Customer Reviews

Strange Neighbors

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I am sure this book will get appeal to lots of people, as does reality TV, but "quintessential" and "delightful" are not words I would use to describe it. The author included just about every popular theme from books, television and movies. So if you like reality TV, follow celebrity news, are entertained by Yaz commercials, and want to read something light and superficial with weak paranormal overtones and yes, a couple of steamy sex scenes, you may like this.

Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan meet Alex Rodriguez and star in a bad CW TV about supernatural creatures with HBO-type sex. That sums it up.

Thank goodness, a shipment of books from authors I like arrived---Secondhand Spirits: A Witchcraft Mystery A Cast-Off Coven: A Witchcraft Mystery, and any Victoria Laurie's Psychic Eye series, just to name a few.

I can stop reading this book and move along. Life is too short to read mediocre books. I salute this author for getting published and I am sure she will garner an audience, but it's not for me.

I don't know what book the other reviewers read, but it cannot be this one. The writing is basic, simplistic, and could have been done by a pre-teen. The plotting of the "love story" between Merry and Jason contains no suspense, no build up, and the characters act like middle schoolers. Except for the sex scenes. Then all of a sudden, the dialogue is pornographic. If the supernatural characters are supposed to be funny, I missed the joke. The writing is too flat to bring out any feelings of humor, empathy, or sympathy for any of the characters. This book is flat out horrible. If I could have given it zero stars, I would have.

I just wrapped up "Strange Neighbors" by Ashlyn Chase & I can say it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.
Readers are introduced to Merry, our heroine, who has just moved into an apartment away from the loving arms of her adopted father & little brother. Right from the start, we're shown that this isn't any ordinary apartment building being that it's inhabited with a wide variety of "unique" residents...from the vampire in the basement to the duo of witches on the top floor. Merry meets the building owner, Jason Falco, a pro Baseball player & all-around ladies man. Instantly there's an undeniable attraction between the two & quickly this attraction turns into romance.
I won't bore you by recapping the plot (you can read that in the book description & the other reviews) so I'll quickly sum up the pros/cons of "Strange Neighbors".
The personalities of the romantic leads I'd have to say is a "con" - within the context of their romance, character flaws are shown in both of the leads. Merry, a nurse at a downtown Boston hospital, is VERY quick to judge Jason...for example, finding him guilty of infidelity without allowing him any sort of an explanation. Jason, on the other hand, is an extremely passive person (which I find an odd contrast with his outgoing sports star persona). He hardly ever stands up to people (like his obnoxious Aunt Dottie), preferring to sit on the sidelines instead of engaging someone (even if it's to stand up for himself).
The secondary characters in "Strange Neighbors" would most definitely be a "pro" for this story. Instantly I was enticed by the idea of living in an all paranormal apartment building & wanted to know more about this great supporting cast. I'm hoping Chase's upcoming books delve more into their lives (and leave Merry/Jason out of it).
These were my two biggest "pro/con" examples from "Strange Neighbors"...all in all, not a bad book. I do believe this series has potential & will improve with future sequels.

The author is a friend of a friend of a friend of my sister's cat sitter, so to support a local author I bought this book and preordered the second in the series. I read the Kindle edition so I suppose it could have been the formatting on the device, but the CONSTANT switching of 1st to 3rd person narrative was distracting to the point of painful, if not just juvenile writing. Now I potentially fault the device because maybe in other versions there are italics or SOMETHING for the many many shifts of point of view and voice in every single scene.

The heroine is absolutely spineless and simpering. If I knew her on Facebook I would de-friend her. If I knew her in person I might honestly shake if not slap her for being such an insipient insult to women everywhere. Seriously? In 2010 PMS is a subplot-line in of itself? That alone made me cancel my order for the second book. I'm all for supporting local authors, but this book made me want to move so as to no longer be local.

The concept was cute, but the dialogue was weak and the writing was awful. If you want to read fun vamp books from upcoming authors I recommend Alexandra Ivy and Lara Adrian.

