Jinx by Jennifer Estep

Posted on September 6, 2008 by janicu

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 Girl – livejournal | vox

Hot Mama – livejournal | 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

Posted on September 5, 2008 by janicu

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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Hotter than Hell by Keri Arthur, L.A. Banks, Susan Krinard, Marjorie M. Liu, Kim Harrison

Posted on August 15, 2008 by janicu

Hotter Than Hell

I really need to catch up on my reviews – I actually read this book last month but didn't have the time to review it with all the "real life" stuff going on.

The one thing that gets me with this book is how different it seems from the rest of the "In Hell" anthologies that came before it. It really strikes me that Hotter than Hell is more paranormal romance than it is urban fantasy, because the premise in all the stories is sex with a paranormal twist. Pretty much all of these stories have a relationship with sex included, which makes it more romance than not, which isn't the case as much in the other books (which makes them more "urban fantasy"). What do people think – do I make sense? Agree/disagree with this?

Other "In Hell" books I've reviewed:

Holidays are Hell (Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, Marjorie M. Liu, Vicki Pettersson) – vox link | livejournal link

Dates from Hell (Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, Kelley Armstrong, Lori Handeland) – vox link | livejournal link

Prom Nights From Hell (Kim Harrison, Meg Cabot, Michele Jaffe, Stephenie Meyer, Lauren Myracle) – the young adult version of these books – vox link | livejournal link

I am really critical of a book when I just do not believe the relationship – if it seems too contrived or the reason for the two loving each other seems unbelievable and the author just explains it with "love at first sight" and I can't see what one character sees in another, I can't buy into it. If you tell me how attractive either character is, it still does nothing for me. So? You know how many good looking people there are in the world? Attributing good characters to a person just because they are good looking, that's not common sense (I should hope). So tell me, why is this one so special to that one? Do they at least share something more substantial than a cheesy sexual attraction? Otherwise, it makes the story really boring. That is why I feel somewhat disappointed in a lot of the stories in this anthology. In most of them I found too much of the sexual attraction, not enough to make me believe in the relationship. I think that to some extent choosing to make the stories require sex and then making them short was shooting everyone in the foot – there simply is very little space to have a story, have crazy sex, and also make me see a believable relationship developing, a relationship where I can buy into a HEA. Not enough room for it all, and something lost out.

All the stories that managed to keep the three things balanced (plot, sex, believable relationship) – those where the stronger stories in the anthology. Those that relied on cliches which resulted in me not really believing the relationship, were the weaker stories. I'm sorry to say that for me, there were more weaker stories than strong ones. I think that most of the ones that had sex but didn't try to make the story have a fully formed romantic relationship occur within the short story were stronger – Tanya Huff's "Music Hath Charms", Lilith Saintcrow's "Brother's Keeper" (which still has a flaw – it threw the reader in without much information about the world. I recognized characters in her Dante Valentine series though), and "Dirty Magic" by Kim Harrison (also shares a world with her Hollows series, but this one didn't feel confusing). The best romantic one I think was "Moonlight Becomes You" by Linda Winstead Jones because the heroine was funny in a cute way, though I didn't see much from the hero's personality. "Minotaur In Stone" by Marjorie M. Liu was also good because of the lyrical writing, but there is something a bit off with the relationship there, I guess I found it hard to believe the heroine would go so far for someone she just met, but then she's isolated and so is he. That could be their bond, but I felt it could have been more cemented than it was.

deety at urbanfantasy.wordpress.com reviewed this book with a breakdown of the stories, and I found myself agreeing with most of what she had to say.

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Wanderlust by Ann Aguirre

Posted on July 31, 2008 by janicu

Wanderlust

Ann Aguirre

This is book 2 of the Sirantha Jax series, book 1 is Grimspace, which I reviewed here.

In this series, our flawed heroine Jax is a jumper, someone with a special j-gene that allows her to navigate ships through grimspace. As with all jumpers she's addicted to the thrill of grimspace but knows that her life expenctancy is low - her next jump could fry her mind and be her last. This has made her rather devil-may-care and self-serving until she is the sole survivor in a horrific crash, and March finds her under arrest by the Corp.

