Category Archives: book review

Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland

Posted on by
4
Mark of the Demon
Mark of the Demon
Diana Rowland
This is another one of those books where the cover caught my attention first, but the blurb made me really want to read it. Soon after I mentioning that I was eying the book, I met the author on twitter and she was nice enough to put me on the reviewer list. A cover flat came along with the ARC, and boy, the cover is gorgeous in real life (I gasped aloud when I saw it). It’s matte with shiny symbols, and the colors look otherworldly. It’s probably my favorite cover this year.

The Premise: Kara Gillian is Summoner – someone who has the ability to call demons from a parallel plane. She’s been studying and training unbeknownst to the outside world under her mentor/aunt for ten years, and has gained enough skill to work without assistance. Kara’s day job is equally important to her. She’s a detective who has just been promoted from Property Crimes to the Violent Crimes Division at the Beaulac Police Department, just as their town’s serial killer, the Symbol Man has reappeared. The Symbol Man dumped several bodies all over town before disappearing three years ago. All races, all ages.  The only connection between the victims is that they are transients (so no one seems to care they are missing), and a the same symbol is found somewhere on all their bodies. Kara knows that the symbol has arcane significance, but she has no idea what it is. Ever since she saw the body of a victim when she was a beat cop, Kara has wanted in on this case. Now she’s surprised to find she’s the lead investigator and she finally has a chance to use her hidden abilities to catch the killer.

My Thoughts: I’ve been pleased this week to be reading books that had great pacing. It starts off with a bang:

“I could hear the intruder breaking into my house.
Unfortunately, it was in the same instant that the demon appeared before me.”

Read an excerpt of Chapter 1

In Mark of the Demon, something was always going on, and the movement of the story from one scene to the next was seamless. With Kara investigating murders, interacting with demons, hiding her identity as a summoner, and dealing with men in the police department and FBI, it was only reluctantly that I put the book down. If I didn’t have other review deadlines, I’d have read this sooner, because the first page really hooked me. It’s this kind of book that had me enthusiastically informing my husband what’s going on despite him trying to sleep to concentrate something else.

The “About the Author” page says that Diana Rowland has worked in law enforcement as “a street cop, a detective, a computer forensics specialist, a crime scene investigator, and a morgue assistant”. It shows in the writing. I found the scene with the medical examiner in the morgue fascinating (I did always wonder about bone dust. Suspicions confirmed), but the author’s experience shows elsewhere as well. The way Kara handled herself with all the male testosterone in the police department amusing and admirable.

Kara’s character is somewhat isolated. With her background as a summoner she has to be, so the list of secondary characters that Kara is familiar with is extremely sparse. The only person she feels close to is her aunt, but in Mark of the Demon Kara is introduced to an FBI agent and to the Demon Lord Rhyzkhal who I think will become more significant as the series progresses. I look forward to reading how things will turn out in later books and there is plenty of room for relationship growth.

Demons are a large part of the story, and Kara summons a few types into our world. Information about their society and how summoning works is dispersed to the reader in bits and pieces as things happen, and it’s very absorbing stuff. What really fascinated me was the complex sense of honor that has such a huge part of their world. It’s only this sense of honor that enables summoners to stay alive when they bring these creatures into our world, as long as they stay within the agreed upon rules.

The mystery of whodunit took me some time to figure out. I had my suspect about one quarter of the way through the book, but that was blown out of the water several pages later. It’s only when a secondary character fills us in on some back story that I figured out who the Symbol Man was and by that time the book was mostly done. I found out earlier than Kara did, but it was believable that she wouldn’t have figured it out by then, and the killer ensured she’d look in the wrong direction.

Overall: A very satisfying police procedural with demons and summoners thrown in. Kara Gillian is very human, despite her abilities, and it’s nice to read an urban fantasy with this type of protagonist and where the case is the focus and magic is one of the tools to solve it.  Recommended.

I’ve been trying to think of another author who writes police procedurals with supernatural elements and I came up with C.E. Murphy’s Walker series. I certainly think if you are a fan of that series, you will enjoy this one.

This book will be released June 23rd, 2009.

Want to win a copy?

Bitten by books contest (ends 11:59pm PDT TODAY)
I Do Not Want to Wait, I Want the Book Now (comment answering the authors question for a chance to win. Not sure when this ends, so comment quickly)
On Twitter – @bantamspectra tweeted that if you reply to them with #spectra1000 you are entered to win one of 5 books (Mark of the Demon was just added to the list). US Only. Ends 5pm EST Wed 6/17

Other reviews:

The Book Smugglers (gave it a 7 – very good).
Lurv a la Mode (4.5 scoops. Reading her review I’ve discovered we share very similar opinions on this book)

Soulless by Gail Carriger

Posted on by
10
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate)
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate)
Gail Carriger

Soulless caught my eye a couple of months ago when I saw the cover, but I really wanted to read it because of the blurb. When I found this book at BEA I was ALL over it, and with the number of entries for my Soulless giveaway, I wish I had more copies to give away, but alas I only have the one.

I was going to write this review and then shelve it till end of September, but a lot of copies of this were at BEA, so I expect reviews to show up pretty soon, and I’ve had a lot of people asking me how the book is!

Soulless comes out September 30th from Orbit books.

