A review by chelseaj91
1001 Dark Nights: Compilation Nine by Christopher Rice, Heather Graham, Jennifer Probst

hopeful mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Hidden Ink by Carrie Ann Ryan 3.5 Stars!

This was pretty cute. I liked that Hailey finally called Sloane on his BS and told him to decide if he wanted to do something. I did roll my eyes because there was a little too much "I'm not worthy for [reasons]" on both sides and not enough groveling on Sloane's. I did wish there'd been a little less on the ramifications of her surgery, at least the viewpoint of (view spoiler) I will admit to laughing a little at how everyone at Montgomery Ink realized what was happening and tried to help. Maya's threats of beating whichever one she needed to were entertaining.

Blood on the Bayou by Heather Graham 3 Stars!

I'm not sure what it is, but I seem to have an interesting relationship with Heather Graham's writing. I've read a few books/novellas from the Krewe of Hunters series and been very split on my feelings on those. Same thing happened here. While the overall story was kind of intriguing, I felt like there wasn't a ton of time to make a connection with the main characters because they were already established. It almost felt like you had to read the previous Cafferty & Quinn books to figure everything out. The overall story of the rougarou was kind of interesting but because this was so short, I felt like there was a lot that got left out because it went from "we're looking for a real person" to "they found this cane and think they're a supernatural creature" really fast. Plus the whole thing with Danni being the Witch also felt like it came out of nowhere. Like, it was kind of a way for the bad guy to fix things for himself but at the same time, there hadn't been previous mentions of any kind of reincarnation so I was confused how they got to "it's Danni".

Searching for Mine by Jennifer Probst 2.5 Stars!

This one annoyed me. I actually ended up skimming a lot of it. It felt like the author was trying to make a point but she ended up falling really short of what she was really trying to say about creative females and just ended up bashing both sexes. The relationship between Connor and Ella went from teacher-student to "I love you" at light speed and I felt like there wasn't really any development at all honestly. He hates her because he finds her class boring and her super dull, she hates him because he's a good looking guy who can get whatever woman he wants, she decides it's time to move on and gets a makeover and suddenly they're both head over heels in love and she can't be in a relationship with him because the only reason he could have ever liked her was after she got the makeover. While he admitted that he never wanted to really do anything until then, his POV showed that he was acting the way he was because a)he had those walls up and b)he also liked things the way they were and he was thinking about how that would be affected but he still started to have feelings for her before the makeover. I will admit that I liked how Connor kind of took Luke under his wing and helped start to find his own footing.

Dance of Desire by Christopher Rice 2 Stars!

There was just something about this one. The overall idea had potential but honestly, I ended up skimming a lot of this story too. Part of it was the narrative style grated for some reason. Especially because when we went back to the Then portions, it was still the same "present" type thing that was going on in the Now and it made it kind of hard for me to follow. I kept having jump around to figure out if we were in the past or not. There were also some editing things (ex: a conversation between Belinda and Amber where Belinda is half calling her on her crap and Amber is supposed to ask if she's fired but it says Belinda is asking even though the very next sentence is her saying that's a stupid question) that bothered me. The overall relationship between Caleb and Amber didn't have as much of a second chance feel as I think the author was going for. Mainly because of the way things happened then I think. I don't know but yeah, I ended up skimming this.