Best New Author

Kevin Hearne!  What a pleasant surprise.  In a sea of ‘me too’ UF/paranormal books, along comes an author with a lead character that’s a 2,000+ year old Druid that looks like a 20-something hippie and runs a bookstore herb shop in Tempe, AZ.  And even better, his very amusing sidekick is an Irish wolfhound that he’s taught to speak mentally with him.   Hounded, Hexed, and Hammered make it as the best first 3 books I’ve read in a long time.  Engaging, amusing, exciting well told tales.  YEAH!!!!!!!   The fourth book is on order!

Worst Mystery in a Series

Smokin’ Seventeen by Janet Evanovich.  Stick a fork in it, this series was toast awhile back, but this entry was a complete disgrace.  Whole paragraphs came from previous books and there wasn’t an original thought in 300 slight pages.  The whole Morelli/Steph/Ranger thing is took a twist that was insulting to the characters and fans alike.  Poor plot, worse concept, and a total waste of money and time.

Best Action/Thriller Series Division

Kage: The Shadow (A Connor Burke Novel) by – John Donohue is an unexpected choice in a year when Barry Eisler brought back his brilliant John Rain character.  Sentiment aside, Donohue just wrote a better book.

Runner Up: Buried Secrets (Nick Heller, Bk 2) by Joseph Finder – A relentless thriller that combined multiple plot twists and it’s fair share of not quite credible moments, but held up well overall.

Biggest Disappointment – tie:  Soft Target by Stephan Hunter – Wow, what a letdown!  This lame story had nowhere to go from the outset and generated no real tension or surprises.   It’s only positive was it was short.

Bad Blood (Virgil Flowers) by John Sanford – What a predictable bit of tripe this was.  Sanford relied on the shock value of incest to cover an otherwise nearly plotless book.  Waste of time and money.

Best Entry in Ongoing Series – Paranormal/UF

The Hour of Dust and Ashes (Charlie Madigan, Bk 3) by Kelly Gay  Some authors manage to keep things interesting and write complete stories yet keep an ongoing plot moving without looping endlessly.  Kudos to Ms Gay for her quality work

Runners-up:  One Salt Sea (An October Daye Novel) by Seanan McGuire - This is a series that seems to get better with each book.  McGuire is another author that has produced consistent, quality work.  Brava!

Kill the Dead (A Sandman Slim Novel) by Richard Kadrey – Sandman Slim might have been over hyped in 2010, but Kill the Dead, book 2 in the series, was excellent.

Biggest Disappointment:  The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtney Grimwood – This was one of those books that was just plain annoying.  Despicable people, dumb plot, badly paced and simply incoherent in places.  What a waste, yet hyped by it’s fans.

Best Cozy Mystery

Wow is this a crowded field these days with all kinds of cozies out there.  About the only genre that releases more books per month is romance.  I have to admit I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the bulk of this genre, but there are some exceptions.  I actually find myself with multiple winners in a range of sub-genres.

Traditional Cozy

Ink Flamingos (A Tattoo Shop Mystery) by Karen E Olsen – I love this series.  It’s off beat, well written, interesting and amusing.  Ms Olsen created a terrific character with tattoo artist Dee Carmichael.  Read them all and enjoyed every one of them!

Runner Up:  Death by the Dozen by Jenn McKinlay – Everything a cozy should be, and an amusing behind the scenes look a cooking contest with a group of thinly veiled Food Network characters.  An unexpected pleasure.

Best New Series – tie

Die Buying by Laura DiSilvero – An interesting heroine, ex military police woman with partial disability, and a good story.  An all around out of the ordinary read.

Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly  Another really good read with an ensemble cast and good lead character who works for IRS!!!!!!  Is there a less likely heroine?  It works on every level.

Runners Up: Quickstep to Murder by Ella Barrick – This unlikely candidate was a surprise for me.  Entertaining, with a good mystery and a look into the world of competitive dancing.  Don’t know if the series can hold up, but book one was a good start.

Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick – Set to a lightning tour of ancient Egypt, where nothing is quite what it seems, the book works.  the characters are not as fresh or original as the others, but it’s an Edgar nominee and was a good read.

Paranormal Mystery

Baited by Sue Ann Jaffarian – Vamps that are not warm and cuddly, a couple of humans, and a LOT of dead bodies.  It all added up to a good, if darker than usual, read.

Special Mention:  Ghost a la Mode by Sue Ann Jaffarian – this book was written in 2009, but I read it last year.  It blew away the usual paranormal claptrap that’s swamping the market.  A cozy and a paranormal that’s still an intelligent read.

Best Traditional Mystery

Rogue Island by Bruce de Silva – A first novel by a newsman, this story about corruption and death in Rhode Island was a really good read.

Runner up:  The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton – A brilliant piece of literature and an Edgar winner, but so stylized it’s a challenge at times.

Well Happy 2012 to everyone!  A new year, a fresh batch of books, new authors, undiscovered gems, and yes, disappointments, are all there waiting for us in life and in books.  I sincerely hope everyone has a healthy and prosperous 2012 and you each take the time to enjoy a few good books, whatever your choice of reading might be.

I had a good Christmas visiting family and eating too much.  Now it’s home, football, and books.  Come Tuesday, Amazon will be delivering a PILE! of new release books, mostly paranormal/UF and mystery, but a few brave publishers did release a few just before and after Christmas.  Of course, I did take time to read.

Oh, by the way, the Christmas books I gave – these are comments from those who got them and read them!

Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermes Collection by Kristine Loughran, Cynthia Becker – this is no coffee table book, but the photos are so worth it.  Terrific for anyone interested in unique silver work of the mid-East and nomadic tribes.  Keeper shelf material.

The Iona Sanction by Gary Corby – rated a very good read

The Diamond Frontier by John Wilcox – rated a very good read

Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer – makes your blood boil, so read a bit at a time

The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle,  Scott McKowan – totally worth the money for an excellent quality book and a great gift according to my Holmes fan!  It goes to the ‘keeper shelf’.

Now, what I read…………………

• Title:  Silver-Tongued Devil
  
• Author:  Jaye Wells
• Type:  Paranormal/UF
• Genre:  Sabrina Kane, vampire mage, continues flounder through her life
• Sub-genre:  Maisie redux
• My Grade: C+ (3.3*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99 with discounts available
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores and online
• FTC Disclosure: purchased through an online bookstore

This is a series that’s starting read like a literary treadmill – moving quickly and going nowhere.  The lead character, Sabina Kane seems trapped in a loop of repeat adventures, repeat mistakes, and no character growth, the plot was predictable, and the story arc held only one big surprise.  As for Sabina, well, isn’t it time she gave up the emotional angst of a 23 year old?  She is in her 50′s.  Time to pull on the big girl panties and grow up.  Silver-Tongued Devil‘s biggest downsides:  Sabina still has these stupid knee-jerk, unthinking reactions, too much of what’s happening is merely a weak continuation of the plot of Green-Eyed Demon, the whole roller derby thing was kind of pointless, and the plot telegraphs everything like  some frantic semaphore flag waver.  The upsides: The pacing is good and the story moves quickly, there’s lots of action, the contrived angst is only moderately annoying, the plot has a nice twist near the end, and it seems we might finally make progress in the next installment.

Silver-Tongued Devil starts a few months after the end of Green-Eyed Demon with the rescued Maisie back in NYC and her twin, Sabina, still trying to reconcile with what happened and each other.  Sabina is doing her best to stop hunting humans for blood, and settle in living with Adam Lazarus, her mage lover, and come to terms with her guilt and fear for her twin, Maisie.  Giguhl, her mischief demon, is his usual conniving self and possibly the best character in the series.

Part of  Sabina’s efforts to adjust from the emotionally barren upbringing of her twisted grandmother, Lavinia, is to drink bagged blood rather than hunt humans for food.  But the overwhelming smell of blood draws her to crime scene where a man has been brutally murdered – but without enough blood present given the wounds.  Sabina knows a vampire kill when she sees one.  It soon becomes apparent there is some bigger thing going on and her old lover, vampire mob boss Slade, kind of blackmails her into helping him track the culprit down.

Against a backdrop of tentative peace negotiations between vamps, mages, and fea, and concerns about Maisie’s mental and physical health, Sabina chases a vicious killer and deals with having a secret she should never have kept causing a rift between her and Adam.  The sense of ‘deja vu’ that much of the book evokes and a less than thrilling ending, left a sense of ‘retread’.

Is Silver-Tongued Devil worth $7.99?  Meh.  If you love the series, yes.  You could very likely read Blue-Blooded Vamp, the next book due this summer, without needing this one to keep you current.  Try and get a deep discount or buy used in a few months.

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• Title:  Wicked Circle
  
• Author:  Linda Robertson
• Type:  Paranormal/UF
• Genre:  Persephone Alcmedi series book 5
• Sub-genre:  Seph, Johnny and Menessos tangle with fate and furies
• My Grade: B- (3.7*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $7.99 with discounts available
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores and online
• FTC Disclosure: purchased through an online bookstore

The Persephone Alcmedi series has been one of the most consistent and complex series to come along in awhile.  Wicked Circle might be a weaker entry, but it’s still superior to most of the popular paranormal series.  The one problem with this series is the long time between books.  While this certainly makes for much better books, it can be hard to recall all the various plot elements from the previous installment.

Wicked Circle picks up the story just where Arcane Circle left off.  Eris Alcmedi has removed the spells that locked Johnny’s power as Domme Lupe, but doing seems to have changed him, more than

(I might wish this was my house, but it isn’t!)

Yup, same time every year, it’s Christmas!  For many, it’s all about the latest wiz ding electronic toy or hottest fashion item, but always high on the list in my family was books.  I remember when each Christmas would bring a whole host of coffee table type books, art, archeology, travel, you name it.  I have many books on ancient Egypt that I read more years ago than I care to count!  I have shelves still stuffed with gems on everything from Hopi art and culture to a reprint of Howard Carter’s book on finding Tutankhamen’s Tomb.  By the time I reached my teens and began taking over the kitchen (my mother’s vapor trail lead to the living room sofa and never budged), I was also collecting cookbooks.  Yup, I was a foodie back in the day when The Galloping Gourmet was the forefront of food prep.  We’ve come a long way from Graham Kerr and I’ve kind of surrendered the kitchen duties as much as possible,  but I have all my cookbooks.  Since I never talk about them, and they’ve always been a big part of my life, I figured I share some of my favorites.

DESSERTS

Yes, “Eat Dessert First ……. Life Is So Uncertain” is my motto.  Very often I plan my meal backwards and select the dessert and then decide what to build around the choice.  For Dad, apple pie or apple strudel were always the top of the list and must haves for Christmas.  For Mom, mince pie and pumpkin pie.  I learned to tolerate mince pie, but I’ll never be a fan.  As for pumpkin pie, well I tried a whole range of recipes for that and still like pumpkin spice cake better.  I recommend Ina Garten’s Pumpkin Spice Roulade.  Better than pie, but a bit tougher to make.

