Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs

Posted on January 21, 2008 by janicu

Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson Series, Book 3)

Patricia Briggs

Ah, another butt shot cover. I liked this one.

This is book 3 of the Mercedes Thompson series. Mercy, a VW mechanic who can shapeshift into a coyote, can't help sticking her nose into things when her friends are in danger, even when they tell her to back off. Book 1 was Mercy helping werewolves, book 2 was helping the vampires, and in book 3 she's involved with the fae. This time the problem is that her mentor Zee is being charged with murder. Mercy feels she must prove his innocence to save his life, even though he tells her get her ass lost.

Lazy bullet time:

There is a resolution to the love triangle Mercy is involved in since book 1. I was pleased with it. It felt like her decision was inevitable but I liked how her choice was explained.
I think you can probably read this book out of order, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's a lot better knowing what happened in books 1 and 2.
I was really looking forward to this book, and I think a lot of people loved the story, but I didn't feel the same way at the end of this one as the others. I don't think the end made me feel "satisfied", but this isn't the fault of the writing. I'm going to try to say this without spoilers. Basically - I found myself being chilled by what I was reading. It went past my personal comfort zone, which shows that the writing is good, but I don't think I want to reread it. At all. Meanwhile I would reread books 1 and 2. So basically, this was a different kind of book to me – more visceral, less escapist. I could go into why and blah but that would spoil so that's all I have to say.
So good book, not sure if i could handle it again. I'm fragile.
I love this protagonist.
Wonder what book 4 is going to be like? I thought there were 7 of these books coming out, and since this book seems like it concludes, I can't tell if we are going to keep hearing from Mercy (I hope we do), or if we're going to get a book from another POV. I wonder if we're going to revist the vamps because Mercy was a little nervous about them finding things out after book 2?

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Holidays Are Hell by Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, Marjorie M. Liu, and Vicki Pettersson

Posted on January 19, 2008 by janicu

Holidays Are Hell

Kim Harrison

I reviewed the first of these anthologies, Dates from Hell over here. This is the second one which is in the same vein as the first – urban fantasy, some paranormal romance going on, with an added holiday theme.

For the most part I liked this anthology better than the first one. I think it was all on the "good!" side except for one story.

"Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel" by Kim Harrison. In Dates from Hell we got a story about Ivy set before she meets Rachel, and in this story, we get a story about a young teen-aged Rachel before she ever joins Inderland Security. I thought this was well done because you don't have to have read the Rachel Morgan books to understand the world (much less confusing than the story in Dates from Hell), plus there are a lot of new things to learn for those who read those series. We learn about Rachel's family dynamics, and about Rachel's reasons for joining IS. I was also surprised to see how different Rachel is physically in this short story than what I was used to seeing in the series, but her stubbornness and trying to do things seemingly beyond her abilities seems very familiar.

"Run, Run, Rudolf" by Lynsay Sands. If you look at the link to the first anthology, and check out the "Claire Switch Project", this is a continuation of that short story. A couple of scientists gets zapped by a "destabilizer ray" that allows them to shapeshift if they concentrate really hard. I thought that story was goofy and I think this continuation is equally so. The scientists from the first story rebuild the ray in their basement and the same mad scientist from before (John Heathcliffe) zaps Jill with it. The characters sound like caricatures, and because Jill's keeps losing concentration during shapeshifting, she keeps conveniently being naked in public and flashing the man she's interested in (at least three times!). I rolled my eyes a lot. I have checked out reviews from this book and surprisingly this was many people's favorite story so I don't know.. I may be crazy or something when I say this was my least favorite of the bunch and it did not fit in with the rest of them.