Merry is an RN who's mother died when she was young. She was brought up by her father and helped raise her younger brother. Merry decides she is ready to break the ties with her very over protective daddy to be out on her own. So she moves in a apartment building owned by Jason who happens to be a pro baseball player and something else that he is keeping a secret for now.

The apartment building has some interesting people living in it. A pair of witch cousins who run a sex phone line, a werewolf that works in the morgue , a jobless vampire that lives undetected in the basement and a not so living ghost that haunts the building and enjoys playing dirty jokes on Jason's Aunt who happens to be the building super and a very nosy women who's husband doesn't believe in ghost.

What you end up with is Merry finding out what she truly is and Jason brave enough to tell Merry what he is. Together they decide what direction their life will take once they figure out that they have all the puzzle pieces put together.

I'm sure I have forgot somethings but you get the gist of it.

I love how all these characters are brought together and set up for future books. I greatly enjoyed reading this book from start to finish and I think you will enjoy it too!

Strange Neighbors was a fun and entertaining read. Not a lot of depth or really much of a story line. I really am not sure WHAT the point of the book was... Jason & Merry's relationship which went from landlord to sex to "I love you" within 4 meetings (rolls eyes), solving the ghost Chad's murder, Merry's biological father coming out of the woodwork (literally), Jason's "secret" or Merry's independence. Still haven't figured it out. There were some funny moments (the witches are phone sex operators) and lots of sex (obviously this writer has written some erotic romance). This was mindless, brain popcorn and I thought Merry was a little odd, Jason obsessed (guess the Falcon in him?), I wanted to know more about Konrad (didn't get enough), Sly was ok in fleeting moments, the witches and Chad were about the only interesting characters, Aunt Dottie was a moron, and the rest were kind of blips on the radar. There was so much potential especially with an apartment building full of preternatural creatures but it fell sort of flat and could have been built upon more strongly and unfortunately it wasn't. Sometimes the first book of a series is clunky and the kinks get smoothed out as it goes along, hopefully that will be the case however, I don't have any interest in carrying on beyond this first book.

In one word to describe this book: Fun... I guess. Definitely not one I would re-read but it really was good fun.

What a great and fun time I had reading this book. Can't wait to get to the others. This book is exactly what it was intended to be... FUN! Other readers have given this book low grades, but I guess they didn't see it for what it is. I'm retired and have been reading 2 books a week for a long time, so I'm familiar with various writing styles. The editing was good - mistakes were almost non-existant. All you need to do is sit back and start reading. Then laugh! Feel good! Enjoy yourself!

If you a quick paranormal book to read this is a good one. A friend of mine who does not read paranormal books picked this up since it seemed a bit funny and wanted to see why so many of us like this style of books. She told me about it knowing I love all of this stuff. I did enjoy it and it made me get the next book in the series. I am not saying it is as great as the popular paranormal romance writers we normally read but I am wanting to read the other books in the series though. You know when you really don't feel like thinking after a really long or bad day. This is a simple book to read and every so often you need that kind of book and it makes it even better when it is enjoyable at the same time.

I have never felt so compelled to review a book I've read. This book was bad. There really was no plot to the whole book. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this book. The relationship between the main characters was very immature and reminded me of a teenage relationship and then it would turn into a porn story. There was no depth to any of the characters. The author was trying too hard to have all these stereotypical paranormal characters, but it was just a big flop, and I found myself not really caring what happened to any of them. The whole book was weak, and I honestly don't know what other people saw in it.

Really loved this book! It was simply delightful. Normally a straight romance plot (especially one resolved as fast as this one was) wouldn't hold my interest, but this book had the most engaging ensemble cast of characters. Every character was so personable with their own quirks that were highly entertaining and felt so real that I couldn't put the book down. In fact I loved the characters in that building so much I immediately went and bought the second and third book in the series. *4.5/5 stars*