big fails

I rarely see my decision to quit a book as a failure on my part.  I blame hype and/or misleading descriptions, or flat-out bad choices by publishers.  Yeah, I'm a bit self-righteous about it.

On call in the Arctic: A doctor's pursuit of life, love, and miracles in the Alaskan frontier by Thomas J. Sims.  The author is trying too hard for what he imagines is a more literary style.  There are way too many cliches and the voice doesn't feel authentic.

Memoirs of a dragon hunter by Katie MacAlister.  This seems to be set in the same universe as the Aisling Grey and related dragon series, but is dependent on a middle series-- there are world-building details that apparently were related and explained somewhere after Sparks fly but before this.  It's a bit too hard to jump in to.

One for the rogue by Manda Collins.  This was hitting all the low notes for stereotypical romance-- cardboard bluestocking heroine, hero who is dishonest about his motivations for no visible reason, enemies-to-lovers obviously coming soon.  I would have soldiered on, but the story seems like it would make more sense if one had read the previous series installments. 

After nightfall by A.J. Banner.  The main character isn't honest about her emotions and tends toward hysteria.  I downloaded this because I anticipate there will be a fair amount of local interest.  While I recognize that I usually have trouble getting into suspense novels, in this case it's because this isn't a good suspense novel.

Downriver by Will Hobbs; read by Christina Moore.  This was on my list from last summer of family audiobooks featuring survival stories.  It's taking an awfully long time for the danger to get here: the main character is doing a lot of whining about her blended family, patently painting her parents as "evil" and verbalizing-- though failing to recognize-- her own poor choices.  The supporting characters blend together into a background of "generic troubled teen."  We didn't listen for more than an hour.