The Premise: Alexia Tarabotti is a spinster and twenty-six years old (she was officially put on the shelf at the early age of fifteen). The daughter of an Italian and well known for her modern sensibilities, headstrong personality, and interest in science, Alexia isn’t the typical young Victorian lady. She has a long nose, dark Italian skin, and loves to eat (treacle tarts are a favorite).  One night, Alexia attends a ball, and is dismayed to find that the host has provided NO refreshments. Taking matters into her own hands, she asks be served tea in the library. One thing leads to another and suddenly there’s a dead vampire on the library floor and Alexia has to fake a faint. The agents of BUR, headed by Lord Maccon (an irritable, scruffy, Scottish werewolf) aren’t fooled for a second, and she is asked questions regarding their investigation.  Vampires and werewolves are appearing where they shouldn’t be, and disappearing from where they should. Of course Alexia decides to do some investigating on her own, and drives Lord Maccon crazy in the process.

My Thoughts: Wow, this book was a lot of fun to read. The blurb is a spot-on indication of what you’ll find in the book – tongue in cheek stuff, a heroine who is a force of nature, and a romance thrown in.  The author calls the book an “urbane fantasy”, and from what I can see there’s an overlap of genres here. There are romantic elements, urban fantasy elements, a very Victorian setting, and a dash of Steampunk. I couldn’t help mentally hearing the words in a proper English accent. First, no one here says “parasol”, so I had to, and second because of the style of the language. There was even a nod to the old-fashioned in the way the chapters were titled (“Our Heroine Ignores Good Advice” is just one example).  Along with the writing, there are a lot of references to fashions, manners and day to day life of the Victorian time period.

The world here is our own, but Great Britain has had supernatural help to conquer so much of the planet. There are werewolves, vampires, and ghosts, with similar traits to what I’ve seen in other urban fantasy (such as banding together under one Alpha or hive ruler), but the criteria for a human to change into a supernatural is something new. This time the amount of soul a person has is a factor. Only people with an excess of soul can survive the change, and supernatural creatures are rare. Alexia is even rarer, she has no soul. This makes her a preternatural, a person whose touch negates the supernatural completely. I don’t think I’ve seen this before. I’ve read books where one character is immune to supernatural effects, but can’t do what Alexia does.  I like the idea.

The worldbuilding was well done and had enough complexity where I felt that while I was seeing and understanding a lot of it, there is still more to come, perhaps in later books. In particular I think the politics between the vampires, werewolves, and the crown has been touched upon but there is more to explore there.

There are a lot of amusing side characters in this book. Usually there’s one or two side characters I kind of like, but here I liked a lot of them, though they are almost caricatures. The poor best friend with horrible taste in hideous, flamboyant, hats, the gay vampire with his baroque furnishings and coterie of foppish young men, the stoic and capable butler, the list goes on, but it works very well. It’s a comedic ensemble cast (complete with straight men) that buttress our heroine and hero.

This book is also a romance. While this is Victorian England so no sex before marriage, there are serious shenanigans going on that are decidedly more modern than this era. Even knowing what a free spirit Alexia is, there are a few scenes where some artistic license takes place in terms of Alexia’s reactions to her love interest. This was a slightly less believable part of Alexia’s character, but we’re reading a book with werewolves and vampires here, so I didn’t dwell on it. The part that irritated me was the repetition of Alexia’s “flaws” which she and her family were concerned about: that Italian nose, dark complexion, and inability to be controlled. I’d prefer Alexia to have been less repetitive in worrying about these silly things, thinking no one wants to marry someone like that.

Overall: This book is going to be popular. It’s as fun as it looks, I promise you, and I love that this feels like something new. I wanted to pick it up as soon as possible whenever I had to put it down. There’s plenty of action, sly wit, and romance going on to keep the pages turning and I will be reading the second book, Changeless.

There’s an excerpt of Changeless at the back of Soulless, and I’ve already checked, but the release date hasn’t been announced yet.

Links:

Video of Gail Carriger at BEA (filmed by Ron Hogan)

Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Posted on by
Reply
Cemetery Dance
Cemetery Dance
Douglas Preston
Mystery/suspense is a genre I don’t mind reading but usually I don’t pay much attention to it and only read it every so often. When Hachette Books offered me Cemetery Dance I thought I’d give the book a try.

The Premise: It all starts off with the murder of a respected journalist and friend of FBI agent Pendergast and New York police Lieutenant D’Agosta. A lot of people in the journalist’s apartment building see the killer, and identify him as an actor named Colin Fearing, who also lives in the building. With so many witnesses, it seems like an open and shut case. But there is a problem: Colin killed himself a couple of weeks ago. Soon New York City is in an uproar over zombie killers and what the police are doing about them. Agent Pendergast and Lieutenant D’Agosta are on the case for the sake of avenging their friends death, but how do you find a killer who is supposed to be dead?

My Thoughts: This is the latest(I think?) in this series of books. I haven’t read any of the rest of them so this worked fine as a standalone, though I’m possibly missing a background on some of the reoccurring characters (I had no problems making guesses).

FBI agent Pendergast seemed to be the main character, although the focus moved to Nora Kelly and Lieutenant D’Agosta a few times. Pendergast is unique character, I thought of him as a lanky, rich, Southern, Hercule Peroit. The type of character who is very observant, a few steps ahead of everyone else, and always solves the crime. He seemed to be a mythical figure, and I found his eccentricity and past interesting, but sometimes it felt a bit over the top, for example having a huge apartment in the city with a housekeeper and rooms only he is allowed into which leads to an indoor japanese garden? An evil aunt in a mental institution? It was a bit much for me, but then I haven’t read the rest of the series, so perhaps it’s harder for me to accept. I also felt like there was not that much to go on with Pendergast’s emotions – most of the time his face is neutral and he gives nothing away. It makes him seem impenetrable, but also hard to connect to.

