Time for another round of Yvonne’s Shorties! This time around two kindle freebies I decided to pick up on a whim to help clear out my backlist… The first was a dud, but the second ended up being quite entertaining.

Title: Of Light And Darkness
(Of Light And Darkness #1)
Author: Shayne Leighton
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Paranormal
First published: June 26th 2011
Finished reading: May 16th 2022
Pages: 400

“She was like a pomegranate seed he held in his hand. If he held on too hard, she’d burst, and the red would stain him forever.”


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I decided on a whim to browse my kindle freebies and read an older title or two to help get rid of the backlist… The cover of Of Light And Darkness intrigued me and I was in the mood for some fantasy, so I decided to go in blind and just read it. I guess I probably should have read the blurb first, because vampire stories and me don’t tend to get along… This didn’t even end up being my main issue with this story though. I did love the Prague setting and hints at the local folklore. The fact that the vampires are actually scary is a bonus, and I could appreciate the whole ‘twist’ with them actually dying every dawn. There are lots of different supernatural creatures included as well, which makes for a nice mix and shifts the focus from it just being another vampire story. There are different POVs, including the human Charlotte, the vampire Valek and the elf Aidan. The first two were the most interesting; I didn’t particularly care for Aidan’s POV. Then comes my main issue with this story: not only does it have a love triangle vibe, but the whole basically incestuous relationship between Charlotte and Valek is simply sickening. Once it was first hinted at, I started to lose my taste for this story immediately… And I confess that I started skimreading before even reaching the halfway mark because between that revolting relationship and the love triangle I just couldn’t care less how the story ended. Oh yes, sadly this story most definitely wasn’t for me!

Title: Deadly Motives
(Detective Grant and Ruby #1)
Author: Ann Girdharry
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Detective
First published: November 5th 2019
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Finished reading: May 17th 2022
Pages: 278

“Only Grant’s wife, Lily, knew what Travis’s conviction meant to him. Most people saw it as the one which had made Grant. Only Lily knew it was the case which had almost broken him.”


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I remember getting a copy of Deadly Motives during a Bloodhound Books Christmas promo back in 2020, but somehow it had slipped between the cracks of my TBR mountain until now. I do love a good detective thriller and having a serial killer angle always earns extra points, so when I was browsing backlist titles to read I couldn’t resist finally picking it up. While I do have to say it took me a little while to get in the groove and get used to the writing style, once I did I ended up having a great time with this one. Deadly Motives uses a multiple POV structure and while some switches were a bit distracting, as a whole it added more dynamics to the plot. The chapters from the POV of the killer were fascinating, and the flashbacks to the past added a little something extra too. I liked what Ruby Silver added to the investigation with the criminal profiler angle, and in general Detective Grant and his team were easy to warm up to. The investigation is intriguing and there are lots of twists and turns as well as red herrings to keep you busy. I’m not sure if I will be continuing the series any time soon, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy my time with Deadly Motives… Having a serial killer in the spotlight AND one of the main characters related to him is always a bonus of course!

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