In Wanderlust, Jax is past much of the problems she dealt with in Grimspace, but, as her luck would have it, she runs into another set. Now she discovers that because she was briefly declared dead, this lead to her accounts being frozen and right now she's broke. This means she needs a job, and what's being offered is an ambassadorship to Ithiss-Tor. That's the planet Vel, her would-be assassin-turned-friend came from – where the inhabitants are human-sized insects that can produce a camoflage layer of skin to blend into other societies. Jax and her motley group of friends decide to take the job, but there are other groups around them with hidden agendas. Some want Jax to go and do a good job, some want her to go and fail spectacularly, and some just want to kill her. Action and space opera ensues!

I found a good review of this book, which I agreed with (that also has more detail about the plot, so don't click if you don't want to know) , here at LJ's genrereviews community.

Overall, I found that this book was slower-paced than Grimspace in a good way. Things feel like they take the right amount of time. I don't think the story needs to have constant action, and it was good to have some lulls (resting between battles, a non-eventful space trip once in a while, more planning, more quiet moments). There is still plenty going on of course, lots of suspense and action, its just not all of the book. This was a good thing.

Besides Vel, March, and Dina who were introduced in Grimspace , a couple new people join their crew – Hit, a skilled fighter and pilot, and Jael, an ex-mercenary. Both with complicated pasts, as with everyone in Jax's circle. Hit and Dina get along very well, and there are hints at a blossoming relationship between the two women – I really liked how this was written – like they fit together easily, without much fuss or fanfare, but still it seems like something special. Meanwhile March and Jax's relationship continues to evolve, and it's not easy for them. Aguirre throws an interesting wrench into things, and I'm waiting to see how it gets resolved in later books. I've been quite pleased with the writing in terms of the snappy dialog between people, and the growing friendships in the crew. The characters in the book all intruiged me, not just Jax and March. Even Jax's personal assistant 245 interested me! So - I felt totally satisfied after reading this book because – I still want to know what happens next, which is what you want to have when you know there's another book coming along. And I think my interest will probably last until the next book comes out. Plus, it felt like a great escape to read the book. Good space opera fun.

Wanderlust comes out on August 26th, 2008.

Here's an excerpt.

Book 3 and 4 are contracted and tentatively (?) will be called Doubleblind and Killbox. I believe there is going to be a book 5, but that has no title yet.

Aguirre also has an urban fantasy series in the works, about a woman who finds missing people with her ability to touch things and know what it's history is. The first book is Blue Diablo and is out April 7th, 2009, and book 2 is Hell Fire, which comes out sometime at the end of 2009.

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Frederica by Georgette Heyer

Posted on July 6, 2008 by janicu

Frederica

Georgette Heyer

Frederica is my second Heyer read, the first one was Black Sheep which I reviewed here. I enjoyed Black Sheep so I was expecting a similar read, but surprisingly – I actually liked Frederica even more! Maybe it was because this novel was more funny in many aspects than Black Sheep was, so I was smiling more often.

Frederica Merriville is the oldest daughter in the Merriville family and used to raising her siblings and running the household. In this story, her sister Charis is about to have her first season. Frederica is determined that because Charis is so beautiful and unaffected, she should come out in London, so she appeals to the Marquis of Alverstoke, a distant relation. Alverstoke is used to people asking him for things and saying no, but on a whim decides to pretend he was charged my Frederica's dead father to be a guardian to her younger siblings. Alverstoke believes with little work on his part, he'll have some fun, irritate his sisters and go back to his life. What ends up happening is that he gets sucked into the crazy Merriville family antics, and surprisingly finds himself caring for them, especially Frederica, except for the very first time, he's dealing with a woman who is more concerned about her family than his attentions.

This book seemed to be an easier read for me than Black Sheep, but I think it's because reading the first book made me more experienced with Heyer's regency slang, so this time it didn't take me as long to understand what someone was saying! The only confusion I had was sometimes forgetting who was related to who how, but I discovered this useful family tree online (now that I finished the book of course it's useless to me, but may be useful to someone else).

So there were a few funny moments in this book, and I think I'm with many people when I say I enjoyed the scene(s) with the dog (Baluchistan Hound!), and most scenes where Alverstoke finds himself being manipulated by Frederica's younger two brothers. I can understand why this is many people's favorite Heyer novel. Glad I picked this one!