Lieutenant D’Agosta seemed to be an angry cop, sometimes letting his anger take over, which Pendergast or other characters having to step in to calm him or tell him to be careful to not let his anger jeopardize the case or his job. Nora seemed to have more scope than the two men, she swung back and forth between grief and fear and anger and put herself in danger to find out who the killer was, but the reader sees less of her in this book. My favorite character was even more minor – Laura Hayward. She had a few smart things to say and I liked how capable she was and how she questioned Pendergast’s methods, but her appearance was brief. I’m guessing she is another reoccurring character though because of her past with D’Agosta.

I thought I understood who was behind the murders and was feeling a bit put out that the police were being obtuse until about halfway through the book when I started suspecting someone else. So I thought the mystery was well done because of the twists.

Speaking of twists, this is one of the books this year which fall under my private label of “unexpected zombies”. All of a sudden, zombies appear when I least expect it, and this happened again here. I know that the blurb for this book talks about a walking dead guy, but I was sure this would be explained in a scientific way. When this didn’t immediately happen, I began to wonder if there really were zombies created through some strange ritual! The authors kept their cards close to their chests regarding magic in the book.

Last comment: there are some violent and creepy scenes in this book which kind of went with the flavor of the novel, but just FYI if you are squeamish. I didn’t think they were bad.

Overall: It was OK. I felt like I could see everything happening like you’d see in a movie, there is plenty of action, and suspense going on, and I did want to find out who did it and what will happen, but I just didn’t connect very well to the main characters. Maybe this is because I hadn’t read the earlier books or because it just wasn’t my thing. It felt like when I watch CSI: Miami. I like certain characters, but I cannot connect with Horatio Caine, and he’s the main guy, so in the end I can watch a show or two, but I am not so enthusiastic about it. That’s my problem here.

Review at Fantasy Book Critic (they highly recommended it)

The Laurentine Spy by Emily Gee

Posted on by
7
The Laurentine Spy
The Laurentine Spy
Emily Gee
I got Emily Gee’s two books for my birthday after both @angiebookgirl and @booksmugglers pimped the books to me on twitter. I’d already been eying this author because of recommendations at the Paperbackswap forums, but those two tweeters tipped the scales. When I was in high school my favorite genre was fantasy, and in college I began to get more into authors who wrote fantasy with romantic elements like Sharon Shinn, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip, and Anne Bishop. Emily Gee seemed to fall under this category, so I’ve been looking forward to trying out her books.

P.S. I love how atmospheric this cover is. Very nice.

The Premise: The Laurentine Protectorate (aka Laurent) and the Coronese Empire (aka Corona) are neighboring countries who are in a constant state of unease with each other. Corona has a taste for acquiring more land and is constantly trying to add to it’s holdings. It is a place where men love war and debauchery, and will fall on their swords for failure, and women are demure and do all that their husbands say. Laurentine is less restrictive and believe in more artistic pursuits than Corona, but they also have their own issues, like a very frivolous upper class.

There are three Laurentine spies in Corona. They meet in the catacombs under the Coronese citadel, know each other as One, Two, and Three, and follow the orders of their guardian. One pretends that he is a Coronese lord (and well-known fool), called Lord Ivo, Two is a servant, and Three is a lady of the court named Lady Petra.

Athan is One and Saliel is Three. As spies they have an interest in one another, but they don’t know who the other really is. Saliel/Lady Petra dislikes Lord Ivo, and Athan/Lord Ivo thinks Lady Petra is the epitome of a Coronese lady: virtuous and subservient, and therefore not his type, but is drawn to her red hair.

Meanwhile Saliel has a couple of secrets -her birth in the slums and the ability to “hold” someone with her eyes. She knows that if her birth was known, she would be shunned by any respectable member of society, and for her ability, she could be burned as a witch. Saliel and her fellow spies’ problems are further compounded when a Spycatcher known for getting results is brought in.

My Thoughts: There are a lot of suspenseful moments in this book. First there’s the problem of being spies and trying to find out secret military information without getting caught. The ways Saliel, Petra and Two found out things and then added them together to discover Corona’s plans was fascinating. Then when the Spycatcher is brought in because they did a good job and Corona is sure spies had to have discovered the plans, their interaction with the Spycatcher were intense.

Saliel’s fears of discovery are two-fold. Being a spy and her magic. Both Corona *and* Laurent have a fear of witches, who get burned in giant bonfires whenever one is caught. The whole town is involved and loves to see a witch burn, because these creatures have the ability to make people do things against their will, and there is a lot of fear attached to such a power. Saliel’s ability is not that great, but it’s still enough for her to die if anyone found out about it.

So there are intense moments when the hero and heroine are close to getting caught, but sometimes the pacing still felt a little slow as they went through their daily lives at the citadel. These seemed to show what the world was like however so I kept reading. What really kept me going was wanting to see what happens when Athan and Saliel realize who the other is! I wanted to see what this would mean for their hidden feelings. It felt like they’d never find out, while their guardian knew about it kept it from each other when I thought it would have been better for them to know. He seemed to not see them as people but rather tools (an attitude he had throughout the book which made me dislike him greatly). Saliel and Athan’s complex relationship was my favorite aspect of the book.

So dislikes: I had a couple of problems with the book, but they were (in my mind) minor ones. One was believing that a Spycatcher with the ability to make people tell him the truth didn’t just go up to everyone and ask if they were an enemy spy. Ok, yes, the story would be much shorter and just wouldn’t have worked, but it irked me, and I decided to believe he liked to toy with people and wasn’t the type of person to just ask – it would have been too easy for him. The other problem I had was how at every discovery Athan made about who Saliel really was, he balked, and a convenient event would happen that made him realize how silly his concerns were. I would have preferred him to come to the realizations through some soul searching without something dire happening as if to smack the point into his head.

