One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Angels of the Dark, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 416 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle




Turning eighteen wasn't quite the awesome good time Annabelle Miller thought it would be. She woke on that special day to searing, blinding pain, and before she could think straight, saw her parents slaughtered, cut down by a monster out of a nightmare. A creature spewed from the pits of hell.

Happy birthday to her.

Convicted of their murders, Annabelle has spent four years in a nuthouse for the criminally insane, fighting off pervert doctors, bullying orderlies, and a never-ending wave of monsters that, despite heavy narcotics or maybe because of them, only Annabelle can see. She is alone, desperate, and afraid she's just as insane as everyone thinks she is.

Seeing the huge guy with the gorgeous wings pop up in her room one night after a particularly bad attack doesn't exactly disabuse her of that notion, either.

Zacharel has once again drawn his boss's displeasure. In his zeal to dispatch demons, he's been less than conscientious about the safety of the human race. Humans have died. Zacharel doesn't much care about collateral damage. His boss, however, does. In punishment...and as a last chance to keep his wings...Zacharel has been given command of a squad of warriors just as close to their final fall as he is and is ordered to deal with a demon infestation at an institution for the criminally insane.

Investigation leads him to the room of a desperate human woman who is clearly the focus of the demons' interest. Not that Zacharel cares. In fact, he has no conscience, no feelings, no passions or desires. He's unmoved by her plight. So he really has no idea why rescuing her becomes so important to him. Or why he would ever, in a million years, entertain the ridiculous notion that she could somehow rescue him right back.


I'm a Showalter fan from way back, and consider myself a LotU fan even though the last couple of them didn't quite rock my world. Still, I was happy to hear about this spinoff series, and think there's much in this kick-starter to like. The world is comfortingly familiar, and the sometimes conflicted relationship between Zacharel and Annabelle had moments that were rife with humor and a lot of fun to read.

But there were rough spots for me, too.

As much as I love winged romance heroes, those that are angelic in nature are either loved or hated based on the level of Christianity-based mythology included in the story. I try to keep religion as far away from my reading entertainment as possible, and I'm leery of having those lines crossed whenever angels are included. Doesn't make for the most relaxing read, even when my lines aren't crossed.

I was fine with the angel warriors as seen in LotU, but here they're the main characters, so their mythos will get a much broader focus with greater detail in this series. Thankfully, in this book things were mostly okay, but it could go still go either way. There were a couple of things that didn't thrill me, especially the Zacharel-touted concept that faith defines reality, but I didn't feel like I was being proselytized at the whole time, or hit over the head with the religion stick.

I'm going with tentative acceptance at this point.

I was slightly...not disappointed, really, so much as underwhelmed by the plot of the book, though. I've been alternately amused and intrigued by the emotionally bereft Zacharel since his introduction in LotU, so I was hoping for a bit more depth of character and story than the plot provided. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit two dimensional, and I found myself paying more attention to some of Zacharel's warriors and their backstory than I was to his emotional thaw and the demon trouble with Annabelle.

I liked Annabelle as a character. She was a fighter, a survivor. I liked that about her very much. I just wasn't crazy about her as the romantic heroine for Zacharel. Anabelle was only eighteen when her world exploded, just twenty-two when Zacharel gets her out of the institution, and that seemed painfully young and inexperienced compared to Zacharel's long life and jaded demeanor. It sort of messed with my comfort level with the romance in places.

The conflict with the demon who killed Anabelle's parents was, again, not horrible but didn't really wow me, either. It did provide plenty of action in the story, which I liked, but I thought the Bad Guy's identity was painfully obvious from the very beginning. That robbed the big reveal in the climax of the book of a lot of the impact it could have had, and it completely stripped one pivotal scene of the intended emotional angst, making what should have been a gut-wrenching choice feel more like a dull no-brainer.

As a spinoff series debut, this book got the job done thanks to the continuity with the LotU world and some of its characters. My favorite parts of the read, though, introduced and featured the angels serving (grudgingly as that may be) under Zacharel. They are so fabulously flawed and deeply disturbed. I look forward to catching up with them again soon.

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: In the Zone, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 272 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by both the author and Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Being traded to a new team isn't fun, but it could be just what NHL player Tim Hollander needs for a fresh start in a new town, a town where he's not as haunted by the memories of the daughter he lost to a cruel disease at too young an age. Now he has to win over the fans of the San Diego Barracudas while he fights to prove himself on the ice to the team that's taking a chance on him. He has to be focused. Work harder than he ever has. Avoid distractions.

It's a good plan. A workable plan. And it's a plan that gets blown to hell the minute he meets the feisty, fiery Erin Collier at a publicity event.

Erin doesn't know a thing about hockey, but she knows the doctor she's interested in catching is a big fan. Seeing the publicity event at a nearby restaurant when she stops to pick up lunch seems kismet. She can get an autograph from a famous player and turn that into the sexy doctor's appreciation.