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Accidental Goddess by Linnea Sinclair

Posted on June 8, 2008 by janicu

An Accidental Goddess (Bantam Spectra)

Linnea Sinclair

Quick review cause I'm feeling quite lazy:

I had a giftcard burning in my pocket so even though I have a 129 book TBR pile, I went out and bought yet another Linnea Sinclair book.

This is my 5th Linnea Sinclar book and I think I'm beginning to see trends besides the spaceships and action. Not sure how I missed it, but often the couple has to prevent an intergalactic war, and one person is hiding some secret about their true nature or identity from the other. Hmm. Doesn't seem to get old though.

In this case Gillaine Davré is hiding the fact that she's a Raheiran from her love interest Admiral Rynan Makarian, a Khalaran. The Raheiran's are a more technologically advanced race with psychic abilities try not to interfere much with the development of other races. About 342 years ago Gilliane fought against her ancient enemies the Melandans, and was thrown into a time-warp which made her appear in the present where she learns the Khalarans have turned her into a goddess. She is horrified to learn that she is worshipped and that even Ryan is a follower. Things get even more complicated when she learns that not all the Melandans were vanquished and she may have to fight against them again.

There were a few amusing moments throughout the book which kept it pretty light, and a lot of other characters in the space station where the book takes place, which kept things interesting. I'm beginning to see these books as a guaranteed good time. Totally fun to get into. I think I'm a space opera addict. Seriously. I also like how most of them are readable as stand alones, because I seem to be going through a lot of series books.

Out of the rest of the Linnea Sinclair books I've read so far, this was in the top 3, I liked Gillie's spunkiness and irreverance compared to Rynan's seriousness. Their interaction was good. noticed that Rynan has the same problem that Theo from The Down Home Zombie Blues had – trying to protect his woman when she can probably handle things better herself, and this caused some problems.

According to a review in Amazon, this is the far future sequel to Wintertide, a fantasy novel which I haven't read yet.

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Ready + And Able by Lucy Monroe

Posted on April 29, 2008 by janicu

Ready

Lucy Monroe

And Able

Lucy Monroe

To be honest, the only reason I picked these two books up at a thrift store was that I was pretty sure I could swap these on paperbackswap. So I admit I wasn't really into these from the get go, but I do like to give things a chance, which is why I read them. What ended up happening is I read about 25% of the book, then skimmed, read a bit more, skimmed on till the end.

Conclusion – If you want a not-serious read, with lots of sex and some cheesy bits, this is for you. I can see these as books someone would find fun, but that just don't do it for me.

I would say that I found small redeeming parts to both books. Ready started off interesting but after chapter one it went downhill. This was about Lise Barton, an author of "kickass women's fiction" who is being stalked. She was afraid her stalker (who calls himself Nemesis) was going to hurt her brother's family so she left them without a very good explanation and moved to Seattle, where her stalker kept up his disturbing game until our hero Joshua Watt shows up to ask why she won't see her family for Thanksgiving. And Able is the third book in the series and focuses on a friend of the hero in book 1 (Ready) – Brett Adams. This time Claire Sharp, a poor part-time student and worker at an assisted living facility is running into problems when someone broke into the house she was renting and tried to kill her. Brett is a friend and feels like he must protect her and find out who is behind the attack. This one had a pretty decent sparring between the two main characters in the first part but it sort of went away.

I guess the problems for me are the following. And here I get pretty bitchy. Look away if you liked these books because it's not pretty:

