My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

Posted on July 24, 2009 by janicu

My Soul to Lose is a free short story prequel (free!!!) which is available here at Rachel Vincent’s site.

The Premise: This is prequel happens about a year before the events in My Soul to Take, and is referred to in the book. Kaylee is shopping in the mall with her best friend Emma when she sees someone who triggers an attack. It is so bad that Kaylee’s aunt and uncle go to extremes for her own safety- they put her into a psychiatric hospital.

My Thoughts: A substantial freebie and worth reading. My Soul to Lose fills in some back story mentioned in My Soul to Take, while hinting at Kaylee’s problems in that book. It also was a little illustration on Kaylee’s relationship with her friend Emma – who sticks by her through everything. The setting seemed well researched as well. I’ve visited psych wards and Vincent does well to describe the setting, although I would say in my experience there is a mixed bag – friendly and not so friendly people, not all scary which seemed to be the perception here. I found it interesting that the reader finds out some things in the short story that Kaylee doesn’t remember in the first Soul Screamers book. I’m curious if she begins to remember in later books.

My Soul to Take (Harlequin Teen)

Rachel Vincent

I wanted to read My Soul to Take after I saw Tez’s review, and was happy to the ARC at BEA at the Harlequin booth. Harlequin is starting a new Teen line (Harlequin Teen) and My Soul to Take is their first offering.

The Premise: Kaylee Cavanaugh is a teen with a secret problem. Sometimes she sees people and knows they’re going to die, and this causes an unbearable compulsion to scream – loud, scary, wails that she has no control over which scares everybody and herself. Her family treat her like she has some kind of panic attack and seem afraid of her episodes. One night Kaylee and her best friend sneak into a nightclub and run into Nash, a very popular guy at school. Remarkably, Nash seems interested in Kaylee, and when she starts feeling an episode coming along, he has an idea of what to do and how to help. But things don’t end there, girls Kaylee’s age keep dying for no visible reason, and Kaylee begins to feel convinced that they were never supposed to die.

My Thoughts: Kaylee seems like an average, run-of-the-mill teenager. It seems to be an unremarkable life except for her strange “panic attacks”. I prefer hearing about a “normal” teen, not someone who is a teen cliche, like “the cheerleader” or some other stock character. She isn’t too angsty despite her problems either – she has a balance and a small, but good support system. She approached her problems with a level head even though she was confused and frightened about what was going on. As heroine’s go, she’s not too bad: I wouldn’t call her voice distinct, but she has interesting abilities and life.

The world building is the best part of the story. When you first get into the book there are a series of questions that as they get answered, provide the basis for a whole world unbeknown to most. What Kaylee’s screaming really is and why it’s happening. What the people around Kaylee know. How the world we don’t know about works. What Nash knows and how he fits into things. I enjoyed the way the author took a seldom used aspect of the supernatural in this book and put her own spin on it, but I won’t go into detail because that would be spoilerific. I DID come into this with a guess as to what Kaylee was because: girl who senses death and cannot stop a scream? It points to one obvious thing. However, Vincent makes it a little more complicated than that. This is told from the first person point of viewpoint of Kaylee, so we learn as she does at a natural pace as events unfold. I thought this was well done and made me keep turning the pages to learn more.

One thing I have to say though: What the hell is up with the adults in this book? They did some questionable things, particularly Kaylee’s dad and his decision regarding her upbringing. I guess his past was his excuse but I found the excuse a little flimsy and felt as annoyed as Kaylee at all the adults around her when she discovers what had been going on. It seemed to be more of a convenient way to keep Kaylee ignorant rather than believable parenting. I hope they redeem themselves in some way in the next book because I wasn’t satisfied here.