"Six" by Marjorie M. Liu. I think this one is a stand alone, unconnected to an outside series, and it manages to have great world-building, action, characters, and plot in a short space. Six is a elite Chinese agent trying to track down terrorists when she stumbles upon the paranormal – vampires – not the western myth I'm used to reading about, but the Chinese version – Jiang Shi. This was a refreshing twist. When I was a kid and camping for the first time, a Singaporean boy scared me to death telling me about the Jiang Shi. I couldn't sleep all night imaging them hopping over to kill me! Seriously – cold sweats. Anyway, Six also meets a man named Joseph who fights these vampires, and who has some special abilities and they start working together. Possibly my favorite of the bunch because I liked the setting – urban China. Liu has several romance novels out but I really like her urban fantasy. I also enjoyed her short story in the Wild Thing anthology – that one was about a woman with living tattoos over her body which protect her but will eventually kill her, and that's going to be a series called Hunter Kiss.

"The Harvest" by Vicki Pettersson – Another one based in the world where a series is set. This is the story of Zoe Archer – the mother of the protagonist in the Signs of the Zodiac series, Joanna Archer. I thought this was a great side story to go with the series which fills us in on the motivation of Zoe's mother as well as learning about her personality and how she was able to do what she did. But, if you haven't read this series, I'm not sure how lost you would be reading this story. It's possible the answer is – quite lost. Though there are several hints that explain the world, the Zodiac world is very complex so it's hard for me to say how confused someone would be. Definitely a must-read for a Zodiac series fan though.

P.S. This one shall be tagged with my butt shot cover tag. I'm not a fan of the shoes on this cover but ok, it's holiday-related. Also – I noticed that this cover is so similar to another Kim Harrison cover – For a Few Demons More the mass market paperback (same pose – woman in dress walking with knife on the left side of the cover). Odd.

My TBR is around 120. Eek?

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The Dead Girls’ Dance (Morganville Vampires, book 2) by Rachel Caine

Posted on January 19, 2008 by janicu

The Dead Girls' Dance (The Morganville Vampires, Book 2)

Rachel Caine

This is Rachel Caine's (author of the Weather Warden books) young adult series. It's in the third person but follows the story of Claire, a young college student going to school at what turns out to be a town run by vampires. Claire lives with 3 other teens (Shane, Michael and Eve) in a unusual house. The three others are all older than Claire and grew up in Morganville, and they all know more about the town and it's history than Claire does, but everyone seems to have some secrets and history with the vamps. As time goes on, power plays amongst the vampires (themselves very interesting and complex characters), end up involving these friends who want to be free of vampire control. Book 1 dealt with Claire's move to Morganville, meeting the other teens and learning about the vampires, and book 2 continues with some trouble that they run into when vampire-slayers come to town.

Caine explains a lot of things that I'd question. For example the "Vampires running a whole town? How does that work?" question: not everyone living in Morganville even realize there are vampires there, and through some sort of magic, people forget about the vampires by the time they leave Morganville. The police and mayor are largely controlled by the vampires, but there are rules between human and vamp – who is under protection, who is fair game, what's allowed and what's not. It's a very interesting premise and the story is never dull, one surprise follows another and there is a lot of action going on. I did notice that the author likes to end her books with cliffhangers, so the series is addictive, but if you hate cliffhangers, make sure you have book 2 around if you start reading book 1. Book 2 ends with a much smaller surprise. Meanwhile the heroine is smart and thoughtful while sounding like a teenager. I'm glad this is not another "teen girl with bubblegum brains falling for a vampire" story. The book has surprising depth, and even bad guys seem to have another side (my favorite example of this in The Dead Girls' Dance is at the title dance). There are three books out so far and a forth one coming out in June 08.

Rachel Caine's Morganville page

Excerpt of Book 1 – Glass Houses

Excerpt of Book 2 – The Dead Girl's Dance

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Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry

Posted on January 15, 2008 by janicu

Happy Hour of the Damned

Mark Henry

My stupid laptop died with a fan error. I believe this makes it.. mmm 8 times I've had a laptop die. And each time, my reaction gets smaller. I barely even blinked this time (I have backups burned. Highly recommend backing up your things. Let this be a lesson). I find using this backup desktop annoying though. I can't pick this up and carry it around.

