If there’s one character type I love seeing, it’s assassins. Especially female assassins. I could probably stand to see less redheaded assassins though. Seriously, what is it with fantasy and redheaded assassins and/or redheaded women? Still, the promise of a female assassin was enough to lure me into picking up your debut. I tried to read another debut earlier this year featuring a female assassin, but that quickly became a DNF. So I hoped for something better with your book. But while I did finish your novel, it was with very mixed feelings.

Darian is an assassin. She makes it a point to only kill people who deserve it but there’s no getting around what she does for a living. She kills people and she does so well. Until now.

Darian is also a Shaede. Shaedes are supernatural beings that can turn into shadow at night. Very effective ability for an assassin. People are usually born Shaedes but a select few — the powerful ones — can turn others. The process to become one isn’t very clear — no exchange of blood likes vampires, no bites like werewolves — so I’m guessing it was something mystical.

Darian was made into a Shaede. The man who turned her into one vanished many years prior and is assumed dead, so she assumed she was the only one of her kind. After all, that’s what her maker told her so why should she have any reason to doubt him?

It turns out he lied. Darian is not the only one of her kind. In fact, she’s been recruited back into the fold for specific particular mission. And to succeed at this mission, she’s got to train for it because while she was good against humans, it turns out her current skill level is nothing at all compared to other Shaedes and the man she now has to kill.

I really wanted to love this book. It had promise. Finally, a female assassin who’s hard and not depicted to be incompetent in the opening pages! But as the book progressed, I realized that while I like my female assassins to be hard, I also prefer for them not to be complete and utter sociopaths dissociated from their emotions. Now I assume that to be a good assassin, you need to be able to dissociate to a certain extent, but there’s compartmentalizing and then there’s being emotionless. It makes it hard for me to like Darian.

For example, Darian’s backstory is that she was an abused wife. Yes, I’m sure everyone is surprised that the tough as nails heroine had a tragic backstory in which she was beaten by her husband. At least she wasn’t raped. On the other hand, the reason the husband beat her was because he was closeted gay and resented it. Talk about cliches and stereotypes! A woman can’t become strong unless she was abused? The gay man is evil? Really?

But that’s not even the point I was trying to make. You see, when the abusive husband gets what’s coming to him, Darian watches the scene unfold with no reaction at all. I would have taken anything. Hysteria. Cheerfully jumping in to help. Screaming and running away when she realizes that the man they invited into their house is in fact a murderer! Her dropping to the floor and saying, “Okay, kill me next.” Anything! Instead, I got nothing. She just stood by and watched.

Now you could say her lack of reaction was a sign that the abuse had affected her. That she could no longer feel. But based on the rest of the book, I don’t think that was what was intended at all.

I also found her to be willfully ignorant. It’s not just her actually believing they were the only ones of their kind. It’s the fact that she didn’t stop to think that there were other supernatural things walking around. And to tell the truth, I can’t help but think badly of a supernatural character who has no idea what a Jinn is. When she was human, sure. I can buy that lack of knowledge. But Darian’s been alive for a long time. She lives in modern-day Seattle. She doesn’t know that jinn=genie? Let’s not even get started on the fact that while Darian insists on only killing evil people, she doesn’t actually confirm that the people she’s killing are evil! She trusts her handler, Tyler, to vet everything. I know it’s just a personal preference but I really want my protagonists to be smart and clever!

There’s a romantic subplot but it feel really flat for me. I had no idea why Tyler was so in love with Darian. Was it a genuine emotional connection? Some sort of supernatural soulbonding? Both? Who knows? And I personally found the insistence that Xander was a rival for Darian’s affections to be laughable. I found the scenes where Darian interacted with Xander to be lacking in romantic or sexual chemistry at all. Trying to see Darian as being torn between Tyler and Xander was impossible despite the book telling me that Darian was attracted to Xander. I didn’t see that at all and every time the book told me that, I made a face.

Which brings us to the final point. This book is a lot of telling. It’s also a lot of withholding information for the sake of withholding information. I really dislike this. I knew who it was Darian had to kill the minute they mentioned it. It was so obvious there might as well have been neon orange flags around it. The fact that it took so long for them to reveal the identity in the book was annoying.

While I liked that the novel took the idea of a shadow assassin and showed how nasty the applications of that can be, I really could not get behind Darian. Her backstory was so cliche and she followed the path of many an urban fantasy heroine and started developing unique and random superpowers no one has ever seen before when times got tough. The romantic subplot was poorly done in my opinion, and the plot lacked any twists at all. I don’t regret reading the book but it does remind me of why the urban fantasy genre frustrates me so much. C-

My regards,
Jia

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I must confess, I am a fan. You are one of those authors I count on to consistently deliver good stories. The presence of your name on the cover of a book will motivate me to buy what I would otherwise pass. I’m hooked on your Kate Daniels series of Urban Fantasy novels. I enjoy the way you twist tired genre tropes in your Kinsmen series of Sci-fi Romance ebook novellas. I adore the excitement, intricacy and interconnectedness of your Edge series of Fantasy Romance novels, the third and most recent installment of which, Fate’s Edge, is reviewed here today.

Unfortunately, intricacy and interconnectedness have their price in that they tend to make later books in a series less accessible to new readers. Though I enjoyed Fate’s Edge and look forward to the next book in the series, I was left wondering whether the plot threads and characters carried in from earlier books would intrigue new readers or alienate them.

Like other heroines in this series, Audrey Callahan lives in the Edge, a hardscrabble, half-magical borderland between the Broken—the modern North America we know and love—and the Weird, an alternate North America which, with all of its monsters, mayhem and magical devices, more than lives up to its name. Audrey comes from a family of grifters, but where most Edge families stick up for each other, Audrey’s family used and neglected her in favor of her drug addicted brother. She reluctantly agrees to one last heist for an unknown buyer in order to sever her ties with her family.

Kaldar Mar is exactly the sort of handsome, smooth-talking con man Audrey knows she should avoid, but he’s also the secret agent tasked with recovering the item she stole. And he’s not the only one after her. With evil agents of the Hand close on their trail, Kaldar and Audrey must combine their talents for conning and thievery in order to find and regain the dangerous device. Along for the adventure are stowaway brothers Jack and George whom fans of the series will recognize as Rose’s brothers from the first Edge book, On the Edge, and Kaldar’s ward, Gaston, whom we met in book two, Bayou Moon.

I enjoyed the way this book started with the events that bring this group of adventurers together. It filled me in on what life was like for Jack, George, and, to a lesser extent, Gaston, since I last saw them in earlier books. It also served to establish Kaldar’s and Audrey’s excellence in the arts of deception. Though it takes a while for them to meet, when they do, the scene is a very fun contest of cons with each trying to manipulate the other.

In addition to scenes shown from the hero’s and heroine’s points of view, Fate’s Edge gives the reader several scenes from Jack’s point of view and some scenes written from the villains’ points of view, too. I enjoyed your POV choices, and especially appreciated that though the villains were cruel and scary and evil, their motives made sense. Additionally, the increasingly complex plans Kaldar and Audrey devise in their quest for the MacGuffin require independent action from all of the main characters. We would have missed a lot of excitement without Jack’s point of view. And, we would have missed Jack. To be honest, I like Jack and George so much that I would have read and enjoyed this book even if it were only about them.

And therein lies the difficulty. While I adored the relationship between George and Jack—the dramatic posturing of adolescents, the alternating feelings of responsibility and resentment each boy feels for his brother—Audrey and Kaldar’s romance just was not as vivid a relationship. I think part of the problem is that much of Kaldar’s character development comes in the form of other characters telling Audrey—and by extension, the reader—about Kaldar rather than Kaldar showing who he really is:

Gaston bit his lower lip. “He’s not right… He still pretends that everything is cool. You can’t tell by looking at him because he acts normal, but the rudder on his boat stuck…He wants revenge on the Hand, and he doesn’t care what happens to him or how he gets it.”

Given that Kaldar is a con man, it makes sense that he would not readily reveal his deepest secrets, and I would have thought it odd if he had. But because he spends so much of his time with Audrey trying to be the type of man she would sleep with, I don’t feel like his character ever really solidified for me, even during the endearing scenes where he realized he loved her.

The difficult thing about confidence men as heroes is that the con is often bigger than the character. I found Audrey a fascinating heroine at the start of the book, but she faded in comparison to the scams she and Kaldar ran in order to retrieve the MacGuffin. By the end, I was happy when Audrey and Kaldar got their HEA, but content to let them ride off into the sunset. I am sure they will be useful in future installments of the Edge series, but Audrey and Kaldar didn’t hook me the way William and Cerise did in Bayou Moon or, to a lesser extent, Rose and Declan did in On the Edge.

Overall, I enjoyed Fate’s Edge and would recommend it to any fan of the series. I would not recommend it to new readers for fear that the tangle of preexisting characters, plots, and histories might prove daunting rather than intriguing, and I would really hate for any reader to miss out on a series as good as this one.

B

~Josephine

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I loved the first and second book in this series but as the worldbuilding evolved and became bigger, I felt like I lost an understanding of the world. The book started out as a Pack book for me (Pack = werewolf) and has been transmogrified into world where every kind of magic exists from dragons to sorcerers to shapeshifters. There is earth magic, fire magic, water magic, precogs, and with each new book, a new element is introduced. The first book in the series, Tempting Danger, introduces Lily Yu and Rule Turner. (I’ve not reviewed that book here, but I did review the second, Mortal Danger). Lily Yu is a former homicide detective and a touch sensitive who was recruited to be part of the Magical Crimes Division of the FBI. Her supervisor is Ruben Brooks.

Aside: I do not recommend that any one start with this book. I think they would be lost. I was kind of lost and I’ve read all the books.  I do recommend Tempting Danger and Mortal Danger and the seventh in this series, Blood Challenge.  I think a reader could read those three and not be lost.   “Tempting Danger” and “Blood Challenge” are my favorite in this series.  Both focus strongly on the Pack and the romance between the main characters.

Rule Turner is a Lupi or werewolf and the designated heir of one of the strongest, wealthiest Packs in North America. He also wears the mantle of another pack, something that is not supposed to happen. Lupi have fated mates and Lily is Rule’s. Over the course of the series, Lily and Rule struggle with their matebond, a mystical connection that is so strong that it is affected by even distance. In “Death Magic”, Lily and Rule move ever more slowly toward an actual marriage ceremony. I’m not certain how much time has passed since book 1 of this series, but I think it is a bit more than a year.

An enemy of the Pack, an old and powerful god that the Lupi refer to as the “Great Bitch”, is rising up bringing to life old magics and dangers that have not been experienced in centuries. “Death Magic” is a continuation of this overarching plot about the “Great Bitch” and her nebulous plans. Ruben’s precog gift is foretelling something dire and it is up to Lily, Rule, and the other members of their respective clans to discover what they can do to prevent the negative outcome foreseen by Ruben. Ruben sets up a Shadow Unit, to work outside of the Bureau and by the book Lily finds herself conflicted when Ruben asks her to join. Rule is more sanguine. He’s an “end justifies the means” kind of guy and doesn’t see a problem with Lily joining Ruben in order to stop a greater evil.

