| Title | : | The Mammoth Book of Southern Gothic Romance |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 512 |
| Publication | : | First published November 20, 2014 |
The Mammoth Book of Southern Gothic Romance Reviews
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The Gothic lover in me is extremely satisfied. I enjoyed this collection of short stories more than I thought I would. Some were better than others, but all were clever and thought out well. I love when I buy a book on a whim and enjoy the heck out of it. This was a great escape read and just what I needed.
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This book was a well put together anthology. I was surprised by the content in it. The stories were all varied and very enjoyable. Quite a few of them were both so angsty and emotional that I found myself crying out of sympathy for these characters, which is something I rarely do for novels and even less so anthologies. Every story was its own little adventure and I was looking forward to finishing them all.
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The editor really should have taken more care with curating this collection. The story Pretty Enough to Catch Her is careless with its use of homophobic slurs (which are no substitute for actual character building & the story would have lost NOTHING for those phrases being cut.) The result was I didn't really have much interest in reading the stories that followed. The stories in the first half are solid. But one bad apple can, in fact, spoil the whole bunch. ☹️
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I picked up this book for #6 the Laurie London 'Sweetblood' SS.
1)’The Haunted’ by Shiloh Walker. 5 Stars. FBI Psychics series. Very interesting and sweet story about FBI Psychic Gabriel who meets his lost love and finds out that the child he didn’t know he had, can also see the dead like he can.
2)‘The Devil Went Down’ by Sonja Bateman. 4 stars. A story of a fight between good and evil over the fate of two time looped lovers. Wasn’t sure about this one at first, but it got interesting once things started to come together.
3)‘Sweet the Sting’ by Dianne Sylvan. 4 stars. A very different fantastically sweet story about a young woman with less than a year to live searching for a miracle and gets it from the Beekeeper. Honey’s always been considered a ‘cure-all’. I like it, but it’s not a very southern gothic type story though.
4)‘Wylde Magic’ by Erin Kellison. 2 stars. Odd little story about a family curse. Story ended just as it got interesting. Felt like there should be another book.
5)‘Dream, Interrupted’ by Jill Archer. 1 star. Weird story about a rich, psychotic, young woman with a sleeping disorder who checks herself into a secluded institute on a remote island. Sorry just skimmed to get through it.
6)‘Enticed by Blood’ by Laurie London. 4 stars. Sweetblood series 4.5. This is the story I got this book for. Mateo’s friend, Andre is a rich hotel/land owner in Louisiana. He had met Juliette in SF the year before, but broke it off before it could get complicated. Now she’s in New Orleans meeting with him about one of his hotels, when a tropical storm hits and they are isolated and attacked by revert vampires.
7)‘The Many Lives of Hadley Moore by Bec McMaster. 1 star. Something about death and way we avoid it. Too philosophical and confusing for me, skipped it.
8)‘Date with a Demon Slayer’ by Angie Fox. Accidental Demon Slayer series. 3 stars. It’s Dimitri and Lizzie’s first anniversary. And what better way to spend than it an old mansion haunted by an angry ghost.
9)‘Return to Me’ by Elle Jasper. 3 stars. Kind of a time travely Beauty and the Beast story. Has some interesting moments, but the couple are a little sappy.
10)‘Pretty Enough to Catch Her’ by JD Horn. 1 star. Lousy story. Mark is a conniving crook, but the others are a billion times worse than he is. I hate the thought that they’ll get away with it.
11)‘Love, Sugar’ Tiffany Trent. 2 stars. This melancholy story felt very familiar to me. Like I’d read it or something very similar before. Lonely girl with heartbroken past is left old family house when last relative dies with the stipulation that she stay there x number of days only to find it’s mysterious past changes her life. Left me feeling unsatisfied.
12)‘Savage Rescue’ by Shelli Stevens. 4 stars. Savage series short 3.5. Agent Terrance Hilliard while on vacation in New Orleans is given an assignment by his boss Nathan Larson involving Grace’s younger sister Aubree. I liked this series enough to add it to my ‘to read’ list.