The main characters are cliched. The men are "badass mercenaries" who have some silly reason for not wanting to be committed, but everytime they see the heroine, their peni get all hard and they are suddenly unaware of their surroundings because they are so into the woman that they just forget their basic training. The women are loners with hardly any friends who need protection and for some reason the police aren't helping/helpful, and the women are unaware of their sexiness because they are insecure. Also even though the women are in their mid-twenties they aren't that experienced with sex and are amazed they feel anything with the mens. And the mens are of course full of experience but it was never like this with anyone else. Yeah. And they explain to the women what the names of the thing they just did was (deep throat) and how they read it in a book but never tried it before. These sex scenes are about 20 pages or so long. I was bored. 20 pages? On and on.. still having sex.. I guess I'm not in the target audience because long sex scenes do not thrill me at all. Also there are sex scenes in water which I'm always disturbed by because I think – urinary tract infection, and that must be uncomfy!! Also the men call each other by code names even though they have known each other for years and years. Code names which are pretty silly – Wolf (tactics), Nitro (bomb expert) and Hotwire (computers). They are very serious about the code names. These are not tongue-in-cheek at all! Wolf has a bedspread on his king sized bed of a wolf that was painted by Hotwire. Also not tongue-in-cheek! But in the book, it's sexy because when Lise first sees it she thinks it's beautiful and is amazed that the wolf on the bedspread looks like Joshua. HUH? How does a man look like a picture of a wolf, even in the eyes? I had a really hard time believing that. Actually a whole bunch of things I just talked about I found hard to believe.

P.S. Wolf = Joshua (book 1 – Ready) , Hotwire = Brett (book3 And Able). Book 2 was Willing, which stars Nitro and which I didn't pick up.

Another problem was that the books focussed so much on the interaction between the two main characters I just felt bored after a while. There were too many contrived scenarios. The scenes weren't that interesting – someone's house most of the time. The bad guys weren't interesting – crazy one dimensional baddies who got caught pretty easily. Then to top it off, the two main characters weren't that interesting either.

The author also kept breaking up the chapters in the weirdest places – mid conversation. Why?

Finally – I guess this is a spoiler for both so behind a gray block, select to read it:

In the end of BOTH BOOKS – the happy ending involves pregnancy. Ug. Sorry, I guess this is just the ultimate cliche for me. And of course this man who has so much trouble admitting to wanting to commit is overJOYed over a kid!? Seemed strangely easy after the fuss through the whole book.

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Hellbent and Heartfirst by Kassandra Sims

Posted on April 20, 2008 by janicu

Hellbent & Heartfirst

Kassandra Sims

Avoiding having to practice a presentation for work. Let us review a book instead.

Hellbent and Heartfirst was a book I picked up because I enjoyed the author's book Falling Upwards (which I reviewed here). Both books were published by Tor under Paranormal Romance, but Falling Upwards had more of a contemporary fantasy feel and less emphasis on the romance. Meanwhile, Hellbent and Heartfirst spends much more time on the two main characters and less on the "paranormal".

In Hellbent and Heartfirst, the story begins in Mississipi right after Hurricane Katrina. Jacyn Boaz has taken a sabbatical from her graduate work at the University of Texas to work for Oxfam, helping displaced families. Her cousin and her live in a house owned by their grandparents and after work they party with other relief workers and with relatives coming in and out of their house. Jacyn bumps into Jimmy Wayne Broadus, a rancher and rodeo cowboy who also it turns out spends time killing supernatural creatures that harm people. The confusion of Katrina has given the supernatural a way to hide their crimes, and Jimmy Wayne hopes Jacyn will understand and help him in what he does. Turns out, Jacyn is very reasonable because she has an odd relationship with luck that helps her believe in the unexplained.

I ended up not liking this one as much as Falling Upwards. The writing was interesting and intelligent but –

1) The plot. It had two scenes in which our protagonists fight paranormal creatures in the South, but these scenes are really short and anti-climactic. Once they were over I was left thinking – "Was that it? That was easy." and there doesn't seem to be a real resolution. I felt unsatisfied. Some things never get explained – like Jacyn's luck. The book really was about was two southerners who meet, fall in love, and hang out with friends and family. But with a dash of killing baddies. The rest of it was this slow meandering courtship without very much conflict amongst bars, barbeques, and house parties. It was like reading about party-kids settling down except there is a supernatural tint to it all. The relationship was very sweetly described and I ended up feeling like the two were meant to be together, but I thought the author kept trying to convince the reader of this after the reader was already sold. I started to feel like Jacyn and Jimmy Wayne could stop thinking how great the other was now. I was over the color of Jacyn's hair and Jimmy Wayne's eyelashes and lips.

