The Scent of Shadows By Vicki Pettersson
17 May 2010 4 Comments
in Kindle Freebie or Cheapie, Reviews, Urban Fantasy Tags: review, Urban Fantasy, Zodiac
From Amazon.com: When she was sixteen, Joanna Archer was brutally assaulted and left to die in the Nevada desert.
By rights, she should be dead.
Now a photographer by day, she prowls a different Las Vegas after sunset—a grim, secret Sin City where Light battles Shadow—seeking answers to whom or what she really is . . . and revenge for the horrors she was forced to endure.
But the nightmare is just beginning-for the demons are hunting Joanna, and the powerful shadows want her for their own . . .
Okay, that description is not good. Let me try to do better with some mild, but necessary spoilers. Joanna Archer: twenty-something, photographer, martial arts expert, survivor of a brutal attack, victim of a mother’s abandonment, and daughter of uber rich casino owner Xavier Archer…or is she? For years since her attack Joanna has been hiding behind her camera lens, not letting anyone close, just existing. Her beautiful, successful, sister Olivia convinces Joanna to go on a blind date…that will eventually end life as she knows it. Not that she had much of a life to speak of. Ajax, the Shadow and super creepy blind date, recognizes something special inside of Joanna and immediately tries to kidnap her. Joanna is having no part of this and with the help of her long-lost love Ben the cop, she escapes Ajax. Ben and Joanna tragically parted ways after her attack when they were both teens and didn’t know how to deal. Seeing each other again brings back all of those lost feelings, but Warren of the Vegas Zodiac troop has other plans for Joanna. Warren, like Ajax, treats Joanna like she is something different. He is the de facto leader of the Zodiac, basically the good guy super-heros that have been losing members at the hands of the Shadows. Before long Joanna learns not only is she different but thanks to her mom and real dad, she is extraordinary. Unfortunately Ajax and the leader of the Shadows, the Tulpa, cannot allow Joanna to become a threat. Their attacks result in tragedy and force Joanna to abandon the world she knows and assume an entirely new identity. After joining the other Zodiac agents, Joanna must help them fight to regain control of Vegas from the Shadows, ensure light wins over darkness, and confront the past she never really recovered from.
The Good: Thank God! A heroine I can get into! I have been in such a heroine rut lately! Too many personality-less lady Cops/Detectives had me seriously thinking about taking a break from Urban Fantasy, but then Joanna Archer came along and warmed my heart with her scathing sarcasm and unemployed reluctant heiressness…kinda the anti-Paris Hilton. Joanna has it rough in this book though, terrible things keep happening to her, and I found myself really getting pissed about it. But then she springs into action and kicks so much ass, I just really fell in love with her. Actually, several of the characters, especially the other star signs of the Zodiac, were a breath of fresh air for me as I didn’t get that feeling that I knew exactly what they were about after their first line of dialogue. And I absolutely love it when the bad guy is revealed and I didn’t see it coming AT ALL. So awesome. I admit, I loved the whole super-heroish group based on signs of the zodiac concept, it was fresh and original, but there were parts that I didn’t really get. Which leads me to…
The Bad: So there is this group of super-heroes, right? And they are all affiliated with a star sign? So if hottie Zodiac Hunter is a (fire sign) Aries, then he has neat ‘flame-on’ powers and an affinity for rams and stuff? No? Okay then. So what are their powers and how do they relate to the signs? Oh, you aren’t going to explain that to me? Oh. Okay. Will I get to see these powers? No? Just weapons? Oh. Humph. This was my basic thought process while reading Scent of Shadows. I had so many questions about what exactly makes these people humans++ but the details were vague and hard to follow. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed spending so much time watching Joanna’s life unfold, but I was SO ready for her to blast people with magical arrows and such after all that build up. I have no doubt we will learn more details on what the Zodiac and the Shadows can actually do in the next books, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much…I was just ready to see some ass-kicking of the magical variety!
