DAY 6
Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: They Called Him Nightmare
SERIES: A Walk on the Wild Side (2016 Daily Dose)
AUTHOR: Deja Black
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 26 Pages
BLURB:
Growing up, Kai Bennu was taunted for skin dark as midnight and his otherworldly appearance. They called him Nightmare, but Alec Vasilios, a wealthy and powerful businessman, wants to call Kai his own. Kai’s past has left him with little trust in others and even more reluctance to surrender himself to Alec’s power. With both men harboring supernatural secrets, finding common ground won’t come without sacrifice.
REVIEW:
Unfortunately, the idea of this story was much better than the execution. The story begins with the two main characters in high school and after a few chapters it skips forward by ten years.
Considering the short length of this story those first few chapters of the boys’ first meeting seem rather a waste of words. I think the story would have benefitted from the two men meeting as adults and for Alec to actively pursue a reluctant Kai, as the blurb suggests. There was no reason I could see to keep the characters apart for a decade.
The characters, including Kai’s adopted mother, seemed interesting but we don’t know enough to actually care about them one way or another. I wasn’t wishing for them to reunite, I wasn’t even sad that Kai’s mother was dying.
My favourite part of the story by far was the visual of Kai taking his shifter form, you really could imaging it the way the author described.
But then it ended. The characters had spoken very briefly once as teens, had angry sex once as adults, and that was it. The story needed a whole lot more added to it to get me invested as a reader. Short stories are trickier to accomplish this with, but it can definitely be done.
The writing itself was well done, I just needed more…padding, I guess. I would be interested in checking out a full length novel by this author.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Dreamspinner Press – Single Story
Ah…. I can imagine how difficult it is to write something meaningful in 26 pages but really liked the idea of the 2 supernatural powers meeting.
I appreciate the review!
Thank you for the helpful review, I wonder if the author will look at this review, see that we want more, rewrite and perhaps pad out the story by a few hundred of so pages 🙂 .
That’s the problem with short stories. It is so difficult to find balance and sometimes they feel unfinished…
I’ve read Deja Black novel and enjoyed and was hoping she would write another story. Thanks for sharing your thoughts =)