When that quest for autograph turns into an altercation with a belligerent fan, it's Tim Hollander that comes to her rescue, and soon Erin is forgetting all about that sexy doctor. She's too busy learning all about hockey...and even sexier hockey players.


I love a good sports romance. Doesn't matter the sport, really, though I do favor football and hockey. Great news for me, then, that Kate Willoughby hits the ice with sexy, romance-y, hockey playing fun in this new series. I've had a fan girl crush on Willoughby since her Be-Wished series (paranormal romantica fans should check that out), so when I found out she was working on this, well...lets just say there was squeeing and happy wiggling and leave it at that. It was embarrassing, really.

But I was so happy!

It's a more mainstream romance with a tamer sexuality level than her Be-Wished series, but it has the same depth of emotion and story that got me hooked on Willoughby's writing to begin with. It also has a nice mix of sports and romance. The hockey elements never felt superfluous, or just a convenient backdrop for the romance. Instead, it was given enough attention, detail, and significance to the story and the characters that it became one of the defining factors.

I would have liked more time spent with Tim's teammates and a closer look inside the team's locker room, though. Tim and Erin's story, while charming, cute, and brimming with emotion and sexy good times, was also fairly straightforward and didn't have many ancillary plot threads focusing on detailing Tim's life as a hockey player or his relationships with fellow players. There were a few ancillary characters and plot threads that were introduced early in the book, but the threads petered out and those characters didn't make much of an appearance once the relationship arc between Tim and Erin heated up and commanded the story's focus.

That's not really a complaint, because I liked the story as it is just fine. I just think a few more layers of could've propelled it into the love range for me.

The characters didn't have quite the same level of appeal to me as their story did, though. There was nothing wrong with them. I don't mean that. In fact, I can't imagine a more heartbreaking trauma to survive than the death of a child, so Tim in particular tugged at my heart strings from the beginning. I never begrudged him his completely understandable issues, even though they did telegraph a major wrinkle in the relationship with the husband-and-kids-wanting Erin.

My problem was that Tim was just slightly more in touch with his hearts-and-flowers emotional side than I prefer in my romantic heroes, and a bit too quick to fall wholeheartedly into love with Erin. And Erin, though feisty and determined, with a generous heart and giving nature, was just not the sort of woman I can easily relate to.

She was nice. Truly, there wasn't a single bad thing about her. It's just...the book introduces her while she's trying to catch Dr. O's romantic interest by baking for him until he loves her. That was way too Fifties Housewife for me to feel comfortable with her as the romantic lead and it left me with a less than favorable first impression that lingered well into the book. Even after that improved, I struggled to relate to her long term goals and desires. She was just a bit too much of a gender stereotype for me.

But there were great things in the book, too. Things that touched me, or made me grin, or even tear up a little. The story was great. The hockey was great. The writing was great. The characters just weren't quite up there for me. I still got a total feel-good buzz by the end, and I'm looking forward to Willoughby's next installment. It's sports romance. It's hockey. It's Willoughby. I'm so there.

Quotable:

The cat was not only out of the bag, it was fucking running around knocking shit over.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Nickie Savage, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 300 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for review. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Savage. It's more than a name, it's a way of life.

Police Detective Nickie Savage had that brutal truth carved into her skin and burned into her mind when she was a child stolen from her home and forced to do things no child should ever have to do. But that was fifteen years ago, her past a bloody, jagged-edged crucible that forged her into the cop she is today.

She knows that's the reason the Feds have approached her to consult on a case surrounding a child prostitution ring. As suspicious as that makes her, she's quick to fly out to the crime scene in Vegas with Duncan Reed, famous artist, former military explosives expert, sometimes-hacker boyfriend by her side. Walking through the crime scene stirs echoes from her own tragedy, but that's not the worst of it.

With Duncan providing an assist, Nickie discovers evidence that suggests the perps behind the case are the same sick bastards who stole her from her own bed when she was only fourteen. With the implications of that connection rocking Nickie to the core and dark, painful secrets slowly rising to the surface after over a decade of suppression, it will take everything Nickie has just to stay sane.

And every trick in Duncan's well-stocked arsenal to keep the woman he loves alive.


Lately it seems I'm plagued with series debuts that don't read like series debuts. It's frustrating. At least in this case, there's a clear reason for it. Main characters Nickie and Duncan are featured in both Wolfe's Black Creek series and in Savage Echoes, a prequel novella for this series. I'm certain I would have had an easier time with this book had I read those, because there just wasn't enough exposition in this one to sufficiently introduce the characters or explain important story elements before the meat of the plot got going.