13)‘If Only Tonight’ by Jessa Slade. 1 star. Oookay! That was very strange and creepy. Don’t know what else to say. Except southern California is not the south the book is supposed to be about.
14)‘Cursed’ by Shawntelle Madison. 3 stars. Coveted series 3.5. Natalya and Thorn try to take a romantic trip to Georgia to renew their wedding vows properly, but the quaint town they stay at is run but a cursed werewolf pack
15) ‘Waerd Awakenings’ by Amanda Bonilla. 3 stars. Sentry of Evil 1.6. This feels and reads like it belongs in the middle of a bigger series, but research only shows a first book and another short story. I wasn’t able to find any info from the author on when/if another is coming, so even though it sounds interesting, I’m disappointed. In this a young woman with special abilities is stopped from committing suicide and asked to join an organization that fights demons, etc. -
I'm not usually one for a reading collections of stories, much less romance short stories. However this was one was quite intriguing- every author took theme of Southern Gothic Romance and spun in a very unique way. From southern California Ghosts, to transforming Wolves in New Orleans, to bargaining with Death, this book has been a trip to be sure. #150books #bookchallenge21 #booksof21
#succeedingatreading2021 -
This book of short stories was entertaining. I read them over many months. I found out that I do not care for werewolf stories! Great light reading for the day time.
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I used to be addicted to these Mammoth books, though I think their niche has been overcome by the cheap Kindle 'box sets '. I really bought this for the shorts by a couple favorite authors in particular and theirs were, for the most part, my favorites in this collection. My favorites were the stories by Kellison, McMaster and the new to me Bonilla. There are a fair number of paranormals in the bunch - which was a plus for me.
Shiloh Walker - The Haunted - One place that the dead don't haunt is a graveyard, so two kindred spirits who share the same gift of seeing the dead meet when they go there to get a little quiet time. I liked this, and was happy that the lead Gabriel was going to be able to keep someone else from his fate.
Sonya Bateman - The Devil Went Down - A man determined to start fresh is drawn to a house and a woman and feels as if he knows them both even though he's never seen them before. This was a near miss, not bad, but not great even though the set up was really promising. The transition and wrap up was just too quick, this could have easily been half again as long - and needed to be in order to pull this off.
Dianne Sylvan -Sweet the Sting -A terminally ill woman is doing the faith healer rounds until she hears of the mysterious Beekeeper who heals people but leaves them 'changed' - I liked this, it's a bit oddball and not exactly a romance but there is the promised of a ever after.
Erin Kellison - Wylde Magic - A family curse and a reunion between two childhood friends who have longed for 'more'- Kellison does a great job of telling stories in a short space (I am a fan of her Revelers series). And all the elements of the story here are good: the characters, the connection, the curse and the emotion. The ending leaves things open for more and I hope that she picks this story back up soon.
Jill Archer -Dream, Interrupted - With dysfunctional sleep/dreams as its focus the story had the right feel, it just wasn't a style that engaged me and I started skipping the song bits at the start of the chapters once the love interest showed up because they were chopping things up too much.
Laurie Landon - Enticed by Blood - A vamp encounters the human woman he tried to leave behind, but who he couldn't forget - I haven't read anything else from this series. The pre-existing connection between the pair helps, but this is really still too short to do justice to the big reveal of the vampire world to the heroine and it would have been hard enough to fit in some proper groveling by the hero for the way he's broke her heart.
Bec McMaster -The Many Lives of Hadley Monroe - This is really the story that I bought the book for and it was a good one, Hadley makes a deal with Death. I don't know why reaper romances work for me but they just do and in this one Death starts out so other and Hadley humanizes him as she shows him what it is like to truly live. This even brought a few tears to my eyes.
Angie Fox - Date with a Demon Slayer- A Haunted anniversary date for the demon slayer and her hubby could be their last, if not for her talking Jack Russell terrier. This was ok, it had all the elements of the series, but it wasn't my favorite of the shorts in this series.
Elle Jasper - Return to Me - A woman sets off to a remote island to try ovecome her fears.
JD Horn - Pretty Enough to Catch Her - A parolee attracts the eye of a former beauty queen- no actual romance here.