The other minor issue I had was to do with the romance. I believed that Kaylee and Nash made a cute couple, and Nash seemed to care about Kaylee once he made it known he was interested, but I couldn’t quite trust his explanation for why he was interested in the first place. He’s a known player in school, going from girl to girl and tossing them aside like Kleenex, and suddenly he seems genuinely interested in Kaylee. Kaylee herself half expects his attention to be a big joke and for him to ignore her the next day at school. It’s true that they have more in common then you would initially suspect, but I can’t believe it’s just what Kaylee really is that attracted him, yet that’s what seems to be his reason for noticing her. This didn’t satisfy me as a reason to date someone, and his explanation to Kaylee contradicted his mom’s comment about “finally” meeting her. I hope more is explained in the next book because right now it makes me feel a bit like something is “off”, despite the pacing and other aspects of the romance being fine. Kaylee genuinely seems to connect with Nash, and he is the only one who can calm her or know what’s going on with her “panic attacks” which brings the two of them closer fairly quickly. It just bugs me that his motivations don’t seem clear, and that I know why Kaylee likes him (he’s charming despite her reservations), but not vice versa (but this could be a downside of the first person POV). Hmm.

Overall: A solid read. It didn’t bowl me over, but I really liked the world building in this one and there’s enough mystery and suspense in it to keep me reading. There’s a decent teen romance here as well, secondary to the main plot. Although the romance’s pacing is fine I still have an unexplained niggling feeling about it (expounded on above), which may be splitting hairs. I’m interested enough to probably read the second book My Soul to Save which comes out in January 2010.

My Soul to Take is released August 1st.

Jess is giving away a copy but deadline is TONIGHT (July 24th)

Other reviews of My Soul to Take (Most I see so far loved it):

Sci Fi Guy gave it a glowing review

Anna’s Book blog gave it a 5/5

Book Reviews by Jess – she gave it an almost perfect score

Tez Says – also a good review with a profound reaction

Reviews of My Soul to Lose

Dear Author gave it a C-

Anna’s Book blog gave it 3/5

Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin

Posted on July 19, 2009 by janicu

Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Jaz Parks)

Jennifer Rardin

I’d seen Once Bitten, Twice Shy in the bookstore and I liked the premise from what I could tell it was, but didn’t pick it up right away just because of all the series I had already started and haven’t finished. But when it was $1 at the onedollarorbit website, the price was right and I downloaded it.

The Premise: Jaz Parks is a CIA agent whose job it is to kill vampires. A few months ago she was assigned a new partner – Vayl, the only assassin who is also a vampire. No explanation is given but Jaz wonders about it: Vayl has NEVER worked with anyone and he’s considered a big deal. She can’t imagine someone ordering him to suddenly take a partner like her, so she guesses Vayl asked for her specifically, but doesn’t know why. The story begins a few months into their partnership when Jaz and Vayl are in Miami to perform a simple mission to help smoke out their biggest enemy, the Raptor, which soon becomes much more than it seems.

This is the first book in the series:

1) Once Bitten, Twice Shy

2) Another One Bites the Dust

3) Bitting the Bullet

4) Bitten to Death

5) One More Bite

6) Bite Marks

Excerpt of Chapter 1

My Thoughts: This book is told in the person person from Jaz Parker’s viewpoint. Jaz is a character who seems like the prototypical fantasy heroine. Red hair, wields deadly weapons, drives fast cars, and kicks butt at killing vampires. There’s also a bit of a smart mouth, though to me it just seemed like she often shared the first thing she was thinking, no matter how random it was (there were times that Jaz thought she was funny when I did not, but humor is subjective). Jaz also has a dark back story; a recent tragedy hangs over her head, and she doesn’t get along very well with the male members of her family when the book begins (her father and twin brother, David). The only one Jaz has no difficulty with is her sweet-tempered sister Evie, but it sounds like a typical family: there is still love even when they don’t get along.

Vayl is a tall, dark and mysterious vampire (handsome too, obviously), centuries old who has his own reasons for choosing to work for Jaz. I thought his noticing her at the agency then wanting to work with her, was a little hard to believe, but didn’t question it much. The important thing seems to be exactly what she means to him. She’s more than just a coworker. And this is where I was a little disappointed at the book. It feels like we’re not getting the slow buildup of a relationship as people get to know one another. Instead we’ve skipped ahead to the “I like you, do you like me?” stage. Frankly, I’m all about the slow build-up and I really don’t know why they even have these feelings about each other, I’m just told they do. It wasn’t what I was expecting in the romance. Meanwhile even though it’s clear we’re in that stage, that’s pretty much where we stay. It just hovers there between them. I suspect the author is not going to address them for a while, which I don’t mind, but if nothing is going to happen, why not show more of why they like each other, and make me believe it?