Lily’s hand is forced when Ruben is accused of killing a Senator.  Tensions are further raised when the Humans First, an anti magical group, gains in power and violence.  Finally, Lily’s life is in jeopardy as she begins to experience strange illnesses that may or may not be connected to a Lupi related power she acquired in a previous book.

While Ruben, a figure that has appeared briefly in all previous books, gets more face time and an interesting storyline, I wasn’t fully engaged. I think it comes down to my own expectations for this series. It’s called World of the Lupi, but I feel that the Lupi often aren’t the focus, but the world surrounding the Lupi is. For readers looking for a broad, full and diverse urban fantasy series with some romance, I think this is very satisfying. For someone who is looking for a strong romance arc in each book, I think some of the books including “Death Magic” will be a disappointment.

The great thing about this series is the diversity. There is diversity in race and religion both on the “good” and the “bad” sides. An effort seems to be made to show each character as an individual instead of a representative token for a particular subset of society. I guess my major problem is that I expected this book to be paranormal romance and instead it is more urban fantasy. I feel emotionally distanced from these characters and would like to see more movement in the romance/relationship. It doesn’t have the visceral emotional power of my favorites but it does move the plot forward.  B-

Best regards,

Jane

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I was first introduced to your work with Four and Twenty Blackbirds, your Southern gothic debut. I remember liking it but for some reason, I never picked up another book by you again. It happens. So when I saw this book pop up on NetGalley, I glanced at your backlist and was shocked to discover how extensive it was! Time passes fast. Upon realizing that Hellbent was the second book in a series, I tracked down the first book Bloodshot (which I talked about briefly here) and liked it enough to give this one a go.

Raylene Pendle is a vampire who makes a living as the thief known as Cheshire Red. She’s lived a long time and is good at what she does — so good that many people think Cheshire Red is actually a man. After the events of Bloodshot, the normally solitary Raylene has picked up some friends: the blind vampire Ian Stott and the ex-Navy SEAL turned drag queen Adrian deJesus.

In Hellbent, Raylene is recruited to steal a very strange set of magical artifacts. Unfortunately, a brilliant but mentally unstable sorceress also wants them for her own purposes. And when she gets them first, Raylene will have to contend with the woman’s greatly amplified powers to get them back.

At the same time, Ian has a political problem on his hands. Vampires normally belong to Houses. Raylene left hers decades ago after a falling out with the head of the Chicago house. (The head wanted Raylene to die for her, and Raylene disagreed.) Ian, however, never actually left. He went into hiding after losing his sight because as one of the potential heirs, such a perceived weakness would put him at a disadvantage and make him a walking target. But now the San Francisco head has died and people are looking for Ian. And because of her feelings for him, Raylene will do anything to dissuade him from leaving, even if that means dealing with the San Francisco vampire house instead.

I’ll be the first person to say that urban fantasy is a crowded subgenre. Adult, young adult, blending with paranormal romance, traditional fantasy with urban fantasy trappings, it’s everywhere despite the fact that I think the subgenre’s heyday is behind us. But despite all that, I found Raylene’s voice very refreshing. Anyone who’s read urban fantasy is used to the tough loner heroine with attitude and a chip on her shoulder.

And while Raylene started out a loner in the previous book, Bloodshot, she’s a different take on that archetype. She’s a loner because of necessity. While she can be tough, it has more to do with living a long time on her own without a vampire house to back her up and being competent at what she does. It’s not a front. In fact, the only lies she tells involve her valuing her solitary life and disliking all these people barging in on it. That’s obviously not true since she collects people and takes them in, just like the valuables and artifacts she steals.

The biggest thing that sets her apart, however, is her personality. Raylene is neurotic and has OCD. I liked that this played on the traditional folklore about vampires where to distract them, you throw rice at them because that makes them stop and have to count each individual grain. (Like how The Count on Sesame Street teaches counting?) It makes for an interesting character because Raylene is simultaneously overprepared and reckless. She likes planning for contingencies but ends up taking risks when faced with the actual situation.

I think it’s this trait of Raylene’s that made her interactions with the sorceress Elizabeth interesting. Once she realized Elizabeth had schizophrenia, she stopped being the rival Raylene needed to eliminate. Instead she became someone Raylene wanted to help. And if there’s something Raylene suffers from, it’s this unacknowledged desire to help.

For me, though, the main flaw of Hellbent is that the plot is divided between the stolen artifact storyline and Ian’s vampire house storyline. A part of me originally thought they would converge and I read on, interested in seeing how they would. Because that didn’t happen, I was left with a scattered impression. I liked the vampire house storyline because plots involving political intrigue are a favorite of mine. But Raylene jumping back and forth between that and the stolen artifact storyline weakened it for me.

I was surprised by the conclusion to the subplot involving Adrian’s missing sister. Maybe neverending series have conditioned me to expect mysteries to be drawn out for several books. That the question was answered in this installment was refreshing. Unfortunately, it also struck me as a little too convenient.

As for the relationship between Raylene and Ian, I still have problems wrapping my mind around it. I think I just never bought it in Bloodshot, so while I can see Raylene doing all this because he’s a friend, I have a harder time thinking of them in a romantic way. I don’t know if that’s intentional but I admit I find their interactions to be emotionally unsatisfying.

Adrian, on the other hand, I can’t get enough of. I don’t care what he does. I just want more of him. I am interested in seeing how his new connection to Raylene will impact their relationship in the future.

Overall, I do think Hellbent was a worthwhile read. Maybe not so much about the events that take up the majority of the book but rather the fallout and what it means for the future. I am curious to see how Raylene proceeds from here. C+

My regards,
Jia

Previous book in this series: Bloodshot

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Archangel’s Blade opens with a flashback in the vampire Dmitri’s POV, one that takes us back to Dmitri’s human life. In the flashback, dark, ruthless Dmitri is revealed to have once, a thousand years ago, been a loving and tender hearted man devoted to his two children and to his wife.

Smiling at his son’s joy, he looked up and saw her in the doorway. His wife. With their new daughter in her arms. His heart twisted into a knot that was almost painful.

Sometimes, he thought he should be ashamed to love his wife and children so much, until the days when he went away to the markets were a rare anguish…but he could not bring himself to believe it.

This picture of domestic bliss is almost shocking in contrast with the Dmitri we know from the three previous Guild Hunter books. As the Archangel Raphael’s second-in-command, Dmitri could not be more loyal – and ruthlessly cold. He is said to love no one, and to like his pleasure twined with pain.

Though she has never met Dmitri, Guild Hunter and ancient languages expert Honor St. Nicholas is well aware of his reputation. She has spent years observing him on television and from afar due to an inexplicable obsession, but the thought of a close encounter with him or any other vampire now terrifies her.

Ten months ago Honor was kidnapped by vampires and raped and tortured for eight weeks. While two of her attackers were killed during her rescue and two more captured alive, no information about the rest of her tormentors has been uncovered. Honor has been hiding in one of the Guild Academy buildings since the assault, so when Sara, the Guild director, calls her and informs her that she is needed to consult with Dmitri on a case, Honor feels shattered.

Nevertheless, she manages to scrape enough strength to pull herself together and meet with Dmitri at The Tower where he oversees Raphael’s empire. The encounter is anything but soothing – Dmitri presents Honor with a young vampire’s severed head whose tattoo he wants her to decipher.

Moreover, Dmitri is attracted to Honor, though she is far from his usual type. When he puts his hands on the back of her neck and she slices his face in instinctive self-defense, he promises her private, intimate retribution at his hands. But things begin to change when Dmitri learns what Honor suffered, and vows to bring all the remaining perpetrators to justice.

As he takes Honor along on his excursions to find her attackers and to mete out punishment to them, a bond develops between Honor, who slowly gains confidence and begins to trust this one vampire, and Dmitri, who persistently denies that he can have a lasting or meaningful relationship with any woman – but finds it difficult to deny Honor whatever she needs.

Archangel’s Blade is a melding of more than one genre, with elements of mystery, thriller, horror, urban fantasy and romance. From these disparate genres you craft a nearly seamless, powerful, riveting novel. I found myself wholly absorbed in Dmitri and Honor’s story as I watched both characters transform – Honor into a courageous survivor, Dmitri into a more human, tender, loving badass than he’d been before.

Archangel’s Blade reminded me of a bit of Time Without End by Linda Lael Miller, a book I remember loving back in the 1990s, and one that had a very similar premise. I thought Time Without End was pretty dark but Archangel’s Blade makes it look like a sweet and gentle story.

I appreciated that it was acknowledged multiple times how thin is the line that separates Dmitri from the villains he takes down. There’s a cruel streak in him at times (especially in the beginning of this book), and in the earlier books, I hated the way he forced his seductive scent on Elena.

One of the reasons I was able to love Dmitri despite this is that the vampire Dmitri was contrasted with the human he had once been, sweet, caring and loyal above all to his beloved wife and children. You do a great job of showing what a lovely person that human Dmitri had been, how much he had lost, and showing also, that some remnants of that man were still in Dmitri.

Honor is also haunted, not just by the events of her recent past and her foster home upbringing, but also by an inexplicable sense of loss she has always lived with. I felt that past and present weren’t quite as well-integrated in her as they had been in Dmitri’s character. Surprisingly, it was easier to see the human Dmitri in him than it was to see the woman she’d once been in Honor.

But despite this, Dmitri and Honor’s journey gripped my guts and my heart. Seeing these two lost souls find love and acceptance with one another wasn’t just compelling, but also deeply moving.

Each time I read one of your books, I’m of two minds about the prose style. On the one hand, it feels a little choppy and repetitive at times, but on the other hand it’s also vivid, powerful and distinctive, and when I enjoy a book this much, it is difficult to complain.

A bigger problem for me, especially with this series, is the violence. This book is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. Still, although the violence disturbed me, it also worked better for me than it has in the previous Guild Hunter books. I was quickly plunged into the dark places Dmitri and Honor inhabited and from there, followed their struggle toward a ray of light.

It was brave of you to tackle this much darkness and emotional baggage in one book. I was so touched when, at the end of the book, Honor and Dmitri fully understood and embraced the love they had found in each other, and yet, they had both lived through so much heartbreak and pain that the book left me a bit melancholy despite the happy ending.

Nonetheless, for its intense emotional quality and its romantic and redemptive feel, this is my favorite installment of the Guild Hunter series so far. B+/A-.

~Janine

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Dear Ms. Armstrong,

I’ve been a fan of yours ever since Bitten was first published. In the years to follow, urban fantasy exploded as a subgenre which was great for you because your Women of the Otherworld series found a marketing angle. And while I think the peak of the urban fantasy trend is behind us, your adult urban fantasy books are ones I still pick up, even after I’ve long grown weary of the subgenre. There’s just something about your characters that I love.

In Waking the Witch, we were introduced an adult Savannah Levine. Savannah’s been a staple of the books, having been introduced at the tender age of 12. We’ve literally seen her grow up during the series. But even though we’ve seen her get into scrapes and dangerous situations, the one thing we’ve never seen is her be tested.

