ISBN: 9780441018369
I purchased this book.
Mercy Thompson book 3
This review contains spoilers for earlier books in the series.
Last time, Mercy was kidnapped, magically drugged and brutally raped. Bone Crossed picks up only a week later with Mercy still struggling to deal with her trauma, her newly exposed feelings for pack alpha Adam and now with area vampire queen Marsilia, who knows Mercy killed one of her own, decidedly pissed off at her. Though Mercy knows little of her own kind, being the only skinwalker (natural coyote shifter rather than an attack survivor like most other weres) currently known of, Marsilia knows what the walkers are, having been part of the Frontier-Era war between walker natives and European vampires.
Apparently nothing can kill vampires like a walker, so decades ago the vampires eradicated them. Once willing to let Mercy live as long as she wasn’t killing vampires and she remained useful, Marsillia now has declared war on Mercy, because Mercy was the one who fouled up Marsilia’s plans to make more demon-possessed vampires. But Mercy’s new position in the pack as Adam’s mate complicates things, so instead of attacking Mercy directly Marsilia goes after her friends and allies.
When Stefan, Mercy’s friend and Marsilia’s vampire, shows up, near dead and nearly mad with hunger Mercy is sure Marsilia sent him to kill her. Struggling to fight panic attacks and trying to form a healthy relationship with people around her Mercy also finds herself having to face down people who not only want to victimize her again, but who are willing to use her’s friend to re-victimize her.
Bone Crossed is full of emotional realism, even if it’s also full of vampires, fairies, ghosts and shape shifters. Characters who were already real before now deepen from fleshy and familiar to true friends of readers traveling with them.
The emotional turmoil is also balanced with action, manipulation and a complicated enough plot to prevent the book from coming off as sheer emotional angst over past events. Mercy is the definition of the plucky survivor, tough, but not immortal, snarky and defiant, but not suffering from Mary Sue Syndrome.
Bone Crossed is a good read, definitely not the place in the series to start, but a satisfying addition to the series. This series continues to deliver, creating a more complex world, but not one muddled by world rules violations, or mid stream changes in style or personality. Bone Crossed will both sate readers and keep them looking for more.
25
Feb
Yasmin Stoker is a tour guide in one of the most haunted fictional cities ever. She’s also a wraith, an undead creature who feeds off the life of revenants — that is mindless, murderous newly-risen vampires. Nicomedes, a blind, mad Lich Lord and undead ruler of the city, orders Yasmin to derail a PI’s investigation into a series of murders of young girls. Yasmin has no choice but to obey, but the strange appearance of one of victims, prowling the streets on hunts of her own, takes Yasmin on an adventure to find the killer, which might just unbalance the current power system and let loose a horde of demons on the city….
Full Review at DarkScribeMagazine.com
ISBN: 9781439167618
I was given this book to review.
Book three in the Megan Chase series finds Megan, human ruler of a demon clan and psychiatrist, in more trouble. This time Megan is preparing for a big time demon meeting, where a cluster of inhuman beings will try to force her into performing a ceremony that would make her a full demon. It doesn’t help that an FBI agent arrives at her office, offering immunity if she’ll just testify against the other demons (most of whom run various illegal cartels, not to mention they all seem to attract bodies in large quantities), which includes Megan’s rather serious boyfriend, fire demon Greyson Dante.
Megan finds unexpected pressure put on her relationship as the meeting starts, not from the FBI, but from the realization that if she is to have any future with him she will have to become a demon, or let him go forever. Balancing her wants against her needs, and the needs of her clan of “personal demons” is hard enough without the appearance of an angel, who is most definitely trying to kill her. Now Megan must find out who sent the angel, defeat it, decide whether she values her humanity or Greyson more and most importantly: Survive.
Demon Possessed is fast, a little confused at the beginning as all the threads present themselves but before they come together as one related plot. Megan is a bold urban fantasy heroine, who unlike others doesn’t seem to be opposed to being rescued, married, and playing a female-oriented role, she just doesn’t want to lose herself to other peoples’ demands on her. As emotional as the previous book, Demon Inside, but focusing on Megan’s future rather than her past, Demon Possessed is at times hard to stomach due to intensity of emotion, not intensity of graphic violence. But it’s a good read, and a sad farewell to Megan and Greyson and their family, as this is the last anticipated book in the series.
ISBN: 9780373210039
I borrowed this book.
Kaylee is a bean sidhe (read “banshee”), a herald of death, though she learns this on the edge of a mental breakdown over her mysterious panic attacks that come when she is close to someone who is about to die. If it wasn’t for class hottie Nash, she would still think she’s crazy, since even though they know her secret her guardians, her aunt and uncle, refuse to tell her anything, and in fact, once locked her up in a mental hospital to try to “help” her.