The Bumpin Uglies: I have got to get away from these books that have incredibly steamy sex scenes up front and then leave us high and dry for the rest! Teases! All of them! Joanna is way too fiery to not be seeing some serious action! Poor thing gets crapped on the entire book and only has a few hours of intimacy with her high school sweetheart. But towards the end of the book, a nice little love triangle (I do enjoy a love triangle, have I mentioned?) is set up between Joanna, sweet cutie Ben, and SUPREME hotness Hunter. Too bad I can’t convince myself that we will have a m/m/f situation on our hands in book 2. Since this is UF, I know better. Sigh…A girl can dream though. *wink* Oh and I would like to file a complaint with the author that not once did she exploit the pick up line hall-of-famer: “Soooo, what’s your sign?” Missed opportunity for cheesy glory. Unforgivable.
Rating: 8.5
Favorite Joanna quote: [Joanna hits some security guard]…he rebounded quickly and snapped [his head] back to level me with a look of pure hatred. “Bitch!”
He still didn’t hit me though.
“I’m a bitch?” I asked innocently.
“Fucking bitch,” he snarled.
I smiled sweetly. “Then why are you the one who just got bitch-slapped?”
Disclaimerlicious: I have no idea what that gargoylesque thing on the cover is supposed to be, so don’t be expecting either gargoyles or demons. This is a super-hero tale.
Night Keepers By Jessica Andersen (Final Prophecy #1)
11 May 2010 1 Comment
in Paranormal Romance, Reviews, Urban Fantasy Tags: Magic, Mayans, Paranormal Romance, review, Urban Fantasy
From B&N.com: The exciting debut of a new paranormal romance series
As a Miami narcotics detective, Leah Daniels never knows how her day will turn out. But she certainly never expected to be strapped to a stone altar, the human sacrifice in an ancient Mayan ritual meant to coax up a demon from the underworld. Or that she’d be saved by a handsome warrior-priest king who claims to recognize her from his visions…
Jaguar Strike wishes he hadn’t made the mistake of reuniting his fellow warrior priests, or broken the law by saving their chosen human sacrifice. Now, he has no choice but to join forces with Leah and invoke dangerous magic in a death-defying race against the end of time.
Kindlelicious Disclaimer: This book has a very complicated plot with about a millionty characters, so I will try to keep this short.
The Drama: Leah Daniels is convinced that the leader of the a local cult that believes the end of the world will happen in 2012 (as predicted by the Mayans) is responsible for the ritualistic killings of late, including the murder of her brother. While investigating a lead, she is kidnapped by the cult and nearly sacrificed, until she is rescued by the man of her dreams (literally), Strike. Strike is the last King of Night keepers, a race of beings with special powers that aim to prevent the end date from taking place. Their last attempt 24 years ago ended with the brutal slaughter of most of his race by demons. While rescuing Leah, Strike realizes the 2012 cult is responsible for allowing demons to possess humans. The actions of the 2012 cult lead Strike and his keeper, the winikin Jox, to assemble any remaining Night keepers to fight the demons being released on Earth. However, Strike continues to be distracted by Leah, who was meant to be a Godkeeper along with her brother, before he was murdered. Now one of the few Gods that can fight the demons on Earth is trapped between planes and the only way to release it is to murder Leah. Strike’s feelings for Leah won’t allow him to harm her, but he also knows if he doesn’t release the God and become the leader of the Night keepers, the world will indeed end in 2012.
The Smut: Night keepers is yet another example of a UF-PNR hybrid that is a dirty, dirty tease. Strike and Leah go at it when they first meet! They don’t even know each other’s names! So awesome. But then, Strike gets all “If we sleep together again I will like you more and then I won’t murder you” wah wah wah. And Leah is all like “Whatever! We are around each other all day dumbass; we’ll like each other more anyway!!” Leah is a smart girl, but unfortunately, Strike is stupid and we have to wait til near the end of the book to see any more serious action. But the good news is that since Strike is all Mayan and stuff, he has big stone altars in his bedroom (cause that’s how all Mayan’s were, right?), and…well they get used. The bad news is: I didn’t love Strike. He was kinda whiny about being King and just not as bad-ass as I wanted him to be. All of the other Night keepers were sort of unofficially coupled up though, so the series is set-up to feature the new Night keeper or Nightkeeper\Winikin couples in future books. Really hoping we will get to see more of those stone altars!