After the events of Waking the Witch, Savannah has lost her powers. And as the daughter of a powerful witch and sorceror, her powers were nothing to scoff at either. In fact, you could say Savannah’s grown accustomed to having them. Without her magic, she literally doesn’t know what to do.

So now Savannah has to find out why her powers disappeared and how to get them back. This on top of witch hunters who want to kill her, a task now made easier by the fact that Savannah has essentially become a normal human being. Throw in an underground group of supernaturals who want to reveal their existence to the entire world, and she’s got a lot to handle.

Looking back on it, I think I liked Waking the Witch in spite of the weak plot because of the characters. Your character portrayals have always popped off the page. That’s a quality I like in my books. Spell Bound has a much better plot but having read it, I realize these three final Otherworld books need to be treated as a trilogy. A traditional fantasy trilogy to be exact. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize that immediately. Traditional fantasy is my bread and butter, but I guess I wasn’t expecting to see the classic structure brought over into urban fantasy. What do I mean by the fantasy trilogy structure? This: the first book introduces the situation; the second book bridges the conflict and builds it up; and the third book (theoretically) fights the big battle.

Knowing that Spell Bound is the penultimate book in the Otherworld series, with the next Savannah book being the finale, made everything clear. I finished Waking the Witch feeling that the conflict resolved with little impact. I now realize that’s not true. The conflict of Waking the Witch didn’t resolve with that oomph you expect because it led directly into this book. The small case Savannah pursued leads her to something bigger, something that could change their world forever.

On the other hand, knowing what I do now, Spell Bound did read like a set-up for the climax book. It suffers from “middle book” syndrome. It bridges the introduction to the finale. With everything that was brought together, I hope the finale lives up to expectations. I did feel like there was a lot going on, so I don’t know how you intend to wrap everything up in the next book. Of course, I always feel that way about fantasy trilogies so that’s not unique to Spell Bound.

This book is definitely not a good entry point into the series. There are a lot of cameos of characters from previous books. For some of them, prior knowledge is unnecessary but for others, it absolutely was. I had to jog my memory a couple times to remember who some of them were and their significance to the world and other characters.

As for Savannah, I really enjoyed her internal conflict. It’s true. She’s never been tested. So when she loses her powers, she loses sight of who she is. She’s used to being known as the daughter of that bad witch and the Cabal sorceror, used to being the young woman with the strong powers. Take that away, and what does she have? Toss in the fact that she has unresolved abandonment issues, and it’s a mess waiting to happen. But it is a mess that needs to be faced and resolved in order for her to evolve. I definitely like it when characters are forced to grow and change. Savannah does that here in a very human way that I appreciate.

The Savannah and Adam angle is both sweet and frustrating. On one hand, I know that it has to progress slowly. She’s been in love with him since she was 12 so there’s the awkwardness of those feelings changing from those of an immature crush to something more mature and deeper. Then there’s the age difference between them. Does Adam still see her as a child? Will he only ever see her in a platonic light because of it? These are the doubts that eat Savannah and keep her paralyzed about acting on her feelings. But never fear, romance readers: there is progress. It’s subtle. No overt declarations for these two, but we’ve moving in the right direction. I suppose something has to be saved for the finale.

A part of me does wonder if I’m missing some context because I haven’t read the young adult novels set in this world. There were sections where I wondered if something I’d just read was a reference to those books or if I was simply projecting. I’d be interested in hearing from people who’ve read both series. If I was missing context, I don’t think it hurt my understanding or enjoyment of the novel. That said, I did get the sense that I was missing some connections and that sort of thing tends to bug me as a reader. (I unfortunately have completionist tendencies. Even if I swear off a series, I still look for spoilers to see what happens.)

While certainly not the place to start the series, Spell Bound was a great improvement over the previous installment. It doesn’t stand alone, but none of the Savannah books do. I’m looking forward to seeing how you plan to conclude this long-running series. There’s a lot of threads to bring together. Hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait. As for this book, it’s a B for me. Your characters are still magical for me, even after all these years.

My regards,

Jia

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I haven’t been an avid reader of urban fantasy for some time. Like many people, I burned out on the subgenre when it seemed like 10 books were coming out every month. That said, I do occasionally check out new releases from new(ish) authors in the hopes of finding something that sounds different. The premise of Feast fit the bill.

Madeline MacFadden is a bestselling writer. Or was, until her bigshot Hollywood husband left her for her best friend. Suffice it to say, her personal life is in shambles, leaving her with a massive case of writer’s block. In order to inject some much needed inspiration into her life, as well as a very welcome change of scenery from the watchful eye of the media, she takes a trip to the small town of Ticonderoga Falls where she spent vacations as a child.

But Ticonderoga Falls has a secret. It is ruled by demons. While never named, I assumed they were some form of incubi and succubi by the way they fed on dreams. As the result a curse set upon the town many decades ago, the inhabitants have become the captive prey of these demons, unable to leave and subject to their whimsies. Even worse, the time of the Harvest has come when the demons prowl the streets and feed.

But there’s also a power struggle going on behind the scenes, where another set of demons want to usurp control of the town from its current master, Ash. And who should happen to walk straight into the crossfire but Maddie and her young son.

While reading this book, I was reminded quite a bit of Neil Gaiman. Not just because of Maddie’s character, who writes comic books, novels, and screenplays and has a cult following that track her all the way to Ticonderoga Falls, but because of the way real world and fantasy dream worlds blend and overlap in the setting. Much like in a Neil Gaiman work, Maddie accepts the fantastical without fuss. It’s a change of pace from other urban fantasy and paranormal romances I’ve read where there’s at least one loud and public denial about what they’re seeing.

I liked how the demons were truly demonic. They were not human and they didn’t act human. They viewed humans as prey and treated them as such, sometimes toying with them the same way a cat does with their food. Make no mistake, they had similar concerns as humans: taking care of children, protecting their property, relatives they dislike, but they were monsters and the book never lets you forget that.

I’ve of two minds about the narrative. It features an alternating first person POV between multiple characters. I’m used to seeing this done with two characters, but Feast does it with at least 5. In the end, I think it worked out but I felt that the constant switching at this length may have skimped out on some character development. For example, the main antagonists read as very two-dimensional to me. While I did think their motives were very believable, not enough meat was given to their storyline to elevate it beyond a power grab.

The romance subplot, if you can call it that, between Maddie and Ash didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I never really understood why Maddie found Ash attractive, especially after she realized what he was, nor did I ever come to believe that Ash saw Maddie more than as prey. Part of this, though, might be because if I found out I was in a town filled with demons, I’d have gotten the hell out as fast as possible. Or, at the very least, when I stumbled upon a dead body, only to have it disappear when I bring the cops. Maybe that’s just me. Of course, if Maddie had done that, there would have been no story.

While I thought this novel required me to suspend my disbelief more than it should have, I like the idea of it. I picked it up expecting yet another urban fantasy but discovered it gave me something. I think there are some sections that are more reminiscent of horror than of fantasy, and I enjoyed those creepy bits. At the very least, this has made me more curious about your work and I will be checking out Afterlife shortly. B-

My regards,
Jia

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I recommended your first book, “Queen of Shadows”, to the DA readership but now I regret it. The core readership here is romance and I thought QofS had a great romantic subplot in the overall urban fantasy setting. In fact, it easily could have been marketed and sold as a paranormal romance. Shadowflame, however, takes romance readers to a place I think they will regret. This spoilerfilled summary gives the reason why.

Miranda Grey is human who becomes the vampire Queen to David Solomon, the leader of the vampires of the Southern United States. David is called a Prime and Miranda is chosen to be his mystical mate, a special “Pair”. They are bonded and will be unto their death. Worse, (worse in this story at least) what David feels, Miranda feels and vice versa. Because Miranda and David are newly married, the Prime or Pairs who rule the other territories are coming to pay homage to them.

This story involves two things. First, there are visits from Prime James Hart of the Northeast and Prime Deven O’Donnell, Prime of the Western United States. Second, there is something killing powerful vampires under David’s rule and threatening the safety of both David and Miranda.

Prime James is an utter bastard who terrorizes women and Prime Deven has some serious backstory with David that David has not yet revealed to Miranda. The person(s) who are killing the powerful vampires in the Southern territory are clever and powerful, escaping the detection of David who is one of the more technologically advanced Primes but also one of the more powerful Primes in the world.

There is some suggestion in Queen of Shadows that this series is to be a feminist anthem. Miranda, for example, is a capable Queen, powerful in her own right and ready to rule by David’s side instead of behind him. Most Queens play a silent, supportive role and the Prime ranks are people with old, misogynistic men. Yet, I never understood how Miranda was powerful in her own right. In other words, she was granted power by some mystical being, anything she knows about ruling she has learned from David, and when she finds herself at odds with David, she washes over his actions as if there was nothing amiss.

I never really saw Miranda have any agency, any direction of her own. Yes, she had her music career but even her success in music came from her magical ability to spread a blanket of emotion, whether it be joy or sorrow, amongst the crowd. Not to mention that she was now Queen of the Southern United States. She even acknowledges this:

The music business was all about influence . . . and Miranda had that in spades. There was no door that closed to her, no velvet rope to keep her out no matter how exclusive the club. The Signet held sway in every level of government and the Prime a hand in every game in town, legal or otherwise. It wouldn’t take much effort to have her first single on the Billboard charts the day it was released

To be fair she does learn how to fight and wield her power independent of David.

As for David, his star does not shine very brightly for me in this book, likely diminished to a great degree by what happens in the spoiler. He’s powerful, he’s nerdy, he’s sexy, he’s wanted by everyone, and he’s understanding. Because he is described as practically perfect in every way, he lacks interesting dimension. Possibly that is why you were led to introduce an element regarding a former lover, a former male lover. Making David bisexual, however, doesn’t make him multidimensional, just someone with a broad sexual appetite. That, in and of itself, isn’t enough to make him jump off the page, at least for me.

And then there is this, the spoiler.
[spoiler]

“I don’t want to feel this way,” Deven murmured into David’s chest. “I want to forget we were ever in love and be content with friendship. But I don’t think I can, David. I can keep my distance and I can honor your commitment, but I can’t ever stop loving you.”

David drew back to look at him. There was such anguish in his face, and David felt it just as keenly himself even if it didn’t show. “I know,” he said. “Neither can I.”

Deven shook his head. “You should go. Go, now, before we do something that . . .”

He didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence. David’s mouth had already covered his.

So as you can see by the quoted portion, David and Deven have sex. Because apparently they cannot be within the same region without their love overcoming their scruples. When they have their powerful orgasm, both their mated pairs feel it.

He looked over at David. His voice was perfectly even again, perfectly factual. “Incidentally, you’re not going to have to tell Miranda either. You haven’t had time to learn this, but when you have a bond like ours, you can feel when your husband has an orgasm . . . no matter who it’s with.”

Later Miranda is angry yet turned on by David and Deven together. She even goes so far as to suggest maybe David and Deven be allowed to run off together a few times a year to fuck themselves silly. Wat?

What is totally confusing and, I felt, inconsistent is that when Deven met his mate (or Consort as he is called) in Jonathan, he totally forgot about David, pushed him aside and David spent centuries mourning Deven’s loss.