I wanted to post this review with a picture of my ARC and cover flat but yeah, the laptop death means I'll have to do that later. They look so pretty together. The cover is in a matte finish, I love that. This book comes out in trade paperback format on March 2008.

I won this book and the author is on my livejournal friendslist, so I was a bit nervous when I first saw it. I would feel weird if I didn't like this book. I wouldn't be able to lie about things I didn't like. So when I started reading, I was smiling – this book is awesome! I don't think I've read anything like it, mostly because of the main character.

The book reads like a memoir told from the first person viewpoint of a snarky-as-hell, newly-undead, fashionista socialite named Amanda Feral. An advertising executive with a tendancy to mock every single person she meets (if not out loud, in her head), she and her friends spend their time in one nightclub or another drinking and gossiping in Seattle. It's a pretty superficial existence, but fascinating to read about and picture – the nightlife of the undead in Seattle from the viewpoint of a newcomer like Amanda is chock-full of revelations. One in ten Seattle resident could be a werewolf, zombie, vampire, shapeshifter, god, demon or other, but humans take no notice as the supernaturals (including Amanda), prey on their numbers.

Amanda feasts on runaways and homeless people in a gorey way – unhinging her jaw and eating them in a few bites. There's talk of blood spatter and intestines. The woman is brazenly un-P.C. She barely feels guilt for her kills or methods of luring people in, it's like a fun game most of the time, and I'm pretty sure she has something offensive to say about every subset of the population she encounters. And yet, she's so up-front and over the top about everything she ends up being quite funny and likeable. I thought that if the two ladies of Absolutely Fabulous became zombies, this is the type of book you'd get out of it. This book just did dark humor really well. My two favorite things:

1. Amanda has OCD and has a thing for lists, and she peppers her story with footnotes, which are just asides for things she's saying in the narration. My favorite one is number 50 on page 101. Not sure the numbering is going to be the same in the final so let's say second one on chapter 9:

"In high school – nasty old barnaby Ridge – I had been a lonely girl." The footnote for this sentence begins - "If this comes as a surprise, then you have overlooked the fact that I am a total bitch."

I laughed.

2. The crux of the plot – Amanda receives a text from a friend saying "help!". But Amanda despairs about her group's usefulness. "How are we going to help? Not a caring nurturer in the bunch". A gay vampire and two socialite zombies, they freak out despite their supernatural powers. When they discover that their friend is missing, they immediately seek the comfort of food and its a couple of days before Amanda starts looking into things. I'm not sure they're meant to be the bravest bunch, but they're the most.. something.

The story meandered around a bit, I think a testimony to Amanda's nature. I liked the unpredictability. There were little side stories told by Amanda's friends about their beginings, which Amanda titles the Inconderate Interludes of the Bitter and Pathetic, and ~~helpful~~ random insets from Amanda regarding DJ playlists and alcoholic drink recipes. And there's doubling back to add a confession or get back to the point.

You never know what is going to happen. I think the writer had fun and threw a couple of things in there to waylay the reader. Some big things and some subtle things. I'm wondering what was going on with the weather in Seattle (Raining for two months. Is that Seattle in-joke? I feel like I missed something vital). Anyway. I had an amusing and unique ride. And. There is a second book. Road Trip of the Living Dead! My italics for emphasis.

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The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson

Posted on January 11, 2008 by janicu

The Taste of Night (Sign of the Zodiac, Book 2)

Vicki Pettersson

I put the top five books I wanted to read in my suitcase when I went on vacation and it seems like I made good choices. The writing in all the books was at a certain level of goodness – I don't have complaints that with any of them (Wolf Who Rules, Taste of Night, Beyond Varallan, Dead Girls Dance, and The Devil's Right Hand (which I'm still reading)). Just an observation. So all my reviews for these books are not going to be ranty in that regard. Though I did say I was a bit disappointed in the plot of Wolf Who Rules. Plot is different.

So the Zodiac series is about superheroes amongst us. In every city there are 12 people representing the 12 characters in the Western Zodiac (Sagittarius, Taurus, Libra and so on) on the side of Light, and 12 on the side of Dark. In book 1 Joanna Archer finds out that she belongs to the Las Vegas Zodiac troop. In book 2 she knows more about this new world, but has a lot more to grasp. There are a lot of rules involved here, for example:

1) These people are all born at midnight on the day of their star sign

2) Power is passed down generationally on the mother's side, and only one person can occupy a slot in the Zodiac.

3) There are three life stages, the first two are human and the third happens on the eve of their 25th birthday when they become superhuman and able to smell emotions and each others unique scents (so there is a lot of chemical scent changing happening and plastic surgery to hide identities).

4) Everyone gets a special sign on their bodies, a glyph, which glow when their enemies are near.

So some of these rules require suspension of disbelief. For me the most questionable was the comic book angle. In the Zodiac series there are people who psychically receive what's going with the battle of Light vs. Dark and write comic books of what's going on (and their promoting of the story creates belief in humans which gives the signs their power), Light can't read the comic books of the Dark and vice versa, and that this goes on in every major city with a population large enough for this. I thought about this for a while and decided if you can't see it as a graphic novel in prose-form there may be problems for you and this series.The comic book store was a little odd, but I think including it did make me associate the book with being a written graphic novel (Frank Miller's graphic novels come to mind). And I also think that the whole Zodiac system is centered around "belief" – I started to notice it was a strong force in the story, after all the leader of the Dark Zodiac, the Tulpa, was created out of thin air from the belief of a human who spent 15 years thinking him into existence.. wonder what this means? Hmm.

When I reviewed The Scent of Shadows, the first book in the Zodiac series, I said that this is a really angsty, tear you apart story. Mostly because there was a lot of characters watching people they loved die and not being able to stop it and a brutal rape is recounted. Book 2 had this to a much lesser extent. There is still angst though, and the deaths and rape are mentioned a few more times (I wasn't a fan of this aspect of the story. The rape. Though it's an integral part of the plot and Joanna's motivation). In my review of book 1 I mentioned having to put the book down to process the emotions. The main character, Joanna has issues – she's still very much ruled by vengence and what happened to her in the past, and in this book you see the frustration that the troop has with her. Her issues stop her from thinking things through and from being a team player. I felt that sometimes she was just unlikeable – particularly when she interacted with her troop and had an attitude. Like her treatment of Chandra (I thought these two were over this by the end of book 1, but on it goes), or her yelling at Tekla. Is this an illustration of Joanna's Dark side?

After reading this book I'm still not sure where the story is going to go. It's so complicated and everyone has their own hidden agendas. I'm sure that there are more things we don't know yet as a reader about the world too. Also the books are dark, and the heroine isn't untouched by that. I need to digest and process what I read in these first two before I can continue onward with the story. Which may be a while – I'm sure when book 3 comes out or what it will be called.

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Beyond Varallan by S. L. Viehl

Posted on January 9, 2008 by janicu

Beyond Varallan (Stardoc II)

S. L. Viehl

I'm not sure if my mind is all here today. We got back to New York last night and the cat was so happy (after first crying loudly in a long accusatory manner), that he kept me up all night with his loud purring to himself. I am NOT exaggerating when I say I had about an hour of sleep. And I couldn't kick him out of the room when he'd been left alone for 2.5 weeks so I just let him be. Now you get to see me complain about it instead.

Anyway, the review for book 2 of the Stardoc series. I reviewed book 1, Stardoc, here. Without spoilage, the series is about Cherijo Grey Veil, a talented human surgeon fleeing the reach of her powerful father who has plans for her and wants her back with him. She travels away from her homeworld of Terra to other planets to escape but her father still keeps trying to get her, enlisting mercenaries and governments to help him and threatening her friends and allies. Meanwhile Cherijo makes friends, learns about other species, deals with complicated relationships, and saves lives with her medical expertise and brilliant mind. There are 7 books in this series out so far, and Viehl blogs that book 8, Omega Games comes out in August 2008 (that link has yet another link to an excerpt of book 8 which contains spoilers. I haven't read that except yet. Don't tell me anything if you do). She also blogs that she sees the series ending in 10 books and if she doesn't end up selling the 10th, final book she will probably put it up as an e-book.

In this book, Cherijo is on the Sunlace, a ship controlled by the Jorenians, who have adopted her into their family. Characters from book 1 are with Cherijo – Reever (whose intentions are always hard to deciper), as well as her friends Alunthri and Dhreen. Along with Cherijo's usual critical medical emergencies and trying to get along with other staff members who may not like her, there is a much bigger problem – a murderer on the ship who begins to target Cherijo in disturbing ways and this is the focus of most of the plot.

My thoughts (in lazy bullet form again):

I'm not very into this book's cover. No one looks like I think they look like (the coloring looks off from what I pictured when I read the book) except vaguely Cherijo. But you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, even though I do peer at them and think things to myself.
This is the second book where Cherijo has more than one man interested in her.. I would start to think Mary Sue except Cherijo's hardly perfect. Even though she's supposedly pretty and smart, she has a huge stubborn streak. In this book this stubborn streak was extreme – in some parts I felt it bordered on uh.. bitchy. I also understood the individual reasons each of them courted her – they both had a unique connection with Cherijo that they didn't have with anyone else. But since this is a series – the relationship stuff is going to evolve over several books. I think it's going to be complicated. Should be interesting. Not sure if I will scream by the end of it or if it will be fun to anticipate what's going to happen through the prolonged torture. We shall see.
This is also the second book where Cherijo has to deal with problems personality-wise with her coworkers. I thought it was still interesting that it resolved itself very differently from her problems in book 1.
You think you won't see certain characters ever again but then they pop back into the story in unexpected ways.
Even though this is science fiction, its not hard sci fi. I think I like the space opera, actiony, not very hard sci-fi stuff. If you don't like hard sci -fi, you may like this - there isn't jargon here that trips up the writing and makes it hard to get into. Viehl has a more straightforward writing style.
I don't know if I blogged about this or if I just commented about this, but so far in the three books I've read from Viehl I've started to expect a certain constantly good wrap-up to her books. She has a way of making things complicated and then writing herself out of the knots. It's very comforting that even though this is a series, it feels like each book has a relatively satisfying ending. I say that even though after book 2's ending and wrap-up there IS a setup for book 3 and a cliffhanger, but at least it's published already and you won't be waiting for months/years. It wasn't a life-death cliffhanger to make me climb walls but it was quite zing-y and made me look forward to book 3.
Verdict – quite a satisfying to read series. I'll be still reading them.

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Bookmans

Posted on January 7, 2008 by janicu

My Christmas present from my brother was a 40 dollar gift certificate to Bookmans. Which is an Arizona only (alas!) store that sells used books, used dvds, cds, and other used stuff like games and knick-knacks. But mostly books. The price of a used paperback is about $3.50 – 4, trade paperback is about $7. So I ended up buying 10 books with the 40 and my haul was:

Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair – saw some favorable reviews of this. Never read this author

Holidays are Hell by Lynsay Sands, Kim Harrison, Marjorie M. Liu, Vicki Pettersson – read the Dates from Hell anthology which I mainly liked so picked this up

Cagebird and Burndive by Karin Lowachee – books 2 and 3 of a series. Warchild (book 1) blew me away.

Storm Front (Dresden Files, Bk 1) and Grave Peril (Dresden Files, Bk 3) by Jim Butcher – Never read this author, but read an excerpt of a Dresden Files book online and liked it. Also feel like I'm the only one who hasn't read the Dresden files.

Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, Bk 1) by Jim Butcher – ditto on above re: this author.

Urban Shaman by C. E. Murphy – been meaning to try out these books ever since I read a story by this author in the Winter Moon anthology.

Staying Dead (Retrievers, Bk 1) by Laura Anne Gilman – another author I haven't read but have been meaning to try.

The Hero Strikes Back by Moira Moore – read this but wanted to own it.

Now we're off to Goodwill for my sister's Christmas present. The girl likes thrift stores. Let's see if there are any books there.

The TBR is @119. Wee!

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Wolf Who Rules by Wen Spencer

Posted on January 6, 2008 by janicu

Wolf Who Rules

Wen Spencer

This is book 2 of The Tinker Series by Wen Spencer. I think it this is it - only 2 books in the series, but I could see it continuing, so I'm actually not sure if this is the last book. I can't figure it out from Wen Spencer's website.

I really liked Tinker so I was really looking forward for Wolf Who Rules to come out in paperback. Tinker is a young female genius who lives in an interdimensional Pittsburgh. Her father created a gate which transports the whole city to Earth once a month for supplies (a day called Shutdown), while the rest of the time it is in Elfland. In book 1 Tinker saves Windwolf (aka Wolf Who Rules Wind), viceroy of the elves and gets tangled up in elf culture and in fighting off their enemies. I loved the world and the ideas used to explain elves and japanese folklore like oni and tengu. I did notice some Mary-Sue aspects to Tinker (smart, so many men are in love with her, she doesn't realise her own beauty .. blah), but some flaws did help her from becoming a complete Mary-Sue: she is only 18 and completely clueless about relationships with men and her own hormones, and she is capable of acting before thinking despite her genius. These traits continue in the second book.

In Wolf Who Rules we continue right where Tinker leaves off, and I found I had forgotten certain parts of Tinker – like who certain people were again and what certain japanese words meant in Spencer's world. For the most part I managed to pick it up but there are a couple of things I'm still confused about but I don't have my copy of Tinker to go look it up on vacation.

To add to that confusion, Tinker herself is confused and not feeling like her normal self – she has dreams like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz and wanders around feeling out of sorts for most of this book. There was one action-y bit at the beginning of the book, then there is this waiting/set up feeling for a good 250 pages before Tinker gets in gear and charges forward to do what she does best (save the world) again.

I guess that the book is named Wolf Who Rules because this book is more about his elf world than Tinker's human one and much of the book has Tinker having to flail about in this new culture and find her way really quickly and without much instruction. Wolf Who Rules Wind actually says this about her and what she is going through and while he tries to help he doesn't have the time to be with her constantly because he's busy with elven politics.

Unfortunately in the end I felt shocked because I was actually disappointed in this book compared to Tinker. Which is a big deal because I love this author and I love her plots and amazing ideas (ok interdimensional Pittsburgh? elves? oni? spaceships?), but I felt like I expected Tinker to be take charge like she was in book 1 that seeing her out of sorts for what felt like much too long in book 2 just made the story drag. Wolf Who Rules was still full of some interesting concepts that blew my mind, so worldbuilding was still wonderful but the plot was off for me. I think trying to get the plot to fit in with an Alice in Wonderland-ish dream and a Wizard of Oz-ish dream just didn't work. Unbelievable! So far I've read 5 books by this author that are in a league of their own so me being disappointed is weird. I will still will keep buying from this author though. And I'm still keeping this book since I'm a fan of Tinker and this is the continuation of that. Maybe one day I'll reread them one after another and see if I like part 2 better then.

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Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2008 by janicu

I love my family but this visit to see them made me sick as a dog. Stupid germs. Snot everywhere. At this moment I'm hopped up on Dayquil, cuddling a box of Kleenex, wearing a winter jacket and in bed. The laptop helps with warmth. This vacation was all fun and games till now. I've been relaxing in AZ and soon I will be in Vegas. Hopefully the cold will be gone by then.

