Annual e-Book Edition

Well, I may have been lax on posting, but not reading.  I made some finds and also found some lemons.  Most have been average.  I am reading nearly 90% e-books.  In part, this is due to the near-complete annihilation of mass-market paperback a publishers booting authors out the door.  Some authors seem to waver between self-publishing and finding a new print publisher to relieve the burden of self-promotion.  None the less I’ve found some offbeat goodies in large part due to BookBub.

These will be mostly short reviews as I have a lot to get through and I’ll look at series in an overall fashion.  Before I start my rants and raves, allow me to wish you all a belated Happy New Year!

Let’s start with light cozy style humorous mysteries:

Julie Mulhern wrote two books featuring Poppy Fields, Field’s Guide to Abductions and Field’s Guide to Assassins.  Then she stopped writing them, something I find really annoying.  She responded to my comment on BoobBub saying the death of a friend some years ago caused her to stop writing the humorous series but she planned to pick it up again.  If she does, this is a worthwhile series.  If not, skip it and move on.  Characters are good and of the outer edge of plausible, but the plots are decent for the genre.  A good choice for a lighter read.  My grade is B (3.8*) with the conditional recommendation as given above.  NOTE:  The author has finally restarted this series and book 3 is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Next up is Camilla Monk’s Spotless series.  There are 4 books ranging from somewhat interesting while being annoying to WTF??????  Ms Monk was apparently aiming for a kind of Lexi Carmichael style geek girl accidental adventure series and bombed.  Spectacularly.  The 4th book is a MOAB of epic proportions.  Spotless, Beating Ruby, The Crystal Whisperer, and MOAB Butterfly in Amber represent a perfect example of characters that are shallow, badly drawn, and hard to like, plots that are choppy, without logic, and by book 3 just plain annoying and in book 4 it makes you wonder if there is a satisfying way of burning an e-book.  The synopsis is best summed up a ‘STUPID’.  Grades from C-(2.8*) at the start and descending to hell from there, though I am limited to giving Butterfly in Amber an F (0*).  It deserves less.  AVOID THIS SERIES.

Thankfully, my brain did not turn to mush nor my IQ drop to drool level and I was saved by Marianne Delacourt’s Tara Sharp series.  Sharp Shooter, Sharp Turn, Too Sharp, and Sharp Edge so far.  Set in Perth, Australia and featuring Tara Sharp who has been blessed – or cursed – with the ability to see auras, although not always getting her reading of the auras right – proved by her terrible taste in boyfriends and current jobless state.  The dialogue quick and sharp, Tara is real and witty, and the plots are entertaining with enough tension to make them worthwhile.  The secondary characters are well drawn and offbeat.  There are some noticeable editing errors as the series moves on.  A chronic problem e-books that drives me nuts.  Still, they are fun reads but be warned, they are also filled with Aussie slang and have the rhythm of Aussie speech, so if you hate dealing with that, you might not enjoy them as much.  New entries are erratic as the author is mainly a sci-fi writer under another name.  My grades are C+ (3.7*) to B (4*) and they are a recommended read for those who enjoy Jana DeLeon, J. B. Lynn, or Josie Brown.

Speaking of Jana DeLeon, she published two new Miss Fortune books in 2018!  Reel of Fortune and Swamp Spook.  Both are good and everyone seems back in character but some of the tension is gone from the series making a shade less satisfying than most early books and with less snark.  Still, but get a B- (3.8*) and remain recommended reads.

Also back in the saddle, Julie Moffett finally put out a new Lexi Carmichael this year.  It centers around Slash’s past and Vatican politics.  Not her best, but it has some excellent moments and Slash and Lexi remain solid characters even though I found the plot on the lame and sentimental side.  No Stone Unturned left lots of stones unturned, so it gets a C+ to B- rating (3.6*) but is still a recommended read.

Finally, there was a find worth reading K. F. Breen’s DDVN world books featuring bounty hunter Reagan Somerset and vampire elder Darius Durant, the worst investigative team ever.  Written in the first person from Regan’s view, she’s tough, feisty, snarky, and just my kind of female lead.  Darius has his hands full and oddly, for an old vamp, he’s enjoying it.  Born in Fire starts the plot, Raised in Fire takes it up a notch, and Fused in Fire finds Reagan finally getting a grip on her powers.  All are excellent, but book 3 is a bit darker and less humorous.  You have it all, weres, vamps, mages, magic, and demons – and a brief appearance by Lucifer.  The books get solid B to A- (4* to 4.4*) with the first two being my favorites.  The author will be continuing this world using Vlad, the vamp elder, as a lead later this year.

Breen has done several other series, but none I’ve enjoyed as much.  Her current best selling Demi-gods of San Francisco, the 3rd and final book due this month, are pretty good, but they are more romance than UF adventure and the best character is a too-old-for-her-years teen with a sharp mind and smart mouth, not the lead characters.  I give Sin & Chocolate and Sin & Magic get C+ to B- (3.6* to 3.8*) for paranormal romance.  Decent choices for readers of the genre.

I read book one in her Chosen series and was bored stiff, so don’t assume her character traits and style carry over.  I speed read the Chosen series and frankly, there are better things to read that aren’t to damnably predictable.

The Librarian by Phillip Wilson looked right up my alley as a woman turned vengeance seeking killer against crooked cops.  Preposterous is the kindest thing I can say about the plot and characters.  On the plus side, it was fairly short, so the sheer magnitude of stupidity didn’t do permanent brain damage.  My grade is D- (1.8*) with the strong suggestion you just pass this by.

Hell Bent by Gregg Hurwitz is the latest installment of his Orphan X series, though he did release a new book this month.  Book 1 was very good, book 2 was annoying, and Hell Bent took the plot down a whole new road and rescued the series.  Evan Smoak has to fulfill the dying request of his old teacher and save his most recent student.  After the angsty and annoying Nowhere Man, this was back in top high-speed form as Evan tries to rescue and less than trusting teen girl from the kill squad that’s wiping out all traces of the highly illegal government program.  Exciting and well paced and Joey is a surprising plus in the plot.  My grade is B- (3.9*) for action thriller/assassin readers.  (I read the HC from Amazon)

The first 3 books of the Thirteen Realms series by Aussie author Marina Finlayson, Changeling Exile, Changeling Magic, and Changeling Illusion are better than average UF/Pnr Rom.  The story centers around 3 young women each with a tie to the Fae Realms.  The books are fairly well done, though Changeling Illusion seems choppy and not smoothly told, plus too predictable.  As a group, you get C+ to B- (3.3* to 3.7*) and each of the 3 females friends appears they will a trilogy of their story.  Best character, Yriell, the High King’s sister who lives outside the Realm disguised as a cranky old healer.  Her I loved.