Deven didn’t say anything. For the first time since the night they had met, Deven looked utterly lost . . . and David understood that when it came down to it, Deven would do whatever Jonathan asked, would abandon David again, would sever all ties with the South if Jonathan wanted him to . . . because in the end, David wasn’t the one he was bound to. They could love each other until the stars burned out, but they weren’t, and had never been, mated in soul. They would never live together, nor die together.

I confess I don’t even know what this means. They love each other so much that they can’t keep their hands off each other. They both know what they did was a betrayal of their mates, yet….they aren’t mated in soul? What does that even mean, for the love of all that is holy.

I should add that Miranda is in bed because she is recovering from an attack that has left her weak and injured. It’s like the trifecta of horribleness. David cheats on her with an old flame, in the same house, while she is lying on a sickbed attacked because she is his Queen. Why not just defecate on her? Wouldn’t that show her the same amount of respect?

I recognize this is not billed as a romance, but the entire story is about a fated mate pair! I don’t think its fair to say that an author doesn’t have to deal with the expectations set by the story. If an author introduces something in her books, then she needs to carry it through, needs to deal with it. David and Miranda are bonded for life, their very long, immortal life. This bond is through mystical means. There is some suggestion that one part of the Pair can have feelings for someone outside the mystical mate bond but the repercussions of this are never addressed. The concept of love v. forced mating is never addressed. I was left at the end of the book with a deeply unsatisfying emotional experience and not much respect for either David or Miranda. The idea of the two of them having a love match doesn’t hold much water after this book because there isn’t any good exploration of what love is, how one loves within a mate bond or without. Truth be told, I have no interest in reading the next book, not unless a very trusted friend or five tell me it’s a can’t miss title. D

Best regards,

Jane

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I must admit to a bittersweet experience reading Dead Reckoning, in part because I know there are only two more books to come in a series that has given me such reading pleasure for almost ten years now (I came to the series a couple of books in). Sookie is one of my favorite fictional characters – her blend of ordinary and exceptional, vulnerable and tenacious, pragmatic and idealistic has made her more realistic and sympathetic to me than many other series heroines. Also? The last few books in the series have been, in my opinion, a tour de force of plotting, thematic development, and emotional complexity. Which may be why Dead Reckoning seemed almost anti-climactic to me, despite the immense crisis that occupies the book. In fact, I had to read the book twice and both times my almost sedate experience of the book belied its frantic aura of instability and danger.

WARNING: SERIES SPOILERS AHEAD

Dead Reckoning begins with Sookie deciding to clean out her attic, an act which sets a tone for the book and, it seems, the series at this point – a clearing of the decks, so to speak. The last time Sookie had been in the attic was right after her grandmother was murdered, and she now decides it is time to face the past and make something new of it. Again, a theme for the book.

As readers know by now, any attempt Sookie makes at constructing a life of normalcy does not last long, and Dead Reckoning presents no exception. A firebombing later that night at Merlotte’s almost destroys the bar and kills everyone inside, including Sookie and Sam. Who could be gunning for Sam? There is already a new bar off the highway that is siphoning business from Merlotte’s, although Sam hardly seems like the kind of guy to really piss anyone off. To make matters worse, Eric has been incredibly stressed and brooding, while he and Pam are in some kind of tense standoff, but Sookie does not know why. She suspects, though, that it has something to do with her, because Pam keeps making loaded statements about Eric and Sookie’s marriage and Eric makes over-reacting gestures to keep her quiet. Pam, in the meantime, is miserable because Victor, Louisiana’s new regent and uber-adversary of Eric, will not give Pam permission to turn her leukemia-struck lover before she dies. And speaking of Victor, guess who owns the bar taking business away from Merlotte’s – as well as a vampire bar not too far from Eric’s own Fangtasia? Victor, it seems, is all sorts of trouble. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, Sandra Pelt is out of jail and is, from all reports, crazier and angrier at Sookie than ever before.

Reading Dead Reckoning is like watching a chess match, a two-layered chess match. The first layer concerns Sookie, Pam, and Eric, all of whom have been made abjectly miserable by Victor, who is becoming more and more aggressive in his attempts to provoke Eric into an injudicious attack (giving Victor an excuse to kill him). Sookie is also feeling hunted – literally – by Sandra Pelt, who simply wants Sookie dead, as soon and as violently as possible. Sandra, however, is something of a nuisance when compared to the danger Victor presents, and it is clear very early on in the book that all the strategizing between Victor and Eric is ultimately going to leave only one of them alive. Should either strike out unprovoked, however, that vampire would answer to King Filipe, with no guarantee of justice or mercy.

There is a great deal I cannot say about the plot of Dead Reckoning, because to do so would spoil the series of revelations and surprising outcomes the book has to offer. And they are numerous. Because in the same way that various characters are plotting against each other in the novel, so can you sense the book’s authorial hand moving characters around, positioning everyone in a certain way, revising past history and revealing past “secrets” in a way that feels very much like the moment before a very decisively executed climax.

WARNING: SOME BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD

For example, a secret regarding a long association between Eric and Sookie’s fairy grandfather Niall is revealed by Terry Bellefleur after the firebombing, and while I have not gone back to previous books to check, it does not seem to jibe at all with the existing series timeline. However, the information makes it seem as if Sookie was involved in fae politics much earlier than she was even aware of her own fairy streak. This is important because one of the subplots in Dead Reckoning involves the fate of all the fae trapped on the human side of the portal Niall closed at the end of the Fairy War. The fight between Pam and Eric involves the political machinations of Eric’s maker, Appius Livius Ocella, who re-appeared in Dead in The Family. The demon lawyer, Mr. Cataliades, is revealed to have a special relationship with Sookie that was never revealed when they met during the settlement of Hadley’s estate, five or so books ago. This relationship is revealed through a secret letter from her grandmother Sookie uncovers during the attic clean-out, a letter that attempts to smooth out the rough edges around the revelation that Sookie’s God-fearing, straight-laced grandmother was the lover of Sookie’s fae grandfather, Fintan.

There is also a lot of movement in the ranks of current, past, and potential mates for Sookie. Eric has a secret that threatens his future with Sookie. Bill declares his undying love for Sookie again in this book, with the added bonus of actually being there to help her during at least one crucial incident. Sam is dating Jannalynn, Alcide Herveaux’s pack enforcer, and while he seems happy, neither Sookie nor Jannalynn have many good feelings for each other. One thing Sookie and Sam have in common is that they each believe the other deserves a better mate. And both are probably correct. Amelia and the now-human Bob also show up in the book, and among other things, Amelia has found a way to break the blood bond Eric effected on Sookie without her consent. Amelia is also involved in an incident that results in a decisive moment in any potential future Alcide and Sookie might share.

All this maneuvering is somewhat ironic, since one of the novel’s main themes is the question of how much Sookie is acting upon the world around her and how much she is being acted upon. Eric, Amelia, Niall, Bill, and even Claude and Dermot have all acted upon Sookie over the years in ways that have had drastic consequences on her life, from Bill’s orders to settle in Bon Temps and acquaint himself with the telepath to Eric’s arrangement of the vampire marriage that now both protects and vexes Sookie. On the one hand, Sookie knows that she cannot shirk responsibility for her actions, and that those actions mean, “My determination to survive, and to ensure the survival of those I loved, was stronger than the religion I’d always held so dear.” But there also seems to be a kind of fatalism closing in around Sookie, a sense that the very nature of her being has brought her to this place. And yet, free will is still a central theme in the series:

When I went in the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes, I thought, This is happiness. Last night wasn’t the real me.

But it had been. I knew—even as I thought this—that I wasn’t going to be able to fool myself. I’d changed in order to survive, and I was paying the price of survival. I had to be willing to change myself forever, or everything I’d made myself do was for nothing.

Change is another heavily handled theme in the novel. Sam and Sookie have a very pointed conversation about whether people can change who they really are, and both agree that one may be able to change habits, but character was character. Which raises the question of what kind of character Sookie is. One answer in the book comes from Mr. Cataliades, who insists that humans like Sookie “who are born with the essential spark are born to experience or perform something wonderful, something amazing.” And yet when Sookie reflects on her feelings for Jannalynn, she must confront the irony of her own judgment:

…It was my personal opinion that Jannalynn was not good enough for Sam.

Of course, I kept that to myself. Glass houses, stones; right? I was dating a vampire whose kill list would top Jannalynn’s for sure, since Eric was over a thousand years old. In one of those awful moments you have at random, I realized that everyone I’d ever dated—though granted, that was a short list—was a killer.

And so was I.

Sookie clearly does not share the alternative morality of the supes, despite her own fairy blood and her recent life experiences. In fact, all of the true villains in the series have been deliberate predators, suggesting a differentiation within both human and supe categories. Victor, for example, is a “corrupt vampire” not only in his ruthless and violent ambition for power, but in the way he treats humans as vessels for food and orgiastic sex. However, the relationship between good and evil is no longer so black and white as Sookie once imagined, and her desire to be a “good person” has become complicated, not only by the things the world has visited on her, but by the autonomous choices she has made. The sum of these actions weighs heavily on how Sookie defines herself and with whom she will ultimately choose to identify. Communities can be welcoming and supportive or divisive and exclusionary, often at the same time. And yet being alone never seems like a wise or happy option. This philosophical pondering of the series has always been one of its strengths, in my opinion, and has, over the course of eleven novels, become wonderfully nuanced.

Clearly, Sookie is at a crossroads, as her change comment above indicates. And clearly that change is going to coincide with the end of the series. Although I have never been particularly invested in Sookie being in a relationship with The One, there has always been a bittersweet quality to Sookie’s relationships that is distilled in one exchange she has with Bill:

“I love you,” Bill said helplessly, as if he wished those magic words would heal me. But he knew they wouldn’t.

“That’s what you all keep saying,” I answered. “But it doesn’t seem to get me any happier.”

It now seems unlikely that in the next two books Sookie will find lasting happiness, especially given Sookie’s own grappling with who she is, where she belongs, and with whom she belongs. One of my favorite things about this series, though, has been watching Sookie grow stronger and more confident in herself – to see her take that unfailing pragmatism and use it to find her own strengths. She is the mastermind of something in Dead Reckoning that should reveal to her the depth of her intelligence and will to live. Where that will take her I’m not certain, nor am I completely comfortable contemplating the end of the series in a mere two books. However, I think Dead Reckoning is really the first book in the series where I felt that the thematic concerns of the book – as strong and compelling as they are — overrode its plotting and characterization, and where I felt so keenly the manipulations of the authorial hand, especially when those manipulations seem to conflict with earlier books.

I read every installment in this series, including Dead Reckoning, with engaged appreciation for the ongoing saga of Sookie’s life, but I wish the behind the scenes machinations were less visible in the book. B-/C+

~ Janet

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I’ve been looking forward to ‘Con & Conjure’ the next installment of your Raine Benares series since shortly after finishing your last book, ‘Bewitched & Betrayed’ and I’m glad to say I wasn’t disappointed.

