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Lara
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/love-bites-by-cynthia-st-aubin/
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?post_type=reviews&p=150814
The following review is for two books which are being released somewhat together. Love Bites was originally released in 2020 but was picked up by Tor and is being re-released on September 9. The sequel, Love Sucks, is also available digitally and will be re-released by Tor on October 7.
…
After many happy weeks in the land of a favourite author, I stuck my head above the parapet and looked for something new to read. Truthfully, I picked this book up because I thought there’d be vampires and I adore vampire books. What I got was something quite different.
Hanna is recently divorced and unemployed in a small town in Colorado. She has an unhelpful degree (in the eyes of neoliberal capitalists – an MA in Art History) and her finances are seriously depleted. She applies to be an assistant for Mark, a gallery owner in their town. Her resume is mostly fiction, but she gets the job anyway.
Mark’s office is a shambolic mess of papers and Hanna sees this as a challenge that she can manage. She starts to clean and organise and tidy and in so doing, tries to understand this incredibly attractive boss of hers.
There is a complication though: murders. Women that were connected to Mark are showing up dead.
Enter love interest number two: Detective Morrison. He’s sure that Mark is the culprit but can’t seem to prove it. Morrison is awfully keen on getting into Hanna’s pants and the feeling is mutual.
Chemistry with two people? Oh where could it lead? Sadly, not to a ‘why choose?’ situation.
There is a colourful cast of supporting characters in the form of resident artists based at Mark’s gallery. They’re endearing, interesting and funny in their way and definitely add to the story. There is some lovely suspense as we get to grips with whether Mark is a serial killer or not and the solution once revealed is so surprising and convoluted as to be ridiculous (more on that in the next review).
The real star of the show is Hanna. She’s funny and smart and very human. I really enjoyed getting to know her in this book. Her reactions to the emergence of paranormal entities in her life feels real. If I were suddenly to be faced with the existence of (REDACTED), I too would piss my britches and head for the hills. Plus Hanna is Funny, with a capital F.
“Hauling myself into a standing position, I fluffed the wavy tangle of my auburn hair and pulled my sweater a little lower, as much to reveal an extra half inch of cleavage as to cover the slacks I’d had to secure with a hair tie, a safety pin and the will of Jesus”.
There are passages and moments of description that were visceral in their impact on me. One of my favourites, in which Mark is describing her role in his life:
“You’re here to organize me, to cure me of my wicked ways.”
Something about the way he said “wicked” made me feel like I’d swallowed a lit road flare.
The writing was compelling enough that I immediately dove into Love Sucks, the second book in the series. If you’d like to escape reality for a few hours and spend some quality time with a snarky cat lady getting her mind blown, then I recommend this book.
NB: The following is a review for book two, and since much of it is a spoiler for book one, it’s behind spoiler tags.
Love Sucks by Cynthia St. Aubin
Grade: B-
Before you commit to this series, know that Love Bites and the second in the series, Love Sucks are quite different books.
Love Bites is quite suspenseful with only a touch of the paranormal to it.
Love Sucks goes all the way to Station Bonkerstown and I was a happy passenger (mostly).
Love Sucks is, frankly, ridiculous. Yet I found myself being utterly charmed by it, powerless to resist its snarky, paranormal humour and great writing. There are certainly flaws that require one to look the other way, but they weren’t enough to stop me from enjoying the book.
As Love Bites ends on a cliffhanger (which is exactly what prompted me to read Love Sucks), you’ll be grateful that all the books in this series are currently available.
Read no further if you haven’t read Love Bites because there are one million spoilers from this point onwards.
I’m serious, all the spoilers for book one.
Okay, you’ve been warned.
Spoilers ahoy!
Mark has just revealed to Hanna that she is a werewolf heir. We’re slowly told what that means in this book, but from the jump we are immersed in werewolves in this story. They’re everywhere and it turns out someone is killing them. (More death, I know). They’re killing a very particular group of werewolves though: famous artists.
Welcome to Bonkerstown, Population: Me and some werewolves.
Vincent van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec feature heavily in this story as werewolves who are being targeted for murder. Hanna has sussed out enough to know that Mark is some kind of alpha in this arrangement and so these artists in peril turn to him for help.
But Mark has loads of problems. Like the fact that Hanna is about to ovulate which means that every single male werewolf in the vicinity is trying to go to poundtown with her. Including Mark, but he’s being noble and resisting so he runs away. I can’t actually go further in my description of the plot without a) ruining the book and b) showing all the ridiculousness.
Detective Morrison is still around too.
With Hanna, we get more of the same snark and smarts. She’s great fun as a main character. In fact, that’s how I would sum up the entire book: great fun. This is not a good book. It’s a fun book. And I’m here for it.
Now for the parts I’m not here for. I would prefer that no real people be present in the book. Hanna fawns over Vincent and it made me cringe a bit. That might be a me thing.
Something that isn’t a me thing is the fatphobia. Stereotypes of a lazy-fat-dumb cop are deployed and while ACAB, I’m not a fan of this outdated and cruel trope. His weight is a shorthand for his laziness and stupidity. Hated that.
Also, Hanna uses Euros in London. That threw me right out of the story. That’s basic general knowledge.
If you can overlook these flaws, then you can have a good time with this book. I’ll certainly be reading the next book in the series, if only for Hanna and Mark’s PHENOMENAL chemistry and Hanna’s humour.
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/love-bites-by-cynthia-st-aubin/
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?post_type=reviews&p=150814
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This After Dark post is open to everyone so folks can see what ridiculous tasks I am assigning myself. Any reviews and book shrieking will be part of the upcoming year in After Dark.
set inspired by this book. 