Anyway. Last year my New Years resolution was to read 100 books. I think I read 103 or 104 in 2006, but in 2007 I only read 99. Sigh – so close! But number 99 was down to the wire – my dad was banging on my door to get my butt to the dining room and drink some apple cider at 11:58 but I was on the last page of Vicki Pettersson's The Taste of Night, book 2 of her Zodiac series and last book of 2007 for me. So I was waving frantically with one hand for him to leave and saying "OK!!!" and holding the book in the other. Hmm, only 99 books – I think I didn't make it because 1) I seem to be watching more TV this year. TV seems to be getting better. 2) I had more weeks towards the end of the year where I just wasn't in the mood to read. Just a week ago I was @ 95 books so I read 4 books in a week just for this deadline. Let's see if I can make 100 in 2008.

The TBR is at about 110 right now but I bought a couple of books on the vacation – one of the Jasper Fforde Thursday Next books and one Kelley Armstrong Women of the Otherworld book. But I probably won't read those for a while since they are further down the series than I'm at.

One shining point of light today – I won an ARC of Mark Henry's Happy Hour of the Damned. Someone reviewed it and called him "the Jasper Fforde of Paranormal." and the main character of the book "'Queen Betsy' zombie style " so it sounds like a lot of fun and I want to read it as soon as I can get my hands on it. It comes out in March so hopefully I will have read and reviewed it by then!

OK I go to drink more liquids. Later I can write about some of the books I read the past week.

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A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

Posted on December 19, 2007 by janicu

A Hunger Like No Other (The Immortals After Dark Series, Book 1)

Kresley Cole

I won this book sometime around the beginning of 2007 but after reading 100 pages in I put it down for about 6 months. Since I'm trying to read 100 books this year I picked it up again this week and finished it off.

The cover screams "vampire" novel but the two protagonists are a Lykan (werewolf) and a Valkyrie/vampire halfbreed. And she's the one half vampire. Yes, slightly confusing cover. Anyway, the werewolf Lachlain has been imprisoned by the vampire horde for 150 years, chained to a rock burning to death over and over (he's immortal and keeps reviving), so he's close to insanity when he smells Emmaline and recognizes her as his mate. This discovery propels him into escaping by gnawing off his own leg. Then he follows her scent, but when he finds her and sees she's vampire (his sworn enemy) he treats her very badly, kidnapping her and scaring her. Emmaline has actually never met a vampire before, she was raised by the Valkyries – fierce warrior women who channel electricity, and she's very sheltered – at 70 she's the youngest of them.

My thoughts in lazy bullet form:

As the first book of the series there is a lot of series setup stuff. There were some shifts to show what Emmaline's aunts were up to and references to certain players who I think will probably either get their own books or show up later. This set up felt like it was unnecessary to the story but I did like reading about Emma's aunts.
I did like the world of the "Lore" – with the Vampire Horde as the bad guys, a faction of rebel vamps, the Lykae clan, the Valkyrie and lots of fighting and old hatreds amongst them. I especially liked the Valkyrie – this was a fresh concept. Warrior maidens who cried for courage in their dying breath and whose cries were answered by old Norse gods, they gain sustinence from electricity and love to shop.
Lachlain was Scottish and his dialog was driving me crazy – no' , aye, ken, tae, lass.
There were a few of those "one true love" pairings here. The Lykae have their Mate and the vampires have their Brides. I'm not a fan of this destiny thing. It feels like a cheating – a deus ex machina instead of really giving me the reader a good reason why two people should be together.
Emma had a very modern dialog in contrast but I liked it much better. I laughed a couple of times from her remarks, and from a couple of her aunts (Nix and Regin in particular).
Lachlain acts like a big fat jerk and I don't think Emma made him pay enough for it. Actually I couldn't see the attraction after the first half of the book and what he does. I think this disbelief made me put the book down in the first place.

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