Marriage Vow Murder is Book 9 in the Merry Wrath series by Leslie Lantry.  This has been an erratic series and the books, though short, somehow manage to screw up timelines and facts from previous books and leaves things just dangling.  Wrath is finally getting her big day, but the groom is missing.  Of all people, Merry goes to her sharp as a tack 4th-grade teacher and puzzle fanatic to get help with the clues to find Rex and maybe the solution to a hidden treasure.  If you can suspend all credibility, it’s kind of OK.  Best I can muster is a C+ (3.5*) well below the Amazon ratings.  Langtry scrambles her facts and timelines in every series.  She desperately needs a continuity editor.

And I close with a fairly reliable author, Jenn Stark with her latest The Lost Queen.  The second of 3 stand alones that tie with her Immortals of Las Vegas as Sara Wilde takes over as Justice for the Council.  Niki is still with her and the Magician is as remote and enigmatic as ever, though he seems to go full masochist here.  The Lost Queen is a very powerful witch but the real story becomes about the witch Danae and a spirit Myanya who seeks to inhabit the most powerful witch alive.  I’ll give this a B- (3.7*) and it’s a must read for fans of Immortal Las Vegas.

 

 

 

Another Round of Erratic Reads

Swear to heavens, authors need a kick in their collective butts.  I hate when a book is so boring it could be a sleeping pill.  The other thing I hate is plots so predictable I can tell what will happen after 10-20 pages.  It’s like most authors have gone BLAH and taken the easy road.

John Grisham wrote two excellent books – The Client and The Pelican Brief.  He’s lived off his reputation since.  There are a lot of writers like that.  Series writers get stuck in a character rut so deep there’s no way out.  The list is endless.  Smart authors limit their series to 3-5 books.  After that, the characters often go stale.

I started this entry back in early March, but colds and allergies and the weather got to me, and I was in a BAD MOOD for weeks.  I’ve also been dealing with dry eye and discovering some drops cause bad reactions for me, and the carpal tunnel in my right wrist is still there, some days really bad.  The problem with my eyes made reading ebooks hard, so I read a few DTB.  We’ll start a few that are a waste of time and move on from there.

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Having problems with insomnia?  Need a sleeping pill?  Don’t turn to drugs, try reading Camino Island by John Grisham.  I won it in a book swap game in hardcover, so it was easy on my eyes.  Generally, I give a book 30-50 pages before giving up.  I gave Camino Island over 100 pages before literally tossing it across the room.  OMG.  Tedious, boring, yawn-inducing, and uninteresting.  I can’t even remember a character.  I’m pre-disposed to like books set in Florida, but even that couldn’t save this dull mess.

Camino Island is supposed to be a ‘caper’ book, fun and fast-paced.  I’ve always loved caper books since way back in the days Ross Thomas and Donald Westlake had a blast with this genre.  The key to all good caper books is characters, snappy dialogue, misdirection, and very fast pacing.  All of these elements were absent in Camino Island.  If you have to force yourself to read 100 pages, it is NOT a good caper novel, it’s junk.

No grade, just a DNF and a piece of advice to avoid it – unless you need to take a nap.  Ross Thomas is mostly out of print as are most of Westlake’s, but The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie is a good example of ‘caper’ style book as are the first 3 in the Kipp series by John Sanford (originally published under his real name, John Camp.)

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Phillipa Bornikova wrote 2 really good Linnet Ellery books.  I waited over 2 years for Publish and Perish.  She didn’t jump the shark, she a double gainer with a twist over the Statue of Liberty.  The long build up to saving Linny’s lover John from Fae was not a dramatic climatic event.  It was as exciting as mopping the floor and happened so fast you got whiplash.  Oh, thanks to the shard in his eye the evil queen won’t remove, John still has no emotions.  Basically, he’s walking emotionally dead person.  It kept right on jumping double fips and reverse twists as it lept from one thing to another until the ‘big reveal.’  There are no words to fully describe how ludicrous it was.  I couldn’t believe she got it past a sane editor without a complete re-write.

Her ‘big reveal’?  Black Masons.  No, I’m not making that up.  Apparently, the author felt the need to drag National Treasure plotlines in and create White Masons (good guys) and Black Masons (NOT good guys) and dear old dad – is guess what?  Very touching.

The entire book was little more than a string of scenes of loosely held together by frayed bits and pieces to a flat-out stupid ending.  Shame on the editor for letting this garbage go to print.  Reading it risks permanent brain damage.  Worse, I paid for the blasted thing from an online bookseller.

My rating is a rare F (0*).  This is a HUGE disappointment and total waste of time and money.

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The most recent entry in the Elemental Assassin series did what too many publishers have done, changed a series from mass market paperback to trade size.  I bought the ebook on sale.  Venom in the Veins is a solid entry but a bit shorter than her other books.

Gin Blanco, AKA Spider the best assassin in Ashland, it trying to find out about ‘the Circle’ that ordered her mother killed.  And as the leader on Ashland’s Underworld, something she doesn’t want but is kind of stuck with, she’s always alert to other assassins trying to move up in the world and take her place.  But first, she and her foster brother Finn have to have dinner with Finn’s boss, a dwarf, at the swankiest place in town.  At least she doesn’t have to cook – but she’s wearing black just in case Spider has to come out and play.

Dinner was great, but Finn’s boss is attacked and we’re off piecing past and present together as Mab Malone’s belongings get auctioned off and the daughter of a female vampire/cannibal Gin killed as a teen still under Fletcher’s tutelage comes for her.  Interesting twist at the end.

Venom in the Veins gets a B- (3.8) as it’s pacing and twists were predictable since Estep never changes her formula in her plots.  Recommended series.

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Book 3 in the Orphan X series finds the man now called Evan Smoak AKA Nowhere Man, looking for the last protege of the man who trained him and acted as his surrogate father, Jack Johns.  Hell Bent pits Evan against an old nemesis, another Orphan who can’t forgive Evan for being chosen first and being better, Van Scriver.

Like the first two books, the pacing is fast and furious as the race is on to the find the last Orphan – Evan to save them, Van to kill them and Evan so the whole program can be closed down before it’s it’s found out.  But 16-year-old Joey isn’t an ordinary Orphan, Joey is a girl.  Evan gets there first, but she’s not trusting and Sciver is hot on their heels.

The action is relentless and Joey is well trained, but not trusting.  The uneasy alliance is based mostly on Jack’s Rules and slow bond of trust that builds while running from the well equipped and financed Sciver.

Greg Hurwitz can be uneven in his books, but he nails it here.  The reader is pulled headlong into the story and the 400+ pages just flew by.  The ending had an amazing and unexpected turn.  I bought this online in hardcover.

Hell Bent gets a solid B to B+ (4.2*) for an action thriller.  Smoak and Joey are well-developed characters, Van Sciver less so, but enough to give him depth, the shady secret group remained shady and secret, except Evan knows at the end where it came from.  Book 4 will be a must-read.

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Wilde Fire, Book 10 in the Immortal Las Vegas series is the final book in the story arc about the Arcane Council, Sara Wilde, and the war to keep the old gods out of this world.  Jenn Stark has slowly built a complex world of magic based on the Tarot and centered around Sara Wilde who starts as a relic hunter with a touch of magic and evolves into a powerful magic user and one of the Major Arcana.