Overall: Liked the story a lot, especially the romantic part of it – it was the slow, subtle romantic build-up I like reading, which went well with the fantasy parts of it. I do think this belongs in the fantasy section, not in romance however. There were a couple of minor issues I had with the plot that I described in my thoughts above, and at times the pacing was a bit slower than I’d have liked, but nothing that would keep me from reading this author’s books in the future. I think I’m going to keep getting her books, and I love that these are standalones! Yes! I recommend this author for those who like Sharon Shinn and Anne Bishop.

Other reviews:

The Book Smugglers (very good, leaning towards and eight)
Lusty Reader (gave it a B+)
Fantasy Book Critic (highly recommended)

Salt and Silver by Anna Katherine

Posted on by
3
Salt and Silver
Salt and Silver
Anna Katherine
I’ve wanted to read this book ever since I found it browsing online and I read the excerpt.  The cover and the excerpt made me think this would be shelved in urban fantasy but I found it in the romance aisle. The spine says “paranormal romance”. It kind of walks on the line on the two genres I think.

Note on the cover – I noticed they changed the cover font from blue and white to half silver (to resemble molten silver) and half white (like sprinklings of salt) – Love it.

The Premise: Allie is an ex-spoiled rich girl. The kind of rich that meant a mansion in Long Island, designer clothes and accessories, and two equally spoiled and rich best friends, Amanda and Stan, who grow up next door. The day her mother stole all their money and ran away to Brazil with her lover Rio, Allie suddenly had to grow up. She had to take a job as a waitress in diner in Brooklyn.  After her first day at Sally’s Diner, Allie, Amanda, and Stan perform a silly ritual in a fit of drunkenness which ends up opening a Door to Hell in the basement of the diner. Immediately a Stetson-wearing demon hunter, Ryan appears. This was six years ago. Allie has grown up, taken over management of the diner, and on the side she helps Ryan kill demons that escape from the Door. Until one day the Door in the diner’s basement suddenly disappears and she and Ryan have to find out what happened.

My Thoughts: The narrative is in the first person and is really informal – almost stream of consciousness, and full of swearing and sarcasm. It almost seemed young adult but not quite. After thinking about it I decided it was the voice of a young twenty-something, and it’s a BIG part of whether you will enjoy the book. If the voice here isn’t for you, you won’t like it, so I highly recommend reading the excerpt of chapter one.

The world here is ours except there are Doors to Hell which every so often let out creatures that the door guards kill. Normal people (the mundanes) don’t know about it and just keep living their lives. I won’t go into more detail than that, but I thought that the world building was really organic – you learn as the story goes along, with Allie not ignorant, but kept uninformed of certain facts from the hunters until she needed to know. The demons and monsters that Allie runs into all have basis in mythology and a wide variety of beliefs. For example there are different versions of Hell and it was really fascinating how characters reacted to what they saw in the Hells according to what they believed.

Allie has grown up  but her two friends from her old life have not. She holds on to them because she remembers that they were there for her when she became poor, but you get the feeling she keeps in contact because of loyalty, not because she actually likes them. It’s an interesting situation, and it’s sort of a coming of age aspect that you don’t usually see in adult urban fantasy. This also works with the story because Amanda and Stan’s selfishness and immaturity affect what’s going on with the Doors.  I think it explains Allie’s voice too. She may have grown up but her thoughts sometimes channel Cher from Clueless, but not in a way that made me dislike her. I actually really liked Allie’s character because of what she’s gone through, and because she came out with a wish to be a better person. She can’t hate the Door under Sally’s Diner because she knows it brought her Ryan and fighting it has also made her a more mature person.

The romance is a decent chunk of the story, but Ryan and Allie’s relationship has been an ongoing one so a lot of the falling in love seemed to have happened before the book even starts, with some flashbacks to key scenes and the only barrier is Ryan’s admitting that he feels anything (Allie on the other hand admits freely that she has a huge crush). A lot of the book happens before it starts, with flashbacks used to show how things have changed over the years, not just with their relationship, but with Allie’s relationship with Stan and Amanda. Ryan’s reasons for not acting on his feelings for Allie were believable (though I didn’t agree with him), so I found it understandable why he kept pushing Allie away even when it’s obvious he really likes her. When the relationship heats up, I guess it is “finally” for a lot of other characters, but because this book doesn’t really show all 6 years up to that point, to me it was a little surprising.  I thought it would take longer for Ryan to break down, he acts very standoffish when the book begins, but by chapter two his soft center regarding Allie begins to show, so apparently six years was enough. I liked this couple, especially Allie, but I wasn’t a fan of Allie begging Ryan with “Please” during certain scenes.

Overall: Really liked this one – I had a hard time putting it down and it was a fast read. It has a bit of a quest in different dimensions in it which is something I like reading (looks like the authors enjoy researching magic and superstition), and the romance was sweet – good friends becoming more. The voice is different so do go read the excerpt before you buy. This isn’t a standalone, it’s the beginning of a series, but I think that other books may focus on other characters in this world if I read the authors comment’s on it here right, so you can probably treat this as almost a standalone. The ending is in a good, satisfying place and I’m definitely putting whatever else Anna Katherine writes on my wish list.

Other reviews:

Scooper Speaks (she couldn’t connect with the main char)
The Book Smugglers – gave it a 7 (very good)

Just The Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James

Posted on by
1
Just the Sexiest Man Alive (Berkley Sensation)
Just the Sexiest Man Alive (Berkley Sensation)
Julie James
I read and enjoyed Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James earlier this month, and I liked it enough to get her other book, Just the Sexiest Man Alive at Borders the weekend before last (40% off Memorial Day coupon!)