Our heroine Raine Benares, still linked to the soul eating Saghred which gives her access to almost unlimited power, starts her adventures in this story off by foiling an assassination attempt.   Turns out the attempt is made by Raine's ex-fiance Rache Kai, a new character to the series, who's one of the worlds top assassins.   Raine must use her seeker abilities to try and track Rache down and stop him from completing the task for which he's been hired.

General pandemonium and mayhem ensue, much like earlier books in the series.   In fact this one has a bit of a been there done that feel in places.   The cycle of events is quite familiar leaving things feeling a bit stale at times.   The series regular humor and non-stop action are present, but things take a bit of a darker twist as Raine struggles to balance her desire for saving people with using the Saghred and risking it taking her over or turning her mad.

In addition to Raine's ex we meet another new character her cousin Mago, Phaelan's older brother.   Mago's a banker with the soul of a con man.   He has arrived on the Isle of Mid to help Raine deal with some of the enemies she's acquired by separating them from the funds that let them operate.   I thought Mago was a fun character and wish we would have seen a bit more of his inner con man "in action'.

Many of the series regular characters are present although they aren't as prevalent as in the earlier books.   I'm glad we saw more of Imala as I find her to be a fun character and it's always good to see more of the ever loyal Vegard as he attempts to keep up with Raine while watching her back.

The last part of the book sets up things for what I’ve read will be the final book in the series, "All Spell Breaks Loose', which should be interesting as we'll be leaving our regular setting of Mid and Raine will be dealing with some limitations that have arisen.   I'm looking forward to the next one and at the same time it seems like a good time to bring the series to a close, it's just too bad that it will be a year before we see it as the end of this one left me ready to jump in and keep reading.

"Con & Conjure' is a great addition to a wonderful series and I'm looking forward to "All Spell Breaks Loose' and whatever else you write with high anticipation. B/B-

Best,

Brian

~P.S. Newcomers to this series will want to start with the first book "Magic Lost, Trouble Found'.

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I feel like I am being a bit disloyal to the Psy/Changeling series by admitting that right now I am enjoying the Angel series more but it’s true.   Even though we only get one book a year in this series (or maybe because we only get one book a year), I always wait impatiently for the next installment. There are a couple things I like about this series.

The worldbuilding is so intriguing.   For those unfamiliar with this series, the world is comprised of angels, vampires and humans.   There may be other stray beings around but those are the primary genetic beings.   Angels are at the top of the hierarchy and they make the vampires, both willingly and unwillingly.   Not every person is suited to be an immortal vampire and those that are psychologically incapable are rejected.   This can lead to human pairings that result in one member being made a vampire and another not. Of course, there are other vampires that are made indiscriminately.

The angels are ruled by a number of Archangels, beings old and powerful.   This conclave is known as the Cadre of Ten and they rule by geographic region.   It is the only way that they can come to a peaceable resolution, knowing that if they did not have their own territory to rule, they would be in constant combat.   Angels are born but births are rare.   Raphael, the male protagonist of this series and ruler of North America, is the only progeny of two archangels.   These angels, as many do, slowly went mad as they became older.   His father killed many people.   His mother actually intentionally dropped Raphael from a great height resulting in every bone of his body breaking. Raphael knows is that his mother is powerful, dangerous, and very likely insane.   She is in a deep sleep and has been for centuries but recent events seem to indicate that she may be awakening. The purpose of her awakening is unclear as is her sanity and the threat she poses to Raphael and, more importantly, to his love, Elena.

Having read three Angel books from you, I can safely say that old angels are scary, dangerous angels.   And this is where your attention to detail and plotting make such a difference.   (And for those who haven’t read the first two books, you may want to look away as this is kind of spoilerish for the first two).   The series is centered around Elena Deveraux, a former member of the Guild who police the vampires, either on their own but primarily at the request of the the vampires’ makers.   Elena was particularly good at this because she is like a scent hound, able to pick up the scent of a vampire and track him via the scent.   When Elena becomes near death as a result of attempting to carry out a task forced upon her by Raphael in book 1, Angel’s Blood, Raphael’s body unexpectedly produces ambrosia which transforms   Elena from human to angel.   But making Elena has created weakness in Raphael.   The two are tied somehow and while Raphael’s power has strengthened Elena, her humanity has weakened Raphael. He takes longer to heal.   He is more easily affected by attacks from others.   Yet, her humanity might be the very thing that will keep Raphael from the path his father and possibly his mother has taken.

Archangel’s Consort opens with Elena still learning to be an angel, still weak.   Her affinity as a tracker, however, hasn’t changed and she’s called in to investigate a killing of a child at a local private school, a school that her half sisters attend.   As more vampires appear to go rogue and Raphael’s holding over Manhattan is challenged, Elena learns more about her family, an affinity that her step sister and she may share, and secrets her father has hidden deep.

If there is a theme to the book, it appears to be one about parents and their complicated love and jealousy for their children.   Jeffrey, Elena’s despised father, had at one time shown genuine caring for her.   Caliane, Raphael’s mother, tries to kill Raphael but does she do it out of love or jealousy? And for Elena and Raphael, they have to deal with what they are in relation to who their parents are. How much are the children the product of the parent or do they, as Raphael says at one point, make themselves.

As Elena grows as an angel, she has to learn some painful lessons.   Her Guild is no longer her family. She has information, secret information regarding angels and vampires that she cannot share with them.   She feels isolated even though she has found a true love with Raphael.

As with the other books, this is one part mystery, one part romance, one part urban fantasy.   While I think the world is rich and the romance is satisfying, I did feel that there is a tendency to overdwell on some issues.   There was a certain repetitiveness in passages that I could have done without.   I do, however, like that themes and motifs brought out in Book 1 are carried forth in this book, indicating to me that you have a plan for this series which I appreciate as a reader.   B.

Best regards,

Jane

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I’m a recovering burned-out reader of adult urban fantasy. These days it’s so difficult for me to pick up a novel in the subgenre and read it from beginning to end. But that doesn’t stop me from trying because the perpetual optimist in me still hopes to find that novel that’ll make me love the genre again. Or at least willing to tolerate its foibles. I picked up your debut because I thought the cover was cute in a roller derby-ish sort of way, and it was a nice change from all the tough, gun-toting chicks in leather.

Abby Sinclair is a former dancer picking up the pieces of her life after a tragic car accident killed her mother and put a metal plate in her head. These days, she’s the TouchStone for Moira, the local Faery Protectorate who makes sure contracts between humans and fae remain on the up and up. TouchStones are basically humans who allow the fae they’re contracted with to traverse between the mortal and faerie realms.

The problem? The last time Abby saw Moira was a few months ago when her boss left a note on her office door, saying she’d be back soon. Not even Moira’s bodyguard knows where his charge went and to make matters worse, Abby isn’t the most knowledgeable about the ins and outs of Faery. People don’t know Moira is missing and if they did, Abby would have her hands full.

Then a complication walks into her life, in the form of an incubus named Brystion. Brystion is looking for his missing sister, the succubus Sonja. He has no issues with using his sex appeal to get Abby to help him but that plan backfires when Abby inexplicably becomes his TouchStone. Considering that she was already Moira’s TouchStone, such a thing shouldn’t be possible. It’s also dangerous because being a TouchStone is draining on a human and Abby’s strange ability to become the TouchStone for multiple fae could potentially kill her.

When Abby agrees to help Brystion, she learns other succubi have gone missing. Their only clue is a painting of Sonja, done by an artist who’s also painted Abby and some of her friends. But when she tries to find out more from the artist, who’s also a friend of hers, he mysteriously becomes unavailable. And what Abby and Brystion soon discover is that the paintings, the missing succubi and even the vanished Moira are all connected.

This was a nice change of pace from the wisecracking loners with attitude problems. Abby is not your stereotypical kickass urban fantasy heroine. She’s not confident. She’s way out of her depth. She’s ignorant of the workings of Faery, which is unfortunate because everyone else thinks she knows more than she lets on.

I also liked how the book didn’t take itself too seriously. It retained a sense of humor, which is something that can be lacking in the subgenre at times. For example, the unicorn. I know some readers will find the unicorn very cracky and I’m not denying that he was but he was a nice subversion of the sparkly and glittery unicorn stereotype. And I say this as an unrepentant unicorn hater.

At the same time, I felt like the book was overloaded with lots of characters and creatures, not all of which were really necessary to the plot. It’s not that I believe every single character and creature must have an important, significant influence on the plot, but there was so much going on that it was distracting at times. I did like that Abby had friends because if there’s one thing I hate about urban fantasy, it’s the genre’s fondness for loner heroines who have no female friends. But at the same time, I felt like the friends solely existed to help Abby along rather than had fully fleshed out lives of their own.

The book’s biggest weakness for me was Abby’s relationship with Brystion. Its development did not feel organic to me. I didn’t think there was any chemistry between them. And for an incubus, I found Brystion’s sexiness (because incubi should be sexy, right?) to be perfunctory. The best way I can put it is that I felt like Abby and Brystion were attracted to each other because that was expected of the genre: urban fantasy heroine + mysterious hot guy = sexytimes! It all read as very forced to me.

The other issue I had with the book was the focus on dreaming. I realize that’s a key to Abby’s character and I did like how that aspect of the incubus mythos was brought up, when more often than not, it’s the sexual aspects that are the focus in other fictional works. On the other hand, it gets very metaphysical and psychological towards the final third of the book. For me, the allure of urban fantasy is finding the magical and the supernatural grounded in the everyday, mundane world. When you take away the mundane and lose the grounding in reality, I think you run the risk losing the reader. I admit I was very much not interested in the last third of the book for this reason.

A Brush of Darkness started off strong for me, enough so that it carried me through the end of the book. Unfortunately, I thought the book lost its charm as the narrative continued. I felt like the plot unraveled and turning points existed for convenience’s sake rather than being logical results of previous incidents in the novel. But for readers looking for some lighter urban fantasy fare, this might do the trick. C

My regards,
Jia

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ShadowFever delivered all the answers I wanted to know about your fascinating world of human and Fae, and yet, after my late-night read-a-thon I feel about ShadowFever like Mac feels about herself through much of the book: bipolar.

ShadowFever is the culmination of the search for the Sinsar Dubh, a ageless Fae book of immense power that gives its reader the key to the Song of Making-’the ability to create life. The fifth book in the Fever series, this story could have been a mad dash to the finish line if it wasn't bloated with internal character thoughts and philosophical musings on good and evil. I have to admit, I often skimmed paragraphs that weren't essential to moving the story forward. Some of this would have been okay, but I thought the book often got bogged down in unnecessary detail. For those of us who are already deeply invested in this series, it's interesting, but even I, a Fever-aholic, thought it was too much. I imagine readers who are luke-warm on the series will find it irritating.

Yes, the book delivers exactly what I wanted. Yet, as a stand-alone book, ShadowFever doesn’t work. It's a book that offers answer, drama, more answers, more drama, on and on, until it ends. For someone who hasn’t read all the other books, the big revelations won’t mean much, they’ll just be “oh, okay” moments, and because the answers and drama refer to so many events that occur in previous books, I think it would fall flat for a new-to-Moning reader.

