mafia

REVIEW:  12 Rounds by Lauren Hammond

REVIEW: 12 Rounds by Lauren Hammond

Dear Ms. Hammond: This is a book that has problems. There are three different POVs written in three different tenses. Despite the blurb stating that it has been re edited for grammatical errors and minor inconsistencies, there are still several grammatical errors and typos. And really strange ones like up for lip or won’t for(…)

REVIEW:  Dark Soul: Volumes 3, 4, and 5 by Aleksandr Voinov

REVIEW: Dark Soul: Volumes 3, 4, and 5 by Aleksandr Voinov

Dear Mr. Voinov, Your Dark Soul series has been a roller-coaster ride for me. It is not a genre romance, even though it has some very romantic moments. It features themes I rarely seek out, including menage, BDSM, and protagonists in organized crime. Purchasing all five volumes is not inexpensive. It is quite brutal in(…)

REVIEW: Dark Soul Vol. 1 by Aleksandr Voinov

REVIEW: Dark Soul Vol. 1 by Aleksandr Voinov

Dear Mr. Voinov, With the exception of The Lion of Kent, which I enjoyed reading last year but which didn’t stick in my mind, I haven’t read your work (even though I’ve heard many good things about it). Your choice of settings and characters aren’t the type I usually seek out, but when I saw(…)

REVIEW: The Hat by Babette Hughes

REVIEW: The Hat by Babette Hughes

Dear Ms. Hughes, A story about the Jewish mafia in Cleveland, OH during Prohibition? It’s not everyday that someone offers me a book like this. Hell, it’s not every year that someone writes a book like this so when your publicist offered it to me for a possible review, I just had to take a(…)

REVIEW: Red Glove by Holly Black

REVIEW: Red Glove by Holly Black

Note: This review is going to be spoilery for White Cat because there’s no good way to discuss Red Glove without revealing the big secret of that book. Skim very selectively if you’re spoiler-phobic! Dear Ms. Black, Last year, you introduced us to the Curse Workers. In the Curse Worker world, magic was outlawed along(…)

REVIEW: White Cat by Holly Black

REVIEW: White Cat by Holly Black

Dear Ms. Black, I was first introduced to your books a few years ago with your debut, Tithe, the first in a series about faeries in modern times. In some ways, I consider those books to have kickstarted the popularity of faeries in recent young adult fiction. That said, I’ve made no secret of the(…)

REVIEW: Doppelgangster by Laura Resnick

REVIEW: Doppelgangster by Laura Resnick

Dear Ms. Resnick, Has it ever been a long wait for the follow up book to “Disappearing Nightly!” Which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about. When I read, and loved, it in late 2005, I was peeved that it would probably take a year to find out if Esther and Lopez would(…)

REVIEW: Fire and Ice by Anne Stuart

Dear Ms. Stuart, Fire and Ice is the fifth and (if I’m not mistaken) final book in your Ice series, which features the agents of a ruthless spy organization known as the Committee. This one is all about the flamboyant Reno, Taka’s younger cousin. Back in the third book, Ice Blue, Reno, aka Hiromasa Shinoda,(…)