Random stuff

Ack, been in a class for work all week and too pooped at the end of the day to blog. So it's near the end of the Book Blogger Appreciation week that I mention – yeah it's BBAW at My Friend Amy! Lots and lots of givaways going on, check that out here and here. I have to say I had lots of fun doing the puzzle for the logic puzzle ebook giveaway. I can't walk away from a logic puzzle – quite a sickness. Lots and lots of giveaways there, I haven't even looked at more than what seems like 5%…


The cover for Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews got revealed today. My reaction is a mental "Eee!!". This one comes out April 2009.


Giveaways/Freebies:

  • Did anyone get the Any Given Doomsday book by Lori Handeland I posted about? I got mine today, but no one emailed me that I was going to get it, so if you signed up at Shelfari, chances are good.
  • Lesley's Book Nook is giving away a copy of Cry Wolf – just need to comment on her review here by 6pm GMT friday (that's soon…)
  • Via Dear Author – Tor is giving away free ebook copies of Emma Bulls' War for the Oaks – really recommend this book, so if you haven't read it, it's worth a download.

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Series

OK I posted about series I was in the middle of here in July 2007. This is the updated list with edits in blue. Some things have changed, many have not:

 

1) Wen Spencer - need to start book 4 of 4 in the Ukiah Oregon series

2) Wen Spencer – need to start book 2 of 2? maybe in the Tinker series done!

3) Patricia Briggs – read 2out of 7(!!), in the Mercy Thompson series

4) Kim Harrison – need to start book 3 of ??? in the Hollows series

5) Rachel Caine – need to start book 3 of ?? in the Weather Warden series

6) Rachel Caine - read 2 3 of ?? in the Morganville Vampires series

7) Dawn Cook – need to start book 2 of 4 in the Truth series

8) Kat Richardson – need to start book 3 of ?? (3 so far) in the Greywalker series

9) Faith Hunter - need to start book 3 of ?? (3 so far) in the Rogue Mage series

10) Michelle Sagara – read 2 3 of ?? (5 so far) in the Cast in series (book 4 will be out October 2008)

11) Garth Nix – started reading his Keys of the Kingdom series (book 1). Waiting for book 7 of 7 to go through it since its fast reading. YA.

12) Anne Bishop – I read book 1 of her Ephemera series (prob a trilogy), not really interested in continuing. Maybe.

13) Mindy Klasky - Need to read book 4 of 5 in her Glasswright series.

14) Moira J. Moore – Need to read book 2 3 of ?? (around 4 so far) in her Hero series

15) Anne Bishop – Read her Jewels trilogy, need to read her 2 other books from this world (continuations?) - Dreams made Flesh, Tangled Webs..

16) Sharon Shinn – Read book 1 of her Twelve Houses series.. not sure if I want to read 2 and 3 out of ??.

17) Karen Chance – Read book 2 of ?? in her Shadows series.

18) S. L. Viehl - need to start book 1 4 of 8 so far in her Stardoc series

19) Marie Brennan – Reading book 2 of 2 in her Doppleganger duology (I think)  done!

20) Louise Rennison – Read book 2 of ?? (7 so far) in her Georgia Nicolson series

21) Casey Daniels – Read book 2 of ?? (at least 3 so far).. in her Pepper Martin series. Probably will not continue. gave up!

22) Ilona Andrews – Read book 1 2 of  2  ??? so far of her Magic series

23) Lilith Saintcrow – Read book 2 3 of 5 in her Dante Valentine series

24) Karin Lowachee – Read book 1 of 3 in her series, will continue eventually.

25) Katie MacAlister – Read up to book 3 of her Aisling Grey, Guardian series, not really interested in continuing. gave up!

26) Janet Evanovich - Read book 1 of … ??? 13 so far in her Stephanie Plum series. Not interested in continuing. gave up!

27) MaryJanice Davidson – Read book 1 of ?? in her Undead series

28) Holly Black – Read book  3 of 3 in her Modern Faery Tale series.  done!

29) Kristen Britain – Read book 2 of 3 (I think) in her Green Rider series.. Not really into it.. may finish though.