Of course, Christmas wasn’t Christmas without cookies.  I’d start after Thanksgiving and bake most every weekend till the holiday.  Cream cheese spritz cookies were always carefully decorated with colored sugar and or glaceed cherries – red and green never found in nature, just in chemicals.  The favorites in our house were – Oatmeal Crunchies, a Toll House kind of cookie made with rolled oats, chopped walnuts and lots and lots of chocolate chips, rugelach – the classic made with a pound of sweet butter, a pound of cream cheese, a pound of flour, and 3 oz of sugar then rolled out, brushed with melted sweet butter, sprinkled with sugar mixed with finely chopped nuts, or cut into squares, piped with apricot or raspberry jam then folded like tiny danish, and baked, and finally Thumbprint cookies.  Over the years I made many different desserts, some amazing that can only be made with fruits that are locally fresh, like the blueberry cream deep dish tart that was my aunt’s favorite, others could be made anytime.

If you buy only one dessert cookbook, buy Madia’s Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts.  And don’t be afraid of mixing things up or add things.  I always modify recipes.  Just know what you’re doing with cakes.  Cookies and other things are more forgiving.  And remember, the single most expensive ingredient is your time, so use sweet butter when called for, and quality chocolate.  Otherwise, you might as well buy some supermarket junk.  The Black Velvet Cake is just AMAZING and I brushed the sponge with Frambois and spread raspberry preserves on all the surfaces.  Loved it!  Served it with a raspberry coulis and lots of whipped cream.  Do use the chocolate she recommends.  The brownies are great (I double the recipe, beat it a bit longer,and a cross between and cake and fudge brownie and grease and sugar the pane and cover the top of the baked brownies with sugar as well for a crunchy outside) , love her pumpkin spice cake (I use half melted sweet butter and half oil) and her Raspberry Strawberry Bavarian is idiot proof for non-cooks (I use raspberry Jello and more frozen raspberries than strawberries).

The Main Course

This was always easy with my crew – they hate change.  Really, really hate change.  You can sneak in new stuff, but heaven help you if you take away what they expect!  For us it was prime rib and turkey – two complete sets of vegetables, only common element was mashed potatoes – for Christmas and a whole ham for New Year.   Some years I did try goose, didn’t like it, another year duck, same problem, but always had the prime rib at Christmas.  Since we’d usually just finished eating the damn Thanksgiving turkey, I was given a teeny bit of slack on that.  Mostly, it was the same main course with a lot more in the way of appetizers and stuff.   Since we had all the pies and cakes at Christmas, for New Year I’d make rice pudding and brown sugar shortbread cookies and usually a triple layer lemon cream pie.   And apple pie or strudel.  (You’re detecting a trend here, I’m sure.)

I was able to experiment more with other occasions and enjoyed several good cookbooks:  Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes (out of print but can be found at Alibris) – recipe’s from famous restaurants around the world as well as the Price’s own kitchen(Pineapple Macadamia Nut Bread from the Hotel Hana Maui and Chicken Sweet and Hot, one of their own), and The Romagnolis’ Table (try the stuffed breast of veal and use a good white wine!), and James Beard’s American Cookery.  I have a large selection of cookbooks for regional cuisines all over the world and collected them when I traveled.  I even have one written by a witch in Salem, MA!  Oddly enough, even as I picked up skills over the years, ones that Food Network still teach (not that there was a Food Network for me, dammit!), are in a very odd multi-volume set (12 books) sold way back in the 60′s, The Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery.  Amazing amount of general information on everything from apples that are best for pies, to some good quick and easy foods.  Educational about ingredients in a way most cookbooks of the time were not.  Yes, I still have them.  Lots of techniques and some good ideas and very well illustrated with color photos.

Food and Wine magazine has given me some of the family favorites.  I have never made a dish that’s been so widely liked as Steak Budapest, a little Gem I picked up there.  It’s best made with good, thick cut chuck roast and like most stewed meat, must sit several days before eating.  It smells like hell when it’s cooking – and you MUST buy REAL Hungarian paprika – both sweet and hot – and get good red wine (I use an Italian or a California burgundy) or you’ll wast your time.  Not expensive to make, but all ages just lap it up and fight over the sauce with my garlic bread.  I also tried a recipe for Blueberry tart, that ended up modifying heavily.  Amazing summer dessert and a July 4th ‘must make’ along with my tri-color macaroni and shrimp salad.

Appetizers

If desserts were kind of my specialty, and main courses were often limited by my family, appetizers were where I could experiment even on my relatives.  I mean really, there were so many choices, who cares if you didn’t like some?  I could play with puff pastry and phyllo to my heart’s content.  If the marinades and sauces turned out well, they were sometimes moved up to a starring role in the Main Course.  I never did find a book that taught me a lot about appetizers.  Unlike national or regional cuisines, appetizers kind of grew up as step-children of all countries.  They could fun, or spicy, or just plain in simple like fried zucchini with honey mustard (my aunt’s favorite), or a baked brie with sliced almonds and sweet butter (that got old), or classics like spanakopita (I think my whole family liked these, though they swore they wouldn’t).

Want to try a marinade?  A new sauce?  Use it in your appetizers.  If it doesn’t work, that’s no big loss.  It’s a great way to try things with chicken and seafood.  Want to try shrimp and fish Provencal?  This is the place.  It’s a fast dish and very tasty.  Going for a classic?  Coquille St Jacques is easy.  Easier still – how about shrimp or crab stuffed avocados?  Just buy the shrimp and or crab cooked and cleaned the whip it is up.  Keep in mind, like New England Lobster rolls, this is not about balancing a long list of complicated ingredients, it just a few things that need to be the freshest and highest quality available.  Simple food leaves a cook with nowhere to run.  In that way, it can be harder to make simple things than complex ones.

Sauces take awhile to learn, and unless you’re a master chef, you’ll never be perfect.  Guess what, unless you’ve got Mario Batali or Bobby Flay in the family, relax.  And if you don’t like cooking, that’s ok too.  I’m past the elaborate meal phase and back to simple and good.  A good set of knives, quality pots and pans are a lot more important than acres of granite counter-tops and a pot filler behind your giant 8 burner stove.  And nothing ever replaces quality ingredients.  So buy the best – and that’s not always the most expensive.  And childhood favorites can bring back memories.  My brother and I make a point of getting pitted dates, stuffing them with good quality peanut butter, then rolling them in sugar.  We learned to make these in kindergarten (that would be about the same time T-rex was running around).  What can I say, I still like them!

A table is where the family gets together, sometimes, not often enough.  It doesn’t have to be exotic or elaborate – Black Velvet cake took me two days, while Raspberry Strawberry Bavarian takes 15 minutes and many like the Bavarian better! – just good.  But most of all, whether it’s prime rib or meatloaf, take time and enjoy your family’s and make eating a celebration of being together.

So to all of you- Merry Christmas!!!!! Enjoy your holidays and may you not gain an ounce no matter how much chocolate you eat!

Books I’m giving this year:

Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermes Collection by Kristine Loughran, Cynthia Becker

The Iona Sanction by Gary Corby

The Diamond Frontier by John Wilcox

Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer

The Adventures and Memoirs od Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle,  Scott McKowan

and a selection of books for second graders that were needed at a school in the  the mid-west.

Well, between work, reading, and football, life has been busy – yet somehow I seem to have little to show for it.  Except a pile of finished books.  Honestly, I am such a book hog.  It’s amazing how quickly time passes these days.  First days seem to fly by, then weeks, and before I know it, Christmas is almost here.  So dressed in my holiday best, here are some very short reviews on a few of the books I’ve plowed through.

• Title:  The Ideal Man
  
• Author:  Julie Garwood
• Type:  Romantic Suspense
• Genre:  Lightweight romance with some suspense and weird family
• Sub-genre:  Brilliant woman doctor with stalker meets hunky FBI agent and chasing a killer arms dealer
• My Grade: C- (2.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7-17 (used to new)
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores, online, and used
• FTC Disclosure: rec’d through an online book swap site

Julie Garwood made her writing bones with Regency romance novels with unusual, plucky heroines.  The settings have changed with the clothes and technology, but the plots remain the same.  Competent, intelligent woman meets big, protective man who wants to save her ….. and basically just wants her.  Light on plot, Garwood, as always, uses characters rather than research to drive her stories.  The results are pretty predictable, basically, you read one Garwood book, you’ve read them all.

As a child, Ellie Sullivan was a prodigy that ended up stalked and nearly killed by the son of a wealthy couple who managed to get him off of attempted murder and declared insane.  After the last time he assaulted her and left her for dead in a shallow grave, Ellie’s parents sent her to live with people in the mid-west to keep her safe while they and her twin sisters stayed back in her hometown.  (I know, why didn’t the whole family go, huh?)  Anyway, she goes from prodigy to crime victim, to being raised by caring strangers who became her surrogate parents, to brilliant trauma surgeon.   Nearly finished with her fellowship, she plans to return home to Winston Falls, SC for her sister’s wedding to Ellie’s ex-fiance. A trip she just isn’t looking forward to for multiple reasons.

Having just ended a brutal shift in the ER, Ellie goes for a run and ends up witnessing the shooting of an FBI agent and then saving his life, first by stabilizing him in the park and then by doing his surgery.  Max Daniels can’t figure out why some high school kid is in the park helping his partner, but He quickly adjusts his dismissive opinion of Ellie.  His interest isn’t entirely professional, and when Ellie becomes the target of a contract killer, he sticks around to protect her.

Back in Winston Falls, things fall apart rapidly between Ellie and her clueless mother.  She becomes a target for both her old crazy stalker and a second hired killer out to eliminate a witness.

Sounds better than it reads.  My rating is C- (2.8*) and a book that can easily be missed.  It’s a way to pass a couple of hours if you get it free.

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• Title:  It’s All Greek to Me
  
• Author:  Katie MacAlister
• Type:  Contemporary Romance
• Genre:  Lightweight romance with some a completely silly ploy
• Sub-genre:  American author meets Greek billionaire and instant attraction
• My Grade: D+ to C- (2.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores, online
• FTC Purchased from an online bookstore

Here’s a book determined to make you laugh, despite the improbable lightweight plot, a elements that will absolutely enrage some – with just cause.  Katie MacAlister is known for her light, frothy, humorous romances.  She isn’t deep, angsty, or especially innovative.  That’s OK if fluff is nice break break from the blood, gore, and intensity of action thrillers, serial killing mysteries, and bloody urban fantasy.  Who wants grim around Christmas?  That said, Ms MacAlister made two horrible missteps with her plot, missteps that frankly should never have happened as they did.

