Elaine White's Life in Books
The Author
Elaine White is the author of multi-genre MM romance, celebrating 'love is love' and offering diversity in both genre and character within her stories.
Growing up in a small town and fighting cancer in her early teens taught her that life is short and dreams should be pursued. She lives vicariously through her independent, and often hellion characters, exploring all possibilities within the romantic universe.
The Winner of two Watty Awards – Collector's Dream (An Unpredictable Life) and Hidden Gem (Faithfully) – and an Honourable Mention in 2016's Rainbow Awards (A Royal Craving) Elaine is a self-professed geek, reading addict, and a romantic at heart.
The Reviewer
I’m an author and reader, who just can’t get away from books. I discovered the MM genre a few years ago and became addicted.
Top #50 UK reviewer on Goodreads
#1 reviewer on Divine Magazine
Bloodstained Heart
Book – Bloodstained HeartAuthor – Kassandra Lea
Star rating - ★★★☆☆
Cover – Okay
POV – 3rd person, dual POV, with omni
Would I read it again – No
Genre – LGBT, Contemporary?, Paranormal, Ghost/Zombie
** COPY RECEIVED THROUGH NETGALLEY **
I was confused by this one. I started off the book thinking that the main character, Seamus, was a ghost. There were a lot of hints and shoves in that direction, by constantly mentioning hauntings, ghostly or undead related words. However, it turned out that he's a zombie, which really confused me all over again.
There were quite a few editing issues. Some sentences began with small caps, there were words missing, and small instances like using 'either' only to follow it up with 'and' instead of 'or' so that the sentence didn't make sense anymore.
The POV was confusing, too. At one point, I thought we'd switched scenes only to keep Tibbit's POV, then found that I'd either become so confused that I'd been reading it in the wrong POV or it had suddenly become omni-present by mixing both Seamus and Tibbet's POV in the same scene. It was hard to tell, even after I realised that it didn't make sense and had gone back to re-read the page.
There are a few flashbacks, to show what happened to Seamus and to show the moment he first met Tibbet. While both were interesting in terms of explaining things, they were often far too long, showing the flashback in two or three parts, where only one was needed. I also found that Seamus' story didn't make much sense. Why didn't Bridgette protest to what had been done to Seamus and have it reversed? Why didn't anyone believe that 'my darling' was a sign that Seamus and Bridgette were seeing each other? And what was the timeline? I found all of this so confusing, because it didn't make sense. The timeline felt like Tibbet's time was contemporary, while Seamus' original life was around the 1800's or early 1900's. Except, they didn't use words like “weirdo pervert” and didn't talk about “making passes at” anyone. These words aren't suited to the timeline that it's suggested Seamus belongs to, though we're never really told when that is.
Overall, it was just far too confusing to appreciation the good idea of the plot or the fact that the characters could have been great, if explored in a little more detail.