Most of the characters where like this: a little flat. Jaz and Vayl pick up a team of a private investigator, a psychic, and a tech wizard, and they’re pretty quickly sketched out and don’t do much more than provide support to let Jaz and Vayl do what they do best. Even the villains seemed like the usual fare: the psycho ex, the evil henchmen, evil doctor, terrorists, cult, and Uber-Villain pulling strings behind the scenes. There is however, plenty there to build from and I’m hoping more fleshing out happens in the next books.

Despite all of this, which I know, I know, I sound a little ranty: I didn’t hate it, I enjoyed myself! I didn’t find the read annoying, it’s only looking back that I see some things, but as I read I did want to see where the story was going, and I did want to know the mysterious back story of both Jaz and Vayl. I think a lot of why I didn’t end up disliking the book was the action. There’s plenty of it, in a very.. action movie kind of way. Think James Bond meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jaz and Vayl are a good team, working together to kill the bad guys and save the day, using high tech weapons and gadgetry alongside some supernatural abilities. For the most part this was fun, like watching a spy movie: there are getaways and car chases, tense moments, and civilians in danger. It’s easy to follow (although near the end I had that I’m not quite sure where everyone is feeling) and not much thinking is necessary.

Overall: This has several elements of a typical urban fantasy – a strong, kick-ass heroine with mysterious powers she’s beginning to learn, lots of action, and a supernatural love interest. I think that if you are at all sick of this type of thing, move on. Otherwise, keep reading. It’s kind of like a written version of a high octane Hollywood blockbuster. Lots of entertainment value but only for those in the mood for action and entertainment. I still had a fun and will probably pick up the second book, but your mileage may vary. I’d recommend this book for those who also like Karen Chance.

I like the covers. Orbit posted the making of them: Part 1, Part 2.

Other reviews:

Lurv a la Mode has a thoughtful, very detailed review (4 scoops out of 5)

Books and Other Thoughts (also liked it)

LesleyW’s Book Nook – another positive review

Smart Bitches – gave it a B+ and really liked Jaz

Unbound! – isn’t sure yet, will keep reading

Tez at Tez Says also had mixed feelings, will keep reading

The Eternal Kiss by various authors, edited by Trisha Telep

Posted on July 17, 2009 by janicu

The Eternal Kiss:

12 Vampire Tales

of Blood and Desire

I actually tend to like anthologies because it gives me a chance to “try out” or find new authors I may not have tried out on my own. Usually there are always hits and misses, but what I liked about The Eternal Kiss was that although it is a young adult anthology and it’s about vampires it doesn’t make the mistake of only being about teenage romance, and it doesn’t shy away from the darker side of vampires. I picked this ARC up at BEA.

I did something a little different here – I wrote up my review as I read the book, just jotting a couple of sentences on each short story. Very brief reviews follow (my two favorite stories were the ones by Karen Mahoney and by Sarah Brennan):

1) Falling to Ash by Karen Mahoney – Vampire girl (Moth) comes home to find her sire wants her to get the ashes of a recently staked vampire. Really like this one, this author has been on my radar on LJ, but I hadn’t connected the the LJ user with “Karen Mahoney” (sometimes things get past me), until I had already read and liked this. This is the introduction to a series about Moth, so now looking forward to it.

2) Shelter Island by Melissa de la Cruz – 15 year old Hannah has a mysterious visitor at night. I couldn’t connect with this one. I think the characters, particularly the female protagonist were a not substantial enough in the amount of pages this story was for me to grasp them.

3) Sword Point by Maria V. Snyder – Girl fencer discovers that the prestigious fencing school she goes to is more than it seems – interesting at first but then I started to lose interest halfway when the relationship part occurs. The action at the end felt very perfunctory.

4) The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black – A bitten girl tries to stay human, but then learns her ex-boyfriend and a neighbor girl have run away to Coldtown, the vampire section of town. A dark story about the glamorizing of vampirism. Liked it, nice and chilling.