In book ten, the Veil is finally torn and the battle rages and Sara is the lynchpin.  Her ally is surprising, so is her biggest enemy.  The denouement was great and has led to a spin-off series about former demons who are the only ones that can hunt and demons that end up on the Earthside on the veil.  (I started the first but wasn’t thrilled.)  Dixie and other characters get involved and the war brings the Connected out of the shadows all over the world.

I give Wilde Fire B- (3.9*) and strongly recommend reading the series in order and the overarching plot evolves in each book and it’s the only way the plot makes sense,

 

And Even More Binge – Short Reviews

My apologies for not posting.  I’ve been suffering fatigue and just kind of digging out of it slowly.  Yes, I’m still reading, actually more ebooks than print lately.  Why?  Well, publishers have consolidated, ruthlessly cut authors and series, no longer give a series a chance to develop a following and delay publication dates 18 months or more except on big name bestsellers.  On top of all that, they raised prices and reduced quality of everything from the paper itself, to the crappy proofreading and editing.  No wonder authors have turned to self-publishing.  Earlier this year, cozy mystery writers had contracts canceled and whole series dropped.  Now si-fi, fantasy, paranormal, and dystopian are getting the same treatment.  Action, espionage, military thrillers and many mysteries, from humorous to noir have gone ebook.

Looking at my Amazon purchases, I found I ordered more non-book merchandise than books.  Five years ago, the first Tuesday of the month meant UPS had sacks on boxes at my door.  Now a get maybe 2 books a month, 4 in the high release months.  Having moved from quality packaging, Amazon now also save money using padded envelopes, except the books often arrive with creased covers and scuffing thanks to Amazon and the PO abuse.  When I spend $20+ on a book, is it too much to ask for a dust jacket that’s NOT TORN?  A trade paperback with a bent, creased cover?  Can the damn publishers not use recycled tissues for paper so thin I can see the print on the back of the page and despite great care, the fragile paper rips just turning a page?  Better still, can they find printers who don’t leave blotches of link like mini-Rorschach tests all over the pages – often causing those frail thin pages to glue themselves to each other?

God knows ebooks are the prototype of bad proofreading – not to mention authors who seem unable to exercise even minimal self-discipline in CONTINUITY ERRORS – but they aren’t $20, either.  I get a lot of them through Book Bub on sale for $0.99 to $2.99 and a lot of free books.

The big downside of ebooks is the fact most authors choose a short novel length.  That might be what ebook readers prefer, but it often leaves the characters and plot wanting.  Certainly, Golden Age mysteries were largely short novel length, with Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time being one of the finest mysteries ever written and one of the shortest.  Christie’s books were all shorter novels, especially her best early works.  Same for Hammett and even Chandler.  But today’s writers are simply not in that class – or even close.  Today’s writers lack the skills of compacting paragraphs of atmosphere into a single sentence.  “It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in,” from Chandler’s The Big Sleep tells you more that paragraphs about the setting and the atmosphere in a modern book.

But bemoaning the loss of mystery’s Golden Age is a bit pointless.  Today’s books reflect the taste of modern readers and the fact they want easy, entertaining diversion – and apparently a limited vocabulary.  Not many authors can command a wide audience other than a handful of big names that run more on the reputation for their past works than their often mediocre, formulaic current novels.  Still, even ebooks have good, bad, and indifferent authors, so let’s see what we have for July/Aug mysteries.

PS:  No, I have not lost my fondness for UF and paranormal, but most paranormal now seems to fall into mystery or romance genres.  Pickings are lean there too.  Some authors have nothing new out – due to the whole publisher issue or the fact they’ve just hit a dry spell I can’t say.  I do have a few for the next print book reviews group.

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The newest entry in the Merry Wrath series is decent but choppy and frankly, not that credible, but still a fun read.  Mud Run Murder is decent as an ebook, but try and borrow it unless you’re a hardcore fan.  SHORT book.  C+ to B- (3.7*)

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The Never Say Spy series books 1 to 10 that I binge read:

OK, this series is set in Canada and involves a cross between a spy series, near future virtual reality, and a book keeper who is mistaken for a deep cover spy.  It has humor, heart, twists, turns, excitement, and some interesting takes on the James Bondish style send-up mixed with serious stuff.  Each book, while part of an overarching story, is complete unto itself.  Aydan Kelly, the woman who insists she’s a book keeper (which she is) is a terrific lead character, but would be more believable as someone 10 years younger.  Book one, Never Say Spy, is free and ebook.  Give it a try.  I enjoyed the series a lot.  The books ranged from C+ to B (3.6* to 4*)

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The House of Spies, the 17th book in the Gabriel Allon series, was the usual 500+ page tome by Daniel Silva.  What it wasn’t was great.  In fact, it barely made good.  With a cast of ever character you can think of – and some extras, an episodic style, and no really solid lead, it limped along in Mediocreville.  Completely miss-able.  Get from the FOL sale or borrow it.  Read the HC version – it was cheaper than the ebook.  C- (2.8*)  Not impressed by a usually reliable author.  Retire Gabriel, please.

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How a really good series can cause an author to rush out a book before it’s time.  Call of the Wilde is a very short book.  Yes, it’s action packed because the author doesn’t take the time flesh out any of the many individual elements and it all becomes messy in the headlong rush to the big finale in London.  Let’s do, not think.  Never a good plan.  Loose ends all over.  The rush had predictable bad consequences.  Not as well done as the earlier books.  Unpolished and fragmented.  My score is a C (3*).  Had Ms Stark taken the time to just breath deeply and THINK, it would have been light-years better – and 50-75 pages longer.

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An interesting concept, a former Episcopal priest turned war vet turned professional poker player/trouble shooter.  The Preacher was a book I wanted to like.  It had all the anti-hero elements.  It was dull, predictable, occasionally tedious, and just blah.  The Preacher gets called into some dusty torn in New Mexico by and old seminary friend to find out what’s wrong.  How he does this playing poker only works because the poker players are what’s wrong.  As sere and dusty as eastern New Mexico.  I was frustrated at wasting my time on this.  My score C- (2.8*) and give it a miss.

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OK, a favorite author – G.A. Aiken/Shelly Laurenston and a favorite series, the Dragon Kin.  Bring the Heat was a sure bet – sort of.  Now Branwen the Awful is a great character and so to is Aiden the Divine, what didn’t work do well is the choppy plot.  You’ve got Annwyl the Bloody in Hell, the dragons wiping out the followers of the blind god,  and Brannie and Aiden escorting Keita to poison another dragon queen because he son was kidnapped and murdered while under the Dragon Queen’s care.  Anyhoo …… the scene switching is not unusual, but the story isn’t smooth or as interesting, which is a shame as Brannie is one of my favorite characters.  My score is C+ (3.3*)

 

A Last Post and Then – A Long Break

I suspect you’ve noticed I’ve been posting less these last few months, in part due to repetitive computer issues and in part due to issues with my eyes.  Like most folks my age with light eyes I’ve had cataracts for years.  These last few months saw a marked changed in my vision and it is difficult for me to work on the computer for any length of time.