30) Ellen Schreiner – Read book 2 of ??  of her Vampire Kisses series  gave up!

31) Sophie Kinsella – Read book 2 of ?? (5 so far) of her Shopaholic series

32) Kelley Armstrong – Read book 1 of ?? (8 so far) of her Otherwold series

33) Stephenie Meyer – Read book 1 of ?? (3 so far) of her series

34) Clare B. Dunkle – Read book 1 of 3 in her Hollow Kingdom series

 

New:

35) Patricia Briggs – Read book 1 of ??? in her Anna and Charles series

36) Nalini Singh - need to start 4 of ?? (5 so far) in her Psy Changling series

37) Shanna Swendson - need to start book 3 of 4 in her Katie Chandler series

38) Jasper Fforde – Read book 1 of ?? in his Thursday Next series

39) Jeri Smith Ready – need to finish book 2 of 3 (I think) in her Aspect of Crow series

40) Jeri Smith Ready – Read book 1 of ?? in her vampire DJs series

41) Patricia Briggs – Read book 2 of 2 in her Hurog series – done!

42) Maria V. Snyder – Read book 3 of 3 in her Study series – done!

43) Liz Berry – Read 2 of 2 in Connections duology – done!

44) Ann Agguire – Read 2 of 4 (so far) of her Jax series

45) Jocelyn Drake – Read 1 of ?? in her Nightwalker series

46) Jennifer Estep – Read 3 of ?? in her Bigtime series

47) Ally Carter – Read 2 of ?? (3 so far) in her Gallager Girl series

48) C. E. Murphy – Read 1 of ?? (3?) in her Negotiator series

49) C. E. Murphy – Read 1 of ?? (3?) in her Walker Papers series

50) Kelley Armstrong – Read 1 of ?? in her Nadia Staffor series

51) Tate Hallaway – Read 2 of ?? (3 so far) in her Garnet Lacey series

Looking at this list: Wow, I feel so tired!!  I really need to finish off some series before I can start another. I have the rest of certain series just lying in my TBR mountain. Ahhhhhhhhh. I wish more series weren't just "open-ended" without a set number of books expected…

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

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More book giveaways in the blogosphere

1) Ok if you didn't win the Jinx contest I posted about a couple of entries ago, never fear there is more.

Yankee Romance Reviews has an interview with author Jennifer Estep and a contest for her new release Jinx, here . All you have to do is comment, but do it soon, the deadline to enter is end of day today.

 

2) In the same vein, there is another Jennifer Estep novel up for grabs at "The Good, The Bad and the Unread" over here. That link is for an except of Hot Mama with what to do to win a copy along with a t-shirt, or a copy of Karma Girl and a t-shirt. Deadline for that one is Sunday Sept 14th.

 

3) Jeri Smith-Ready has an interview at "Patricia's Vampire Notes" with a contest to win her book Wicked Games. Contest details are here.  Deadline is tomorrow night (midnight Sept 11th).

What I thought was pretty interesting from this interview was that for those of us who already read this book – there are some short stories online to tide us over until the second book of this series (Bad to the Bone) comes out. Oh and newsletter subscribers get these a week early :

Monroe’s story, “Crossroads

Spencer’s story, “Rave On

 

4) Jeri Smith-Ready again – you can win an advanced reader copy of her new book The Reawakened here. You just have to send her an email with your guess as to who the Raven character is. Which means you have to be a reader of her series. Hurry on this one, it also ends tonight. I may enter this myself!

 

MY REVIEWS:

Jennifer Estep

Karma Girllivejournal | vox

Hot Mamalivejournal | vox

Jinxlivejournal | vox

Jeri Smith-Ready

Wicked Gamelivejournal | vox

Eyes of Crowlivejournal | vox

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Jinx by Jennifer Estep

Jinx (Bigtime)
Jennifer Estep

Jinx is the third book in this series which is a tongue-in-cheek take on comic books. If you've read the previous books: Karma Girl and Hot Mama, you know that Bigtime is a city full of superheroes and ubervillians, secret identities are sort of obvious, and yards of spandex and sequins are required.