The first big plot problem is in the opening pages where our 30-something heroine is fetched to the scene of a hysterical, sobbing 18 year old woman, Cyndi, that accuses the younger brother of the billionaire host of sexual assault.  OK – what’s wrong with this??????  Start by playing this for laughs and making the young woman an absolute idiot – not to mention the ‘victim’s’ real issue is the brother decided he didn’t want her and stopped his so called assault.  The other issue here is the over-the-top farce this turns into with Elegantine ‘Harry’ Knight and Iakovos Papaioannou squaring off while the Cyndi continues her histrionics. The story, reiterated several times, is Cyndi decided Theo was sending her ‘signals’ he wanted her, so she stripped to the buff and climbed in his bed.   Finding a naked willing female in his bed, he starts taking advantage, then stops and orders her out.  Cue her hysterics.

First, this is no place for humor, accusing a person of sexual assault is a serious issue, and the idiot girl is absolved of everything because ‘she’s just turned 18′.  Hello – 18 year olds vote, are given uniforms, guns and trained to kill by the military, and are legally ADULTS.  Not only is this tasteless, it’s sure to make any real assault survivor, or any man accused of something he didn’t do, see red.  It’s just wrong on every level.  It’s also a poor way to have a supposedly mature woman behave and a nasty way to introduce romantic partners.  I read the scenes and was confused by the way everyone was behaving and indulging a drama queen and how this led to Harry and Iakovos landing in bed together.  It made zero sense.

The other issue is the way Theo’s drinking is handled – actually, his alcoholism – and his REAL attempted assault on Harry are glossed over.  Theo is a nasty drunk and aside from banishing him to a project in Brazil, his much older brother is in a kind of denial, though he is smart enough to know a drunk cannot be saved until they WANT to be saved.  Their father was an alcoholic, so he knows that much by experience.  That said, the handing of the Theo character was just wrong.  The last big plot error was Harry’s habit of punching people, which also got out of hand as a plot device and became so not funny.

For the romance part, well there was a lot of sharp, funny dialogue, but the whole thing was just so damn preposterous, it was silly.  Yes, there were some laugh out loud moments, but they couldn’t hide the book’s fundamental flaws.  The polarizing effects of the opening chapter remind of the far better written Whitney, My Love – known to many as ‘Witless, My Love’-  featuring the worst alpha-hole in romantic fiction and a REAL rapist/sexual abuser.  People love/hate that book.  It’s All Greek to Me is too fluffy to manage the enduring feat of Judith McNaught’s classic, but it is doomed to wildly opposing reviews depending on readers sensitivity to the issues so blithely disposed of in the plot, or more accurately, the lack of coherent plot.

Is It’s All Greek to Me worth $7.99?  Not really.  If you set aside the opening, the body of the book is just off track.  It reads like individual stage sets strung together by fairy floss and just lacks heart and heat.  Not to mention common sense.  My Grade is D+ to C- (2.5*).  Be aware, that many will buy the fantasy and enjoy humor enough to give the book a much better rating.

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• Title:  Death By the Dozen
  
• Author:  Jenn McKinlay
• Type:  Cozy mystery
• Genre:  Bakers in Scottsdale keep dealing with bodies
• Sub-genre:  Scottsdale food fest is deadly for one judge
• My Grade: B+ to A- (4.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 80,000+ $6.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores, online
• FTC Purchased from an online bookstore

I can admit I was wrong on this one, so mea culpa.  I hesitated to try this series.  OK, I more than hesitated.  I wrote it off as one of those annoying cozy clones that drive me nuts.  It isn’t.  It’s clever, well written and has interesting plot.

Melanie ‘Mel’ Cooper, a classically trained chef, has partnered with childhood friend Angie DeLaura to own and operate a cupcake bakery in Old Town Scottsdale – one of my favorite spots in the Phoenix area.  They are entering the Scottsdale Food Festival and have been practicing including ‘secret ingredients’ from parsnips to chili peppers into innovative desserts.  Arch rival, and frequent winner, Olivia Pluckett, is determine to stop them.  She goes as far as to physically trying to block them from entering the office where they are almost late for the deadline to enter.

This year the festival is making it as a Food Network special and the host is a thinly disguised Guy Fieri.  Overloaded with festival prep and business, Mel calls the technical high school for an intern.  The young man to help out, and despite appearances, he is a gem.  But Mel is even more thrilled when her mentor and favorite chef instructor from her culinary school days, Vic Marzotta, shows up in her bakery early one morning, samples her parsnip dessert, correctly identifies the ‘secret ingredient’ and tells her he’ll be one of the judges.  She thought he was in India filming his Food Network show!  But Vic isn’t alone, he a very young ‘assistant’ with him, and Mel is both shocked and embarrassed by it, especially when Vic’s wife/manager walks in to remind him he’s late for important appointment.

The first day of the dessert contest comes and Mel and Angie are shocked by Vic’s absence from the judging table.  Then Vic is found by a bartender getting ice, inside a freezer truck, very, very dead.  When Angie is poisoned, Mell is ready to quit the festival, but with the help of her talented intern, and Angie’s brothers (the oldest, a DA is her boyfriend), they carry on.  The ending is really entertaining and I can only hope the real Guy Fieri is as personable as his fictional clone.

The plot is well developed and the characters engaging.  I really enjoyed the mystery, and Dame Agatha would have been happy to see Miss Marple’s modern counterparts are still figuring things out and finding the basic truths in life.  There are even recipes at the back, something of a tradition in foodie mysteries.  That is, unless you’re Rex Stout.

Is Death by the Dozen worth $6.99?  YES!  Go buy and enjoy this one.  I’m already getting one of her earlier ones through a book swapping site, it was that good!

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• Title:  Shaedes of Gray
  
• Author: Amanda Bonilla
• Type:  Urban Fantasy
• Genre:  An assassin who moves through shadows
• Sub-genre:  A woman twice abused and lied to transforms yet again with her strength and love
• My Grade: B (4.0*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores, online
• FTC Purchased from an online bookstore

A first novel by author Amanda Bonilla is an interesting read.  This appears to have struck a nerve for several readers on Amazon, I’m just not sure why, though they seemed to find the heroine reprehensible.  I certainly didn’t.

Darian was a woman of her times in the late 1800′s.  At 21, she married a doctor who seemed to be just what she wanted, a man to love and cherish her.  Instead, he beat her constantly because of his frustrated sexual desires (he was gay at a time such men were shunned) and her parents were indifferent to plight.  Never taught to defend herself, she just lost hope and withdrew into herself, only to be ‘saved’ by Azriel – a mysterious, handsome man her husband brought home to dinner, only to have him concentrate on Darian.  Azriel leaps to her defense, kills her husband and takes her away.  They lived together and Azriel made a kind of living as an assassin.  When he disappears, leaving Darian without skills to take care of herself, she takes up where he left off and becomes assassin herself.

Over the years, Darian has learned to live alone, unwilling to allow another into life and assuming no others of her own kind existed.  Then came Tyler.  He arranged her ‘business’ matters.  Handsome, charming, and oddly comforting to have around, she dismisses him as human, a word that has become a derogatory term to her as it holds all those fragile, frail things she used to be over 100 years ago.  But Ty ignores her jibes and she is unnerved by him in a way that makes her lash out, trying time and again to drive him away.  It’s how she’s learned to protect herself from pain of being abandoned and betrayed again, as she is sure she will be.

But everything she thinks is true comes crashing down when she learns that she is far from the only one of her kind – and there are many other supernatural creatures out there as well.  Alone so long, thinking she always would be, she’s furious at yet another deceit.  Yet they still keep coming.  A cycle if lies and half truths.  Until the one enduring truth is revealed.

As a reader of UF, action thrillers featuring assassins, and books with ambiguous heroes, I found this a really good read.  Not a romantic paranormal, as so many are today, so if that’s what you want, give this a miss.  It’s a walk on the darker side where morality is gray and survival is the best outcome.  There was some level of ‘ick’ with Xander’s interest in Darian – I found that kind of creepy and wrong on a certain level for several reasons, but mostly because he was a using SOB.  Darian is not a warm and lovable heroine, but I found her character believable and liked her growth.

Was Shaedes of Gray worth $7.99?  Yes.  If you like the harder UF, give this a try.  If you’re looking for the next Cat and Bones series, you might want to give it a miss.  It will not appeal to you.  I have the next book in the series on pre-order.

• Title:  The Detachment
  
• Author:  Barry Eisler
• Type:  Action thriller
• Genre:  John Rain and Dox get drawn into another adventure
• Sub-genre:  Manipulation, deception, and the impossible is all too plausible
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $8.25 to$12
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores and online
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from an online book seller

The best news, John Rain, one of the BEST characters developed by any author in the past decade, is finally back.  So too is his Dox, his sniper friend and sometimes partner.  Barry Eisler had lost much of the edge that appealed to me with his two Ben Treven books, both of which I found disappointing.  He seems to recapture much of his old magic in The Detachment, though the plot is more obvious than those in his far more twisty and better written early books, and Col ‘Hort’ Horton is not in any way an admirable, or fundamentally honorable person.

Rain has broken up with his girlfriend and Mossad operative, Dehlia.  She refused to leave intelligence agency and he found he could not live with her job – or maybe he was just bored.  As always, he returned to Tokyo, living quietly and going just one place he might be associated with – the Kodokon.  He notices two Americans watching from the stands.  When he catches the them quickly checking the next night, he knows he’s been found.  His response is classic Rain – he leads there where they want to go, lulls them and then kills them both.

But it was a setup and the men pawns that were deliberately sacrificed to catch Rain on camera and blackmail him into doing a job for Col ‘Hort’ Horton.  In LA Hort tells Rain there’s on oligarchy ready to create domestic terrorism in such a way that suspending the Constitution and granting extraordinary powers to the President and Executive Branch of Government seems the only logical course of action.  He uses the very real slow erosion of rights and privacy that the Patriot Act and various government entities – from ICE to TSA to the NSA have already created as a way to get citizens accustomed to a ‘new reality’.

With less reluctance than the ‘old’ Rain would show, he agrees to assassinate the man Hort claims is ‘the sharp point of the spear’.  (dialogue stolen from the Bourne Supremacy)  The cation moves to Vegas with Dox and Rain in an uneasy alliance with Ben Treven and Larison, a man on edge with a massive grudge against Hort.  With surprisingly little difficulty, Rain gets the job done.  Hort wants another one done – this time in Vienna.  It is both easier and more difficult.  Naturally there is a third, but Hort knows Rain and Dox, no women and no children.   And no way were they going to be involved in killing a Supreme Court Justice.  The whole thing smells.

In the midst of this, Ben Treven wimps out – jeeze is this man really that simple?  It’s why I disliked the character from the start in Inside Out.  He calls Hort and tells him where they’re staying in DC.   As the men talk about the job they just refused, they realize DC is a setup.  Better late than never.  Getting out alive comes first.  Getting even is the price Hort will pay for betraying them.

In fact, the general premise is a tad scary in that it seems very real, but – and it’s a big one – Rain was far less paranoid than usual about Hort and and his true intentions.  Even Rain questions why he was willing to buy Hort’s line late in the story.  There are redundancies in the justification, the kind of error that Eisler would never have committed in his earlier books.  In all, The Detachment came off unpolished and in need of a demanding editor.  The preachy bits gave the reader a sense of being bludgeoned with the author’s personal soapbox rhetoric.  Agree or not, stop beating us up with it.  Hort’s justification for his actions were lame at best and the least believable part of the book.  He’s just despicable.