5) Undead is Very Hot Right Now by Sarah Brennan – A nineteen year old who has been a vampire for a year joins a boy band. Hilarious. I laughed aloud so much reading this one. Another author I plan to look for in the bookstore.

6) Kat by Kelley Armstrong – A teen is awoken by her vampire guardian and try to escape would-be captors in the middle of the night – Interesting. Ending makes me want to read more, maybe the start of a series?

7) The Thirteenth Step by Libba Bray – Teen gets a job at a halfway house which may not be all that it seems. I think my own experiences cloud the way I read this story. It bothered me that the protagonist become like the addict sister she considered selfish.

8 ) All Hallows by Rachel Caine – Vampire boyfriend of the narrator gets into trouble and she goes in to save him. Readers may need to have read other Morganville books. This is a short story in that world that seems to fit in the timeline after the first 4 or 5 books.

9) Wet Teeth by Cecil Castellucci – A vampire begins to feel alive for the first time in a long time after meeting a strange girl in the park. This one seems to focus on the ending, and left me a bit wanting for the rest of the story, but seems to be in the right vein for horror.

10) Other Boys by Cassandra Clare- A girl begins to get interested in the new boy in school, who says he’s a vampire. This one had elements of nice old school horror.

11) Passing by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié – A girl has to pass the final class in her vampire hunter academy – only one student will get a special elixar. A bit too complex of a back story to cram into a short story space.

12) Ambition by Lili St. Crow – Smart but poor schoolgirl meets boy at club. Girl falls out with rich best friend. Boy may be supernatural. Dreamy, sort of hazy relationship that may be dangerous à la Heavenly Creatures. I keep re-reading the last three lines, wanting questions answered.

13) All Wounds by Dina James – Girl discovers her grandmother and the bad boy in detention aren’t exactly who she thought they were, and neither is she. Looks like the start of a new series so there’s a lot of plot set-up, but not much time for more than brief character sketches.

The Eternal Kiss will be released July 27th.

Razor Girl by Marianne Mancusi

Posted on July 16, 2009 by janicu

Razor Girl (SHOMI)

Marianne Mancusi

Razor Girl is a book from Dorchester’s Shomi line. I loved this line but it has been dissolved, oh well. I plan try to read all the Shomi books I can find anyway (Viva la SF romance! RIP Shomi!)

The Premise: In the year 2030 a mysterious “flu” decimates much of the population. Razor Girl starts just before this, focusing on Molly Anderson and Chris Griffin, once typical teens with a budding relationship, who are torn apart by what’s happening around them. Six years later, they rediscover each other as adults in a “a plague ravaged, monster-ridden wilderness”. Molly, whose father is a conspiracy theorist and scientist, has had extreme modifications done to her body and has been in an underground shelter since she last saw Chris. She has to meet her father in Disney World so that they can literally save the world. Meanwhile, his time on the surface has changed once-geeky Chris (now Chase) into a man, but he remembers all too well the betrayal of Molly’s abrupt disappearance six years ago.

The book jumps back and forth between the past, when Molly and Chase are teens and things are beginning to happen, to the future six years later, when the two meet again.

Excerpt of Razor Girl

My Thoughts: I’d read this author’s YA offering, Boys That Bite (as Mari Mancusi), and it wasn’t for me, but I wanted to give her adult writing a try and found I liked Razor Girl much better.

I quite like the idea that Molly is a Razor Girl, based off of Molly Millions in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, but I never read that book, so I wonder what references I may be missing. I did read Gibson’s Burning Chrome, which has Johnny Mnemonic in it and Molly Millions makes an appearance, but I don’t really recall it very well. Anyway, there seems to be enough to understand it.

Molly has retractable blades that come out of her fingers and ocular implants, and because she has to be tough, she doesn’t cry; her tears are redirected to her mouth and she spits. It’s clear from what he’s done, her father is very extreme in his beliefs, and his influence is felt throughout the plot. Molly has been taught how to fight because of her father’s paranoia, which is helpful when she comes out of her shelter to kill off the zombie-like creatures that now populate the streets (man, zombies are popping up in a lot of my reads these days). Molly’s enhancements give the book a bit of an eighties movie vibe – like Tank Girl or Mad Max, and it makes for a very cool cover (one of Tez’s favorites).