My reviews of the previous books:

Karma Girllivejournal | vox

Hot Mamalivejournal | vox

Cover: They swtiched over from a more comic cover, where the characters are drawn, to real people against a sort of comic-looking background. Not sure the reason for this – maybe to make the books look less chick-lit and more like it's a romance/paranormal?

Story: As with the previous books, the story is written in the first person point of view. This time it's Bella Bulluci, who was introduced in Hot Mama as the sister of the male love interest, and a fashion designer with muted tastes. Bella's family has a superhero tradition, her grandfather, father and brother have taken turns being Johnny Angel, a character who rides a motorcycle and fights crime. Bella's dad was killed earlier in the year because of this activity, and Bella has a very hard time forgiving him for choosing to put himself in danger rather than staying safe for his family. She remembers wanting to be a superhero when she was young, but soon was jaded by the worry and fear about her father night after night.

Her past experiences have caused Bella to hate superheroes – she thinks they are ridiculous and can't understand why people choose to have a secret identity. Her rule is to never get involved with a superhero – despite being in a family of them, and despite being closely connected with the Fearless Five, Bigtime's most powerful superhero group. AND despite Bella having her own powers. She has a "supercharged telekinesis" which gives her luck – both bad and good, and which annoys her a lot. It increases with her emotions and discharges with often embarrassing results, but Bella is usually not harmed very much.

I found this contrariness despite who she has surrounding her very stubborn on Bella's part. Her anger at her father's death colors her decisions. I still I found her feelings believable at first. Her practical and worrywort nature explains a about how she reacts towards the danger of being a superhero. Then Bella gets caught in the crossfire between the Fearless Five and some ubervillians after a fund-raiser at the Bigtime Museum of Modern Art. Bella is taken away from danger by Debonair and soon becomes involved with him despite her rule. This is where I found her back and forth annoying – she would really firmly (and sometimes a little meanly) push him away, and then the next time she sees him, they're getting it on. Then she'd remember her rule and tell him to leave after a long evening together, or say it was nice but nothing can come out of it. Once or twice – fine, but this happened a few times. The only explanation of why Debonair is OK with her waffling is that he's been secretly in love with her for months, but how easily he forgives her for hurting him was surprising. Their relationship was really the focus of the book, with the action against ubervillians Hangman and Prism as a secondary story.

Overall – I read this book in practically one sitting. It was fun, and doesn't take itself seriously, so worth reading when you're in the mood for something light. I think I liked it as much as I liked Karma Girl, and I thought it was better than Hot Mama. Bella was a more interesting protagonist and had a less dramatic and flamboyant personality than Fiona, Hot Mama's protagonist. I also liked Debonair and his shy alter ego – he was very sweet towards Bella throughout the story. And as usual the over the top and silly background of the Bigtime world makes things lighthearted and an easy read. Most readers will pick up on the secret identities of some of the superheroes and ubervillians (first name and last name have the same letter, not nice people = ubervillian, nice people = superhero, real job sometimes related to superhero power…), and it's amusing how oblivious the main characters are about the clues.

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Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair

Shades of Dark
Linnea Sinclair

This cover continues the "couple in the middle of space" theme that all Sinclair's books have now. I noticed that there is nothing on the cover to let the reader know that this is the continuation of the story that started in Gabriel's Ghost. That information is inside in the acknowledgements, and not everyone reads those. I know this isn't the author's fault, so why is this, publishers? I don't see how this can help but antagonize people who don't know and buy a book to find that it's book 2.

This review may have spoilers for Gabriel's Ghost.

My review of that is here – livejournal | vox.

Shades of Dark does pick up right after Gabriel's Ghost leaves off - Chasidah Bergren, ex-Fleet officer and her lover Gabriel Ross Sullivan are fugitives trying to clear their name and fight a corrupt Empire. There is some backstory explained at the beginning, but I hadn't read Gabriel's Ghost in a while so even I had problems remembering who was who just from the names. It took me a little bit to get back into the world, but throughout the book I still couldn't remember all the enemy factions – Darius Tage and Hayden Burke, Sheldon Blaine and the Farosians.. so it's worth making a little chart:

Enemies:

1. Darius Tage – bigwig in the Empire, xenophobe who is willing to breed jukors (mindless killing beasts) to have a weapon against the Ragkiril (usually Stolorths with telepathic powers, but Gabriel is a human one). In cahoots with Burke, has Emperor Prew's ear, and has been manipulating him to his own ends and destabilize the Admiral's Council (which controls the Fleet).