The story switches seamlessly between Rain’s first person narrative (which is where the story seems to work best) and third person.  It lacked the depth in plot and character that the early Rain books had.   The biggest flaw was trying to make the reader believe that John Rain and Dox would fall for Hort’s story without a LOT of supporting information, or that these two highly experienced operatives would trust him enough to actually come to Washington DC after two killing highly placed government officials.  And trusting a weak link like Treven, who even Rain recognizes as man psychologically unsuited for this work as he needs to justify what he does, is again an idiot.  The action also lacked the edge and intensity that gave his early work, and the prose was less polished and refined, lacking the master touch.  The book felt like John Rain Lite.

Is The Detachment worth the discount price of $8-10?  A qualified yes for all Rain fans.  It was nice to see Rain and Dox back in action, but disappointing that author Barry Eisler didn’t do a better job of it.    Contrasting Rain and Ben Treven, something that Rain does at the end of book as he decides whether or not it would be necessary to kill him for betraying them back in DC, puts the fundamental differences between them in context, but it didn’t make me like Treven and I loathed Hort more than ever.  Sorry, the ‘end justifies the means’ does not wash, especially with the lame justification Eisler gives it – way too many times.

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• Title:  Vamparazzi
  
• Author:  Laura Resnick
• Type:  Contemporary fantasy/urban fantasy
• Genre:  Esther Diamond book 4
• Sub-genre:  Actress in vampire play learns there are real ones
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $7.99; discounts available
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores and online
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from an online book seller

The Esther Diamond series has been up and down and this latest book is an up moment.  Esther has landed a part in The Vamprye, an off Broadway play based on book ‘Vampyre’ written long before Bram Stoker’s more famous Dracula.  The play, however, is a vehicle for self proclaimed vampire and self-promoting fringe celebrity Daemon Ravel.   The play is drawing the kind of hordes of admirers and ‘true believers’ in vampirism, both good and bad.

Esther has the part of Miss Jane Aubrey, the young English miss who unknowingly agrees to marries ‘Lord Ruthven’ and is killed by him on their wedding night.  Things would be great if she didn’t share a dressing room with completely self adsorbed actress, “Mad Rachel’, playing Ianthe, the wardrobe mistress didn’t hate her, Ravel didn’t ‘improvise’ by grabbing various parts of her person, she didn’t become target of anti-vampire activists, and Ravel’s female fans weren’t trying to kill her.  Who knew acting could be so dangerous?  Getting in and out of the theater had become gauntlet she has to run each surrounded by fans dressed like the play’s characters – fans she calls ‘Vamparazzi‘.

The one bright spot in the whole thing, the job filled the time while she waited to see if her part in the TV cop drama, “Dirty Thirty”, would continue.  She and the handsome young actor, Leischneudel Drysdale, who plays her brother, had taken to going to the theater together for protection.  He’s a self effacing young man who hardly seems like an actor at all, untill he’s on the stage, and then he’s excellent.  ‘Mad Rachel’ might be a shrew and an idiot, but even she does well with Ianthe, but Daemon Ravel his a man of limited talent and unlimited ego.  He lives as a ‘vampire’ and claims to drink blood.  And he a LOT of followers who believe he really is a vampire.  When Ester is attacked by a ‘Jane’ – the name given to Ravel’s fans who dress as Miss Jane Aubrey, the character Esther is playing, is found murdered and drained of blood, she finds none other Detective Connor Lopez back in her life.   Esther goes to her friend Max Zadok, a 350 year old magician and antiquarian bookstore owner.  That’s when she learns that there really are vampires, but they live very quietly.

The lively story includes a tale told by Max about how he came to have such issues with Lithuanians.  He calls in help, in this case the ‘proper authorities’ for vampires.    The ending is well done.  Vamparazzi is interesting, amusing, and after Dopplegrangsters, the best of the series.

Is Vamparazzi worth $7.99?  Yes it was.  Laura Resnick seems to be back on track here with a well paced story that’s got some interesting historical fact and fantasy mixed in, along with the largely unknown ‘underground New York City’.

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• Title:  Werewolf in the North Woods
  
• Author:  Vicki Lewis Thompson
• Type:  Paranormal Romance
• Genre:  Human female looks for Sasquatch and finds a werewolf
• Sub-genre:  How can a werewolf ever be happy with a human?
• My Grade: C+ to B- (3.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 80,000+ $7.99; discounts available
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores and online
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from an online book seller

Vicki Lewis Thompson has made a career of writing light romances of mismatched couples, from her Nerd series, to witches, and now werewolves.  They are pleasant, mildly entertaining, very slightly angsty, and some kind of physical threat that’s defeated to evaded with minimal effort, and mostly forgettable – kind of chick flick in print.

Abby Maddox has taken a vacation from her insurance claims adjuster job in Phoenix to go stay with her grandfather in the Pacific northwest.  Grandpa Earl Dooley claims to have seen Bigfoot and has the blurry pictures to prove it.  Now he has become the object of ridicule and high power Dr Roark Wallace has been brought in by her grandpa’s overbearing neighbor, Cameron Gentry, to publicly humiliate him.  Abby and her family want grandad to move to the Phoenix area so he can be around family, but so far he’s refused.  The way the locals are treating him is just making him dig in his heels.  So Abby agrees to hunt for Bigfoot for 1 week to try and find evidence to support his claim.  On her first excursion in the woods, she finds no sign of Bigfoot, but she sees a large, golden wolf.  Thing is, there are no wolves in this part of Oregon.

When Dr Wallace is the speaker at the Rotary luncheon, Abby, a Rotary member, decides to attend.  Instead of the ridicule she expected, Roark Wallace just neatly, scientifically and dispassionately demolishes the myth of Sasquatch.  He makes many of the same arguments that Abby made herself.  Sadly, she can’t even be mad at the handsome man, but neither can she stand seeing her belved grandfather be an object of ridicule.  She asks him to please meet with her grandpa and talk about what he saw.  Roak refuses, but next morning, he does it anyway.  Early Dooley is not at all what he expects, and the guilt he felt about undermining the man gets worse with each minute.  It isn’t helped by the alluring scent of Abby that’s drawing him like the flame of red hair.

Roark has an argument with Gentry about continuing to make Earl sound like a nutcase, but he has to find the Sasquatch and get them relocated.  These rare, gentle creatures need protection, not hoards of myth hunters stumbling around the woods – and possibly finding something far more dangerous, the Gentry pack of werewolves.  He despises the Gentry alpha, so much so he has to leave the mansion to avoid a confrontation with him.  Out at the edge of the property he takes off his clothes and shifts to his wolf form.  He soon learns that Abby was on the edge of the Dooley property that had the perfect overlook onto Gentry land and had taken a series of telephoto pictures of him shifting to wolf.  With a little judicious blackmail, Abby convinces Roark to hunt Bigfoot with her so she can get a picture to show Grandpa Earl was not imaging things and she’d get the old man to sell his land and move and destroy all the photos of Roark.

In the woods, the attraction gets the better of them – and life gets complicated by timid Bigfoot fanatic Donald Smurtz, who becomes a huge hindrance and ends up helping.

The story arc is well paced, the tension between Roark and Abby is well done as is the internal battle Roark wages with himself over his attraction to a human.  The heavy hand of Gentry adds an edge.  Not intense, deep, or laugh out loud fun, just a pleasant read with a decent story.

Is Werewolf of the North Woods worth $7.99?  If you enjoy the Vicki Lewis Thompson style, yes.

I did get an unexpected treat from a friend on Paperback Swap – a hard to find book by author Kris Neri.  Loved it and wish she’d written more in this series.  It’s hard, really, how many good writers never get a chance at a bigger audience.  One did – H.P.Mallory’s Josie Wilkins series got picked up by Bantam and will go mass market early next year with the third book in the series, Witchful Thinking.  I have it on pre-order  at Amazon.  I have a LOT of books on pre-order thanks to their 4-for-3 sale.  Mysteries, paranormal, romance, thrillers, you name it – and I’m anxiously awaiting a number of them, but a few good ones have arrived, so here we go, short and sweet.

• Title:  Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
  
• Author:  H.P. Mallory
• Type:  Paranormal/fantasy
• Genre:  Josie Wilkins Series, Bk 1 – Every little thing you do is magic
• Sub-genre:  Unrest and contentions in the magical underground
• My Grade: B- (3.7*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 80,000+ $11-$12
• Where Available:  Available at select bookstores, online, and used
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from an online book seller

One minute you’re a sort of successful psychic in LA running a psychic shop with your best friend Christa, and than tall dark and handsome walks into your life and turns it upside down.  Rand Balfour is a warlock of considerable years and he, like other magic users, is looking for a witch that had been prophesied.   Much to the everlasting shock of Jolie Wilkins, that’s her.  Initially, all he asks for is a reading, something she’s usually really good at.  And he pays well too.  Then he comes back for a second one.  He’s convinced Jolie is the one he’s looking for and offers her a job.  He needs to know what happened to his client.  They go go to the house and to Jolie’s eternal shock, she doesn’t just raise a ghost, she brings the dead back to life.

Word spreads in the underground community of magic users.  A ragged and unkempt man approaches her to bring back the groups leader.  Hesitantly Jolie agrees and brings back the alpha of a werewolf pack, she earns their loyalty – of course, she didn’t know they were werewolves when she did it.  She also earns the unwanted attentions dangerous head of the LA magical community and the attentions of a very handsome vampire.

Suddenly, Jolie has to choose who to serve the LA ‘queen’, who is one scary babe, or go to Rand.   Jolie and Christa head to England and the safety of Rand Balfour and his offer to take on Jolie as his apprentice of sorts.

The relationship between Rand and Jolie never stands a chance because Rand won’t let it, despite their mutual attraction.  He retains a cold distance that she doesn’t understand.  I did find that part a bit annoying along with Rand’s casual control of Christa.  It was as if his moral compass no longer fully functioned.  In general terms, Christa is the typical self-centered LA Babe to Jolie’s ‘quiet mouse’ and she has trouble with Jolie suddenly becoming far more important.   The queen is evil and Rand is the emotionally cool and remote man – so the character’s are not exactly original, but the plot works pretty well.  Not as well as the Southern Witch series by Kimberly Frost, but it the various plot lines made sense and kept the readers interest even when the characters got annoying and childish.  The story arc was well paced, if predictable in it’s general outcome.  Some of the secondary characters were more original than the main players.

Was Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble worth the nearly $12 price tag?  Well, no.  It was a good read and I did buy the next in the series, Toil and Trouble (which I found had an annoying plot device and have yet to finish), but I’d say enjoy a price break and buy the far less expensive e-book.  You can download to Kindle software to your computer if you don’t have the device.  (I don’t.)  The e-book is $4.  If you want a print copy, try waiting to see if Bantam publishes Book 1 and 2 in mass market.