2) There were grammatical errors that I kept running into. This is from someone who misses grammar errors, but I kept being tripped up by sentences with incorrect tenses. It just jarred me.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed:

1) That this was set in the South. That the backdrop was the delta in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the book describes the people dealing with the aftermath in a very personal way. It felt very real. The humidity is a constant. I also liked the personal interactions – how Jacyn's family and friends are groups who drop by without invitation and just eat, drink and live together in an informal environment. Reminds me of my college days (which was in the south by the way). I thought it was nice to have non-stereotypical southern characters. There was a small scene about the use of the words "y'all" and "ain't" that I found interesting too.

2) Really part of #1 – That half of the book is set in Nashville. That's where I went to college, and I think the author captured the city perfectly. I have a lot of fond memories of living there.

P.S. The cover. The scary dark figure to the left of Jimmy Wayne. Creeeeppyy!

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Hidden by Eve Kenin

Posted on April 8, 2008 by janicu

Hidden (Shomi Action Romance)

Eve Kenin

I'm on the Eve Kenin mailing list after I read Driven last year and I really enjoyed myself. I think I'm just addicted to high action, high-tech stories that have romance thrown in. When I read Driven, I had a smile on my face because I was just so happy to find something like this. Siberian Ice Truckers!! In the future! Come on now. I reviewed that book over here (Sigh, back in Sept 2007 when my TBR was only 97).

Anyway, I was on the mailing list so when the author of Driven sent out a note about sending ARCs of the second book of that series – Hidden to people willing to review the book, I couldn't reply fast enough. I got the book last week friday, and by sunday- I'd read it all. My fiance got to hear me crow over it too:

Me: *pet pet pets book* "OMG July release date! I got my hands on it in APRIL. That's like 4 months!!!

Him: Yes dear.

OK, so this book continues in the same world as Driven (post apocalyptic, perpetual winter, governed by corrupt people and populated by the dregs of society) but focussing on new characters. You can probably read Hidden without reading Driven, it is pretty easy to grasp what's going on. One of them is Tatiana – sister of Wizard, the hero in Driven (book 1). In Driven Tatiana's whereabouts are unknown, but she is mentioned as someone Raina met, and as Wizard and Yuriko's younger sister. Unlike her older siblings, Tatiana is described as having different powers (empathy seems to be her particular skill). Duncan Bane, the bad guy in book 1 believed she could tell the future, which is something Wizard and Yuriko can't do, but she also was a lot weaker physically and unable to heal as quickly as them.

In Hidden, it is never explained how, but somehow after the events that happened in Driven, Tatiana has escaped her prison and is outside in the frozen Northern Waste. She is a lot stronger than she used to be – apparently she was late to bloom into her powers, but she does have more than before. Her goal is to use them to stop a new bad guy – Dr. Gavin Ward, who for years has been using her as a test subject, and has developed a deadly plague using her genetic material crossed with some nasty diseases. All she knows is that there is a secret underground lab and that someone named Tolliver is in charge. Her plan is to completely destroy this lab, Dr Ward, and Tolliver.

Following a lead Tatiana runs into a mysterious stranger – Tristan, who shows up again later, and after something happens, they both end up trapped underground. Both of them are attracted to the other, but both have their secrets about who they are and what they can do. In terms of plot, there was a part where I thought Tatiana should be figuring out what's going on a wee bit sooner, but I guess this could be a nit. More nits – there were a couple of parts where I thought things felt a little glossed over and unexplained - like contacting Ward, or how Tatiana escaped, or even what happened to certain characters. The best part is probably the action. There were some scenes that had me on the edge of my seat (Residence Evil scenarios and a tense scene with a laser grid). Other action outdoors in the Waste against giant trucker rigs and gunfights - this seemed similar to Driven, so didn't excite me as much.

Because Hidden was set in the same place as Driven, the Northern waste, I was already used to this area and it didn't wow me in the same way the second time around. I still felt that it was well-written and interesting, and I could really see the snow and ice in my mind's eye, but I would love to see other parts of this world other than the Northern Waste. I'm beginning to wonder what the cities and other places mentioned like Neo-Toyko look like. There are hints about acrobats in Neo-Toyko, and at one point Tatiana talks about a conservatory with trees somewhere else and I was really drawn to that, but the plot in this case didn't lend to much travelling out of the Waste.