2. Hayden Burke – Sully's cousin. Playboy, in cahoots with Tage. Interested in discounting anything Sully does for their family's sizeable inheritances, wants power, also involved in breeding jukors.

3. Sheldon Blaine – claims he is the rightful heir to the emperor's throne (currently held by Emperor Prew). Is imprisoned in the planet Moabar, where Chaz was sent to at the beginning of Gabriel's Ghost. He is supported by a small group of Farosians.

4. The Farosians – Terrorists. A small faction on the side of Blaine, who want to free him from capitivity and take over the Empire. Call themselves Sheldon Blaine's Justice Wardens.

5. The Emperor/The Fleet – Because of the mechanisms of Tage and Burke, Sully and Chaz are considered terrorists and are on the run. Anyone on their side is on the wrong side of the law, dispite the powers being corrupt.

6. Purity Englarians – fanactical faction of Englarians who follow Abbot Eng's teachings and believe Takas are to be "guided" by humans and Stoloroths hated – and all Ragkiril's should be killed. A big problem for Sully and Chaz in the first book.

7. Mutunious crewmembers – Certain members of Sully's crew are not happy that there is a Stoloroth on board (Ren), who they think is a Ragkiril. A possible enemy within.

 

Do you see? How this is complicated? There's a lot of things going on despite much of the story taking place on Sully's spacecruiser, the Boru Karn. The book isn't short – 410 pages because of all the things going on. And besides all the intruige and incidents that happen in space because of their enemies and because they are wanted people, Sully and Chaz are also dealing with Sully's gifts as a Ragkiril. This is a darker story due to this. Sully has so much power, a power he feels is growing and which could corrupt him. Actually, it made the love story more complicated and interesting because of what Sully is going through. Now he and Chaz are ky'sara and ky'sal, they have to learn about it as they go along. Pushing matters further along, they meet Del, an exiled Stoloroth prince who wants to teach Sully, but who makes Chaz uncomfortable (I found him really creepy and sexual harassment sprang to mind).

Anyway, overall, I think this is a darker toned book that Sinclair's previous ones. I prefer the lighter stories, but this was more realistic because of the dark parts. There are a couple of shockers in here regarding some decisions Chaz makes in order to do the right thing. No spoilers, but things got really interesting in the last 30 or so pages. I didn't find the book as uncomfortable a read as some reviewers did, but I was disturbed by some things. The more I think about that, the more I liked this being part of the story.

It also felt like there were two distinct parts of the book that both focus on problems that are related to Sully's gift, like there were two big plots revolving around certain enemies, and because of them Sully is forced to deal with his Ragkiril nature. Once one major plotline was done with, the other one started, but both involved the darkness that comes with Sully's power. The only problem I had was that this book was pretty long, and there were lulls in the action. It that had to happen, but those parts felt slow to me. From the other reviews I see, I'm the only one who noticed though.

ETA: ALSO I noticed a lot more sex scenes in this book than any prior Sinclair novel. FYI.

This story continues in Hope's Folly, which is out in February 2009. It will focus on Chaz's ex-husband Admiral Philip Guthrie as he heads ex-Fleet, now-rebel forces in combat against the current Fleet. There's a teaser for this at the end of Shades of Dark, and it looks good.

Other reviews:

Ramblings on Romance

The Book Smugglers

Jace Scribbles

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Jinx Contest

Jinx (Bigtime)
Jennifer Estep

Do people want me to keep posting about interesting contests? If not, I'll just keep them on my google reader shared links.