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• Title:  High Crimes on the Magical Plane
  
• Author:  Kris Neri
• Type:  Paranormal/fantasy mystery
• Genre:  Samantha Brennen and Annabelle Haggerty Bk 1
• Sub-genre:  fake psychic hopes to cash in on a celebrity kidnapping she stumbles upon
• My Grade:  B (4*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 80,000+ $16.95
• Where Available:  Available select bookstores, online, and used
• FTC Disclosure:  acquired through and online book swap site

Here’s a book I had on my WL forever and a friend came through with a copy.  Like Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble, High Crimes on the Magical Plane is an indie publication.  It also features an LA psychic, in this case a frankly fake one who add the caché of ‘Celtic Goddess’ to her completely fictitious resume.  Dressed in thrift shop Renaissance garb, Samantha Brennen heads to Bonne Chance, one of LA’s poshest apartment houses, to visit a client, the widow of a late senator who is enjoying a liaison with man young enough to be her grandson.  Having been told he exhaust belching Mustang is unwelcome there, she’s parked blocks away and walking ‘Who walks in LA?’ to the apartment house.  A van whips out f the underground parking garage, nearly running her down.  That’s not has Samantha excited, but the fact there are two clowns in the front seats – real, live, circus clowns.

The Bonne Chance penthouse is now occupied by divorced aging ingenue actress Molly Claire and calling on Dodi will get Samantha the access she needs.  Maybe.  The pitbull at the front desk insists on walking her direct to Dodi’s door, but Samantha is nothing if not flexible – and light fingered and lifts the access card.  She blows off Dodi as fast as she can and slips up to the penthouse to find it wrecked.  Looks like Molly Claire was kidnapped by the guys who had been stalking her, known in the press as ‘Molly’s Clowns’ thanks to the stumbling ineptness.

Cashing in by getting publicity means going to the cops or FBI.  She chooses FBI and finds herself sitting with the other kooks n the aluminum foil helmets.  Finally, she gets the shrewd Agent Annabelle Haggerty, a woman about Samantha’s own age with way too much knowledge of Celtic gods and goddesses.  But she believes enough to check into it and hold Samantha while she’s doing it.  Then Samantha sees Annabelle acting strangely and suddenly Samantha is having REAL visions about clowns and Molly Claire.  Visions that Annabelle is sending her.  Now she and Annabelle are tied, because she can’t let her boss know she has visions and needs Samantha to act as the ‘psychic, and Samantha needs the inside track.  But what Sam isn’t getting is what she needs most – publicity.

The story is a good one told partly in first person by Samantha and third person.  If switches in voice bother you, this can be a problem.  It seemed to flow just fine for me.  The story arc evolves nicely and the solution was a surprise.  Clever, funny, engaging, and completely entertaining.

Is High Crimes on the Magical Plane worth $16.95?  Much as I enjoyed it, no.  Part of that because she never wrote any follow-up books, so it’s just a stand alone.   If you can find an inexpensive copy, an e-book, or used copy for under $10, then go for it.   I can only hope she writes more entries in the series.

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• Title:  Must Love Lycans
  
• Author:  Michele Bardsley
• Type:  Paranormal/fantasy
• Genre:  Broken Heart Oklahoma #9 but a virtual standalone
• Sub-genre:  Shifters and their coming out of the closet
• My Grade:  C+ to B- (3.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of this uneven, and predictable series, too many blah books.  Must Love Lycans was abetter than average entry and something of a surprise.

Kelsey Morningstone is an empathic psychotherapist who made a huge mistake that ruined her career, something her demanding and remote mother, also a famous psychotherapist, took delight in lamenting in both books and TV appearances.  Her career in tatters, she’s offered a job at the Dante Clinic she literally can’t refuse, thanks to the debts caused by civil judgements brought against her.  She’s working for a secret lab and the handsome enigmatic Dante who seems to have designs on her.  But he’s not the one she’s drawn to.  Her naked patient, Damien is the one that attracts her.

Kelsey has gone through her life assuming her gift – or curse – of empathy was just an odd trait.  But it turns out, she’s not exactly human.  Neither is the arrogant Damien, even if he has lost much of his memory.  That gift is now drawing her inexorably to Damien.  Soon, Kelsey finds herself involved in breaking Damien out of the clinic – and having her life turned upside down by learning things like vampires, fae, and werewolves are real.

Damien is a werewolf king and his people are slowing dying off.  He needs to return to a castle in the Black Forest to reclaim his heritage, defeat a curse, and once again give werewolves the strong alpha and protection they need.  But Kelsey is his mate and nothing can stop him from claiming her – or protecting her.

While there are many other characters, including certain fairytale type wicked ‘wicked witch’, it’s the character of Kelsey that really moves the story along and gives it its heart. v Damien is a strong, brooding presence, often with a biting wit, but he isn’t exactly endearing in any way.  The plot mixes too many different myths and fantasy creatures to fully gel, yet Kelsey manages to hold things together somehow.  A decent read, but nothing really special.

Is Must Love Lycans worth $7.99?  Not really.  I got it on the 4-for-3 promotion on Amazon, so I wasn’t too disappointed, but had I spent the full $7.99 I would have been.  An OK for the Broken Heart fans.

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• Title:  One Salt Sea
  
• Author:  Seanan McGuire
• Type:  Paranormal/fantasy
• Genre:  October Daye #5; hard choices for parents
• Sub-genre:  Fae war will erupt if Toby can’t find a kidnapped child
• My Grade:  B+ (4.2*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

This is a series that I had trouble liking through Book 1 and 2.  But by Book 3, An Artificial Night, I was starting to like October ‘Toby’ Daye and the magical world she inhabited in San Francisco.  One Salt Sea is a big, multi-character story brings some elements of Toby’s life thus far to an end and opens new ones.  The Toby Daye we met in Rosemary and Rue has moved on and become someone different, not always by her own choice.

Thanks to her services to powerful fae Duke, the fae queen, who loathes Toby, has to recognize her when she’d really rather kill her Worse, Toby is now Countess Goldengreen and the other fae lords must deal with someone who isn’t a pureblood.  Toby is now involved with Connor,  the Duke’s former son-in-law, when the Duchess of Saltmist accuses the Queen of abducting one of her sons.  The tension filled formal court appearance with both the Duchess’s people, sea based fae, and the land based fae ends up falling apart, and Toby and Conner, himself a selkie, is bound to the Duchess as she is to the Queen.  But they have a few short days to figure out what happened and get the heir back to the Duchess to avoid a war.  In her arrogance, the Queen assumes she’ll win, but the Duke knows the sea based fae are the better fighters on the land and in the water.  Life in the sea is too dangerous for them to be anything but strong to suvive.  The land based fae have grown soft and vulnerable thanks to years of peace.  They’ll be slaughtered.

Toby might hate the Queen, and the pure bloods might mostly disdain her, despite her being the daughter of a first born (the children of Tatiana and Oberon), but she has no desire to see this war destroy them.  She accepts the Duke’s desperate request she find who stole the son of the Duke and Duchess of Saltmist before war overtakes them.  With Conner, Quentin (who has become her squire), May (her Fetch who is no longer her fetch) and the independent King of the Cait Shide, Toby sets out to find out what happened.

The story arc is complex and tightly woven with recurring characters and new ones.  It mixes tragedy, humor, loss, and a compelling mystery about motivation.  Rayseline, the Duke’s mad daughter to whom Conner was once married, is heart of this, but stealing Toby’s mostly human daughter was a big mistake.  The scenes where she finally cornered is brilliantly creepy understated madness.  Not even the sea hag (Luideag), Toby’s ‘aunt’, can undo the damage Rayseline caused, and Toby has some tough choices.  But Rayesile wasn’t alone in her plot and despite Toby’s grief at her own loss, she must expose the traitor at court and save the Queen she loathes.

Most series have a way of leveling off and keeping characters trapped in a persona that keeps readers happy with its familiar predictably.  Ms McGuire is not content with that and brings constant change and evolution to Toby.  Despite the rocky first two books, this is one series that gets better with each new entry.  One Salt Sea is, in my opinion, the best so far, showing Ms McGuire’s maturing writing style off and developing an even better evolving set of characters.

Is One Salt Sea worth $7.99?  YES!  But be warned, it can’t be read as a stand alone as too many of the plot lines are evolving from earlier books and a reader starting her would be lost.  At the least, read books 3 and 4 before this one.

• Title:  Dead in the Family
  
• Author:  Charlaine Harris
• Type:  Paranormal/fantasy
• Genre:  Sookie Stackhouse #10 – the never ending story
• Sub-genre:  Fae, vamps, shifter and their coming out of the closet
• My Grade:  C- (2.7*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $15-$17
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  acquired through and online book swap site

OK, I haven’t read a Sookie Stackhouse book in years and now I remember why.  I just got sick of Sookie.   What is it with her and men – or perhaps males would be better?  It’s like she allows herself to be emotionally abused – not to mention physical abuse and misuse.  I know lots of folks follow this ft the ‘love story’ aspect of the novels, but jeeze, if this is ‘love’ with vampires, spare me.

The ‘two natured’, namely were, have come out to the public.  Werewolves, being the largest group, have taken the brunt of the backlash.  Vamps are already out, but the weres seem to worry folks more because they work and live like ordinary humans.  Sookie, a telepath with some fae blood, is not quite unique, but she talents are very rare.  The plot, such as it is, revolves around Sookie and her efforts to to keep her romance with Eric going under difficult circumstances.  Mostly, he’s off the radar for one reason or another for much of the book.  First because of concerns about the new leader for Louisiana, Victor, who is looking for reasons to force Eric out, and second because Eric’s maker, an ancient Roman called Appius, shows up and demands his assistance with his ‘young’ vampire, the last living Romanov.

A ‘child’ of a vampire must do its makers bidding and Eric is drawn from Sookie into trying to control the vicious Alexander Romanov, so looks frail and childlike, but is actually an insane killer.  Sookie is also involved with the Long Tooth Pack of werewolves and the fact that Sam, the owner of the bar where she works and a long time friend, has come out as one of the ‘two natured’.  Despite his family’s long time history and his own military service, he gets a lot of backlash.

The ending is bloody and inevitable, but the plot is weak and lightweight.  The real question is ………….. Is Dead in the Family worth the $15-18 hardcover price or the $9.50 to $11 trade paperback price?  Nope.  Obviously, if you are a dedicated fan, you’ll disagree, but this is a family drama that has run its course and is, thankfully coming to an end soon.  Get it from the library or buy a cheap used used copy.  Nothing original here.

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• Title:  Dead Reckoning
  
• Author:  Charlaine Harris
• Type:  Paranormal/fantasy
• Genre:  Sookie Stackhouse #11 – the never ending story
• Sub-genre:  Fae, vamps, shifter and killing a bad guy
• My Grade:  D+  (2.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $15-$17
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  acquired through and online book swap site

I have this feeling that the combined plots of Book 10 and Book 11 could easily have been one much better book with a little editing work.  That said, I think one Amazon reviewer hard it right when they called Dead Reckoning a ‘bridge book’.  It could also be called Much Ado About Nothing, With Bloodbath.