Tiffany Trent - Love, Sugar - A woman inherits a family homes but there's an even stranger part of her inheritance - the idea is interesting but she accepts the strange terms to her legacy too quickly and her not being 'special' but just one in a long line didn't feel very romancey to me.
Shelli Stevens - Savage Rescue -A shifter gets to play hero to a woman from his past.
jessa Slade - If Only Tonight - This was a bit odd because it's southern but southern California and with a Goth girl and an Adobe instead of a Belle and and Antebellum. I liked the ending though.
Shawntelle Madison - Cursed - The alpha and his OCD mate head off to renew their vows and run afoul of a curse. The way this started out I thought this was going to be just smexy times, but when the pair get caught up in the curse things get a bit more interesting.
Amanda Bonilla - Waerd Awakenings - I liked this alot despite the instalove. Some how it worked because of a symbiotic mental connection that add an emotional intensity to the pair's meeting and hook up. There was also enough of the world built that I wouldn't mind more from Bonilla. -
Shiloh Walker - The Haunted
This was interesting, and might get me to check out the series (eventually). A nice wee bit of angst between the former lovers, but I'm not really into storylines with children, so there's that. But overall I liked it. (3 stars)
Sonya Bateman - The Devil Went Down
I liked this, but it was resolved waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too quickly (like in three sentences). Interesting world-building, so I'd maybe check out a series, but this one suffered a little from the extreme short length (3 stars).
Dianne Sylvan -Sweet the Sting
Erin Kellison - Wylde Magic
Jill Archer -Dream, Interrupted
Laurie Landon - Enticed by Blood
Well, I like a bit of angst, but this gets tied up WAY to quickly, even accounting for the limited length. Basically, I might give the series a shot if I have a hankering for vampires, but there are a lot of options in that genre, so we'll see. (2.5 stars)
Bec McMaster -The Many Lives of Hadley Monroe
Apparently I love everything Bec McMaster writes. None of my favorite tropes in this one, but I loved it nonetheless. I'm impressed such visceral characters could be packed into so few pages (4 stars)
Angie Fox - Date with a Demon Slayer
Elle Jasper - Return to Me
JD Horn - Pretty Enough to Catch Her
Tiffany Trent - Love, Sugar
Shelli Stevens - Savage Rescue
Jessa Slade - If Only Tonight
Shawntelle Madison - Cursed
Amanda Bonilla - Waerd Awakenings -
A Sweetblood short story, Enticed By Blood, is in this collection. It's set in New Orleans and stars some new characters you haven't met before...but you'll see some of them again. ;-)
Update Dec. 2014: The ebook is out, but I could only find it available on Amazon. The print book will be available January 2015, so hopefully by then, the ebook will be available on iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Google Play.
ENTICED BY BLOOD
A Sweetblood World short story
Stockbroker Juliette Bishop gets more than she bargained for when she flies to New Orleans to handle a business matter for her ailing father and comes face to face with her former lover, the handsome, yet mysterious Andre Lescarbeau.
*** This story will also be available on its own February 2015. -
OVERALL:
Shiloh Walker - The Haunted
Sonya Bateman - The Devil Went Down
Dianne Sylvan -Sweet the Sting
Erin Kellison - Wylde Magic
Jill Archer -Dream, Interrupted
Laurie Landon - Enticed by Blood
Bec McMaster -The Many Lives of Hadley Monroe
Angie Fox - Date with a Demon Slayer
Elle Jasper - Return to Me
JD Horn - Pretty Enough to Catch Her
Tiffany Trent - Love, Sugar
Shelli Stevens - Savage Rescue
Jessa Slade - If Only Tonight
Shawntelle Madison - Cursed
Amanda Bonilla - Waerd Awakenings -
An interesting mix that had some level of hit and miss with the stories. The standouts for me (listed in order of appearance in the book) were, in no particular order -
The Haunted - Shiloh Walker
The Many Lives of Hadley Moore by Bec McMaster
Sweet the Sting - Dianne Sylvan
Waerd Awakenings - Amanda Bonilla -
Only read:
Bec McMaster - The Many Lives of Hadley Monroe