For people who haven't read a Bigtime novel, Jennifer Estep is giving away copies of Karma Girl and Hot Mama (books 1 and 2) to celebrate the release of Jinx (book 3)

My reviews:

Karma Girl – livejournal | vox

Hot Mama – livejournal | vox

Here’s what you can win:

1) An autographed copy of Karma Girl (mass market)

2) An autographed copy of Karma Girl (trade paperback)

3) An autographed copy of Hot Mama (mass market)

4) An autographed copy of Hot Mama (trade paperback)

5) Autographed copies of Karma Girl and Hot Mama (trade paperback)

6) Autographed copies of Karma Girl and Hot Mama (mass market)

7) A Karma Girl T-shirt and autographed copy of Karma Girl (mass market)

8) A Hot Mama T-shirt and an autographed copy of Hot Mama (mass market)

All of the above come with autographed bookmarks, of course. Because you can never have too many bookmarks. :cool:

Click here

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Books I’m looking Forward To

I just compiled a list of books coming out in the next few months I'm looking forward to buying. Ah, February next year looks good!

(If you click on the links or pictures I get referral credits.)

2008

**** September ****

Wanderlust (Ace Science Fiction) by Ann Aguirre
Chalice by Robin McKinley
Jinx (Bigtime) by Jennifer Estep

**** October ****

Kin (Good Neighbors) by Holly Black
Cast in Fury (Chronicles of Elantra, Book 4) by Michelle Sagara

2009

**** January ****
Lord of Misrule (The Morganville Vampires, Book 5) by Rachel Caine

**** February ****

Made to Be Broken (Nadia Stafford, Book 2) by Kelley Armstrong
Hope's Folly by Linnea Sinclair
Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson, Book 4) by Patricia Briggs
Undone (Outcast Season, Book 1) by Rachel Caine

**** March ****
Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, Book 3) by Ilona Andrews

**** April ****
Blue Diablo: A Corine Solomon Novel by Ann Aguirre

**** May ****
Bad to the Bone by Jeri Smith-Ready

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Goodreads

Last week I was irritated at the updates at paperbackswap (and glitches because of these updates) so I decided to copy all my reviews from there to goodreads. So now my goodreads has all my smaller reviews there – summaries of the ones at this blog plus reviews from before I started the blog. Goes back to 2006. It took me like 4 hours to do!

And then I didn't notice till today, that because I did this, I'm on the top reviewer list! Cool.

In other news, I also updated my profile page on vox and livejournal.

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Insatiable Desire by Rita Herron

This is the first book of the Demonborn series by Rita Herron. I have to say this isn't something I would pick up for myself – I'd never read anything by this author although she has apparently written over 50 books, but I was offered a copy by the author so I gave it a try.

This is billed as a "paranormal romance" but I thought it was a lot darker than I would have expected from a paranormal. There is a lot of violence and torture described in the story besides the other paranormal elements – I'd say it definitely has horror elements.

Clarissa King is a psychic who lives by the Black Forest in Eerie, Tennessee, and she believes that the recent deaths of young women are related, and that they were murdered by the same person. Brought in to investigate is Vincent Valtrez of the FBI, who used to know Clarissa when they were younger. He used to live in Eerie before his abusive father killed his mother in a demonic rite, and Vincent, then 10 years old, was found outside the Black Forest with no memory of what happened. Let's just say that his guy is messed up in the head because of it. Sparks fly when the two meet again, but Vincent is not interested in having a relationship.

Vincent has a lot of darkness inside him which he attributes to his father's "bad blood" and because of this, he's very abrasive to women. He fears hurting someone the way his father hurt his mother. Clarissa on the other hand has her own issues – her mother and grandmother had her same pyschic ability, an ability to see restless spirits, but her mom went mad because of it and killed herself. Clarissa's greatest fear is following in her mother's footsteps.

The paranormal aspect of this book is demons. The burn in hell, minions of Satan, evil, scary, trying to steal your soul kind. The kind of demons they talk about in church. In the Black Forest they say that there is a black cave that is the palace of Satan on Earth, and every eclipse something bad happens because of it. In Insatiable Desire, the eclipse is coming and with it a new demon lord. One demon is trying to impress the new leader with souls, using his talent of touching a person and knowing their greatest fear.

An excerpt of the book is here.