The Ranty Rave: The Night keepers reminded me of X-men. I know, X-men are mutants and Night keepers are…magical (?), but I couldn’t help the comparison. Reading the part where Strike is assembling the remaining Night keepers was like being in a movie montage or something. All of these people from different backgrounds, thrust together to figure out what magical abilities they have and how they can unify to save the world…definite movie material. Well…you would have to cut the number of characters in half so the audience’s heads wouldn’t explode, but it would still be great! I really like the potential of this series, and I LOVED all the Mayan culture and mythology. You can tell Jessica Andersen really did her homework in this area. And though I felt like I was watching the History channel at some points, it never really got boring, just interesting. Night keepers was really different than your usual vampy UF, don’t expect any of the standard supernatural beings. (Except demons, but they aren’t hot Larissa Ione demons, so who cares?) Like I said before, the central romance stalled several times, but I think introducing all the characters and history took up a lot of time and was pretty important for the series. I expect the future books to do better in the romance department. One last note, I can usually finish a book in a day, but this one took me a few days, mainly because I had to keep flipping back to the movie montage to keep track of everyone. This didn’t really bother me though, if anything I felt more invested.
Rating: 8.5
Guest Review: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
28 Apr 2010 1 Comment
in Fantasy, Reviews Tags: fantasy, review, Vampires
I would like to give a very special thanks to my friend and illustrious lab partner BanjoBrainEater for the following review. I’m sure you are thinking, BanjoBrainEater…wtf??” Let me explain, BBE is my Southern, Persian, Vegetarian, Liberal, Banjo and Viola playing, walking contradiction of a friend who loves all things zombie. He dabbles in urban fantasy, so I asked him to write me a few reviews of books that I just haven’t gotten to yet. So enjoy the musings of BanjoBrainEater! Oh, and if you know any single, vegetarian massage therapists with a thing for banjos, please let me know!
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is one of several novels written by Seth Grahame Smith. You are hopefully more familiar with some of his other works including Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters (http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Sensibility-Monsters-Jane-Austen/dp/1594744424/ref=pd_sim_b_1) and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347).
Seth (I’ve read enough of his books to feel that I can be on a first name basis with him) takes a break from his earlier farcical takes on the classics and instead turns his eye on the true dark history of the United States of America.
Having obtained through somewhat mysterious circumstances, the journal of Abraham Lincoln, Seth begins to read at first with baffling astonishment turning to fear and respect of the man who grew up to be the 16th President of this fair nation (for International readers, I am writing this from an American perspective, but I digress). Given the trials and tribulations that face anyone who turns their eye on the presidency, it can be safely stated that no one goes down that road by choice, and that was certainly true of our hero. Growing up in poverty, and having lost his mother to a vampire, Abraham at a young age was forced to grow up quickly in a world in which the shadows could and would kill the unwary. But truly it was those who were less fortunate who had more to fear from the plague of vampires that descended on this nation, and young Abraham came to realize that slavery was not only a bane on the American spirit, but was but a stepping stone for Vampires of this country to eventually control the entire population of this country, and eventually the world.
A prescient Abraham Lincoln came to write in his journal in 1828: “So long as this country is cursed with slavery, so too will it be cursed with vampires.” Whether he knew then that those fateful words would drive him onwards to the White House, or that it would ultimately lead to a Civil War is a matter for only historians who need grant money to speculate and write about. Certainly he wasn’t aware of the full impact those words would have on his life, or on this nation when he wrote them.
The Skinny: In all seriousness (as if the above words weren’t serious enough), the book is a fun and light read. In terms of the premise, it still makes me smile and is well formulated. In terms of implementation, he walks a fine line. Certainly there were action scenes (to put it in movie terms) to break up the progression of the plot, and those were well-written. As I am a history nut, I think he could have really gone further and put even more events with a vampire slant on the book, but I could see how that could bog the book down as well. There are several pictures scattered throughout the book with rather humorous interpretations and I would have been happy if there had been many more of them, too.
Hotness: (Kindlelicious made me include this) From what I’ve seen of the readership of this blog, I can safely say that seduction is a turn-on. More importantly, if major historical figures getting it on with their first ladies (or any ladies for that matter) is something that gets you hot and bothered, them you might want to look elsewhere. While Abraham Lincoln was certainly distinctive, I don’t believe that even in his day he was considered a hottie. Seth does a good job preserving our sanity and our fantasies by not exploring that side of our famous vampire slayer.
Ultimate review: I do recommend this as a read for when you want something fun and light. But if you want something a little more meaty to sink your teeth into (ha!), you may want to look elsewhere.