Yes, I am getting surgery on both eyes, but I have to wait for openings which put’s it out later than I had hoped.  Still, it will be good to get it done.  Hopefully, it will be drama free and mark the end of a very expensive year of car repairs, extensive dental work, multiple trips to the computer place (where I was mistaken for an employee), and ending with eye surgery.  Could have been better, could have been worse.

I’ve been on a spy/assassin/action thriller binge with multiple authors in various formats.  I belong to Goodreads and I occasionally post (in fits in starts) in two groups, The Orion Team, a group for fans of action thriller/spy/espionage type books and the VERY large Mystery, Crime, Thriller group.  I am almost never around the fantasy and paranormal groups I belong to.  The latest Mitch Rapp book, Order to Kill by Kyle Mills who took over for Vince Flynn and did a really spectacular job of The Survivor, the previous book in the series is reviewed below.  By comparison, I found Order to Kill …… well, average or slightly above.  My comment brought out Ryan – self-styled ‘The Rappologist” – a Mitch Rapp superfan who runs a blog dedicated to Mitch Rapp who took exception to my views.  So I did something I rarely do, I sent an email to the author, Kyle Mills.

Now I email my many political representatives and office holders in DC and tell them off or agree with them (can’t remember the last time that happened) and sent the email expecting ‘Thanks for writing’, canned reply of a similar nature.  But lo and behold, within a few hours Kyle Mills replied himself.  And not some rote response, but a thoughtful look at what books of his I liked and how I loved The Survivor, but not Order to Kill.  A part of his response was:

“My impression of the Rapp books is that he is a bit of a superhero.  Realism is less important than the fact that he be the master of his universe.  Part of that is shown through his actions and part is through the deference others show him.  Further, because The Survivor leaned toward the cerebral (in the context of the series) I wanted to do more of a pure action thriller this time out.”

I thought about his reply awhile and about what books I liked best and those that ended up annoying me and came to the conclusion I do prefer the cerebral thriller.  There’s plenty of action, but the characters are more nuanced, flawed, and human, so more relatable.  See, even a thriller teaches us something about ourselves.  And kudos to Mr Mills.

On to the reviews!

PS – Belle Chasse by Suzanne Johnson, the next in the Sentinels of New Orleans series is due out next week.  If I have a moment, I’ll post a short review before surgery.  Happy Holidays!

NOTE: All books purchased by me unless otherwise noted.

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Order to Kill has Rapp back in Pakistan works with the team of ex-Seals to locate the now mobile nuclear missiles the Pakistani Army is playing dangerous games with.  Then he is pulled away when the wife and son of the Louis Gould, the man who tried to kill him, are in jeopardy.  Apparently, the safe home in South Africa is breached by ISIS rebels led by a low-level Russian thug.  Rapp saves the day (of course) but feels this urgent need to get back to Pakistan.  He sends the mother and son to his house the one he’s he’s finally finishing so many years after the death of his first wife.  The best line in the book is the interior decorator who is increasingly frustrated by his non-responses to texts about things like countertops and threatens him with pink Formica if he doesn’t reply.

Then we go off the rails.  Mills’ Putin clone orders his best assassin to kill Rapp.  And the ‘Rapp is Superhero’ song begins.  It’s annoying beyond belief.  Everything in Pakistan will fall apart if Rapp is there and without him their operations are crippled?  Seriously?  He’s the ONE man who can see this and wreck the ‘big plan?  Maybe he should check with the Johnny Carson estate to see if his Carnac hat is available for sale.  All Rapp was missing was a clingy body suit and big red ‘S’ on his chest.  I just took what came next as shallow, predictable, and kind of tedious in that like a romance novel, the ending was never in doubt, just how he got there.  You couldn’t even hate the competent Russian assassin, who was just doing a job.  We can hate ISIS, but big deal.

What’s missing?  Well, there’s plenty of action and the pacing is excellent.  Mills knows his way around writing a thriller, but in trying to imitate Flynn’s later works where Rapp is less human and more a cartoonish, shallow, always right, he lost the nuance that he brought to The Survivor, what I thought was one of the best books in the series for some time.  That he deliberately changed the style to better match Flynn is precisely why I found myself annoyed with it.  I’d grown tired of Flynn turning Rapp into an almost inhuman superhero.  I did like Grisha Azarov, the Russian assassin and he has some potential for future books as he manages to get away from both Rapp and Russia.

If Mills sticks with this ‘superhero’ approach, I’ll likely quit buying after the next book.  It’s like a good, but unsurprising action movie rather than an intellectual challenge with action an integral part.  Plus Rapp is getting too old to be fully credible in plots that are all about physical challenges without the redeeming factors of human error or character flaws.  To his credit, he did leave Rapp with the widow and child now living in his house and not knowing how to handle things.

Order to Kill gets a C+ (3.4*) rating for me and will be loved by dedicated Rapp fans – 70% of whom gave it 5* on Amazon.  I found it tedious and annoying and actually a step back from the far better book, The Survivor.  There are far too many of the ‘James Bond’ superspy genre out there.  Shallow and to me, ultimately unsatisfying.  Read it if you are a Flynn fan.  I’m sure you’ll at least like it as it is was well written and paced and you like the ‘avenging crusader’ style of thriller.  If you’re NOT a huge fan, borrow it from the library, buy it used, cheap in about 6 months (or less as remainders are already down to $10 including shipping on Amazon) or hit the FOL sale in about 2 months when they start removing extras from their shelves.

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Scot Harvath, like Mich Rapp, is getting a bit long in tooth (this is book 16 to Rapp’s 15th – but Flynn’s death caused a break in time before a new author was selected) to be the only guy to do the job again, and again, and again.  Like Kyle Mills and Vince Flynn, Thor brings a sense of realism to his settings and action, but Foreign Agent lacked the originality of his earlier books and like Rapp, Harvath has become a bit too much – though Thor is giving him more humanity and a strong sense of his mortality.  The series is suffering from character fatigue.

Harvath, like Flynn, chose to go the route where action takes priority over over character and complexity of human nature.  The plot becomes the story and characters are stoically going through the motions of playing out scenes.  I give him credit for slowly developing the self-realization of his and the fact this cannot last.  Still, it’s almost cut a paste in parts from prior work.  Not a patch on Black List, which was excellent, one of his best.  This can be a trap when the protagonist must start confronting in changes age brings and the equally harsh realization that they want a life beyond the endless action, beyond being responsible for the whole world.

And it is that humanity, the flawed person, that makes characters go from good to completely memorable.  And it’s that element of the plot that raises a book from decent read to amazing.  Now you can do that with some other elements like he did with Black List, but that made the PLOT great, not the characters.  Here, the plot cannot push the book from average to amazing.  It’s a decent plot – and like Kyle Mills, he mixes Russians and ISIS are the antagonists against whom Harvath must match wits and killing skills.  But here the Rissian involved with ISIS is not an apolitical professional assassin like Mills’ Grisha Azarov, but a nutcase who hate Americans.