The Premise: Just The Sexiest Man Alive also has a lawyer for the heroine – Taylor Donovon is an associate at Gray & Dallas who has been sent to the Los Angeles office for a few months to work on a sexual harassment case for a large client. Everything is going well, until Taylor is asked to do one of the partners a “favor” (which she can’t turn down) – meet with super-mega-movie star Jason Andrews to help him prepare for his part as a lawyer in an upcoming movie. Taylor is unhappy enough that Jason is adding to her already busy schedule, but when Jason blows off their initial meeting he ticks Taylor off with his movie-star attitude. It doesn’t help matters that Jason has been voted People’s Sexiest Man Alive three times and has been linked to a long line of female celebrities. Taylor has just broken off her engagement to her cheating fiance and is wary of womanizers. Jason expects Taylor to be instantly smitten and let him have his way like everyone else does, but when Taylor proves impervious to his charms, it only intrigues Jason more.

Excerpt of Chapter 1

My Thoughts: As with Practice Makes Perfect I think you can tell that someone with experience in the law profession wrote this book – there’s a lot of references that even as a layperson, I felt that James is an author who knew her stuff. And I don’t know if I mentioned it in my review of Practice Makes Perfect (livejournal / vox / wordpress) but I really liked that the heroines in both books were GOOD at their jobs – really good. It wasn’t just an arbitrary career which gets mentioned once or twice then you see the heroine hardly doing any work; it’s a big part of the plot.

The romance here is pretty sweet. Jason is at first a little too cocky and Taylor puts him in his place. As they get to know each other Jason realizes that Taylor isn’t like the usual woman who runs after him. Fame and publicity isn’t what she wants. Taylor, on the other hand, feels attracted to Jason but she’s wary of men who are known players after dealing with her ex-fiance, and she refuses to fall for another man like that. Of course the two keep seeing each other and feelings begin to develop. Pretty soon the press is all aflame with rumors of Jason Andrews’ Mystery Woman.

Taylor’s introduction to Jason’s life is pretty fun –  the paparazzi, and ensuing office gossip, the celebrity parties and Jason’s “people”, but what I really liked was their interactions with their best friends. Jason has his sarcastic best friend, Jeremy, who he’s known since college, and Taylor has her two friends from Chicago, Kate and Valerie. I think my favorite parts involved these secondary characters meeting Jason and Taylor. The scene where Jason tries to butt into the girl-talk about Taylor’s other dates (with another celebrity who made me think of Orlando Bloom as Legolas) was priceless.

Jason does do something mildly stupid in this book (besides starting off on the wrong foot by thinking he can use his star power on Taylor), but it was not enough to turn me off. In this regard I felt I liked him better as a hero than J.D. from Practice Makes Perfect, but he’s not perfect. The way Jason treats women until he meets Taylor was rather jerkish, but somehow he seems pull off not annoying me when I read about it. And whenever he used his charm, it never feels like he’s using others as much as they are delighted to fawn all over him and he lets them.

The ending was quite Hollywood – I can imagine the scene in the end of a romantic comedy, but I was ok with that. The only problem I’d say I have is the cynic in me not really believing a womanizing superstar would be able to settle down, but that’s not the books fault. There is no book that I could read with a famous player and ordinary person falling in love where a small part of me wouldn’t question it. The other thing was Taylor – she’s a size two, never lost a case, amazing at everything – at least she sounded human when she spoke, but the woman is a little mythical sounding.

Overall: A fun book. I enjoyed it and I think this author goes on the auto-buy list, both this book and Practice Makes Perfect were satisfying enough that I trust the author to keep at that level. There is not a lot of sex in this book: most of it is relationship buildup, which I personally prefer in my romance, so I was happy. I recommend this for those in the mood for an enjoyable contemporary romance.

Other reviews:

Gossamer Obsessions (gave it an A). She also has a related post about Sex In Romance (which I found I agreed with!)
The Book Binge (4.25 out of 5)
Dear Author (gave it a B-)
Katiebabs (B+) & The Book Smugglers (7 – very good) Power Puff review

The Better To Hold You by Alisa Sheckley

Posted on by
Reply
The Better to Hold You
The Better to Hold You
Alisa Sheckley

I got this book from the awesome avidbookreader.com. The review there was so interesting I was amazed I got there first to win the book!

The Premise: This book centers on a veterinarian, Abra Barrow, who lives and works in Manhattan. Her husband Hunter is a journalist, and he’s just come home from a several month long trip studying wolves in Romania. It’s not long before Abra has to admit that something has happened on Hunter’s trip – she suspects he’s had an affair, but at the same time the doctor she interns under suggests that her husband has come into contact with the lycantrophy virus. Hunter feels restless and unhappy in the city and declares he needs a forest and will be moving to his family’s home in Northside, New York. As usual he leaves little room in his plans for Abra, but to save her marriage, Abra quits her job and joins him. Thrown into the mix is Wildlife Removal Operator Red Mallin, a strange man at ease with himself and the wilderness. He’s got an interest in Abra and seems to know a lot of strange things about what’s going on with Hunter.

My Thoughts: This book is different from the usual urban fantasy (it’s marked as paranormal romance; I disagree – OK it’s about relationships and there’s a little romance, but it’s not quite romance). It’s more about the angst of relationships and marriage with the supernatural as a small part of that whole. The story reminded me of Nick Hornby or Emily Giffin’s writing with some Stephen King thrown in. In the first few pages I felt the discomfort of witnessing a marriage break up but throughout the book there’s also the discomfort of reading about the messy details of life – menstruation, smells, and hair growth patterns are all described. This book may have shades of woman’s fiction/chick lit, but it’s the darker, serious side of chick lit and fluffy it is not. The supernatural is an unknown world to most people but to those who do learn about it, it is scientifically treated. For example, lycantrophy is described as a virus which only affects those with a predisposition (work on isolating the gene is mentioned), and Abra seems to easily accept what happens with only very brief thoughts of calling a mental hospital.