Rating: 6
Rosemary and Rue By Seanan McGuire
22 Apr 2010 2 Comments
in Reviews, Urban Fantasy Tags: Elves, Fairies/Fae, review, Urban Fantasy
From Amazon.com: Singer-songwriter McGuire adeptly infuses her debut with hardboiled sensibilities and a wide array of mythological influences, set against a moody San Francisco backdrop. October Toby Daye is half-human, half-faerie, a changeling PI with a foot in both worlds. After spending 14 years as a fish following a botched assignment, she’s desperate to avoid magic, but the dying curse of a murdered elven lady forces her to investigate the killing, with the price of failure being Toby’s own painful death. Toby struggles with court intrigue, magical mayhem, would-be assassins and her own past, always driven by the need to succeed and survive. Well researched, sharply told, highly atmospheric and as brutal as any pulp detective tale, this promising start to a new urban fantasy series is sure to appeal to fans of Jim Butcher or Kim Harrison.
For 14 years half-fae October Daye lived as a fish. While investigating the disappearance of her liege’s wife, she was cursed and turned into a fish. Her whole life, including her human husband and daughter, was lost. Shortly after stepping out of the pond, she is trying to rebuild her life…as a human, not fae. Unfortunately, her old friend and powerful fae, Countess Evening Winterrose, is murdered and binds Toby with her dying words to find her killer. The curse will kill Toby if she ignores it, so she has no choice but to seek assistance from her former fae friends. When Toby finds a powerful fae object the Countess was protecting, the murderer comes after her. Former loves, former enemies and former friends are all sucked into the drama surrounding the murder, all with their own motives in keeping Toby alive.
The Good: I thought the idea of a binding curse to force Toby to solve the murder was a nice way to toss her back into her old life. I was hoping Toby was going to be a little more formidable (she gets her ass kicked quite a few times), but her powers were cool anyway. The setting for Rosemary and Rue is San Francisco, a place I have always wanted to visit and now even more so. There were just so many captivating places to explore in the areas where the human and fae world overlap. And some creatures like the rose goblins (cat-like creatures with thorns instead of fur) were too cute! Throughout the novel, Toby has to use her fae powers to entrance people to give her what she wants. She does this by speaking in rhyme. I found this part really fun, but at the same time, I took me a while to figure what the hell she was doing. I felt like Toby’s world was really intriguing, I just had some serious issues with the characters, which I will now discuss.
The Bad: I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book and cannot decide how I feel about Toby. I just felt like I couldn’t get her. She seems to be a good person who helped a lot of people in her former life, but then she has no qualms with hooking back up with her former love\total skeezer Devin. I thought Devin was just gross, as I would anyone who takes advantage of young people by trading shelter for sex. She also talks of dreaming of her former pond in what seems to be a fond way, but then she is terrified of being back in water. In the first third of the book she paints of pretty stark, lonely picture of her life, but as the book goes on; we continue to meet people willing to take a bullet for her. I can’t decide if this makes her extremely whiney or just stupid. My other problem with this book is a felt like I was either coming into a series in the 4th or so book, or should be a scholar in all things fae. There were many references to characters, rituals and magic that were left almost completely unexplained. I knew that Simon and Oleander were bad guys and that they may have turned her into a fish, but that’s all I learned, and they were never seen in the book. I still have no idea why you need to release salamanders into a burning building, and it irritates me to have to stop and google things. Surely googling “arson salamanders” will put me on some sort of ‘to be watched’ list.
The Bumpin’ Uglies: Kindlelicious Pet Peeve #1: Don’t skimp on the sex scenes!! If I take the time to read about Toby’s multiple love interests, I think I should get to see some end results! Is this too much to ask? Gah! Anyway, to be honest, in this case Toby’s main love interest was so unappealing I really didn’t care to think about them having sex. Toby repeatedly talks about how Devin sleeps with all the girls at his halfway home for the half-fae, and I just don’t see how this is anything but creepy. And at the point she decides she wants to have said sex, she is nursing not one but two bullet holes, with one being in her thigh. Ummmm Ouch? Can someone please explain the logistics of this to me? At least two much more appealing (and scandalous!) future love interests were hinted at, so maybe we will actually get to see what happens next time around.
The Rating: There were parts of the book I loved, and parts I didn’t, but I think the series might still be worth reading. 6.5