Dead Reckoning picks up pretty much where Dead in the Family leaves off, Sookie is trying to adjust to having her Great Uncle Dermot and self-centered cousin Claude living in her house.  One thing she does is get them to help her clean the attic.  With Sam’s help, she finds an antiques dealer to come look over what’s worth something.  She’s also dealing with a fire bomb at Sam’s bar, a bunch of new competition that’s stealing his clientele, and the escape of an insane person who wants Sookie dead.  You know, the usual.  Bill Compton, former boyfriend and neighbor is healed now, but not in love as his ‘sister’ a woman turned by the same maker as his, healed the silver poisoning he had.   She overhears and leaves (though I wonder if we’ll see her again fighting against Bill).

Claude and Dermot are adjusting, or Sookie is adjusting to them in her home, though Claude remains a self-centered narcissist, at least Claude is becoming a better person, even if he is half fae.  Sookie, who apparently makes ‘impulsive life changing decisions’ a habit, severs her bond with Eric when her witch friend, Amelia, comes to renew the wards on her house.  Then the alpha of the Long Tooth Pack, Alcide, is asleep in her bed because now that the bond is severed, he wants a chance at Sookie for his pack – and himself.

While lots is happening, nothing has any real emotional impact.  It’s frustrating that long awaited denouement with Victor ends as it does.  It feels like everyone is infected with Sookie-itis, a short term solution thinking disability.  You’d think a 1,000 year old vamp would have more sense.

The best part of Dead Reckoning are the bits that fill in Sookie’s fae inheritance – and why everyone suddenly wants Sookie, especially her fae family.  Eric is infected with male-a-hole syndrome, but finally reveals why Appius told Sookie Eric would never be hers anyway at the end of book 10.

Is Dead Reckoning worth the $15-18 discount price?  NO WAY!  This is used book, library stuff unless you are a die hard fan who must have it NOW!  Wait 6 months and look for a cheap used copy.

Charlaine Harris is ending the series at Book 14, so only 2 to go.  Series that run this long are hard to keep interesting and fresh.  There’s a lot of repeating old mistakes, and even more ‘fluff’ padding, and the characters become so damn predictable.  While Harris is an able storyteller, she’s so familiar with Sookie that, like Stephanie Plum, she never seems to evolve into a more thoughtful and mature character.  The shallowness of things grows boring, as does her repeating old mistakes.  Harris is making a good decision by wrapping this up.  It’s overdue.

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• Title:  Baited Blood
  
• Author:  Sue Ann Jaffarian
• Type:  Paranormal mystery
• Genre:  Book 2of the Madison Rose vampire mystery series
• Sub-genre:
• My Grade:  B+  (4.1*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13 to NC-17
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $10-$12
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from an online bookstore

Madison Rose is now a paid employee of the Los Angeles vampires, working mostly directly with Simon LaCroix, a charismatic vamp that was turned centuries ago.  The Dedhams, Dodie and Doug, have given her a room in their house and act rather like her surrogate grandparents.  For someone raised on the hard and heartless system of foster care, this is the closest thing to family and emotional security Madison has ever known.

Mike Notchey, police detective, knows all about vamps, and what might be considered a push-pull relationship with them and with Madison  He’s convinced Madison is sleeping with sexy Colin Reddy and possibly Simon LaCroix as well, so he refuses to be involved with her, despite their mutual attraction.  When Madison wakes to find a body in the Dedham’s pool with a makeshift stake through the chest, she wakes Doug and Dodie with the scent of her own blood and Mike gets called in.  The man in pool is a vamp, but he’s not dead, just very badly injured.

Supposedly suffering from amnesia, after reviving him, Keleta claims no knowledge of his maker – a person who branded him with the identical mark that Dough Dedham carries.  Keleta is given to the care of two other vamps for training – and to watch him.  The next morning, Madison finds another body in the pool – but this one is a dead vamp, and he too bears that makers mark.  The vamps are on the hunt for the woman who made Doug and trying to figure out who is trying to threaten Simon’s leadership.

Naturally nosy, Madison is given further incentive to look into things when she gains access to a vamp data base.  She also learns more about vampire society and how different groups are operated.  Simon’s rule in LA came after a period of virtual lawlessness and debauchery, often involving humans, that was attracting the unwanted attention of the police.  One of those humans was Mike Notchey’s sister, which is why he is so repelled by the idea that Madison might be playing around with the male vamps.

Madison stumbles on several different things, separate events that all lead to the person responsible for the vamp killings – and the twisted reasoning behind it.   But Madison does pay a price.

Sue Ann Jaffarian has a real gift for creating multidimensional characters.  Madison Rose, with her troubled past and emotional baggage has learned to compartmentalize her life in order to cope.  She finds herself having to face that again here.  But she’s human, and not a candidate to become a vamp (Humans that can make the transition to vampire have a mark on their palms called a Bloodline.  She doesn’t have one, so she can’t be converted.), so making her life with vamps is at best tentative.  It’s an interesting dilemma for one relatively young.  Jaffarian has a large cast of characters here and she manages them well, though several were relegated to bit parts here.  Who did it was obvious to me, but then it usually is.

Is Baited Blood worth the $10-$12 asking price?  I think it is.  Well above average, but in some need of a comic relief type character to help carry the story with a bit more wit and verve.  Neither noir nor cozy, this sits in that middle ground of solid mystery, the characters just have fangs..

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• Title:  A Taste of the Nightlife
  
• Author:  Sarah Zettle
• Type:  Paranormal Mystery
• Genre:  Book of the Vampire Chef series
• Sub-genre:
• My Grade:  C+ to B- (2.9*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 80,000+ $7.99 – deals available
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from and online book store

I originally wrote this review for a Paperback Swap blog, and it was finally used, so I’m removing it.  To see my review, please go to here.

• Title:  Buried Secrets
  
• Author:  Joseph Finder
• Type:  Suspense thriller
• Genre:  Nick Heller Book 2 – finding a kidnapped teen for billionaire family friend
• Sub-genre:  Fae, vamps, shifter and their coming out of the closet
• My Grade:  B+ to A- (4.0*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13 to NC-17 due to intensity
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $14-$17
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  bought from an online bookstore

Joseph Finder has a keeper with character Nick Heller.  Buried Secrets has the kind of action, tension, and surprising twists that a really good thriller needs.  It was a tough book to put down.  The pacing was steady and fast as the plot unfolds, with twist after twist.

Nick Heller has reason to be grateful to Marshall Markus, an old family fried who was one of the few who helped his mother when Nick’s father went to jail for financial crimes and their country club life disappeared.  When Markus calls, Nick immediately responds.  Alexa, the teenage daughter of the billionaire, has been kidnapped and buried alive.  (Heller really makes it realistically creepy and plays to one near universal fear of being buried alive, with a sadistic sociopath and a tough, badly frightened teen.)  Alexa had been kidnapped before, but this is different, this is beyond a simple kidnapping for ransom.  Markus is adamant in refusing FBI help – and it becomes obvious why, the FBI want his on securities fraud and the SAIC of the investigation will do ANYTHING to make his case, including risking a teenage girl’s life.

Nick quickly learns one thing, everyone is lying, including his client, and Boston’s movers and shakers will do anything to keep their own secrets buried.  From the drug dealing son of a South American diplomat, to Alexa’s step-mother, to her supposed ‘best friend’ – daughter of a lying US senators, to Russian mobsters, no one is willing to tell the truth.  But everyone threatens him.

In classic lone wolf with friends style, Nick Heller calls in favors and technical help, as hunts for the hiding place of Alexa’s grave.  Exciting, slightly improbable, but overall, a great suspense thriller read.  The one part that failed, was Alexa’s reaction after everything was over.  It was a real weak spot for me.  The other issue was a lack of character development with Nick Heller, but Nick was not the focus of the story, so it’s a minor complaint, and boilerplate secondary characters who were kind of predictable and trite.  I just wish Nick was more fleshed out and the other characters a bit fresher.

Is Buried Secrets worth $14-$18 at a discount?  I thought so, but books like these are not reread material, so hardcovers are not good investments.  You might want to borrow it from you library, or wait and buy the paperback.  Highly recommended for all suspense thriller fans.

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• Title:  Kill the Dead
  
• Author:  Richard Kadrey
• Type:  Paranormal – UF
• Genre:  Sandman Slim Book 2
• Sub-genre:  Fae, vamps, shifter and their coming out of the closet
• My Grade:  B+ to A- (4.1*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13 to NC-17
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $7.99 – deals available
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from and online book store

I was sufficiently disappointed in the highly touted Sandman Slim, first book of the series, that I waited to buy Kill the Dead in mass market paperback.  I was way more impressed here and I actually pre-ordered the third, and supposedly last book, Aloha from Hell.

Kill the Dead is a long and convoluted story, but one that satisfies more with character growth as well nifty plotting.  Karady paints a picture of a seedy underground LA that is about to get a lot more dangerous thanks to Lucifer coming to town for the filming of his autobiography.  Stark might have escaped Hell, but he isn’t stupid enough to try and refuse Lucifer’s ‘request’ that he be his body guard.

The Hollywood glitterati are far more involved in the dark side of Sub Rosa

than even Stark realized.  At a big party, Stark hustles Lucifer out and they get ambushed.  Thing is, Lucifer should be able to take care of things, but for some reason, he can’t.  At the same time, zombies are getting loose on the streets of LA and Stark is just one of several targets.  They’re screwing with his favorite donut shop!

On top of that Stark has another problem, his usual ability to heal is fading with scars the longer he’s away from Hell.  His friend, Vidocq, an alchemist, is trying to find a potion to stop or reverse the process.  Meanwhile, Lucifer’s spy and the former owner of the movie rental place that Stark kind of took over, is now just a talking head (yup – JUST the head) and lives (well, kind of) with him, also thanks to Lucifer.  Stark has learned that being out of Hell is far different from being free of Lucifer.  And it seems throwing Mason to the Hellions might not have been his best idea.

As with Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead has sharp, witty dialogue, a scurvy cast of characters, and ends up being a really good read.  Far better than Book 1 because here, there’s depth to Stark missing in first book, and complexity to events and decisions – and the future for Stark and others.  Where Sandman Slim was about simple revenge at all costs, Stark has learned how empty that can be and now he must actually find a life and perhaps, find himself.  The ending had an unexpected twist that sets the stage for Book 3.

Is Kill the Dead worth $7.99?  Yes!  Well, with the caveat that it’s for lovers of noir style UF.  You do need to read Sandman Slim first to follow the plot line fully and understand the characters.

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• Title:  Home for a Spell
  
• Author:  Madelyn Alt
• Type:  Paranormal mystery
• Genre:  Maggie O’Neill looks for an apartment and finds trouble in a dead body
• Sub-genre:  Cozy lite
• My Grade:  D+ (2.2*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 80,000+ $15-$18
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  acquired through and online book swap site

Home for a Spell picks up the story of Maggie O’Neill as she struggles with the fact her best friend will be moving when her fiance, a doctor at the local hospital, finishes his residency.  And she feels she’s holding back her boyfriend Marcus by being a burden with her broken ankle.  She decides to apartment hunt and finds a first floor unit at a cheap rent.  Oddly, there’s a mirror in the bedroom ceiling that is one of the ‘improvements’.  OK – can the red flag get any bigger?  Do we not all IMMEDIATELY know the plot?  Just in case, the boyfriend of a teacher who live there starts a fight with the apartment manager about all the strange ‘clicking and whirring’ noises and the unbreakable lease his girlfriend has.  Talk about a head slap Ms Obvious – and still Maggie agrees to sign a lease the next morning.

Arriving at the apartment, Maggie and Marcus find the office door ajar, the place a mess, the computer destroyed, and sleazy manager Rob Locke floating in the pool.  DUH!  Now, anyone who doesn’t know the plot at this point, doesn’t read mysteries.  There are no real surprises and the author telegraphs everything in advance.  Even the killer is no surprise, though the reason is perhaps the closest thing to a twist this short book has.  Predictable is the kindest word for the plot.

Madelyn Alt is generally an able writer, but Home for a Spell is so completely cliche, it’s like she phoned this one in.  Is it worth $15-$17 at a discount?  NO!!!!!!  It won’t be worth the paperback price of $7.99!!!!!!!!!!  Get it at the library or buy a cheap used copy.  Better still, just skip it.

• Title: Grave Dance
  
• Author:  Kalayna Price
• Type:  Paranormal UF/alternate reality
• Genre:  A witch who is more than a witch and those who want her – or just want her dead
• Sub-genre:  Serial killers, witchcraft and Fay queens make for a heady mix
• My Grade: A(4.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 100,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

Book 2 of the Alex Craft series was even better than Grave Witch, a real surprise.  All too often, the second book is a bit weak, but here the complex plot and world building just got better.

It’s been a month since the events in Grave Witch where Alex Craft discovered her father was fae and her a faykin (part Fae).  Shehas pretty much recovered from her adventures, and reconciled with the fact that Falin, the ‘man’ she took for a lover, is, in fact, the lover of the winter queen – and Queen’s Knight sworn to her service.  Learning she was more than half Fey, was a shock.  Finding out she can rip holes in the fabric between the planes is a lot scarier.  Death, or the soul collector she thinks of as Death, saves her life yet again, and this strange relationship that started years ago draws her to this man.

The problem with 15 minutes of fame is, it brings out the nuts – including a human who wants Alex to open a portal to the aether so his witches can feed off the energy to make charms – and make him even richer than he already is.   And then there’s the feet.  A lot of them.  And the Fey who lives in the swaps who wants them to be left alone because of the evil associated with them.   And who the hell keeps sending these constructs to attack her – constructs that have the souls of the dead?

Alex drags her friends into the hunt for answers – and several get kidnapped to the fae lands.  Right now the planes align so Alex must pass thru the Winter Queen’s court, and in doing so, and seeing Falin at the Queen’s side, causes almost as much pain as her new sensitivity to iron.   It also brings home the painful fact that Falin, regardless of his feelings for her, is bound as only a fae can be to a ruthless Queen who wants to control Alex.  As long as he is honor bound, he can never be hers and she can never fully trust him.

Alex’s growing powers attract the Winter Queen, who wants her to be a member of her court.  And it isn’t exactly an invitation.  Alex escapes the Winter Court and finds the Summer King and, much to her shock, a third fae kingdom.  She rescues her friend, but as always, at a price.  The denouement has layers of meaning for her budding relationship with Death.

Grave Dance is a very well done, complex urban fantasy.  The characters have depth and the relationships meaning.  After the Morelli/Ranger triangle in the Stephanie Plum books, I have almost zero tolerance for romantic triangles in any series, regardless of genre.  For whatever reason, it’s working here, at least so far.   Neither Falin nor Death are truly available or free to choose Alex.  Each is bound differently and Alex gets to see first hand what can go wrong between a witch and Death and how tightly bound to the Winter Queen Falin really is.   Alex’s father puts in a very brief appearance here, and it looks like he might come back into the story with the next book, as he is obviously no ally of the Winter Queen.

Is Grave Dance worth $7.99?  ABSOLUTELY!  The story and the characters just keep getting better and it’s one of the very few series I’ve read in this genre lately that has woven a rich, complex cast of characters with some really fine world building.  You MUST read Grave Witch first to fully enjoy this book and understand the evolution Alex’s character.  My only complaint – it does take a lot of time between books, so you’s best have a good memory to keep all the characters straight – or reread Grave Witch before you start.  Still I’d rather wait for quality like this than get a second rate book with less depth and complexity.  Brava Kalayna Price!

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• Title: Black Night
  
• Author:  Christina Henry
• Type:  Paranormal – UF/angels and demons/alternate worlds
• Genre:  A descendent of Lucifer finds her powers when drawn into power play with the Queen of Faerie
• Sub-genre:  Playing games with Fey is dangerous
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased thru an online book store

Book 2 in the series that started with Black Wings (I wasn’t exactly thrilled by book 1) finds Lucifer’s granddaughter, Madeline Black, back at her old job shuttling souls to the door, a door beyond which Agents are not allowed to know what goes on.  She now has Gabriel living with her, but they are unable to act on their intense attraction due to his status as her bodyguard owned by her father Azazel.  Her boss, the annoying JB, actually turned not so annoying and even asked her out, but she couldn’t take any more complications in her.  Bad enough she died, had her heart ripped out by one of Lucifer’s banished offspring, and replaced by a piece sun called a heartstone.  It gave her powers, but power has its price.

As an Agent of Death, she is bound to see souls to the door, and urge them thru, but her family ties to Lucifer has drawn her away from her job and into the power struggle taking place on another plane – and spilling over onto this one.  As a child of Azazel and the granddaughter of Lucifer, she finds herself thrown into the games the Fallen play and the power struggle that literally keeps Hell off Earth.  Maddy discovers JB is the faerie queen’s son!  (And his name is Jonquil – no wonder he goes by JB!)

Lucifer decides Maddy is the perfect new Ambassador to the court of the capricious faerie queen.   Going with her will be her betrothed, Nathaniel.  This was a forced betrothal by Azazel and Maddy wants no part of it or Nathaniel, but she finds she must call on him when she and Gabriele get attacked and he needs healing.  In addition to Samiel, the son of the demon Ramuell she killed in book 1, is hunting her.  Something is on the streets on Chicago stalking werewolves and killing them in a gruesome fashion.  A tentative friendship of sorts gets formed between Maddy and the pack Alpha and Maddy discovers  that suddenly there are dozens of unauthorized gates all over the city.  The portals are masked, even the makers signature hidden.    Then her lifelong protector, gargoyle Beezel, goes missing.  She’s sure he was taken through the portal in the alley where she and Gabriel discovered the dead werewolf.

With Gabriel missing, Maddy reluctant calls on Nathaniel again and they head through the portal.  Turns out rescuing Beezel is the easy part.  Getting out will be a whole lot harder and will take them through the court of the faerie queen. Much of the last third of the book is set in faerie and Maddy gets more self-assured quickly – and more aware of the games these immortals play when she must enter a maze that will likely mean her death in order to free Gabriel from a renegade demon lord.

Christina Henry pulls this one off much better than book 1.  The story moves very fast and Maddy does triumph in the end, but as always, at a price.  The reader is left wondering just how much Lucifer knew about events as he twists the outcome to get Maddy to see that what he wants from her is the only way she can get what she wants, Gabriel.  She even solves the mystery of who killed the werewolves, and that was an interesting second ending.

Is Black Night worth $7.99?  Yes – but be warned, the author has too much story for the length of the book, so there a sense of it being rushed – like a 2 hour movie shown in a 1 hour time slot.  The dialogue is snappy enough to give it body, but the plethora of characters that play important minor roles get short shrift and the pacing is too fast.   Lead characters are generally better drawn, Maddy and Gabriel’s attraction real and apparently more doomed than ever unless she bends to Lucifer’s wishes.  Lucifer, in a cameo at the end, is subtle and almost kindly, but manipulative and willing to use any one and anything.  Beezle is the perfect comic relief.  The story line needed about 100 more pages to flesh it out, make the pace and the plot play out better in order to make the big scenes in the faerie queen’s court work and Maddy’s sudden acumen in game playing believable.  Still, a worthwhile read.

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• Title: Kitty’s Big Trouble
  
• Author:  Carrie Vaughn
• Type:  Paranormal – UF
• Genre:  Kitty and crew hit San Francisco
• Sub-genre:  Cheesy play off John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China
• My Grade: D+ to C- (2.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased thru an online book store

I’m dammed if I know how the reviewers of this book on Amazon missed the play on John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China, one of Kurt Russell’s many off-beat characters in a real tongue in cheek movie.  Ms Vaughn even salutes it in the book title, Kitty’s Big Trouble and sets the book in San Francisco’s Chinatown.  Maybe I’m just showing my age and a propensity for watching movies that send up the Kung-fu and horror genres.  OK, let’s forget for a moment that Carrie Vaughn watched this movie and liked it so much, she used it to plot her book, it’s still the amusing charm of Russell’s swaggering trucker fumbling thru a war battle of demons and Gods in a culture he is completely clueless about that’s missing.  In fact, it’s missing pretty much everything.

Kitty starts getting interested in the possibilities of famous werewolves in history.  A sound argument is made that Gen. William T. Sherman was turned werewolf before his infamous march to the sea.  This gets Kitty interested in other historic figures, such as Wyatt Earp.  From here, the improbable story line jumps the tracks and will entice only the most dedicated fans of Kitty.

Lemony Snicket has nothing on Kitty with it comes to improbable events.  After a totally unexpected encounter with an old vamp wearing a Roman talisman of some kind when investigating Dodge City and Wyatt Earp, Anastasia calls Kitty for help out in San Francisco.  She sounds so desperate, Kitty, Ben, and Cormac drive out.  (I will ignore the whole parolee issues she glosses over.)  Seems that talisman they found belongs to an ancient vampire looking of a piece of magical equipment so he can duplicate than and form a new, nearly invincible vampire army.  Anastasia needs Kitty, Ben, and Cormac to help her find and guard the item to keep it from his hands.