I found reading ShadowFever to be a bit like riding a roller coaster. The emotional ups and downs were tremendous. I was by turns sad, excited, angry, elated, and chanting "Go Mac!" Then I'd get bogged down in character ruminations (which I skimmed), before the action would start up again.

There's a big mystery of "is she or isn't she' through the latter half of the book. Going into ShadowFever my burning question was "What is Barrons?' But that's not the right question (although it is a valid question that is answered). The real question is "What is Mac?' The quest for the answer keeps the tension ratcheted up; it's also responsible for a lot of Mac's long internal ruminations. And, yes, dear readers, the answer is revealed. In fact, no question goes unanswered in ShadowFever's 507 pages.

I was absolutely blind-sided by who was responsible for Alina's death (Alina is Mac's sister and it's her death that starts Mac's quest for the Sinsar Dubh). I should have seen it coming (hints were dropped in book 4) but I didn't. There were moments when it felt like my heart stopped and this was one of them. Learning the truth made me sad and reminded me that a recurring theme in ShadowFever is the loss of innocence.

Characters from eleven different books make appearances (often very brief) in ShadowFever. Except in a couple of scenes their cameos aren't necessary for the telling of this story, and their appearances add to the massive length of this book. On the other hand, those of us who've been with you since the Highlander series have an opportunity to meet some beloved characters again.

In the end, I believe the Fever series would have made a really great single book. The time investment for those of us who started reading it in 2006 is probably a large part of why we're so passionate about the books-’we've been thinking about Mac and Barrons for more than 1000 pages over FIVE YEARS. I suspect their story could have been told in 450 pages or less. B-.

Sincerely,

Jaclyn

********THIS MIGHT BE A SPOILER*********

P.S. The last scene at the end of the book was complete schlock. The Barrons I've come to know would never be the guy working the grill at a BBQ.

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Hi, my name is Jaclyn and I am a Fever-aholic.

This is a post about addiction. Yes, dear ones, I did read book four of the Fever series, DreamFever, by candlelight because the electricity went out the night I got my hands on a copy. I started reading this series in 2006, and had read the Highlander books before that, and after all this time I have high expectations of ShadowFever (which I will be reading on its publication date, Tuesday, January 18th). I want a spectacular ending.

The Fever series books in order are: DarkFever. BloodFever. FaeFever. DreamFever. ShadowFever. This is a series for readers who like fantasy fiction; the fictionalized Irish mythology Ms. Moning has created continues to fascinate me eleven books later.

I’m sucked into the world of Mac (MacKayla Lane, sidhe-seer) and Barrons (Jericho Barrons, bookstore-owning man of power and mystery) and their quest for a powerful book. What book? It's called the Sinsar Dubh, an ageless Fae-created book that may hold the key to the Song of Making (which, I understand, is a song that allows the singer to create and give life). The book has developed sentience, turned evil, and every magical being in existence is seeking to control it, including Mac and Barrons.

Allow me to bring you up to speed on the story.

MacKayla Lane, a blond, beautiful Southern Belle from Georgia, learns that her beloved sister has been murdered while living in Dublin; Mac has a mysterious and horrifying voicemail from her sister that clues her in that someone was threatening her and, dissatisfied with the progress of the police investigation and wracked by guilt, Mac decides to go to Dublin-’she's grieving and wants to know anything and everything she can about what happened to her sister. Mac stumbles upon the bookstore owned by Barrons and is drawn into the intrigue and horror of the evil stealthily taking over Dublin.

Our lovely blond babe goes pseudo-Goth, learns to fight, learns she's a sidhe-seer (can see the Fae, unlike most humans) with the ability to sense magical objects, and that she's tougher than she ever imagined. The borderline-TSTL Mac of page one in DarkFever sheds her cluelessness with each fingernail that she breaks, as she battles her way towards learning what happened to her sister and seeks revenge on her killer, and tries to find and contain the Sinsar Dubh.

Mac is a trip, and I am so gunning for her to beat the bad guys. I love the hard-edged Mac, the woman honed by horror and death.   I mourn her loss of innocence, but only a little.

The walls between the Fae and the human realms are failing and evil is moving into our world. Not all of the Fae are evil, per se, but they are not human and their realm does not belong in our world. Humans and Fae have not proved able to co-exist peacefully in the same place-well, ever.

What makes this series particularly appealing is that the lines between the good guys and the bad guys are not well-defined. There are people who are seeking to rid our world of the Fae-’we'd call these the good guys, but they aren't fully good-’every character in the book exists on at different points on the continuum of good and evil and no one is fully good, though some characters are pretty much fully evil. Even Mac, our intrepid heroine, does some really horrible stuff. It is the complexity of the characters that has kept me reading after all this time.

I have some frustrations, too, the biggest of which is that every book ends on a cliff-hanger. The cliff-hangers ratchet up from, "Mac has a mystery to solve' in the next book, to "someone just died (I think) and I don't know who.' I hate cliff-hangers. They make me frustrated and sometimes I throw the book across the room and refuse to read the next one out of spite. In this case, I'm reading ShadowFever as soon as I can get a copy; I've invested a lot of years in this series. However, the cliff-hanger in FaeFever pissed me off, and in DreamFever I was horrified and then immediately resigned to waiting a year to learn what just happened. This is not a literary device that I like, and interestingly, I've never discussed this series with anyone. (Until now.)

The Fever series is best if readers have already read the Highlander books, but it's not necessary. The world-building, myths, and knowledge about the Fae, the Unseelie, and the Druids are all richly layered book after book. Characters and events from those books are referenced and make cameos throughout the Fever series. I suspect that many of the characters will play a role in how ShadowFever resolves. It's a big investment of a reader's time.

Here's what I want to know:

1. What is Barrons? He's more than a garden-variety human. Barrons is feared and/or respected by the Fae and the Unseelie. Some readers have speculated that Barron's is the King of the Unseelie Court. (I don't believe this.) I've seen a tweet where someone posited that he's the son of the Unseelie King. (Interesting thought. I don't believe this, either.) I have no theory of what he is, just a bunch of thoughts on what he is not. After almost five years I'm tired of the endless speculation with no answers. Just tell me already.

2. Does Barrons love Mac, or does he simply need Mac? I want him to love her; I'm a romance reader, after all. I know he needs her. Does Mac love Barrons? Dunno. Sometimes she hates him; she doesn't trust him, though she trusts that he'll keep her alive because he needs her. I really want an HEA for each of them, preferably together. I'm not sure if that they are going to get one.

3. Is Adam Black going to make an appearance in ShadowFever and will Queen Aoibheal turn him back into Fae? In the book, Spell of the Highlander, she hinted that she'll need all of the MacKeltars, maybe Adam, plus one more (Barron's?) to overcome evil.

4. What was Christopher MacKeltar becoming? Whatever he's transforming into is freaky. (This happens in book four. I'm not spoiling anything for those of you who haven't read the books by asking this question.)

5. And last, but definitely not least: does Mac die? When it is all said and done, can she continue to live in the human realm? She's not a garden-variety human anymore, either.

Now you know what I want to know. On January 18^th I'll be reading ShadowFever in the hopes that my questions are answered.

Yours in reading-addiction,

Jaclyn

p.s. It's the custom here at Dear Author to grade the books we read. How does one grade one's own addiction? No idea. I'd give the first four books as a whole a B because let's face it, they've caught me, but I'm too frustrated by the cliff-hangers to give it an A, and the books aren't even in their execution, in my opinion; if I graded them individually I'd do it like this: DarkFever-’A. BloodFever-’B. FaeFever-’C. DreamFever-’B. ShadowFever-’TBR.

Many moons ago, when Smart Bitches, Trashy Books hosted a bookchat for this book. I finished it a mere two hours beforehand, but I was so glad I did.   The chat was amazing, but more so was the actual book.   The bitchery and I discussed so many excellent topics for about it for a good hour before you made your guest appearance.   From feminism to child abuse to sexuality, you tackle so many issues of reality effortlessly in a paranormal novel.   Readers will be surprised by what is lurking within these pages.

When she was four years old, Bronwyn watched as her parents were brutally murdered by a rogue werewolf known as a Stray.   She was taken in by a local alpha werewolf – the good kind – named Callum, and was raised up as a teenager among wolves.   Bryn has never become a werewolf, but has always been a little faster and had better senses than anyone else around her.   Her life has been under the patriarchal rule of the pack, and her humanity has been one of the few things keeping her sanity in check.   Bryn could only imagine what it would be like to be under the pack mentality.

The pack has been on edge lately, neglecting to let Bryn know exactly why.   The truth is a boy has been bitten and is being kept in Callum’s house until further notice.   Caged.   It’s the only way to keep him from hurting others, like Bryn.   She wants to see him desperately.   The only way is to agree to conditions set by Callum.   That means seeing Chase with at least two older pack members present.   As well as acknowledging the pack bond.   There is an itch at the edge of her subconscious that begs her to listen to the alpha and higher wolves.   The itch she’s been fighting year after year after year.   The itch that gives her the sense of individuality that no one else in the pack can claim.

Becoming part of the pack gives Bryn a new set of emotions to endure.   What Callum and most of the higher ranked pack members says is law.   That means no rebellion or teenage angst.   She manages to get closer to Chase, and realizes that he’s a lot like her.   He was bitten by a Stray as well.   Maybe even the same stray that bit her.   They have a connection no one else in the pack has.   This connection also causes problems for Bryn.   Her rebellious nature still manages to seep past the walls of the pack mentality, and it leads to her life as part of the pack becoming more and more troubled.

Can one write a more awesome protagonist than Bryn?   She’s headstrong and determined, totally feminist and independent, and never takes shit for her ideals.   None of this is in the overdone urban fantasy heroine way, either.   Bryn is a complete original in the world of YA, and she is just such a joy to read about.   I was majorly connected to her during the reading experience, and that takes a lot.   To get to the point where I feel the emotional pain of the character is quite rare and an excellent moment as a reader.   Her complex past involving the Stray attack was also interesting.   It brings to light new layers on her resistance to the male-oriented pack authority and her inability to pretend it’s okay.

Bryn’s further cast into the difficult role of pack or self throughout a majority of the novel.   It’s a major focal point for her inner growth as a character, and it was smartly done in the respect that she managed to convey the exact experiences with the pack that made it both extremely troubling, yet very safe protective.   The reader never completely becomes comfortable with the pack mentality, as Bryn is constantly questioning it and its baser instincts.   Said mentality is very rooted in animal instincts, and the research and thought brought in to the creation of the pack in this novel is evident with how real and animalistic it feels. Especially one scene that ties together the pack theme with the abuse one that really got under my skin.

*Spoiler*

*End Spoiler*

Chase was the only character that I really felt lacked dimension.   His relationship with Bryn is very quick and needy, and it was the only flaw in the novel I could find.   So many other great things were going on, and while the romance was by no means the only aspect, it was an important one.   Bryn is such a great character, and Chase just didn’t live up to her greatness.   I can’t wait to see how he is fleshed out in the second novel, Trial by Fire, due next year.