Again, no question Thor knows the area, the techniques, technology, and keeps things moving, but he’s at the ‘fish or cut bait’ point with Harvath.  Made a few books more, but his character is too old and fire that drove him is changing.

Foreign Agent gets a C+ to B- (3.5*) and will be a huge hit with action thriller fans.  It shows less prescience and tension than Black List, the book I now judge his others by.  Like all books in the action Thriller genre, the price on remainders drops like a stone pretty fast and you can get a HC new book delivered from an Amazon reseller cheaper than the paperback.  Or go buy it at the FOL sale or borrow it from the library.  It wasn’t worth the HC price, but I share this series, like the Rapp series with my brother, so off to him it goes.  Print only.  He and amy SIL do NOT do ebooks.

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Victor the assassin is back with another excellent installment.  Unlike characters like Rapp and Scot Harvath, Victor is a true anti-hero.  An assassin for hire with a certain code, the first priority being his own survival.  He trusts no one and leads an existence devoid of human ties.  But he keeps his promises.

A Time to Die finds Victor on a train to fulfill a contract for MI6 as part of deal they made.  But he’s not alone.  There are other assassins out to get him.  Someone has put a price on his head.  But Victor now has his focus divided between Rados, the worst of the many Balkan war criminals and mass murderers, now a crime boss, and those who are hunting for him.

Patience and attention to detail are what have kept Victor alive when most other assassins would have sought retirement and refuge.  But it also means someone sold him out and it can only be one person – the middleman who acts as the go-between Victor and is clients.  No time for that now, now he must find a way to dig deep enough into the criminal underground to find Rados who has evaded all who have sought to bring him to trial for war crimes.

It is a wonderfully twisted knot of a killer seeking to kill a killer while another killer is trying to kill him and the target that Victor ends up close nearly gets to live …….. but he seals his fate by causing Victor to break a promise.

Assassin novels are very different from ones where the protagonist is a hero fighting for a cause or belief and someone who has made his life about the art of killing and going unnoticed.  Victor is gray, he has limits, a personal code, but is morally flexible on some things.  He does not kill unnecessarily nor is he any kind of patriot.  Just a killer.  Complex and fascinating in his own way.

A Time to Die poses some interesting perspectives on the nature of true evil.  One of Tom Wood’s best and most mature from a plot and character perspective, with plenty of action and twists.  It gets a solid B (4*) and a highly recommended read for fans of early John Rain books by Barry Eisler, Solo by Jack Higgins, or Shibumi by Trevanian.  I’m not sure why this series is not more popular.  It’s really well done a Victor makes a wonderful anti-hero.

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I bought the ebook, Tokyo Black by Andrew Warren, the first in the Thomas Caine series, from Amazon through a Book Bub sale and figured I’d give it a try.  Tokyo Black is about an ex-CIA covert operative who got set up and is getting set up again by the same man.  Using an alias, he’s lived a comfortable and quiet life in Thailand’s resort area doing minor smuggling of designer knockoffs.  His partner sets him up with a narcotics rap and he lands in prison.  His was out is an ex-lover who needs him to some work in Japan, part of his old territory before things went sideways in the Mideast.

This setup moves quickly into the story where Caine is in Japan where he uses a favor owed him by a Yakuza boss to try and find out what’s going on.  Unlike most spy novels, this thriller is more tied to organized crime than national secrets or terrorist groups.  Sort of The Godfather meets John Rain – and I hope that didn’t give away the ending, which was well done.

The story is a really good, fast-paced read but not nuanced as I like my thrillers, just a personal preference in style.  Caine is a really good character and it will be interesting to see where this goes as he ends up agreeing to work freelance for the CIA.

Tokyo Black gets a solid B (4*) from me.  For lovers of the John Rain books, Gray Man series, and the Keller books by Lawrence Block.

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From well-crafted thrillers to mystery fluff with as much substance as meringue.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing inherently wrong with fluff when it’s well done, which this is not.  In the tradition of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, and James Patterson, we add Janet Evanovich, aging doyen (75 years old) of the increasingly awful Steph Plum books (once favorites of mine, 14 books ago), cooking up ways to ‘expand the brand’.  God, the money machine runs on her name.  The books are mostly written by her co-authors, but it is HER name that sells them.

Curious Minds is mildly original, very choppy, meant to have this brilliant and eccentric lead character (a copy of the TV series version of Elementary, except Emerson Knight has none of the flaws and is a LOT richer) and the ever reluctant female in the late 20’s trying to break into the financial world who is assigned to keep him as a customer of the financial house.  Riley Moon is the reluctant sidekick in his plans.

This is supposed to be funny, and apparently, some people found it so.  But a decade’s old scheme to replace the gold in the US Federal Reserve in NYC with gold plated tungsten while moving the actual gold elsewhere is not only improbable, it makes no sense how Knight works it out.

Curious Minds has a few really amusing throw-away lines, but it was so choppy and jittery, it got annoying.  Though it got 3* from me on GoodReads, it’s really a D+ to C- (2.6*) effort.  I know the style was deliberate, but that did not make it less annoying.  Riley is too young for her years and lacks the maturity to make this pairing work, so she comes off a dimwit with multiple degrees from Harvard, an unlikely combination.  I found it frustrating as the concept was good, it was just not well done.  For Evanovich fans, none of this will matter.  For anyone else, give it a miss or get it free or really cheap somewhere.

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Oh dear God, why do I do this to myself?  I hate chick lit and buy the ultimate chick lit ebook because of the reviews.  On the upside, I got it super cheap, on the downside, about half way through I gave up.  It was that or throw up.

OK, a psychologist learns her building is being demolished and the two weird people she shared the practice with both knew and had new jobs.  She’s left holding the bag with even her file lost.  (The improbability of all this boggles the mind.)  So she starts a column called The Breakup Doctor with the help of the friend she was counseling when the demolition started.

She starts getting clients and missing the fact that she also missing all the signals her own romance is about to hit the rocks.  All that was missing was a flashing neon sign.

At a quarter of the way through, I’d had enough.  It’s mildly amusing, annoying, and beyond belief – with amusing being only 20%, 50% annoying and 30% not remotely believable.  The Breakup Doctor gets a DNF since I couldn’t make myself finish it.  The writing was solid but the characters everything I loathe in chick lit.  Unless this is your thing, (please, don’t tell me, I’ll just cringe) give it a miss.  If it is your thing, it gets 4.5* on Amazon, but they tend to overrate these things.

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OK folks, it came election day and I read it all that day.  I did vote first.

Belle Chasse picks up soon after DJ and Jake make good their escape from the trial Zarkovi  – with the help of Christof Winter Prince, Jean Lafitte, René, and Adrien – getting Eugenie out at the same time.  The are now in Old Barataria at Jean’s home.  Alex stayed back to get the inside scoop on the Council.