Anastasia leads then to a shop owner in Chinatown who has inherited the guardian duties to the artifact’s room.  In the magical tunnels below San Francisco’s Chinatown, the story just gets so improbable it’s just silly.  They chase and get chased, find themselves with Chinese deities living in magic rooms, and fighting with a vamp that is unlike any vamp they’ve ever met before – and obviously hated by Anastasia.  Cue the Monkey god and some kung-fu action.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Was Kitty’s Big Trouble worth $7.99?  Nope, not for me.  The story just didn’t hold up.  It wasn’t even good tongue-in-cheek farce like John Carpenter’s movie.  Even worse, sounds like the next book will be set in England and by some miracle, Cormac – a paroled felon, will be going.  The mind boggles.  I liked Kitty best when she deals with the here and now.  This excursion into sheer cosmic silliness simply didn’t work for me.
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• Title: Ghost a la Mode
  
• Author:  Sue Ann Jaffarian
• Type:  Cozy mystery
• Genre:  paranormal; “I see dead people”
• Sub-genre:  Getting haunted by a pushy ghost relative can bring a lot of problems
• My Grade: B+ to A- (4.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $10-$12
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  thru an online book swapping site

Emma Whitecastle is at a crossroads.  She’s forty-ish and soon to be divorced from her college sweetheart – a man who is a serial cheater who succeeded in knocking up a bimbo just a few years older than their daughter.  A former child star, Grant Whitecastle is still in their house while she and the soon to be in college daughter live with her parents.  He’s fighting the divorce settlement, and surprised to find Emma won’t back down.

Getting her fighting spirit and independence back apparently comes at a price.  When Emma’s Aunt Kitty dies and she goes to stay with her cousin, with whom she has always had a very close relationship, during the funeral.  Then Aunt Kitty’s ghost appears with that of another woman, one dressed pioneer style.  She refuses to believe she’s seeing Aunt Kitty and the woman who is her great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth “Ish” Reynolds, a woman hung by vigilantes for murdering her  husband a hundred years ago in Julian, California, an old gold mining town east of San Diego.

Emma and her friend Tracey had gone to see a medium, she was just along for a ride, but the medium insisted a ghost wanted her, Ish Reynolds.  She wanted her name cleared.  Then Emma started hearing voices, getting cravings for apple pie, and now seeing ghosts.  It’s all too much.  Ish has been waiting for generations to find a relative to help her clear her name.  Looks like she might have to go on waiting, but eventually after a talk with her dad, Emma gets a drawn into the idea ghosts are real.  A second appointment with Milo Ravenscroft sort of convinces Emma there are ghosts and she can see them – or at least she can see Ish, who’s nickname “Granny Apples’ came from her excellent apple pies.

With time on her hands while Grant has their daughter on vacation in Europe before college starts, Emma makes reservations in a restored hotel in Julien and starts looking into the circumstances of Grannie’s death.  Two things happen in Julien.  First, when Emma visits the cemetery, she sees ghosts – lots of ghosts – and some talk with her.  A frantic call to Milo lets her know this is a very rare and unusual thing.  Next, Grannie Apples leads her to where the homestead used to be.  It’s now the Bowers Ranch and it turns out the Reynolds aren’t exactly welcome.  Phil Bowers makes that real clear when he hunts her down in town to find out what she was doing on his land.  The fact that her soon to be ex-husband is now an obnoxious TV talk show host with less class than Jerry Springer, does nothing to aid her cause.

The next big surprise is the discovery of another Reynolds relative, one who wants the Bowers land – which certainly explains the bad attitude of Phil Bowers.  Emma wants nothing to do with this slippery distant cousin, but the ghosts of Julien are a lot more helpful than the living in her efforts to clear Grannie’s name.  She also finds herself becoming a target.  It all keeps coming back to that small find of gold by Grannie’s husband just before he was beaten and killed.  Emma finds herself with an unexpected ally in Phil Bowers’ Aunt Susan and he slowly starts to believe she might not be trying for either his land or some kind of sensational story for her ex-husband’s TV show.

Her telling him about seeing ghosts undoes some of that, until they warn her NOT to get in her car and show her running off a mountain road.  The mechanics find nothing wrong – until a test drive bothers the 3 rattle snakes under the driver’s seat and the car crashes into a tree.  Phil starts believing and the arrival of Milo and Tracey help Emma stay calm.  well, except for her unexpected attraction to Phil Bowers, who turns out to be quite the kisser.

Ms Jaffarian develops both her characters and plot at a believable pace and fleshes them out so well they feel real, rather than the all too frequent 2 dimensional cardboard cutouts.  She also made the real historic town of Julien come alive.  While paranormal mysteries are thick on the ground, this one stands out for the quality of the writing and plot development.  The only other book by this author that I’ve read was Murder in Vein, an urban fantasy set in southern California as well.  There too, her writing style was impressive – so impressive I pre-ordered the next book in that series due this fall.

Is Ghost a la Mode worth the discount price of $10-$12?  For any fan of paranormal cozies, or well written cozies in general, yes!  I do wish publishers would put these books out in mass market size and pricing.  They would sell a lot better and gather a bigger audience.  That $10 price tag is a very real psychological barrier for buyers, including me.

• Title: Dead on the Delta
  
• Author:  Stacey Jay
• Type:  Paranormal UF/alternate reality
• Genre:  noir style paranormal mystery
• Sub-genre:  killer faries, drug runners, and family secrets on the bayou
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

This was a semi-original story by a new author.  If certain backstory elements and world building had gelled just a bit better, this could have been an A.  The writing style and quality lacked some polish, but the atmosphere was there.  The story is centered around the murder of a small girl, thought to be one of a string of such murders, and it hits close to home for Annebelle.  Annabelle Lee, is seeking forgetfulness and oblivion at the bottom of the bottle way too often, but her unique talents – she’s one of the rare immunes who won’t die from mutant fairy bites – her affair with the too-good-to-be-true boyfriend, police detective Caine Cooper, and the appearance of ex-fiance Hitch as an FBI technical expert with his female partner/agent – who is his current fiance, was kind of too much coincidence for one book.

Annie keeps reminding herself she’s just a special kind of crime scene technician,med school dropout, and someone who deserves to be punished.  Her determined efforts at self-destruction for an incident in her past, are at odds with her unwanted sense of obligation to the murdered child.  the story unwinds rather like a choppy homemade movie, without smooth segues and criss-crossing various plot elements in a distracting style.  The ending brings an interesting twist, not so much to the crime, but to what happens to Annabelle and what she will become.

Was Dead on the Delta worth $7.99?  Yes – for any fan of the noir style.  The writing is no match for authors like Lawrence Sanders or Dennis Lehanne, but a decent read.  I just hope the authors style smooths out a bit in future.

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• Title: Dark Descendant
  
• Author:  Jenna Black
• Type:  Paranormal UF/alternate reality
• Genre:  PI action thriller with descendants of the gods
• Sub-genre:  What do you do when you realize you won’t die?
• My Grade: B- (3.7*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $7.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

Nikki Glass a very rare person, a descendant of the gods.  They exist in our world and are pretty much the same as everyone, living and dying – unless a descendant kills another descendant then the immortality is passed to them.  Yes, the whole ‘immortal’ and ‘killing’ do seem inimical, but that nothing unusual.

Nikki is a bloodhound, a finder of lost people and there’s no one better at her job.  Her latest client wants his girlfriend taken from a well secured “cult” house and calls a reluctant Nikki for help one night.  Against all her better judgement,she does exactly as the client asks, racing through the open gate and up the driveway – when her client steps in front of her car. a strange sad, resolute smile on his face.  Instead of dying in the crash, Niki became an immortal.

This unusual story had it’s up and downs, but more ups than most and a kind of unique spin on children on the gods.  Nikki learns she’s the only living descendent of Artemis.  But before she knows it, she’s drawn in a conflict between immortals – the Olympians and the Liberi, and both groups want her – for very different reasons.  The Liberi because she one of their own and took his immortality, the other because they feel descendants of the Greek gods are better than the others.  But there are other, more sinister reasons.  The Liberis think she deliberately killed their man and more than one want her dead.  Interestingly only a non-immortal off-spring of a immortal can kill an immortal and then take that immortality for themselves.

Nikki is a strong character who has her whole world turned on its ear.   The double dealing, secrets, and readjusting her whole reality while trying desperately to still be ‘normal’.  If you like stories based based on various gods/mythology, this will be fun.  Though I enjoyed it, it was not a favorite.  Otherwise, give this one a pass.

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• Title: Killer Move
  
• Author:  Michael Marshall
• Type:  Action intrigue mystery
• Genre:  Revenge against those who play games with
• Sub-genre:  Complex thriller that doesn’t quite get off the ground
• My Grade: C- (2.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $15-$18
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

I’ve always been a fan of caper and revenge novels, but this story just lacked the intensity to make it really work and no character that I could care about in the slightest. By turns frightening in the way things can be electronically manipulated, and dull when it deals with a man seeking revenge, the first half read well enough to hold me, but the lack of a strong lead combined with a dull writing, I lost all interest.  I did read the last 3 chapters – the ending was beyond frustrating and made me want to scream.

Is Killer Moves worth the price?  NO.  My advice, don’t pay for the hardcover.  Get from the library or buy cheap used.

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• Title: The Bonaparte Conspiracy
  
• Author:  Greg Loomis
• Type:  Action intrigue thriller
• Genre:  Another improbable Lang Reilly thriller
• Sub-genre:  Spies and artifact hunts
• My Grade: C (3*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Novel – about 90,000+ $11-12.50
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

Greg Loomis is mining the same general territory as Clive Cusslar did with his Dirk Pitt series – an historic artifact that becomes sought after for one reason or another.

Langford Reilly is an Atlanta lawyer, now married with a son, with a hugely lucrative practice and no longer working for the CIA.  His wife Gurt, another former agent, and son Mannfred are trying to live a quiet life when they literally stumble into trouble in Venice.  Lang and Gurt are attending one of Venice’s leading Carnivale balls in mandatory costume.  Mannfred is home, staying with a neighbor in the wealthy Atlanta neighborhood where they live.  Leaving the ball, they stumble on curious midnight light in St Marks.  A short check suddenly lands them in a fire fight with – of all things, Chinese thugs.  Their training kicks in and the get out, killing a few of the bad guys.

Clown suits in Venice are distinctive, and next day when Reilly and Gurt return their costumes, Chinese thugs are again after them.  Both are confused by this as they didn’t see what it was the thieves took and could never identify them, but for some reason, they want them dead.  Getting back home, the problem follows them.  First a parabolic mike is aimed at the house, then a member of the Chinese security forces is trapped by the security measures inside their house.

The action is fast and furious, but the premise is weak.  Loomis never quite captures the kind of carefree over-the-top wit that’s made Cusslar so popular.  The so called ‘Bonaparte Secret” when discovered,  was actually quite interesting.  Loomis wrote the book before the Haiti earthquake and with an obvious dislike of the current president, so if those things will bother you, leave it alone.

Is The Bonaparte Secret worth the discount price of $11-12.50?  Not to me.  It was a very average thriller.  Reilly is a likable character and the James Bondish style of unlikely events and characters, well you either go with the flow or find anther author.  I’ve never found Loomis’ books as cleverly plotted or enjoyable as Cusslar’s, and certainly they are no match for something like the John Rain series by Barry Eisler, but they’re an easy and usually pleasant read.