Your writing was great.   I loved your ability to juggle several hard, realistic elements with many great paranormal elements.   World building never suffered, and your novel was a highly original contemporary piece and paranormal piece that read unlike anything else on the market right now.   It’s a realistic book inside a werewolf body, and makes the hard themes all the more realized to readers.   No case of purple prose to be found.   It was a breath of fresh air in the YA novel spectrum.

Raised by Wolves is a novel steeped with great ideas and characters that feel real and impose many questions on the reader that will cause the gears in their brain to turn.   Aside from a shot-gun romance, every aspect was done to the best of its ability, and comes out as a beautiful tapestry that melds together hard contemporary fiction with the pulpy and dangerous werewolf fiction that’s becoming so popular.   Your novel will have no trouble finding an audience, and will be a great jumping off point for someone that doesn’t like the paranormal novels on today’s market.   They will have a hard time hating this one.   A-

All the best,

John

*A lot of these ideas were greatly fleshed out in the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books bookclub chat, and I’d like to thank everyone who attended.   Doing a YA novel was a blast, and so many of these ideas became clearer to me post-chat.   Especially the status of bagels and bagel condiments in the wolf pack.*

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Dear Ms. Crane,

Between not having realized that Janine Ballard wrote a fabulous review of Mind Games, and frankly, not paying attention to release dates, I read both Mind Games and Double Cross back-to-back in a few days. I agree with Janine that the language and worldbuilding in the first book are exciting, and am happy to say that Double Cross is no slouch in this regard. To quickly put my spin on the first book, I thoroughly enjoyed the high tension level (the scare factor), the worldbuilding and the language, but felt that I had trouble connecting to Packard in particular. That said, I would have given Mind Games a B/B-.

A very brief plot summary: Justine Jones is a severe hypochondriac (she has a special issue with a vascular disease called vein star syndrome) with the unfortunate side effect of ratcheting up her fear to heart-stopping levels. In Mind Games, Justine is discovered by Sterling Packard, a highcap (person with extra-sensory abilities) who teaches Justine to channel her fear into another person by manipulating their energies. Janine did a wonderful job describing the background characterizations, and rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, I’ll provide you with this:

Packard's team is a kind of "psychological hit squad" made up of disillusionists, people with psychological disorders who channel their own problems into criminals and thereby "crash" them so that they can then be "rebooted" into better human beings.

At the end of Mind Games the directive has changed. When Double Cross begins, Packard’s team is working for Otto Sanchez, the mayor of Midcity. Otto is a highcap and a hypochondriac with the same exact issue as Justine, and fears that the mental energy he’s using to imprison certain highcaps around Midcity will cause a vein star to rupture and kill him. Packard’s team is working to reboot the highcaps to relieve the mental pressure on Otto.

Justine is still heavily conflicted about her work, and constantly questions the motives of both Otto, who has taken it upon himself to imprison people without due process, and Packard, who she depends upon for discerning who is “safe” to zing with her fear. Along with doing dangerous work, Justine is dancing a fine line: she’s quietly dating Otto who she has mentally built into the image of perfection, ergo, the perfect man for her. But she constantly thinks of Packard, and this frustrates and angers her. Beyond Justine’s personal problems, there are the Dorks, a gang that’s targeting and killing highcaps. They’ve figured out a way around the highcap powers and are seemingly bent on gruesome assassination of every highcap they find.

The killers are called Dorks because one of Otto’s decrees, in the week he took office as mayor, was that the city papers can’t give serial killers cool names anymore. The names are pre-chosen, like hurricane names, and kept in a vault to be selected randomly. Privately, Otto told me other D names include Doofus, Dolt and Dickweed

As I noted, Ms. Crane’s wonderful language continues. The hurricane reference is brilliant; it turns the Dorks into a force rather than a joke. Between the scare-the-shit-out-of-me name and the Dorks chosen garb of hooded gray sweatshirts, I was nervous for every highcap that was introduced during the course of the book.

My biggest issue with the book is Justine’s rigid view of Otto as an infallible hero. Otto is massively screwed up (hello…crazy hypochondria? actual vigilante justice?) but Justine overlooks a lot of his peculiarities and isn’t interested in delving into them too deeply for fear of disturbing the perfect image she has. Even when she suspects that all may not be as wonderful as she originally conceived it to be, she allows Otto to push her into the space he’s allotted for her. This is excellent for Otto, but for a UF heroine, I found it to be a bit annoying.

Justine’s relationship with Packard is much more difficult, interesting and exciting. Packard is a total screw up too. Justine is aware of his level of loco, she just can’t figure out why and wants to understand him on a deeper level. Justine is constantly fighting her feelings for Packard because she is mentally tied to him and his ability to see the “safe” zing. She wants to be free of him, and I think part of her craving for freedom is to get away from Packard because he isn’t what she should want. I have an issue here as well: For me, Packard remains an enigma because he revealed so little to Justine throughout the book, and is unwilling to open up to her even though it seems from her point of view that he has strong feelings for her. He hides so much, and I’m unclear as to why all the secrecy is so damn important.

This books is first and foremost Urban Fantasy, and one would assume that looking beyond the relationships would be simple. However, Ms. Crane has woven the triangle neatly into the plot. While I’m not one who looks for triangles, this one is done quite well. I can see Justine’s attraction to both men and her misgivings about both of them, but yes, there are times I want to slap her with a cricket bat. My other issue? The doozy of a cliffhanger. The plot is wonderfully torturous, but due to the rapidity with which things happen toward the end of the book, there are a few loose ends and a massively suspenseful ending which makes me want to HulkSmash. Yeah, I said it. B-

~Shuzluva

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Other than Magic Mourns, the short story that was included in the Must Love Hellhounds anthology, I haven’t read any of your Kate Daniels series. I’m not sure why Kate Daniels unfortunately flew completely under my radar, but due to my giant, listing TBR stack, I doubt I’ll end up getting to it before I retire from my day job and my children are in college (read: not happening). While I may be late on The Edge bandwagon, I am happy that I jumped on with the second book.

I freely admit that what drew me to Bayou Moon was something in a blurb about William Sandine being a killer who plays with toys and action figures. Being a complete nerd and vinyl aficionado myself, there was no way I was going to pass up a book that feature a hero unafraid to show his less mature self. WHOOO! How little did I realize I hit the nail on the head with that thought.

William lives in the woods between the Weird (a magical world) and the Broken (mundane backwater South). An easy way to describe the Weird is it is a parallel world to our mundane one, but operates completely with magic and the fantastical, paranormal, what have you. Territory and power in the Weird are being fought for by nobles in the Kingdom of Andrianglia and the Dukedom of Louisiana. People like William live between the two worlds in the Edge. Those that are Edgers either don’t have enough magic to be welcomed into the Weird or they are outcasts from the Weird. Take a wild guess at which category William falls into.

William is a changeling, and all changelings in Adrianglia are separated from their families and bred as soldiers. After failing to follow orders, William is cast out into the Edge. I don’t want to ruin anything for those who haven’t read the first book here (and I haven’t but I picked up everything I needed to know from this book), so I’m not going to delve into William’s history too far. His lifetime of being trained as a tracker and killer precluded any sort of romantic or social interaction (along with being told that his attentions would be unwelcome by any female), so he is very much alone in the Edge in the beginning of Bayou Moon. William is approached by the Adrianglian Secret Service to go on a dangerous mission into the Mire, the swamps of the Edge that is between the Dukedom of Louisiana, the Broken and the State of Louisiana. He takes on the mission to try and get revenge against Spider, an agent from the Kingdom of Louisiana that kills changeling children.

Cerise Mar’s family were nobles, but they’ve been cast out to the Mire, and have claimed a huge portion of it for themselves. They may be poor, but the Mar family is large and they rely on each other. When her parents disappear, Cerise takes charge of the family and has to make some tough decisions. The family suspects that their rivals, the Sheeriles, are responsible for her parent’s sudden disappearance. Cerise is forced to travel to the Edge, and on her return, she and William’s paths intersect.

The book borders on epic in its scope; the worldbuilding is completely new and slightly complicated, and the characters don’t stay in one spot for long. However, Bayou Moon doesn’t slack on the development of characters or the story between Cerise and William. William may be a prime fighting machine, but his upbringing has stunted him emotionally and socially, and it’s both entertaining and painful to read as he works out what social nuance means and whether he reacts correctly or incorrectly in certain situations. His growth into a well-rounded person (character? changeling?) takes time and is believable. Cerise’s struggle to take up the family reins and effort to retain the control and respect of her unruly clan is well portrayed. Cerise is sure of herself but knows that she must prove that she can hold the family together. It was refreshing to have a heroine that could hold her own throughout the book and didn’t have quite as much growing to do as the hero. Cerise and William together…sometimes was explosive, but there were a few moments I felt like I was watching some really awkward interaction, and it felt slightly disjointed.

There were a couple of scenes toward the end of the book that frustrated me, but didn’t preclude me from enjoying the final chapters of the book, or the book as a whole. The secondary characters are superb and the tension (both romantic and action-filled) is strong throughout without having to be artificially manufactured. I’m going to pick up the first in the series and I hope that there’s another in the works. B+

~Shuzluva

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The changeling William Wolf was introduced to readers in your earlier book, On the Edge. On your website, Mr. Andrews states in that book, William "lost Rose to Declan and did not save the day. This book [Bayou Moon] was his chance to be a hero, to get the girl. A damaged hero and a very odd girl, but still."

I enjoyed Bayou Moon, which takes place in the Edge, a strip of land between two dimensions, the Weird and the Broken. The Broken is our world, where there is no magic. The Weird is a magical realm, a mirror of the Broken in which two New World countries, Adrianglia and the Dukedom of Louisiana, are engaged in a cold war.

Bayou Moon begins when Nancy Virai, an Adrianglian spymaster, and her assistant/thug Erwin, arrive in the Edge to recruit William for a mission. William used to be a member of the Red Legion, an Adrianglian black ops army unit. But he was expelled from the Red Legion and adopted by the evil Lord Casshorn Sandine, who met his death in On the Edge. Since the events of that book, William, Lord Sandine, has been employed as a construction worker in the Broken and moping in his spare time.

Back in his Red Legion days, William had two encounters with a twisted, magically enhanced Dukedom of Lousiana spy named Spider. That William survived those encounters means he is the Adrianglians' best hope of defeating Spider and his covert organization of magically enhanced spies, the Hand. Spider and the other members of the Hand have infiltrated a part of the Edge which borders the Dukedom of Louisiana and is known as the Mire. Virai believes that they are searching for a magical item that could tip the balance of power between Adrianglia and the Dukedom of Lousiana, and mean all-out war.

William loathes Spider with his whole heart, since Spider is responsible for the murders of several Adrianglian changeling children (In Louisana, changelings are reviled so much that they are killed at birth, while in Adrianglia, many are abandoned by their parents and given over to the care of Hawk's Academy, the brutal orphanage where William grew up). Because he hates Spider so much, William agrees to infiltrate the Mire, learn what Spider and the Hand are seeking, capture that item, and if at all possible, kill Spider.

Meanwhile, in the Mire, Cerise Mar discovers that her parents have not returned from a ride to Sene Manor, an empty house that once belonged to Cerise's grandparents. When Cerise and two of her cousins ride to Sene, they discover that the house has been confiscated by the Sheeriles, a family with whom the Mars have a longstanding feud. The Sheeriles inform Cerise that the Hand has taken her parents, and they claim not to know the reason why.

Now Cerise and her family will have to fight the Sheeriles for Sene Manor, where there might be clues to explain the Hand's interest in Cerise's parents. But to prove that the Mars have the right to Sene, Cerise must travel to the Broken to retrieve a copy of the deed from her uncle.

Sneaking into the Mire from the Broken, William pays a man named Vern to guide him down a river to the town of Sicktree. Also on the same boat is a girl who looks like a hobo, and smells, to William's discerning nose, like a jar of moldy spaghetti sauce.

Partway through the journey, William and the girl lose Vern to a shark attack. Now the “hobo queen” is William's guide to Sicktree, and he does not trust her as far as he can throw a necromancer-controlled giant eel. But when he realizes the Hand's agents are after the girl, and that after washing off the spaghetti sauce, she smells delicious, William realizes that he has to stick close to her, and that that is exactly what he most wants to do.

For her part, Cerise, too, catches on to the fact that William is more than the spoiled blueblood he first appears to be. Unexpectedly attractive and proficient with a crossbow, William may be dangerous to Cerise's family. Can she trust him, and even if she can, should she risk her heart at a time when the lives of her family members are threatened?

Bayou Moon is darker in tone than On the Edge (One scene in particular is quite violent and not for the faint of heart) but it is still greatly entertaining.

William and Cerise seem right for each other. It was immensely enjoyable to see them begin to perceive they had met their match in the one they first dismissed as “Hobo Queen” and “Lord Bill.” As their strengths become apparent, they grow to admire each other more and more. Both are great with weapons and really respect each other's abilities in this arena. She has a huge family and he longs for family, a sense of belonging and being wanted and accepted, more than anything.

There is some delightful, laugh out loud humor in this book. I caught myself giggling and smiling several times. The novel had a terrific sense of adventure, particularly in the section of the book when William and Cerise were trying to reach Sicktree together, that reminded me of movies like “Romancing the Stone” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The worldbuilding is superb; the Mire comes alive and I felt as though I could feel the humid air and murky water, and see the creatures that inhabited this world, from the Loch Ness monster-like rolpies to the legged eels.

I did catch one major inconsistency, though. Earlier in the book, it was stated and shown that exposure to the Hand's magic makes people sick at first, but later in the story, when many characters encountered the Hand for the first time, this was not the case.

If the world was believable for the most part, so was Spider. I especially liked it when he stated that he became a monster so his fellow countrymen would not have to. It's a rationale that many have used on a slippery slope to evil.

Most of the secondary villains among the members of the Hand reminded me of the supervillains in the comic books I read as a child. On their own they were menacing, but when they gathered together for a big showdown near the end of the book, it was too much to be wholly convincing. The Sheeriles were more interesting villains and I particularly appreciated the multidimensional Lagar, who had a humanity that he denied.

The Mars (Cerise's family) were colorful and lively. They were distinct from one another and I had no trouble telling them apart and remembering who each of them was, which is impressive since there were so many of them.

William's desperate need to be loved and accepted was so intense that at times it seemed a little over-the-top, but it was understandable given how barren his childhood had been, and it made me feel for him. Cerise was so attracted to William that I wondered why the women if the Broken and the other part of the Edge hadn't been, or if they had been but William simply didn't notice because he didn't believe anyone could want him.

Cerise was a wonderful heroine, strong, intelligent and responsible. I loved that she could still be smart alecky with Williams despite all the pressure she was under, and I especially loved the way she struggled with the difficulties of leading her family. Even when she fell apart on the inside, she knew she couldn't show it on the outside, lest her authority be challenged at a crucial time.

The attraction between Cerise and William was potent and the fact that their lives were in danger made me root for them as a couple even more. I wanted them to find some happiness in the midst of all the danger, and I was glad for them when they did.

In the last third of the book, a lot of attention is given to the magical item Spider is bent on acquiring, and to the history of this thing. This came up just as things were heating up between Cerise and William, and romance-lover that I am, I wanted more focus on their relationship and less on the history of this magical item.

The final chapter and the epilogue have a very different feel from the rest of the story, and as a result, this book isn't as cohesive as On the Edge. The last conflict that came between William and Cerise near the very end of the book felt contrived to me. There is also a plot thread that is left unresolved. To me this was on the one hand this was somewhat dissatisfying, but on the other, encouraging, since I'm hoping for more books in this series.

Though it wasn't a perfect book, Bayou Moon was highly entertaining. I look forward to the next Edge-set book, and my grade for this one is a B+.

Sincerely,

Janine Ballard

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony|

I would have never read this book if Angela James hadn’t recommended it to me.   It is published by ACE and while I love some ACE authors like Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews, I associate the line with more straight up urban fantasy, fantasy and science fiction than any kind of romance.   However, Angie told me two things about this book that made me start reading: 1) this is a romance and 2) even though it appears to be the start of a series, the entirety of the romance is contained in this one book.   I was all in.

Miranda Grey is a musician and one day she figured out that she could project a particular emotion and affect those around her. She was playing a sad song on her guitar at a local cafe and suddenly everyone around her was weeping.   The next day she went to another coffee shop and played a happy song but thought sad thoughts and everyone weeped again.   Heady with her sudden ability to control the emotions of those around her, Miranda began influencing larger and larger crowds with her music obtaining a regular gig and inciting interest with record people.

As she used her gift more frequently, she began to open herself up and while she could impose her will on people, she was also vulnerable to their emotions.   She became a receptacle of thought and feeling for those who surrounded her until she could barely function in public.   Her dingy apartment became a haven of silence for her, an escape from the pressing unconscious demands of those around her.

One night, stumbling home from a gig, Miranda stops at a convenience store and someone sweeps up behind her without her sensing him. This startles her and she turns to look at him and finds him to be deafeningly silent. The he is David Solomon, Prime of the southern territories and a vampire.   He’s intrigued by Miranda because he senses in her a great gift.   After another gig, he follows her home but is called away to attend to an emergency and Miranda is gang raped.   Toward of the end of the gang rape, she begins to get angry and pushes her emotions out and kills the men with her mind. She’s badly injured though and when David Solomon returns he finds her lying there.

I found the insertion of the rape scene to be almost gratuitous and here is why. In nearly every UF novel I have read other than the Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniel’s series, the female protagonist has suffered a rape.   It is as if surviving a rape is a condition predicate to being a UF heroine.   The only thing that I could see the rape scene serving in this story was a catalyst for Miranda to realize she could use her power offensively.   It did not provide any impediment to a relationship for her and David.   And it wasn’t as if Miranda wasn’t nearing total broken status without the rape.   She was already well on her way to being place in a mental hospital like her mother had before her.   That said, the gang rape see, while graphic and violent was short and the story does not dwell on it.   (In otherwords, I paying for more attention to this issue in the review than the story does).

David Solomon is Prime, one of the 27 rulers of the shadow world comprised of vampires. He wears a Signet, a jewel that signifies his position as Prime. The Signet was created by some power stronger than the vampires and it accepts only certain people as Prime. If the Signet doesn’t light up for you, you can’t be Prime. Most Primes have a Queen, a partner that is picked for them by the Signet. (Cue fated mate music). David has been prime for 15 years and has no Queen. Some Primes never find their Queen and the burden of being Prime with no balance can lead to a precarious situation so everyone around him hopes he finds a Queen, or a least a lover.   One of the more delightful characters in the story is Faith, who is David’s number two in command, but number three on the power chain.   Number two is open, she tells Miranda, awaiting the Queen.

David takes broken Miranda to Haven, the Austin vampire home, and begins to nurse her back to health. He also tells her about the vampires, her gift, and helps her to learn to shield. Over time, they begin to fall in love with each other but she’s not a vampire and his rule over the Southern territories is being challenged by a rogue group who are killing humans, his own people, and tying Miranda to him would place her in danger.

When she is sufficiently healed, David returns Miranda to the city hoping that this will keep her safe.   Implicit in David’s promise when he leaves her is that he will come when it is safe for them to be together.   In true romance fashion, they long for each other from a distance.

David is a bit of a MarySue. He’s brilliant, powerful, makes all sorts of cool techie gadgets for the underworld.   Part of David’s success is his ability to communicate with his vampires and to track their movements. I found it a little incredible that he had time to invent all these gadgets as well as serve as a lieutenant and then a rule in his own right.

I liked Miranda quite a bit.   I never felt that she was a victim, even when she was.   She was strong without being stupid on her power.   The two of them were a good match.   There is a strong world building element even though I didn’t comment much on it in the review. It was good, believable. I thought the suspense was believable. I liked the way David’s anxiety as leader was portrayed. He felt the weight of the Signet often and wished, from time to time, to return to the days of just being a lieutenant, carrying out the orders instead of making them. I loved Miranda’s affinity for music which I originally thought was going to be twee. Love it when my expectations are turned on their head.   While this might be marketed as a UF, it’s a straight up romance.   Fated mates and all.   B

Best regards,

Jane

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony

PS Apparently Sylvan is a fan fiction writer or was and that some of this story may have appeared in the annals of Vampire Diary fan fiction but I haven’t read any VD work and wouldn’t know fan fiction from original fiction and thus this appeared to be all new to me.

Sony has always manufactured a beautiful feeling product and I don’t doubt that these feel great.   At $179, though, I think the Kindle is a much better deal particularly because the $139 one comes with the same screen (although no touch) and wifi connectivity.   Even the nook at $149 comes with wifi and a small touchscreen.

*****

Borders has cut the prices of the Kobo and Aluretek readers.   The Kobo is now $129 and the Aluretek is $99.   The Kobo at $129 is too high because it lacks any kind of connectivity, has content issues (not enough content compared to BN and Kindle), and has much lower refresh.

Borders is also going to sell Build a Bear accessories in its children’s section.   BN has a large assortment of toys and stuffed animals as well.

*****

After several quarters of struggle, Random House has seemingly turned its ship around with the help of sales by Stieg Larsson.   Digital is also growing.

"In the past half year we have really embraced digital transition throughout our companies, replacing anxieties about the format with forward thinking and with well-executed action," Dohle said with Random on track to generate e-book sales of over $100 million (which will roughly be about 5% of worldwide sales). The majority of sales have come in the U.S., but the U.K. and Germany have also seen good gains. E-book publishing operations will soon start in Latin America and Spain.

*****

Michelle sent me this link to an Amazon discussion regarding the bleeding of paranormal romance into urban fantasy.   What I think is interesting is how proprietary readers are of their favorite genres and how much they dislike any “mislabeling.”   I am the same way for romance.   Some of these readers really dislike romance (which is perfectly fine) but I thought reading the thought processes of other readers was interesting.

*****

Sarah Rees Brennan, author of the highly recommended Demon Lexicon books, talks about why she doesn’t write negative reviews.   For various reasons from not wanting to unintentionally hurt someone’s feelings to understanding that her viewpoint might not be totally objective, Brennan talks about the books she loves but understands and appreciates those that write the negative reviews. Reviews, she concludes are primarily for readers.   (I agree!).