As I mentioned earlier, the story jumps back and forth in time from a teen to adult perspective. One chapter would happen in the 2030, one in 2036. For the most part it worked, although a couple of times I ended up guessing what happened when they were teens from what I’d inferred when they were adult. As a teen it seemed really sweet how big a crush Chris has on Molly and how he wins her over eventually by just being a nice guy who was willing to listen to her. Once he’s an adult, he has some resentment towards Molly’s disappearance, but I can’t help feeling he still has an idealistic view of her that never goes away. OK, maybe that’s part of love, but I’d like to see more acknowledgment of each other’s faults in a couple. I think that there was something missing and this was part of it – not enough delving into the characters for me. Even when Chase is hiding a serious problem and gets himself into trouble because of it, it felt like we only scratched the surface into that issue before it was “resolved” and put away, as were other serious incidents.

One minor nit I will mention – this is a copy editor thing that threw me out of the story. A character who Molly has just met, knows her name without her telling him what it was.

Overall: Not bad. Razor Girl definitely has the traits of the typical Shomi: a futuristic setting, action (with zombies!), and romance, but sometimes my attention wandered and I’d want to put the book down, particularly in the scenes when they were adults. I can’t really put my finger on why, so it could just be a personal reaction. Anyway, I seem to prefer the teen perspective: the romance then was cute, and because of their past I could believe in the couple reconnecting, although I felt that Chase idealized Molly.

Other reviews:

Popin’s Lair gave it 5/5

The Good, the Bad, and the Unread gave it a C (similar thoughts to mine in their review)

Katiebabs gave it a B (I really liked her review)

Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland

Posted on June 16, 2009 by janicu

Mark of the Demon

Diana Rowland

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

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

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

“I could hear the intruder breaking into my house.

Unfortunately, it was in the same instant that the demon appeared before me.”

Read an excerpt of Chapter 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This book will be released June 23rd, 2009.

Want to win a copy?

Bitten by books contest (ends 11:59pm PDT TODAY)

I Do Not Want to Wait, I Want the Book Now (comment answering the authors question for a chance to win. Not sure when this ends, so comment quickly)

On Twitter – @bantamspectra tweeted that if you reply to them with #spectra1000 you are entered to win one of 5 books (Mark of the Demon was just added to the list). US Only. Ends 5pm EST Wed 6/17

Other reviews:

The Book Smugglers (gave it a 7 – very good).

Lurv a la Mode (4.5 scoops. Reading her review I’ve discovered we share very similar opinions on this book)

Babbling about Books, and More (B+)

Interview with Kmont at Lurv a la Mode

Soulless by Gail Carriger

Posted on June 12, 2009 by janicu

Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate)

Gail Carriger

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

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

Soulless comes out September 30th from Orbit books.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links:

Gail Carriger’s website

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

Interview with Gail Carriger at Popin’s Lair

Salt and Silver by Anna Katherine

Posted on June 5, 2009 by janicu

Salt and Silver

Anna Katherine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other reviews:

Scooper Speaks (she couldn’t connect with the main char)

The Book Smugglers – gave it a 7 (very good)

Literary Escapism review

The Better To Hold You by Alisa Sheckley

Posted on May 25, 2009 by janicu

The Better to Hold You

Alisa Sheckley

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other minor comments I feel too lazy to expound on:

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

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

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

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

Dear Author conversational review (also a B)

Bad to the Bone by Jeri Smith-Ready

Posted on May 17, 2009 by janicu

Bad to the Bone

Jeri Smith-Ready

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

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

Insert whine:

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

/end whine

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

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

Excerpt of Chapter 1

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

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

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

Random bullet time:

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

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

Bad to the Bone is out in stores May19th

Reviews elsewhere:

Tez Says (as a music aficionado, Tez would like to have words with Shane! :D)

Brooke reviews (I think her opinion matches mine)

Scooper Speaks (points out a bittersweet aspect I didn’t cover)

Angieville (also a good review)

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Posted on May 11, 2009 by janicu

Strange Angels

Lili St. Crow

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

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

Excerpt of Strange Angels

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strange Angels is available May 14th.

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

Reviews elsewhere:

Brooke Reviews