But something is happening around Kaylee. The people around her seem to be dying, before their time and with no cause at all. When whatever is poaching souls begins to target Kaylee’s friends she and Nash must act to save the people who death is coming for, long before their time.
The two most stand out elements of this book from other YA novels is 1) no vampires and 2) while the adults and teens have issues, none are abusive or negative at their core. In fact, for a refreshing change, Kaylee’s family is (for the most part, there is teen rivalry, but it’s not past “mean”) loving, supportive and caring, it’s the plot that forces her to step up and act instead of letting the adults handle things.
My Soul to Take is simultaneously morbid and beautiful, balancing the dark subject matter without being crushing or nihilistic. In fact, family is a strong theme of this story, making it an excellent book for teen readers’ collections.
While the book does seem slow at times, it builds a textured web of character and world support for the story, setting this series up for a rich future life. For curious readers Vincent has a free prequel story available, My Soul to Lose, on her webpage.
31
Dec
ISBN: 978-0345512093
I requested this book from the author.
Jessie Shimmer is an apprentice wizard who wants nothing more than to spend a pleasant afternoon with her lover and Master, Cooper. Instead their spell to summon rain goes wrong and Cooper vanishes, leaving Jessie alone in a park suddenly torn apart by magic. Despite being sealed off and left to die by the other magic users of the city, Jessie defeats the demon that came through the tear that took Cooper, taking severe damage herself.
When she wakes in the home of Mother Karen, her friend and a healer things only get worse, for the magical ruler of the city wants Jessie silenced and Cooper to remain gone, permanently. With Mr. Jordan trying to crush her will and her desire to see Cooper back safely in her arms Jessie must risk losing it all, suffer the guilt of her past that she didn’t even know about and try to save Cooper from his.
Spellbent is a fast paced, hard to put down novel. Somewhere between Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden and Terry Pratchett’s magical sections of Discworld, Snyder takes readers on a ride through strange creatures, powerful magic, true evil and personalized hell dimensions.
Accompanied by her familiar, a sometimes ferret, sometimes something else altogether, and motivated by family and love Jessie is a lead that gets things done. Many urban fantasy novels have begun to display themes of friendship or defying the odds. Snyder gives her characters a familiar dark past, save that the focus is far more on their modern life and current survival than on a constantly circling cycle of dealing with the trauma of their pasts.
A strong, enticing debut for Snyder in urban fantasy, this one is definitely on my list of must reads for the year.
House of Night book 4
ISBN: 9780312379834
I purchased this book.
Do not read this book without having book five ready to dive into immediately after.
By this point the series is literary crack, unputadownable (to use a phrase I hate, but it fits). Zoey Redbird is a chosen of the night goddess Nyx, which means she has powers and will someday become a vampyre. Her friends are all gifted as well, beyond just being marked to become vampyres.
Zoey’s circle is still recovering from last book’s plot of I’m-lying-to-you-to-protect-you, but after a vision from Aphrodite it’s clear that Zoey needs to start leaning on them again, even if evil High Priestess Neferet’s mind reading powers might risk them all in the process.
Newly thrown into the mix are Stark, a vampire Bullseye, who can hit his target every time, even if he doesn’t know what his target is, and Zoey’s Grandmother, pulled into an active role when she finally puts a name and face to the big mysterious evil they are facing. But Stark dies in Zoey’s arms, much like Stevie Rae died in the second book only to be reborn as a red-marked fledgling. Sure that the same is true of Stark, Zoey hatches a plan to intervene and steal Stark from Neferet’s influence.
But something is watching her from the shadows, something that’s angry and growing power and Zoey must find a way to stop it and stop Neferet while protecting her friends and family as well.
I am absolutely as hooked on this series as I was on Buffy. It’s smart, snarky, dark and absolutely engaging. I made the mistake of not having book five sitting ready when I hit the end and it’s a shame, since the Casts have hit a stride born of past world building and past set up launching the characters into fast, readable whirlwind adventures. The House of Night series is poised to become my favorite YA world out there. In short, I humbly await more.
The Outsider series book 1
ISBN: 9780982175682
I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Readers program.
Warning: I am rating this book DNF.
The premise has potential, Livvie is a Soul Catcher, gifted with the power to magically summon demons via painting them then banishing them by burning the painting. She is also a multi-reincarnated soul who is haunted by a soul mate and a demon who refuses to let them be together.
In execution though the book fails on nearly every level. Livvie is a character straight out of addict recovery show, rambling about relatively unimportant things one minute, setting up scenes the next only to ramble some more and finally update the reader on what they missed while she was rambling. It’s like the author and character have teamed up to avoid actually showing the story. Not to mention Livvie’s horrible drug use is more like Tylenol PMs and wine.
Apparently in the first few scenes Livvie dreams of Pig Face, the demon who has been killing herself and her soul mate for countless lives. Instead of burning the painting the painting flies out of Livvie’s hands in a sudden and fortuitous gust of wind. This of course means Pig Face escapes the painting. However the only way I knew that this is what happened, and that it was a major plot event, is because I read other reviews that explained this. These “major events” are written in a style that makes them seem convoluted, utterly unimportant and routine.
Pig Face apparently possesses the body of a man Livvie shows interest in, gains her trust after a few exchanged lines of dialog and leads her outside where he beats her and rapes her. The actual action (not that I’m eager to read that scene) is all off screen and only explained after a chapter break in brief retrospect, much like all the action in this book so far.
Livvie receives aid from her landlords, who, as Livvie is barely conscious, sum up everything that’s happened so far in the book (apparently they are all-knowing NPCs) in explanation to each other. These two go on to call what happened to Livvie “a downer” and explain that they are some sort of soul friends who know all about her, what she is, and who Pig Face and Ian are too. Rather than taking Livvie to a hospital to, you know check for brain damage and internal injuries, they just stitch her up themselves in their spare bedroom.
The hot mess of a plot continues to ramble on, with more actual on screen scenes, that don’t make much more sense, until about fifty pages in when Pig Face attacks Livvie again (in a police station, with a bunch of cops nearby, where they were accusing her of killing a guy she worked with, who killed himself in public, and who had no other link to her). Only this time Livvie calls to Ian (who I’m assuming is haunting her) for help and Ian ends up possessing the body Pig Face raped Livvie with.
I gave up on this book not much after, when more rambling started. I personally despise rape-as-romance plots. No amount of this style of writing or these flat characters was going to redeem this book for me, especially if it continued to spend the next two hundred pages alternating between “Livvie is crazy”, “Pig Face is brutally and gorily attacking everyone she’s ever known” and “Livvie needs to trust this guy who raped her in the second chapter because they are true loves”.
This book was just too convoluted, with Livvie’s completely unlikable nature, Pig Face’s cruel torturous slaughter for no reason other than he could, and the constant distractions from every ghost, animal, “boon” and spirit talking to Livvie (seriously, two spirits in the form of flies tried to protect her by buzzing around a cop’s head to distract him). The world building is so confusing I never had any solid picture of the characters, the places, or even the rules of the magical world. I cannot recommend this book, because I cannot think of a single avid reader that I know of who would find it an exciting, enjoyable read.
House of Night book 3
ISBN: 9780312360304
I purchased this book.
Chosen is the Empire Strikes Back of the Casts’ vampire finishing school series. Previously, Zoe Redbird was marked to become a vampyre, a favored person of the night goddess Nyx. Upon entering the House of Night she discovered an imbalance in the workings of the vampires and realized Nyx had charged her with fixing it. In book one Zoey takes on class queen and total meanie, Aphrodite. In book two Zoe learns that Aphrodite was not even close to the big bad of the series and something worse is going on, claiming fledgelings from the House of Night and turning them into something else.
In this third book Zoe now knows that the high priestess of the House of Night, and Zoe’s personal mentor, Neferet, is somehow behind her best friend’s transformation from an ordinary fledgeling into a full realized–something–with a red crescent mark instead of Nyx’s sapphire mark. But no matter how gifted she is, she is still a fledgeling and she’s facing a fully trained, intelligent and malicious adult whose hands are firmly wrapped around other people and other powers.
In addition, Zoey still is finding herself unable to let her human high school boyfriend go, unsure if it’s because she doesn’t want to let go of her human life, or because he’s the only source she has of fresh blood. When vampyre hottie and school poetry teacher Loren Blake starts making some serious moves on her, Zoey finds herself unable to even think or resist against his charms, despite her already complicated love life.
But she has to keep Loren, the red fledgelings and Stevie Rae secret from her best friends, risking their rage, because Neferet’s mind reading powers (which don’t work on Zoey) could put them all in danger. The only person Zoey has to talk to, the only other person immune to Neferet’s mind reading, is Aphrodite, who has been publicly humiliated and abandoned Nyx—according to Neferet. Zoey’s sudden trust of Aphrodite sits just as badly with her friends, prepping the House of Night crew for a show down that’s less magic and fighting and more tempers and ill-will.
Despite the amount of emotional turmoil in this book it manages to avoid being needless high drama. Also missing is the borderline preachiness some readers have found in previous installments of the series. The Casts keep a balance between the elements introduced previously in the series; Zoey’s family troubles, the mystery of the red fledglings, Neferet’s bipolar influences, Zoey’s struggles with her love life, and the battles of high school themselves; and still manage to move the overall plot forward..
If you haven’t read the series before, don’t start here because by this book readers should be well entrenched in the series to understand the importance of the climax and ending. It also helps, since book four is already available if you grab that one as well for a continuous flow of the overall storyline. Again, this is a fabulous dark urban fantasy series for readers who want dangerous and complex, but aren’t ready for the sexual and violent content of more adult series on shelves today.