The pace is quick as Faerie descends into civil war with the queen on her deathbed.  Eugenie’s sister is killed by vampires – but who did it?  Rand, the elf father of Eugenie’s son, the or the wizards?  Then a group of vampires attack Lafitte’s home in Old Barataria and end up paying the price as the gang arrives back before they can kill any but the undead.  Then a strange woman arrives who turns out to be her cousin Audrey, Lennox’s daughter.  They a young ally to get holy water and take messages.

Then the war the war in Faerie goes bad as Florian kills their aunt and claims Christof is to blame seeking help from the council, help denied by Zarkovi.  With the holy water and her staff, they get to eavesdrop on the council meetings.

The ending is fast and furious as Zarkovi grows more desperate to prove himself.  Old loyalties die hard, but we also lose one of the characters I really liked, so it kind of sad.

Suzanne Johnson did a really good job in keeping this series fresh and interesting and action packed.  Belle Chasse ends on a very surprising note.  Only downside, the book was pricey for a trade sized hardcover just barely over 300 pages.  I give Belle Chasse an A- (4.8*) but a big negative on cost.  Borrow it from the library or wait for a few months and get a used one.  Even the ebook is overpriced.

New Year’s Quickies

Well, another year has passed and a few hundred more books have been read.  I figure I’ll just take this last chance to do a few quickie reviews and wish everyone a happy, healthy, safe 2014.

This is the 6th book in the King and Maxwell series, and the one that the TV series was loosely based on.  You can tell it was written with an eye to TV or movie conversion, much like many of Michael Crichton’s later books, but it’s still a good read and better plotted than a lot of his books lately featuring a teenage client who seems trapped in a web of lies that his father initially helped build, and his father, trying to get back to his son and find out who set him up to die and what the hell was going on.  And naturally, there’s no better way to get Maxwell involved than to tell her to back off.

Baldacci blows hot and cold on his books, but this one hits the mark.  I give it a B- (3.8*) and recommended read for thriller fans – but try and buy the ebook.  At $15-16 for the hardcover, it’s a bit steep.

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This being the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, who better than Bob Lee Swagger to look into conspiracy theories about The Third Bullet.  An unwilling Swagger is waited out by the window of a writer who had been investigating the assassination, she asks him to look into his murder and see if it’s possible it was related to his research on the assassination.  Swagger refuses her again and again, but the one thing the widow has in abundance is patience – and a clue that probably only Swagger would understand – a bicycle like tire track on a rain coat found at a different building.  So the man who said no, suddenly changes his mind and gets involved.

Followers of the series will like the way the ending of this books ties in with Point of Impact.  In a series that has ranged from excellent to awful, The Third Bullet comes in at the high end with a solid B- (3.7*).  To his credit, Hunter did not twist the facts of the actual shooting, which makes the plot more interesting.  The usual unlikely death defying events for Swagger stresses the reader’s credulity, but otherwise a solid outing.  A must for Swagger fans.  I got the book free thru an online book swapping site in hardcover.  Borrow it, buy the ebook, or wait for the mmpb.

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A new entry in the paranormal romance genre, Dragon Awakened is book 1 The Hidden series.  Like other paranormal series, this one is set in the ‘normal’ world, but must remain ‘Hidden’ to survive humans.  This is the story of of an assassin dragon who gets an assignment he ends up questioning and in the end pays for his act of compassion.  Fun, fast paced, the two protagonists, Ruby Salazaar and Cyntag Valeron are likable and entertaining.

Dragon Awakened is a fast, easy read with enough meat to be entertaining, but devoid of any innovation or surprising plot twists.  My score is C+ (3.2*) and a pleasant way to pass your time for a few hours, but only if cheap or free.  I paid $5.40+tax from an online book store.  I certainly wouldn’t pay more than that.

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In The Art Forger, Barbara Shapiro wrote an interesting study in human nature enmeshed in the closed and clannish art world weaving in the theft of the paintings from the Isabella Stanley Gardner Museum, art forgery as its own art form, historical looks at the artists ‘Bella’ collected and her disdain for ‘impressionist’ art, and how a struggling artist copes with moral quandaries and ‘Faustian’ bargains – and rationalizes her choices.  It’s stories within stories within stories, like Russian nesting dolls, taking semi-disgraced artist Claire Roth on a path she never expected to walk – and finds her inadvertently discovering a well hidden secret of the art world.

The changing time frames and POV’s are mostly smooth, and I found the ‘letters’ by Mrs Gardner lively and interesting – and my favorite part of the book in many ways.  The mystery was more predictable than I expected.  The art world is neatly skewered and pretty accurate.  The details on the whole painting process will bore some interest others.  Me, I wavered between the two, but leaned toward bored.  The brief cover synopsis pretty much covers the whole plot.  Characters are flat and two dimensional and dialogue uninspired, which seriously detracted from an interesting plot.

My score for The Art Forger is C+ (3.2*) because the writing itself was largely tedious and saturated with the type of pretensions that annoy the crap out of me.  I bought The Art Forger from Book Outlet, a site that sells remainders, for under $3.00 on sale.  It’s current price for the same trade size on Amazon is $11-12.  It was interesting enough for a fast read and as intro to the art world few see, but buy a remainder or used copy.

AND ……………………………………………….

Man Plans, the Gods Laugh – and why I have so few reviews this week

Life rarely goes as planned.  It also reminds us that regardless of our problems, others have it far worse.  A friend in the book swaps took a fall and broke her back.  Her vertebra was glued together again using the surgical equivalent of Super Glue and she’s now in a rehab center in California.  Bored and in pain, she asked me to write a story for her using my groundhog character that exists on the swap forums of PBS (Paperback Swap).    It was supposed to be a simple two maybe 3 part story.  I’m on part 8 and I have one more to go to get the loose ends tied up.

Stories have a life of their own and often surprise even me.  I read that authors say their characters just won’t allow them to do certain things.  Well, over the years, this groundhog I created has developed some very definite ideas about what she will and will NOT do.  Over time, she didn’t exactly evolve the way I was expecting, and a large part of that was due to a group writing effort in a swap where each player contributed a character and story element to the game.    Unlike a Murder Mystery Weekend, it was not a play where the victims and perpetrators were determined in advance.  It was more like trying to knit together stories of Thieves World, where writers saw the same character from different perspectives and created characters for themselves.  In the swap, called Murder They Wrote, I laid the basic framework of the story and worked each contribution and character created into the plot as best I could.  I had to get pretty creative at times!  The whole thing came out surprisingly good.  Our patient and long suffering hostess, who played the part of the owner of The Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana, put the final version together as book, I did some last minutes edits and an epilogue, and she emailed it to all the players.  It was a perfect setting.  One player decided she was a ghost.  Another a voodoo priestess.  There were ‘extras’ that fleshed out the story.  But we had a great and creative group.