My thoughts:  First the characters – Vincent was really a big jerk, I mean huge, to Clarissa for about most of the book. Even after they have sex, he pushes her away again and again, but Clarissa actually keeps trying, and says that she knows he's like this because he was abused by his father as a kid. I had a hard time really agreeing with that, so I found Clarissa too forgiving. Every time it's Clarissa who reaches out and is the vunerable one first: saying she wants him, saying she loves him, and every time, he turns her down in a not nice way. Yet she tries again. Vincent also had a rule to only have sex with a woman once, and they had to face away from him. This wasn't really knight in shining armor material there. I think a lot of this is explained away by the face that Vincent is "demonborn" – half demon, which means he has tendencies towards evil as well as towards good, but it made me not like him much. It's hard to like someone who has fantasies of strangling women to death, and has blackouts where he wakes up with blood on his hands. Disturbing. Then the violence and the evil in the Black Forest – I just am not that into horror, and after a while it was too much. Not that I was seriously creeped out – more like it's just a lot. And it started to make me wonder – why is it that people called Clarissa "Crazy Clarissa" when they lived right next to the Forest where all this bad stuff often happened? Why didn't people believe in the supernatural there, but believed the Forest was full of evil? It was confusing.

The premise is interesting – half demon, half angel men who are really seriously fighting for their souls. I think there are people who will like this series, but I'm not quite the target audience for it.

The demonborn website with more information about this series, the world, it's characters, and a book trailer, is here.

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Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs

 I've been meaning to review this book and just holding off for no particular reason for a while now. Here goes.

Cry Wolf is the first book in the start of a new urban fantasy series by Patricia Briggs, which is set in the same world as her Mercy Thompson series and runs in parallel with it. Although I say urban fantasy, this series does have a greater focus on romance than the Mercy series, which is something the author points out herself in interviews I've seen online. Fans of Mercy looking into reading this series should expect to see a lot about the relationship developing between Anna and Charles along with any action.

I strongly recommend reading "Alpha and Omega" in the On the Prowl anthology before reading Cry Wolf (reading the Mercy series isn't necessary though). In that short story we learn how our protagonists met – Anna called Bran for help with the Chicago pack, and he sent his enforcer and son, Charles. Charles realizes two things – one is that that Anna is a rare Omega wolf – someone sort of out of the pack structure – who can resist an Alpha's commands and who also soothes Alpha wolves. The other is that his wolf recognizes her as his mate. Cry Wolf takes up the story right after this. Things are still new with them so although they are sort of a pair now, it isn't set in stone. Both feel awkward and unsure of the other, and Cry Wolf tells the story from both their points of view (in the third person) so the reader can understand where each is coming from.

The story starts out with Charles still wounded after Chicago but after returning to Montana, another problem surfaces which needs his attention as his father's trusted right hand. There is evidence of a rogue wolf nearby, which is rare considering that this is the Pack headquarters. Bran has just killed a wolf and friend (his job if he sees madness taking over), and is wary of killing another so soon because of the possible backlash from his pack. So Charles, (and Anna with him) are sent to check it out.

I noticed more worldbuilding in terms of the pack and some of the backstory regarding it in this book. For instance the reader learns a bit more about what happens when two wolves decide to mate and what an Omega wolf can do. We also see some history for certain older wolves, including Bran and Samuel. I don't remember reading about this part of Bran's life from Mercy's series, so I thought that was very interesting and shed more light into why Bran is the Marrok.

My thoughts: I still love the Mercy series more, but it sure doesn't suck to get a book every six months from Briggs as she puts out Anna and Charles books between each Mercy offering. I enjoyed reading this book, and found myself slowly savoring it, not running through it in a day. Well, I was busy getting married too. I like Anna and I like Charles, but I'm not 100% sure about Anna yet. She doesn't seem as strong a character as Mercy. I'm kind of waiting to see about that – Anna seems so fragile and timid sometimes, although she does stand up for herself and does some things that put herself in danger, I am not seeing independence yet. Should be interesting to see how she develops. A good start to a series, looking forward to the rest!

P.S. There is an excerpt of Bone Crossed (book 4 of the Mercy Thompson series) at the end of this book. Ahhh.. salivating.

Other reviews (I see Bs and above pretty much):

The Good, The Bad, and the Unread: One Two 

Urban Fantasy

Dear Author

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