The thing the struck me first was Abra’s husband Hunter. I hated him. When I first picked up the book, I only read about 50 pages in but later that night I had a dream about killing him. The way that Hunter treated Abra was never “obvious” abuse, and he seemed to swing back and forth between disinterest and contempt to attention and passion, so I could see the confusion an intelligent person like Abra could go through. But all the little things he would say that seemed to show a lack of respect for the woman he married drove me up the wall. I’d say his brush with lycantrophy may have brought this to the surface but reading flashbacks when Abra met him, I don’t think he was ever a nice person.

Then we meet Abra’s mother – Piper LeFever, a B-movie actress with a penchant for the theatrical and who always manages to make everything about herself. First I thought oh, Abra’s mother hates Hunter, is Abra rebelling? But then I wondered if Piper’s narcissistic personality just made Abra susceptible to the same type of thing in her spouse? Her mother made Abra the type of person who abhors a scene, the type of avoidant person who could get easily manipulated by Hunter – he often put her in the position where she had to either accept his crap or ignore it to avoid drama (narcissistic abuse?) Well this book got to me that’s for sure, I was (armchair) psychoanalysing the characters.

It’s a good thing that I was so fascinated by the dark relationships in this book, because the angst here came close to turning me away. I despised Hunter, and I on the fence about whether to dislike Abra for staying with him.  About midway through the book I contemplated putting it down as a DNF but decided to keep going. Luckily that’s when things started getting interesting regarding another man’s interest in Abra and the hope of her leaving Hunter kept me reading on. THANK GOD for Red Mallin’s character! He was a breath of fresh air and I liked him so much more than Hunter. In fact, I hated Hunter so much I had no issues whatsoever with Abra’s being interested in another man when she was married. He was that bad.

Other minor comments I feel too lazy to expound on:

  • Very intense sex scenes
  • Many mentions of wolves sprinkled throughout the book like an easter egg hunt.
  • Alisa Sheckley writes as Alisa Kwitney for some contemporary romance/woman’s fiction stories – I don’t think Ive read any of her other books though.

Overall: Really like nothing else I’ve read in urban fantasy – it is more like messy relationship angst with the supernatural as an aside. Avoid if you can’t stand books that go into details of real life relationship drama but go for it if that is something you find fascinating. Usually I can’t take angst myself, but it did make me think a lot and it was saved by a somewhat happy ending (and by Red Mallin’s character), but it’s a bumpy ride. I may wait a bit before I read book 2 – Moonburn.

Avidbookreader’s review (I know I ranted and her review was more glowing, but surprisingly I thought this was about a B read which is what she gave it too).

SciFiGuy’s review (he wanted to strangle Hunter too – THANK YOU, I agree most heartily)

Bad to the Bone by Jeri Smith-Ready

Posted on by
Reply
Bad to the Bone
Bad to the Bone
Jeri Smith-Ready
This is the second book in the WVMP series by Jeri Smith-Ready. The main character is college student and reformed con-artist, Ciara Griffen, who finds out that the DJs at the radio station she’s doing PR for are all real vampires. Ciara, being the enterprising marketing student that she is, uses the truth to sell the station – no one believes it anyway and think its a great gimmick – all the DJs are vampires, trapped in the time period they died so that’s the music they specialize in! Of course while this solves the problem of losing the station, it seems to paint a big target at WVMP. Unhappy campers range from local vampires afraid of their secret becoming public, to fundamental christian groups who are convinced that eliminating the vampires will save humanity.

Wicked Game, the first book in the series was one of my favorites of last year. My review of book 1 is here: vox / livejournal

Insert whine:

You know, I’m re-reading my review of Wicked Game and maybe it’s just the time of the year, but I keep getting interrupted when I read this series. It has been driving me UP THE WALL! I need to hole up and turn off all phones for the next book. I’d read and then Life would interrupt and then it would take me days to be able to get back into it, so the reading experience became disjointed 😦

/end whine

*** minor spoilers for the first book from this point ***

Bad to the Bone starts out not too far off from the events ended in Wicked Game. Ciara has managed to stop the radio station from being sold to a media conglomerate and thus all the vampires in it (including her now boyfriend Shane) are safe for now. Not is resolved however – her con-artist father has disappeared, and Ciara’s relationship with Shane is the longest and most serious she’s ever had, so while Ciara and Shane are happy, the idea of commitment frightens her. These become minor issues however when at the station’s Halloween bash, their signal is suddenly hijacked by a fundamental christian radio station, and a reporter from Rolling Stone who happens to be doing a piece on WVMP becomes a bit too nosey about the vampires.

Excerpt of Chapter 1

My thoughts: There is something about Jeri Smith-Ready’s writing that just works for me. It’s simple, not flowery, but it flows well from one scene to the next. You would think that the first person *present* tense would be odd, but I didn’t have a problem with it. When I think about what happened in this book – it seems like a lot, but I never felt overwhelmed with the information or that the pacing was too fast. It’s just that the relationships evolve along with the story at an appropriate pace: so while Ciara is dealing with figuring out who it was who took over their airwaves and what is the meaning of the ominous “YOUR GOING TO HELL” sign at the Smoking Pig, she’s also dealing with her own personal issues. That means – going to school and writing papers, deciding if she wants to make the next step with Shane, and worrying about her best friend Lori’s taste in men.

Ciara’s big flaw seems to be more about trusting people and making commitments because of this fear than anything else. Despite this fear she also has a huge amount of loyalty and common sense. So I knew she was sometimes a little overwhelmed by committing to Shane but I was a little surprised at how this manifested as in this book! I can’t really go into it because it would be a spoiler, but whoa, it’s interesting! I’m not sure I quite *liked* it, but Ciara really never betrays anyone, I think her panicked brain was considering escape plans, so that’s why I could accept it. Also whoa is Ciara and Shane’s sex scenes. This book is urban fantasy so romance is not a focus, the sex seemed more of a fact of being a “normal couple”, but I think Katiebabs should peer at them to consider them for her sex positions post. They are evolving as a couple and I’m very interested in seeing how it goes. Shane is still a bit mysterious though – he seems quite perfect, but we’re only seeing him through Ciara. I wonder how he really feels sometimes because with Ciara he seems very sure about the two of them – he has to have worries that he has to work through too.

Again I am going to say that if you like Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty series, you will like this one. Not because it combines supernatural plus radio (and they both do this in very different ways), but because the main character is a woman who isn’t particularly badass or a hunter/killer, they are women who use their own wits to solve problems and help others. Things have a feeling of “realness” to them because of the characters and relationships, and also the world is ours – the same time, the same geography, just with a supernatural element.

Random bullet time:

  • Every chapter is named after a song. I would see the song name and immediately this song would be in my head. Sigh, I wish my brain wouldn’t do that!
  • There is a dog in this story which I think you may have guessed from the cover. I love this dog, he is cute and he advances the plot. I am apparently a sucker for this type of thing.
  • As with Wicked Game, Ciara is quick to think on her feet and uses her talents as a grifter to get inside information about the people who have been targeting the station. She also brings in her best friend Lori. I like their relationship and what happens when they team up. There’s a scene after Lori and Ciara infiltrate a support group for people who have been bitten by vampires, which had me cracking up out loud.
  • The older a vampire is, the more they lose their humanity and become more “stuck” in their own era and more obsessive compulsive traits pop up. Knowing people with OCD myself, this is particularly tragic to me, and a reason for Ciara to worry about Shane and her future. There is also something monstrous in all of them which shows up from time to time, in some vampires more than others. It’s interesting to see how this is dealt with and I am wondering how Ciara and Shane will fare later on. I’m also wondering what Ciara is going to do when she and Shane can no longer rein in a certain vampire DJ’s baser instincts. I sense it could be a problem later.
  • We do get some back story on Shane and Regina which explains some of Regina’s over protectiveness.
  • There are I think 6 vampire DJs in WVMP, but probably 4 of them have more face time than others, so sometimes I get a bit confused about who certain people are because they aren’t mentioned as much and my brain is a little fuzzy on the details of book 1. I think my memory is getting bad. I should probably have read the free short stories about each one of the vampires and how they were turned that Jeri Smith-Ready put up online (4 of the 6 are up):

Overall: I really like this author, and this is my favorite series of hers so I think I’m already predisposed to like this book (um, full disclosure: I may have hugged my ARC when it arrived). Compared to book 1, I prefered Wicked Game slightly more because of the sweet romance in it that begins there, and it worked for me almost like a stand-alone, but it would be impossible to replicate that in the second book, so other than that, both books are equally well-written for the reasons I described in “my thoughts” above. Bad to the Bone ends in a good place but it more strings are left untied which make me want to read book 3 (Ciara’s uniquiness, the Control, Ciara’s family). I also am most curious to see what is going to happen with Ciara and Shane. Is Ciara just going to have to accept that she will lose Shane to time (which will bring her aging and his fading?) or is there some other solution for them? I am dying to know.

Bad to the Bone is out in stores May19th

Reviews elsewhere:

Tez Says (as a music aficionado, Tez would like to have words with Shane! :D)
Brooke reviews (I think her opinion matches mine)
Scooper Speaks (points out a bittersweet aspect I didn’t cover)
Angieville (also a good review)

Other links:

Jeri Smith-Ready has a Spread the Word contest going on NOW (prizes are gift cards and goodies from the WVMP store)
Jeri Smith-Ready has a feature at Bitten by Books also going on now (with a contest for books)

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Posted on by
Reply
Strange Angels
Strange Angels
Lili St. Crow

Note: this review is based on an ARC I received from the publisher

Premise: Dru Anderson knows all about scary creatures like werewulfen, suckers, gator-spirits, chupacabras, ghosts, and zombies and she’s helped her dad track and kill a few. It’s a rough life but Dru has been doing this since her grandmother died and her dad came to take her with him. They’ve moved from one town to the next while tracking down the next supernatural target. Now Dru is sixteen and the latest town is Foley, South Dakota. They’ve been here for a very short time, still unpacked (though they never unpack anymore), when one night Dru’s dad goes out after something doesn’t come back the next morning. Dru knows something horrible has happened – her gifts warn her in her dreams and it isn’t long before she’s forced into battling creatures by herself. An unexpected ally appears in a schoolmate – goth boy Graves has taken an interest in Dru and offers his help despite not knowing anything about the trouble she’s in. Both of them are alone in the world until that point, but things get further complicated when Christophe shows up talking about the Kouroi and telling Dru she’s more special than she thinks.

Excerpt of Strange Angels

My Thoughts: This is the first young adult book by Lili St. Crow. She’s also written adult books like the Dante Valentine series, the Jill Kismet series and others.

I’ve read a couple of books into the Dante Valentine series and Dante to me is a really tough kind of character and once I read some of her past I understood where her demons were coming from. I think it’s Lili St. Crow’s speciality to create strong women characters because Dru also has some elements of this toughness in her. She’s also realistic. Dru has been through a lot and her coping with her father’s death was dealt with in a reasonable way. Dru has to fall apart a little bit, and that’s when Graves finds her. She’s in shock, but she rallies because her life is in danger, and part of her coping mechanism is hearing her father’s voice pushing her on to survive. I prefer having a main character like this, especially since she’s our narrator.

Graves too is not without his depths. To Dru he first he came off as naive, but as she gets to know him she learns he’s smarter and more resilient than she’d expected. I’m always happy (um, possibly biased) to see half-asian characters in books so he’s already a positive addition to the book there, but his sense of humor in scary situations also endeared me to him. I hope in the next book we can learn a bit more about his back story (and Dru’s).

Lots of action is going on as Dru and Graves run into supernatural creatures I was not familiar with along with some familiar ones (werewolves, vampires, zombies) with their own special twist. The zombie scene was particularly nerve wracking and brought to mind those horror movies where you have to watch through your hands! But maybe I’m the only chicken who does that.

It’s a sensory read – for example, weather is one of the things I found very well described. It’s winter in the Dakotas, and the descriptions of the cold and the snow and ice in a small town were prevalent throughout the book. Boy, am I glad it’s spring now because St. Crow’s descriptions took me to a place with bad winter storms and a hushed world covered in white.

Overall: If you want a recommendation for a young adult urban fantasy, I’d put this on the list. It has a serious, believable teen as a protagonist and the creatures that roam around in this book are really creepy.  It’s refreshing to read an urban fantasy aimed at teens that doesn’t have a high school cliche as a main character  because I don’t recall knowing anyone really like that.  Dru on the other hand is tough, but she’s also vulnerable and scared and thinks that she’s just a kid, and she is believable. This is the start to a very promising series.

Strange Angels is available May 14th.

Betrayals (book 2) is available November 17th (this date I’m not 100% sure of)

Reviews elsewhere:

Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

Posted on by
1
Practice Makes Perfect
Practice Makes Perfect
Julie James

I’ve heard a good things online about Julie James so when jmc_bookrelated offered me a copy of Practice Made Perfect (thank you), I jumped at the chance to read it, especially since I wasn’t seeing this book in my library system or in my closest bookstore (why that is I have no idea, both her books have great buzz online). Anyway, this one jumped to the head of the TBR because I’ve had a bad month and needed a good HEA.

Premise: Payton Kendall and  J. D. Jameson are associates at the prestigious Chicago law firm. Both are highly ambitious lawyers who are good at their jobs and have been working their butts off for eight years towards the same goal: becoming partner. Everything seems on track for them until they discover that the firm is planning to make only ONE of them partner this year. J.D and Payton have quietly had an ongoing feud, but they’ve never been in direct competition before. To make matters worse, Payton and J.D. actually have to work together for the first time for a very important new client.

This is a classic tale of opposites attracting – Payton is a vegetarian liberal feminist raised by an uber-hippie mom and J.D. is a privileged conservative with a country club membership with rich, snooty parents. Payton can’t really remember why they’ve been fighting all this time, she just knows she must put J.D. down a peg or two. She’s very aware that J.D. fits easily into the good-ole-boys club with his country club membership and ability to talk sports with the other men in the office, while she has to work harder to have the same repartee with senior partners – most of whom are men. J.D. on the other hand believes Payton has an edge as a women – reverse discrimination means she will move forward just because having women in higher positions looks good to the firm.

Excerpt of the book

My thoughts: OK we all know it’s totally bunkus what J.D. is going on about regarding Payton having an edge as a woman! Pah, and yet, with such things coming out of his mouth, he still worked for me as a hero because I just felt like he was just a big idiot for much of the book (especially when it comes to Payton – he’s just irrational), not truly an asshole. He didn’t really seem to cross the line into being a bad guy until something he did long ago to Payton gets revealed. That was really awful, but he made it worse because when Payton wants to know why he did it (she actually gave him a chance to explain), his first explanation really wasn’t one. I thought his explanation to his best friend was what Payton deserved, not what she eventually got (rushed and last possible moment).

So that was the biggest flaw for me in this book – the hero’s quite worthy apology (plus wait till you find out why they’ve been fighting all this time – another classic example of idiocy). But until that point I really liked both characters. There is an obvious chemistry between the two and I had a really good time reading about them and their slow realization about how they’ve really felt about each other for the past eight years. There is very little sex in this book – most of it relies just on their verbal dances and interactions with lots of sexual tension, though both of them are clueless/in denial about this for most of the book. I really like books like that – a slow buildup between two characters, and a realistic timeline before they hit the sheets (if anyone has other recs of such kinds of books, please comment, I will love you).

Julie James has a background as a lawyer before becoming a writer and it shows in the writing. Despite not knowing much about practicing law myself, I noticed a lot of details that seemed the kind of thing only a lawyer would know and it added a layer of believability to the day to day aspects of the story.

Overall: Really good read – loved the competition between these two characters and their inner dialogs. The writing is top notch – smart and humorous. I’m a fan and will have to go find Just the Sexiest Man Alive (James’ debut novel). I found myself wishing I could read faster, I just wanted to know what happens next. But – I was left with a nagging feeling because after that tallying all the things Payton and J.D did,  J.D. was by far the worse person, yet his explanation was a little late and a little rushed, and in that aspect this book doesn’t quite satisfy.  This was the only fly in my ointment however, and I think I’d reread other parts of the book.

Reviews elsewhere:

Racy Romance Reviews (with a discussion about feminists and gender politics in romance novels)