As a result of that swap, I created a character as a partner for my groundhog in an art theft recovery company.  He became a recurring player and I started doing multi-part stories in the swaps.  Each time my books were stolen, I’d tell another part of the story.  It takes time and often bits were in different swaps.  So another player began collecting my posts in a dedicated thread.  This lead to my friends’ request to do a story just for her.  But putting stories together takes time.  More time than I realized when I started writing the one for my friend.  Each day I’d do 4-7 pages, let it sit a day, then go back next day, do a quick edit and make minor changes, then move on to the next part.

Because I did the story like episodes in a 30 minute TV show, I actually had to put all the parts together today and start reading through from the beginning to see what I had to clean up – or questions left unanswered.  I found a few errors, but over all, for something thrown together by an amateur in a week, it really was pretty well done.

Was the story what I planned?  No.  Did it play out as I expected?  No.  Only two elements came through that I planned in advanced.  One happened because I gave my friend in CA a call to see how she’s doing.  She mentioned she really liked this one character I created, the opposite to my own temperamental, short-tempered, feisty, and sometimes vindictive character.  He’s a phlegmatic Southerner, unflappable, and and very much a loaner with a real fondness for moonshine.  In his own way, he’s fond of his cousin.  So the story changed and Cousin Cleatus came into the story.  But there had to be a reason why Cleatus was there, and that took me awhile to figure out.  Plus, the whole thing added about 14 pages to the length.  So far I have close to 20,000 words.  I’m amazed.  I’m also amazed at how much time it took and how much I enjoyed doing it.

Then I got a cold.  Just in time so I couldn’t go to the annual block party without giving it to all my neighbors.  Plus colds make my brain go dead.  Give me a simple cold and I can barely write simple sentences,  so the story sat while I pouted over being the victim of a common virus.  Nearly a week later I FINALLY finished it!   There’s another thing I learned.  If you write every day, you aren’t going to have a lot of time to read.  Get sick and trying to focus on books?  A double whammy.  I have books to be read backing up very quickly.  How authors – real authors – find time to do all that reading of other author’s works is beyond me.  My brain was so involved with my own characters and plot, I found it hard to change gears and get drawn into a different story, or I was just too sick to care.

Luckily, I’m over my cold and the associated fit of sulking.

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I finally did manage to get a few of books read.

Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire.  The October Daye series was not a hit for me from book one.  I really struggled to get into this world and accept the character.  But with each new book, I’ve liked it better and better – sort of.  This installment was an exception, not because it wasn’t good, but because it had a serious flaw.

One of the ongoing elements in the October Daye books has been her relationship with Tybalt, King of the Cait Sidhe.  That finally gets center stage here.  Toby is asked to find the changling daughter of knight in her lord’s service.  Finding things, especially lost and missing children has become something of a specialty of hers, it’s true, but of all people to have a half human child, the uptight, by the rules, knight Etienne would have been last on the list.

Etienne didn’t know he even had a daughter until the woman who was once his lover called.  She’d simply disappeared on her way home from school  But there are bigger problems.  Etienne has violated his knight’s oath and the rules of Fairie.  It also meant two more things, there was human out there who knew about Fairie and he never said a word, AND his daughter had come to her powers without anyone to teach her.

A large part of the story is also about a rebellion in the Court of Cats.  Toby spends a lot of time bleeding and being healed thanks to a disgruntled Samson, a cat who hates the fact that Tybalt, their king, involves himself with her.  The two elements overlap when Sampson is implicated in the abduction of Eitenne’s daughter.

Overall, this was a good story with two main, and different storylines.  The downside was, parts became repetitious with Toby and Tybalt no more than healed when they were once again attacked by the same group.  That brought my grade down to B- (3.7*) For fans of October Daye, it’s a must for the Tybalt story alone.  A word of warning, you really do need to read most, if not all, books in the series in order to follow the story.   The world is incredibly complex and layered and many plot elements are carried over from previous books.  While not the best in the series, I liked it for finally bringing the Tybalt/Toby relationship into focus.

Now we have the opposite – a series in decline.  A Wanted Man by Lee Child ended up a huge disappointment.  If there is one word no author ever wants to see attached to a thriller, it’s BORING.  And that is exactly what this book is – boring.   And tedious, especially the opening 130 pages or so.  If you think driving from Nebraska to Chicago in the winter is boring, try reading about – for a hundred pages!!!!!!!.  GAH!

The story moves from the boring to the absurd as an FBI agent starts chasing them then joins forces with Reacher and the waitress, who is really an undercover agent, and the whole thing ends in the most absurd terrorist kill ’em all shoot out I ever read – because the whole thing was one big terrorist Ponzi scheme.  Honestly, what nonsense.

Tedious, dull, a wild ending that seemed so blasted absurd.  I have NO idea what Lee Child was thinking, if he was actually thinking at all.  Opinion on Amazon is fractured and fairly evenly distributed 1 to 5 stars.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  Obviously, hardcore fans don’t care.  People who want a good thriller were soundly disgusted.  I can give this drivel a D+ (2.2*) and strongly urge you to get it from your library, but don’t spend ANY money on this thing, certainly not the discount price of $16.38 print or $12.99 Kindle.  Move on folks, nothing worth you time here.

I also read Physical Education by Maggie Barbieri, the most recent in her Murder 101 series featuring Alison Bergeron, a professor looking for tenure at a small Catholic college located on the Hudson River in the northern most part of NYC’s limits.  Now married to her detective boyfriend (second marriage for both) she finds herself the reluctant step-mother of college age twin girls and an even more reluctant replacement coach for the college’s D-III girl’s basketball team.

Alison is adjusting to married life, or so she wants to believe, but one thing you never quite adjust to is having bodies put in your car trunk.  Leaving the school, the retired cop, now school security guard helpfully goes to close her trunk only to have the thing pop open – and new college mail delivery hire has been shot, execution style, and thrown in her trunk.  Flashback to when mobster Pete Miceli was after her.  Now Allison was dealing with another murder, her detective husband lying about – too much and smelling of Channel #5, and her best friend, Father Kevin halfway to be defrocked for something her didn’t do, while his ambitious replacement Father Dwyer was single-handedly trying to undo Vatican II.

Now Allison has way more questions than she’s getting answers – from Kevin or Bobby or Bobby’s erstwhile detective partner and her volunteer assistant coach Fred.  Then there’s the gun with the silencer in the fridg in the garage and supposed rats in her basement.  Barbieri takes all these elements and spins them into a fast and entertaining story with several mysteries large and small for Allison to deal with.  Satisfying as few cozies are these days, with a sensible and intelligent lead character.

Physical Education gets a solid B (4*) rating and a recommendation to buy used or as a remainder.  I paid around $9 while a new copy on Amazon is selling for $16.49 – too high for light mystery.

Molly Harper is one one of my favorite paranormal romance authors.  Her Half-moon Hollow vampire series is mostly very well done and seriously amusing.  It was her name that prompted me to buy Undead in My Bed, a three author anthology that included stories by Katie MacAlister and Jessica Sims, two other authors I usually, but not always, enjoy.

