The biggest issue as noted by several other reviewers is the proofreading or lack thereof. You can see where the author intended to change a word but instead of removing one they both were left. There are also switches of POV that aren't needed and don't make sense main character is giving and internal monologue and suddenly there's a sentence or two that doesn't make sense until you realize it much be another characters thoughts on the topic before it switches back to the original person.
Much of the issues are typical of a new writer and poor editing. I'm willing to overlook the issues and read the next couple books in the series. With as many books as are in this series I would hope eventually the author goes back and re-writes this first one at some point and uses a professional editor. I was looking for a new series of books to read as I tend to go through books pretty quickly. I will say I am glad I found Michael's books. I have just finished book 4 and decided I should really go back and review what I had already read. This book is a wonderful introduction to a series I can see carrying on for many more books the author says 13 but in my mind I can see spin-offs, books written from another of the main characters perspective, potential children carry on's once we reach the end etc.
I loved the book - I was fortunate enough to get the post edited version so didn't have to face the issues earlier readers had. The book is a wonderful mixture of action, darkness, fun, intrigue, violence and very original cursing did I mention that this is not a book for the young!!!
It engaged right from the start and has duly sucked me in - I have read the first 4 books in 3 days - each time reaching the end wondering what was going to happen next - please Mr. Anderle get some extended volumes together for the new readers - maybe a , type grouping if you get the chance. Thanks for letting us share your world - cannot wait to get to the next books - so good PS And one of my best friends is actually from Brasov and I shared this books with her - she loved it too!
I read the other reviews and figured I would give this book a try. I think I'm hooked. First, this is the first book I've read in a long time since switching to eBooks and self published books that started out by creating a believable world. Second, the main character as a woman WASN'T dreamy eyed, hopelessly enamored, or suffering from hormone soaked emotions.
Third, the vamps and other where's didn't follow the standard roles as driven by movie portraits. The human side was clearly shown as well as how that drives their personalities. Then the plot reached and grabbed my attention and made me want to find out what happened next. The alien influence was a pleasant twist and obviously will play in the the rest of the series. Yes, I will be continuing to read in the series but everything isn't all peaches and cream. Many times there were sentence fragments that caused me to stop and re-read the paragraph to make sense of the action.
Sometimes there were words in the sentence that weren't meant to be, as if the grammar checker just through it in in case that was what was to be. I'm not an English language nazi but these detractors did slow my reading. Overall though I will do, what is rare for me besides actually doing a review and recommend that you give this book a try.
Kurtherian Gambit - Book Series In Order
It just might cause you to continue to get and read more of the story. I might just have to join Amazon Unlimited to save some coin on this series. I really wanted to like this as I like strong female heroes.
This was a train wreck. As I tried to read this all I could picture was a terrible parody of what a strong female lead was. Bethany came across as a resentful, man-hating grotesque. Trying to read this with the constant wishful and literal kicking men in the testicles to empower women, petulant sexual harassment scenarios and testosterone is bad made me envision a stereotypical angry feminist complete with blue hair and weight problems. What could have been a great female character was reduced to angry musings of how men are unfair to women,etc. Can I have my money back? See all 1, reviews.
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Jul 12, Shanna Matheo rated it really liked it. Strong and wonderfully suprising start! I'm really looking forward to the rest! Mar 18, Trish R. Not nearly as good as Justice is Calling or Claimed by Honor..
- Exchanging Real Estate Volume III Part B?
- Installing Telephones (The Professional Fathers Guide Book 3).
- Naughty or Nice.
That was a big disappointment. This is a little sci-fi, since Michael takes Bethany Anne to Romania and leaves her there and she wakes up in a spaceship after seven months in sta Not nearly as good as Justice is Calling or Claimed by Honor.. This is a little sci-fi, since Michael takes Bethany Anne to Romania and leaves her there and she wakes up in a spaceship after seven months in stasis, and with a computer named T.
She had to learn as much as she could from TOM before heading out to return to the town nearby, only to meet up with Nathan the werewolf, Alexi the brown bear and Ecaterina the human, in a battle with 5 or 6 other bad werewolves. After the battle with the bad guys they went after Petre and his evil vamps and killed all of them. And then they were heading back to the United States. There was no sex but the F-bomb was used 31 times. As to the narration: Emily Beresford was just ok for me. She did ok with the voices and ok with some of the emotions when she read.
She just doesn't have a memorable voice. Laughing and whispering is the two most important things for a narrator to do when reading, at least to me it is. Feb 12, Desiree rated it did not like it. I don't like this writer's style. The scenes are short and choppy, there's not much detail, and he moves around all over the place.
Apr 26, Leo Laursen rated it it was ok Shelves: The story is entertaining, but the writing is pretty awful. Mar 21, Tracy T. Well this story is kind of Meh. I listened to Justice is Calling and Claimed by Honor, which is the spin off series to this series prior to listening to this and really enjoyed those both much more than this book.
However, I do understand it is the beginning of a long running series, I just thought it was a bit boring to be honest. It did get better towards the end and I like the direction the series is going. This book seemed more like a prologue and world building that has lots of potential and I am looking forward to more. I do hope the rest of the series ends up on audible I would definitely get them all.
As for the narration, its very good. Emily Beresford does a great job with the men's voices and reads with emotion. She has a nice reading voice too. Aug 15, Shari Kay marked it as over-before-it-began. Writing style not for me. Could not put this one down! Bethany Anne's character was wonderful to read about. The author did a nice job making her one kick-ass female without ruining her feminity.
I loved reading Nathan Lowell's thoughts and his character also kept me turning the pages. Other characters that I enjoyed in this story were: There was the usual story building at the beginning, but I found it moved right along and there were some laugh- Loved it! There was the usual story building at the beginning, but I found it moved right along and there were some laugh-out-loud moments.
Kick ass and take names type of character with a good heart. Bethany Anne was not a whiny, crying female, but a woman that was formely with the CIA, then moved into black ops before events that I will not tell about in this review have her smack in the middle of the vampires, werewolves, werebears, zombies and even aliens Kurtherian's world. Felt the writing was not as polished in places and it looks like this was a self-published book.
Not that there is anything wrong with a self-published book. It looked like start and stop points for writing that should probably have been removed.
Hopefully, the author's writing will improve and I'm looking forward to reading the next in this wonderful series. Jul 23, Katrina rated it liked it. On one hand I found storyline entertaining , but on the other hand the writing was rather mechanical and left me feeling like an observer, not as a participant.
I will give next book a go and will see from then. Mr Anderle should brush up on his geography - when talking about flying to Europe Michael talks about Baltics and then tells that destination is Romania. Oct 11, Scrubb rated it liked it Shelves: As I reviewed somewhere else, this book and series is one where the sum is much greater than the parts. So, to begin—the critiques 1. The writing improves as the series continues, but there's still enough problems to pull a reader from immersion. From strange paragraphing at times to comments that doesn't seem to flow and out-of-sequence scenes in a couple of places not just going back to tell a story, but scenes that feel as though they were left in the wrong spot after editing , expect to ge As I reviewed somewhere else, this book and series is one where the sum is much greater than the parts.
From strange paragraphing at times to comments that doesn't seem to flow and out-of-sequence scenes in a couple of places not just going back to tell a story, but scenes that feel as though they were left in the wrong spot after editing , expect to get pulled from immersion time a book. The sad thing is, a good final editor can fix most of these issues. The author repeats himself too much. Sentences contain echoes of previous sentences, and certain phrases are repeated to the point of frustration.
Although certain characters have good voices, there are unique phrases in the book that any ol' character can spew, or methods of saying things that should be unique to a certain group, but get way overgeneralized to water down character voices. Not knowing when to stop. A joke's funny once, maybe twice if played well. But too many characters push a joke or something "funny" to the point of mind-numbing frustration. Too many character POVs. Any named character in the story—and there's a ton of them—is apt to get the story told from their perspective.
The problem is that a number of these characters have little to do with the main storyline and really, I couldn't care less about them. Furthermore, telling the story from their POV is often a repeat of something either already seen, or will be seen from a more central character and thus, is really not even necessary. It comes across as filler, rather than furthering the story line. Are those harsh reviews? Yes, and I write them with hope the author may read and think about them, because as I said, the sum of the story is much greater than the parts.
Publication Order of Kurtherian Gambit Books
Despite what I've written above, there's also many good points to this story. It grows from a small, almost underground group of people to an epic tale of world-wide survival, and he does it staying true to the narrative logic of the story. Nowhere did I find myself saying, "But that's not even true to the story! The main characters are fun and often put a smile on my face. The relationships between them feel real although a few character-stereotypes are employed to make it happen. Another very positive element of the story is a mature world-view. No nation is painted as the bane of society, nor is any one nation pure an innocent.
The interplay between the two is well-done. Characters speak the way I'd expect them too, for the most part.
I expect a Spec. Sargent to have a potty-mouth at times, much more than I'd expect, say, a young Japanese female computer hacker brought up in a traditional home, or a US General. The author does well in tempering language in certain places and letting it go in others. Sometimes, the humor behind it falls flat, however see the overly repetitive complaint above.
Beyond anything else, I just wish the author would slow down and hone his work a bit more.
Death Becomes Her
Nevertheless, pick it up and read it. I can't give it more than three stars because of the problems listed above, but it's a solid fun jaunt that is enjoyable from beginning to end. Apr 20, Per Gunnar rated it really liked it Shelves: This is not your everyday book about vampires and werewolves. Sure they cannot stand sunshine most of them at least. The are strong and fast as hell.
They eat iron and shit bullets. But they are not supernatural beasts. Although most of this book reads pretty much as your everyday supernatural vampire story a pretty good one though there is a science fiction story lurking underneath. A story that has the promise of making this a very interesting book series. The story is perh This is not your everyday book about vampires and werewolves. I rather quickly started to like the main character a lot. She is a seriously powerful, foul mouthed, kick-ass vampire.
She also surrounds herself with equally likable kick-ass characters as the story progresses. Actually, so far, there has been very few characters that I did not like and the ones that were not supposed to be likable, well let us just say that they are either only hinted at and not really presented … yet or they quickly becomes extras in red t-shirts when Bethany Anne gets pissed off with them. Well it is really difficult to say much about it without revealing to much. This is the first book in the series and there is of course a lot of introduction and world building going on.
As I wrote above it shows quite a lot of promise of becoming a great story arc. I guess I have to say something about the language used. The author is dead on when he states that Bethany Anne has nothing against cussing, only uninspired cussing. I guess that is one of the reasons that I like Bethany Anne. If you care more about which words that are used and not so much about the story then this is not a book for you.
May 21, Snarktastic Sonja rated it liked it. I read this one for a Pick it for Me challenge.
Follow the Author
It was a freebie from Kindle Unlimited. I chose to read this because the person selecting it for me has very similar tastes to mine and she really loved the series. And, she said she frequently laughed out loud. I needed to laugh out loud. The first half of the book, there was no laughing. It was a very slow build, introducing characters, and the world in which they lived. We were hopping all over the place, following several different characters an I read this one for a Pick it for Me challenge. We were hopping all over the place, following several different characters and what they were doing.
It was all just a teensy bit confusing. Because of aforementioned recommendation, I persevered. I also understood that the world was being build and shown me and we had to get through this to get to the meat of the story. But, it was a little drudgelike. Finally, our main character met her destiny and the real story took off.
See a Problem?
He needs to find someone to take over. He finds Bethany Anne. Unknown, untested and untried she sets out to accomplish the impossible while forging a new future. One that no one knew was in danger. And she does it with an attitude that will make you stand up and cheer! They say a dress can make a women, but in this case, the dress is Death, and Death Becomes Her very well indeed. Read the series one Amazon Reviewer MistyDawn says: I thought when I read the first book in this series, that it couldn't get better I read almost continuously, and for the past year and a half, I haven't read a series or even one book that I've loved as much.
With such loyal characters, friendship, and badassery So just, just wow. The main character does not have a problem with cussing, just uninspired cussing.