I also had an interesting time comparing Tatiana with Wizard. In Driven, Wizard is almost robotic in his analytical responses and lack of emotion. Meanwhile, in Hidden, Tatiana often responds to people in a really formal, analytical way like Wizard, but her abilities seem to make her more in tune with her emotions than Wizard was. And because she as had very little social interaction, she doesn't really know how to read people's facial expressions or hide her own feelings under a mask. I like that there was a difference between the siblings as to how their upbringing affected them. I was also interested to see how Tristan has an unusual for the Waste upbringing – often trying to be chivalrous – shielding Tatiana, eating with a napkin on his lap. While Tatiana found this odd and fascinating, she decides not to be insulted by it. Definitely a different interaction between these two from what we saw between Raina and Wizard.

Overall - Addictive writing, full of action and an interesting world, but perhaps one grade below what I felt for Driven. I wasn't as *spellbound* this time around, but it did make for a quick and enjoyable read. That's a positive review, but I think maybe Driven made my expectations very high. Not sure if my judgement is colored by my memory of book 1..? Would I think this if I hadn't read Driven first? Not sure, but it could be that someone reading Hidden without having read Driven would have a higher opinion.

The cover – I think I like the artwork on this cover a smidge more than the first book, probably because the facial features of the two characters are clearer. I'm undecided on the typeface though. I think I like Driven's better.

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Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

Posted on April 8, 2008 by janicu

Grimspace

Ann Aguirre

I think I entered all possible contests for this book, but in the end I bought it (TBR.. um.. 135, not getting smaller). Grimspace is actually the first book in a series, but the story is self contained. This is a book that falls under the science fiction romance category. If you like Linnea Sinclair you may like Ann Aguirre too. Actually, I think Sinclair is one of her beta readers from the acknowledgments I read.

The main character Sirantha Jax is a jumper – someone with a rare J-gene, that allows her to "jack into grimspace" and with a pilot, send a spaceship through a hyperspace jump. At the start of this novel Sirantha finds herself confined and under surveillance by the Corp after a horrific accident which has killed everyone on her ship but herself. The Corp seems to think that Sirantha made a mistake, and she may go to trial for it. Meanwhile, she also feels worried about her sanity (J-gene carriers are known for frying their minds). In steps March, who offers to break her out of her prison – telling her it's either escape or let the Corp break her with their therapy ("They don't want to know what happened; they just want to ensure you're in no condition to talk about it. Ever."). In order to escape March has to replace Jax's dead pilot – which is the equivalent to a forced marriage according to Jax – because in grimspace the jumper and their pilot become so in tune they are practically one person. Once Jax escapes she gets caught up in whatever March is up to and much space action stuff ensues.

Lazy bullet time:

Overall very enjoyable and addictive to read. It delivers what I wanted, which was action, space stuff and some romance.
Each chapter reminds me like a chapter in a Nancy Drew mystery – it tends to end on a "dun dun dun!" note. I thought this habit was a bit odd, not really bothersome, just wasn't sure why it was that way. Also each chapter ended up being very short – there are 53 chapters in all, so I guess you can say there were a lot of – oh what happens next? moments. Lots of action going on.
Although I said this reminded me of a Linnea Sinclair novel, the writing is very different. There is a lot more grit in this – more death, more grey areas, especially with the heroine – she's not always a good person. She would rather look after herself first, while March wants to save everyone. This was interesting.
The book ends with a definite conclusion and it feels like a stand alone, but there is a larger story arc you catch a glimpse of, and so I can see where the author could continue. I'm glad that it does because I think I did say after I finished this – "There should be more" and I double checked and there was. Ann Agguire's website says book 2 is Wanderlust (August 2008), which will be followed by Doubleblind and Killbox. Sounds cool. I do like the covers so far too.
A lot of interesting secondary characters make appearances. Some of them do not stay around for long. They may show up in later books. Some of them I wish I got to know better before they disappeared.
There was an interesting bit about assassins in this that I really want to be followed up on in book 2. Really do.
There was a creepy Jurassic Park bit in this too. Guess I can't say much beyond that without spoiling.
A couple of times the banter incited a laugh out of me (the baby z bit).
Excerpt of Grimspace. Excerpt of Wanderlust.