Review of Chocolate-Covered Eyes by Lori R. Lopez

 

Review by Gabryyl Pierce

 

3 of 5 stars

 

Chocolate-Covered Eyes: A Sampler of Horror is a collection of poetry and short stories by Lori R. Lopez. Each story has been rated individually below and averaged for an overall rating:

 

Chocolate-Covered Eyes  1 of 5 stars

An attempt at horror poetry that fell flat for me.

Heartbeat   4 of 5 stars

A fun zombie story from a young boy’s perspective. Good characters and tight plotting make this a good addition to the zombie sub-genre.

Nuance  2 of 5 stars

Another short story but one I could not get into. This one had the guts of a good story strangled by dozens ten-dollar words.

Unleashed: Tail One  5 of 5 stars

Absolutely my favorite and worth the read. The point of view switches between the family dog, a devilish cat and a detective, with wondrous results. I’d love to see more of this!

Beyond The Stump  2 of 5 stars

The story of a tree and its part in the narrator’s life. Again, an interesting premise buried under tons of unnecessary “literary” prose.

Bedeviled  4 of 5 stars

A good story and fast read. My second favorite in the collection. Warning: contains insects! *shudder*

Macabre  2 of 5 stars

An okay entry, a bit over-long. The central character never grabbed my attention.

All in all, the author’s attempts at literary prose are overstuffed and unnecessary – Lopez has a good voice, when she lets it breathe, but Chocolate-Covered Eyes does contain a few stories worth the read.

Review of Dragon's Fire: New Breed by Danielle Kazemi

Dragon's Fire: New Breed by Danielle Kazemi

Review by Gabryyl Pierce

3 1/2 of 5 stars

Waitress Annabel Wells is having a bad day: she hates her job and her boyfriend just dumped her -- over the phone. Things couldn't get worse. Which, of course, means they will.

Annabel is attacked by one of the Unseen - a creature made of pure darkness that kills mortals with a touch. When a mysterious hero saves her, she uncovers a world of myth: Dragons living among us, disguised as humans, hunting the Unseen. 

Now, with the aide of her sexy new hero, Crispin, and his dragon den of fellow hunters, Annabel has to protect herself from another attack. The only problem: how to hide from a creature that can go anywhere unseen?

Dragon's Fire: New Breed is the first novella in the Dragon's Fire Series by Danielle Kazemi. Overall the story is intriguing, the characters interesting and the plot works fairly well. The biggest issue was with a lack of contractions in some of the dialogue. It was a bit distracting, but not enough to make me stop reading. I was disappointed when I reached the end as I hadn't checked the title page and didn't realize it wasn't a full-length novel -- I was dying to know what happened next. But that's the best type of disappointment for a reader -- wanting more. 

 

 

About Danielle 

Danielle Kazemi is a native of Louisiana where she grew up writing. She enjoys writing in a simplistic style so that the reader does not have to trudge through miles of description just to know that the characters are walking down the road. Her first publishing credit was through Chicken Soup, which convinced her she could actually do it. Now she spends her time writing various books while chasing after her own kids who believe that they are the superheroes she is writing about.

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