I read Harper’s Undead Sublet first.  It was the longest of the 3 novellas at 165 pages, and I think the second best of the three.  Tess Maitland is a sleep deprived, overworked head chef at a well know Chicago gourmet restaurant Coda when she hears the arugula telling her ‘Knock, knock’ jokes.  She was promptly given a ‘sabbatical’ – code for ‘she has flipped out and taking time for recover’.  Her old mentor now lives in Half-moon Hollow, KY.  As the closest thing to family she has, she heads down there and rents a small house for a month of mental health time and rest.

Only problem is, the house has someone living there, the vampire owner.  Sam Clemson became a vampire by accident.  He came yo Half-moon Hollow with his soon to be ex-wife Lindy to try and save their marriage.  After building a daytime hiding spot for a vampire, the vamp decided having a human know about his ‘safe room’ was dangerous  so he drained him and left him in the woods.  Luckily, a member of the vampire council found him and turned him time, though the transition wasn’t easy.  Lindy freaked out and had him declared dead, then started divorcing him.  The new laws were a bit hazy in some areas after the Coming Out n 1999.  Sam was not exactly adjusting well and now he had a mouthy female in his house.

That’s when the war of pranks started, and some were hysterically funny.  Tess makes friends with Jolene, Jane and some others from Harper’s earlier books, and soon finds herself enjoying life in a small town again, the kind of town she grew up in.  The romance wasn’t the core of the story, rather two folks finding their own way and maybe each other while doing so.

Undead Sublet is good, but the ending is a bit flat.  Sam’s character is pushed to a minor roll for much of the story, but as a whole, it works.  I give this part a B (4.0*).

Katie MacAlister does her turn with a Dark Ones novella, Shades of Gray.  Now Ms MacAlister blows hot and cold for me, but she hit this just right.  Grayson Soucek finds a nun climbing over the wall of his ancestral home, knocks her out, ties her up, and tries to question her.  What the devil is a human doing on his property, especially a curvy nun who is anything but nun like and claims to be a Guardian and a Beloved.  But getting answers is impossible, as are her claims of being a Guardian and Beloved.  Only problem is, she smells amazing and seems to think he does too.

Noelle is thrilled to have found her Dark One, the one for whom she the Beloved.  Grayson is less than thrilled – uncomfortably excited, but he’s been cursed by a demon and can’t afford to get involved with this attractive, though possibly insane, female.  Then he learns his abby has been leased for 2 weeks to some halfwit film crew trying to capture ‘spectral phenomenon.  The thing is, dealing with them means getting near the delectable Noelle – and that leads to one thing he was trying to avoid, a joining.

Well done, with two good lead characters and a decent supporting cast (especially the ghost of the horny monk), the plot moves quickly, is kept lean and clear, and has a great ending.  My grade is B+ (4.3*).

The final entry is also the shortest, by design to to limit the length of the book is hard to say. Out with a Fang by Jessica Sims adds to her Otherworld Dating series with Ruby, the were-jaguar looking for love after spending 4 years missing the human she really did love and had to dump – dramatically – or risk his being killed.  She was on her first date tonight – with a vampire who oddly insists she wear a blindfold in the restaurant.  But it’s a supervised date, so she has an out of it gets too weird.  Something about him troubles Ruby ………… then she realizes, the vampire is actually Michael, her old human lover, no longer human.

She walks out, Michael trailing trying to explain, but she’s having none of it.  They part – but Ruby hears something in the alley and finds Michael caught by a bounty hunter trying to kill him with garlic juice injections.  Now the human Ruby is petite and curvy, buy the jaguar Ruby is an Apex predator – and a force to be reckoned with.  A force the bounty hunter is not ready to deal with.  She drives him off and goes back to rescue Michael and keep in safe.

Now it becomes a game of trying to elude the hunters.  They want Michael dead, not because he’s done anything, but because a female vampire has decided with wants him for a blood mate, kind of husband.  But another male vamp wants the females and is happy to kill the competition.  Thing is Michael doesn’t even know the woman.

Actually, all the running and hiding does is give Ruby and Michael a chance to talk about what happened since they parted.  It’s all rather dull, really, but not angsty, just not fun or exciting.  Some action, an HEA, but not in sync with the other two.  It lacked the humor and light hand with the plot.

I always maintain, every anthology has one weak entry, and for me, this was it.  It felt misplaced after two such amusing stories.  Thankfully, it was also the shortest of the three too.  My grade is a C (3*) for Out with a Fang.

Overall, Undead in My Bed gets a B (4*) as a book and a recommended read for fans of the lighter paranormal romances.  I got the book under the 4-for-3 promotion on Amazon.

 

Four Short Reviews: Assorted Genres – Paranormals, Mystery, Thrillers

Some new, or at least recent releases, in various genres.

• Title: Tangled Threads
  
• Author:  Jennifer Estep
• Type:  Paranormal UF/alternate reality
• Genre:  Female assassin helps others while she gets ready to avenge her family
• Sub-genre:  Magic is alive and well in Ashland
• 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

Short Reviews: Paranormal, Erotic Romance, Mystery, Action Thriller

My tastes in reading range far and wide, but mostly, I just like a good read.  Some here were, some weren’t.  Consider this a snapshot of my TBR mountain.

• Title: Under Wraps
  
• Author:  Hannah Jayne
• Type:  Humorous paranormal with an UF edge and a mystery
• Genre:  A magic resistant human gets involved in investigating a serial killing with a handsome detective
• Sub-genre:  Quirky blend of ordinary woman in a paranormal world who’d love to kick ass, but lacks the instincts and skills
• My Grade: C-  (2.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel – about 80,000+ $6.99
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

Book Review: The Sentry by Robert Crais

• Title: The Sentry (Joe Pike Book #3)
  
• Author:  Robert Crais
• Type:  Mystery Thriller
• Genre:  Avenging crusader meets twisted reality
• Sub-genre:  Pike breaks up a beatdown of a shop owner and gets involved when they disappear
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel – about 90,000 words for $14.00-16.00 on sale; list $26.95
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

Book Review: Worth Dying For by Lee Child

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books blow hot and cold, but the last couple have been decent reads and this one delivers a well paced story that follows the typical formula for a Reacher story.  In most of his recent books, Reacher is the loner who lives by his own brand of right and wrong who ends up pitted against a local very bad guy – or guys in this case.  A single act of charity has far reaching effects because the bad guys are just too stupid leave the man alone.

• Title: Worth Dying For
  
• Author:  Lee Child
• Type:  Action thriller
• Genre:  Mid-west white slavers and local bad guys try to intimidate Reacher
• Sub-genre:  Loner extracts his own justice
• My Grade: C+ to B- (3.5*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13 to NC-17 for violence
• Length and price:  Full novel 90,000 words for $28.00 with 40-60% discounts available
• Where Available:  book available at any bookstore
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore