Debbie's Spurts

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, goodreads and other websites are showing books advertising themselves as "reverse harem" as recommended reading for me.

No, I haven't read a Merry Gentry or Anita Blake book in years.

No, to my knowledge none of my current purchases, currently reading or recently read books had "reverse harems" (admittedly, some love triangles).

Is that such a successful genre that the authors/publishers of "reverse harem" are spending major marketing dollars to promote?

Actually one of my personal favorites is nonalcoholic and not included -- just add a splash of non-alcoholic appletini or sour apple mixer  into sweetened iced green tea.

I have tried and like the Cherry Bitch.

and The MadHatter's Tea Party.  Well, I guess that one at least is remotely book related, eh?

This reader's personal opinion, ©2018, all rights reserved, not to be quoted, clipped or used in any way by goodreads, Google Play, amazon.com or other commercial booksellers* 

Overall, glad I revived this abandoned series.  It's supposed to be funny/silly and still was. Queen Betsy is still too self-involved (and -- not naming names or detailing to avoid spoilers -- a character dies saving her TSTL butt).  Random sex acts still seem less erotic than "look how cool we are still going at it.". 

I would have DNF'ed if the death scene(s) had been in beginning chapters; Betsy not worth the sacrifice.  I did read mentally preparing myself to just treat fashion designer brand dropping as a running gag.  I very quickly remembered the characters.  Even quicker what amused or annoyed me about this series.  

I do do wish the ghost of the dead stepmother who is haunting her hadn't spent a whole book hinting at crap we still don't know.  Not main storyline so not exactly a cliffhanger, but got annoying.

I'll toss in some quotes to give you an idea of some Pros and Cons.

Pro:

 but . . . really, I was okay until we found her head.

 

“When I want your opinion, Barbie, I’ll pull the string on your back.”

 

Then my dead stepmother said, “This is all your fault, Betsy, and I’m not going anywhere until you fix it.” [well, initially funny except "it" never explained]

 

I was beginning to see where this was going. Oh, it’d be a lovely children’s book: Garrett the Fiend Finds Friends!

 

Yeah, it’s cool, but then you’ve got dead vampire in your hair for hours.

 

“They’re awake,” he gasped. “And they want to kill you.” “Who?” Sinclair, Jessica, Marc, and I asked in unison. It could be anyone. The guys who delivered pizza from Green Mill. Other vampires. The Ant’s book club. Werewolves. Zombies. And, of course, the uninvited guest who’d jumped out the window. So many enemies, so little— 

Con:

He yanked, and my (cashmere! argh) sweater tore down the middle. He shoved, and my skirt (Ann Taylor) went up. He pulled, and my panties (Target) went who knew where.

“Whaaaat?” I whined, moodily pulling off my Herrera boots.

And yes, I was still wearing my Marc Jacobs heels, which helped.

I said grimly, hands on hips. Richard’s black blood dripped slowly onto my—oh no!—Ann Taylor linen pants.

Eventually I will read more in series now it's available in library ebooks.

*©2018.  All rights reserved except permission is granted to author or publisher (except Penumbra Publishing) to reprint/quote in whole or in part. I may also have cross-posted on Libib, LibraryThing, and other sites including retailers like kobo and Barnes and Noble. Posting on any site does not grant that site permission to share with any third parties or indicate release of copyright.  

Ratings scale used in absence of a booklikes suggested rating scale:

★★★★★ = All Time Favorite 
★★★★½ = Extraordinary Book. Really Loved It.
★★★★☆ = Loved It.
★★★½☆ = Really Liked.
★★★☆☆ = Liked.
★★½☆☆ = Liked parts; parts only okay. Would read more by author.
★★☆☆☆ = Average.   Okay. 
★½☆☆☆ = Disliked or meh? but kept reading in hopes would improve.
★☆☆☆☆ = Loathed It. Possibly DNF and a torturous read.
½☆☆☆☆ = So vile was a DNF or should have been. Cannot imagine anyone liking.  (Might also be just an "uploaded" word spew or collection that should not be dignified by calling itself a "published book." If author is going batshit crazy in the blogosphere over reviews -- I now know why they are getting bad reviews.  Or maybe author should take remedial classes for language written in until basic concepts like using sentences sink in. Is author even old enough to sign a publishing contract or do they need a legal guardian to sign for them?)

I'm likely to just star rate rather than review this 10th in series.

 I expect it will certainly deserve a review, but once I'm so far into some series I seldom have anything new to say.

On the other hand, description says it's her origin story.

I abandoned buying this series after six books.  

Main character changed too much, got too snooty and self-involved.  The type of hypocrisy where okay if done by her or to others but heaven forbid others do same or it happens to her or her loved ones.

My library has added the series.  Thought I'd try to continue because I really enjoyed book one and some later books have sounded interesting on my feed.

...these just downloaded magically from library ebook waitlist.

Change of weekend reading plans!

(Frankly, I didn’t know what station security was going to do about it, either. In fact, I’m sure station security was now shitting itself almost as hard as I metaphorically was.)

...

Why yes, I did want to disengage the safety protocols, thanks for asking

I looked down. I was dripping onto the floor, a mix of blood and fluid. I hate it when I leak.

Being a SecUnit sucked. I couldn’t wait to get back to my wild rogue rampage of hitching rides on bot-piloted transports and watching my serials.

… but really, I was still just thinking, Oh shit oh shit oh shit

Telling the truth was sort of working out for me.

Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas.

“Little bot,” seriously? (Somewhere there had to be a happy medium between being treated as a terrifying murder machine and being infantilized.)

Okay, clearly I'll be staying up to finish and not waiting for the weekend.  Scheduling out my updates to not flood the dashboard, but this should prove a quick read. 

I was going to have to make friends with the stupid pet robot