems. Every man she falls in love with dies because she is cursed with being a black widow. Turns out she was cursed by the same witch that over sees Blaine’s hell. It’s all a giant mixing bowl, but the cookies never get baked. This story is so convoluted that you really don’t know the beginning and the end doesn’t make sense. I want to read book 2 just to see if it gets better, but at the same time it’s so bad its almost a waste of time.
jayvall's review
2.0
I hope the above book blurb made sense to you and adequately explained everything you’ll need to understand the world Stephanie Rowe has created here, because that’s the extent of world building provided in the whole book. I like paranormal romances as much as the next person, but in order for me to get on board with whatever creepies, wolfies, or demons an author has created, I need, at minimum, something that explains how the world in which the author has set her book works. There is none of that in KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK. From beginning to end, I don’t understand why the people do what they do. I don’t understand how Blaine got fire inside of him. I don’t understand why pink dust kills. I don’t understand how stainless steel can be used for evil. I don’t understand any of these things because Stephanie Rowe didn’t bother to explain any of them.
At first glance, KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK seems reminiscent of Rowe’s previous paranormal Immortally Sexy series. In many ways, it is similar, with its bizarre characters, fast-paced plot, and perfectly matched hero and heroine. I wanted to like KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK much more than I did. I liked Blaine and Trinity; I even understood the basic plot. That was just about all I understood though, and my overwhelming confusion got to be too much and ultimately interfered with my enjoyment of the book as a whole. Book two in the series, TOUCH IF YOU DARE, will come out in July 2011. I’m willing to give it a try on the strength of Rowe’s previous work, and hope that my issues with her world building is limited to this novel.
At first glance, KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK seems reminiscent of Rowe’s previous paranormal Immortally Sexy series. In many ways, it is similar, with its bizarre characters, fast-paced plot, and perfectly matched hero and heroine. I wanted to like KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK much more than I did. I liked Blaine and Trinity; I even understood the basic plot. That was just about all I understood though, and my overwhelming confusion got to be too much and ultimately interfered with my enjoyment of the book as a whole. Book two in the series, TOUCH IF YOU DARE, will come out in July 2011. I’m willing to give it a try on the strength of Rowe’s previous work, and hope that my issues with her world building is limited to this novel.
blodeuedd's review
3.0
Plot:
Trinity is cursed, and if she kills for the 5th time she will be unstoppable, every time she falls for a guy she kills him, but if she only makes it one more week she will be free. But then her dad gets into trouble, and there is a serial killer in town, on top of it all sexy Blaine shows up and offers her a deal. Now she must try to hate him for a week so she wont kill him by accident.
My thoughts:
There was sure a lot going on in this book, and I liked that. It was strange, funny and utterly weird sometimes.
Trinity is really sweet and she hates her curse. Every time she falls for a man she goes into killing mode. While Blaine is angry tormented and hate women. He has been tortured for 150 years by an evil witch. Here is the funny part, I kind of understood Angelica, the evil witch doing the torturing. She just wants to create nice men that are kind to women. Ok wrong method, but still, not even when she sent her cute killer dogs after Blaine and his friends I could hate her.
It was a strange world that I would have liked to explore more. There seems to be magical dimensions, and our world. Death, or Prentiss that is his real name, took over the Death contract and got that job that way. There are nasty assassins running around killing, there werewolves, vampires, trolls, it's a full world. By the way, I liked Death, sure he was an utter ass-hole that had a harem of women, and they never got any satisfaction from him, but still he was so funny.
Among all this magic, there is humour and that really sets the tone for the book. It is just so amusing.
One problem I had thought was that Blaine was so angry and male, did he learn nothing while tortured *coughs* silly question. But the whole I will kill you think, meh, then again it had to be that way. But he did lose a few points there.
Recommendation and final thoughts:
I was so amused, I do like funny paranormal romance, so I would recommend this to others. It's a 3,75, that could have been a 4. I would sure like to read more from this world and explore it, and meet Death again. Perhaps he will learn a lesson about dealing with women.
Reason for reading:
Sounded fun
Trinity is cursed, and if she kills for the 5th time she will be unstoppable, every time she falls for a guy she kills him, but if she only makes it one more week she will be free. But then her dad gets into trouble, and there is a serial killer in town, on top of it all sexy Blaine shows up and offers her a deal. Now she must try to hate him for a week so she wont kill him by accident.
My thoughts:
There was sure a lot going on in this book, and I liked that. It was strange, funny and utterly weird sometimes.
Trinity is really sweet and she hates her curse. Every time she falls for a man she goes into killing mode. While Blaine is angry tormented and hate women. He has been tortured for 150 years by an evil witch. Here is the funny part, I kind of understood Angelica, the evil witch doing the torturing. She just wants to create nice men that are kind to women. Ok wrong method, but still, not even when she sent her cute killer dogs after Blaine and his friends I could hate her.
It was a strange world that I would have liked to explore more. There seems to be magical dimensions, and our world. Death, or Prentiss that is his real name, took over the Death contract and got that job that way. There are nasty assassins running around killing, there werewolves, vampires, trolls, it's a full world. By the way, I liked Death, sure he was an utter ass-hole that had a harem of women, and they never got any satisfaction from him, but still he was so funny.
Among all this magic, there is humour and that really sets the tone for the book. It is just so amusing.
One problem I had thought was that Blaine was so angry and male, did he learn nothing while tortured *coughs* silly question. But the whole I will kill you think, meh, then again it had to be that way. But he did lose a few points there.
Recommendation and final thoughts:
I was so amused, I do like funny paranormal romance, so I would recommend this to others. It's a 3,75, that could have been a 4. I would sure like to read more from this world and explore it, and meet Death again. Perhaps he will learn a lesson about dealing with women.
Reason for reading:
Sounded fun
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