That was a problem for me, as the majority of the plot conflict revolves around Nickie's past, and there are a plethora of references to events and situations that I could only assume took place in one of those other two stories. As a result, I spent most of the first half of the book (and in places in the second half) feeling a general sense of disconnect and varying levels of confused.

I think my understanding was hampered by the third person limited point of view in which it's written. Though the character focus in the narrative shifts back and forth between Nickie and Duncan, which helped me get better acquainted with each of them, the lack of an omniscient voice didn't allow for a broader picture of their world and their past, and neither character deigned to reminisce on previously established information in a way that would have helped me find and keep my footing with the story.

That's a shame, too, because I think if I'd had that previously laid groundwork to build on, I could have loved this book.

I know I loved Duncan and I enjoyed Nickie most of the time - which is saying a lot for me, as I'm very tough on my fictional heroines. There were times when Nickie totally shut down and seemed more the victimized damsel than was comfortable for me, but most of the time she was a tough-as-nails, gritty chick I admired.

The best parts of the book for me were the scenes that featured both Duncan and Nickie. I absolutely adored them as a couple. Between Duncan's stalwart and unflagging devotion to Nickie and her fierce love for him, despite her myriad issues and their very different personalities, their scenes together stole the show for me. Before I was even sure I liked either character, I loved them together.

I also liked that their relationship, while obviously new, was already established. I don't read a lot of romance fiction in which that's the case, but I think the romantic suspense genre is a good fit for that particular relationship dynamic. Too, both Duncan and Nickie are very damaged characters, another point that appeals. Characters just seem more realistic to me when they have damage or flaws that impact their lives. We are all, to a one of us, walking wounded.

The external conflict in the plot was solid and meaty, even though some of the context was lost on me, but a few elements left me perplexed. I couldn't quite get a handle on Nickie's roll on the police force, as she seemed to spend more time investigating the connection between the evidence recovered in Vegas and her own childhood trauma than working any current day-to-day cases.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the story elements in the book and thought the investigative/police procedural end was nicely done. I just wasn't clear on how she could spend so much time on it over her open, active cases and more recent local crimes. I ended up feeling a little perplexed but mostly entertained by it all.

Hell, any attempt to end what was going on with the Bad Guys in this book is considered a solid win for me, story-wise.

Now that I've spent time with Nickie and Duncan and gotten a feel for their personal histories and their relationship, I want to read more, but to be completely honest, it wasn't always easy getting here. I would recommend this book only to readers familiar with the third book in Wolfe's Black Creek series or that prequel novella I mentioned. I certainly wish I had read those, because Savage Deception is listed as the first book in what has the potential to be a gangbusters romantic suspense series. It just doesn't read like it.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Asylums for Magical Threats, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 356 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for review. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




She is the first-born child of a Feiru mother in a world that hides her kind away in asylums out of a sick paranoia, fear, and prejudice. They call her elemental magic a threat to the unsuspecting human public. They keep her kind secret.

In those asylums they are stripped of their humanity and their dignity, used as lab rats, abused, and suffer torturous "medical" testing that often drives them insane, all for that nebulous Greater Good.

Now Kiarra Melini is left with a horrific choice: sacrifice herself to save her first-born brethren or sit idly by while the researchers at the asylum use her blood to strip the elemental magic from every other first-born they have interred in asylums around the world.

A tragic choice. A heartbreaking choice. But an easy one for the young woman who has been a prisoner of the Asylums for Magical Threats for fifteen years of her life.

She hadn't counted on Jaxton Ward swooping into her cell as she was attempting to end her life. She'd long since given up hope of ever being free from the AMT. Being kidnapped doesn't exactly instill in Kiarra a sense of peace and well being, though, even though Jaxton claims he's rescued her. After all, the AMT is the devil she knows. Jaxton and his anti-AMT group may prove themselves to be just a different sort of devil entirely.

Jaxton knew breaking into the AMT to get his brother and Kiarra out wasn't going to be easy, but he never figured Kiarra would rather suicide than be free. Now he's got to convince the woman he means her no harm and the rebel group he works with needs her elemental magic to fight against the very people who held her captive for most of her life. Training her is going to be a study in frustration, though, given the powerful attraction he has for the brave woman willing to die for her race.


Unique and original, this series debut by Donovan has a lot going for it, especially in the first half of the book. Kiarra was fiery, cagey, and keenly intelligent, and Jaxton was intense and sexy...and I'm a total sucker for heroes with a British accent. I enjoyed both of their characters very much, and the story was rich with solid world-building, action, and suspense.

I loved Kiarra's whole attitude and personality from the moment she's introduced as an AMT inmate through her dubious rescue and subsequent struggle to adapt to her new freedom. I think she was maybe a bit more balanced and sane than a person would be given what she's been through in her life, but I can't say I minded that for the purposes of the story. I liked her, and I was very pleased with the direction her character took following her rescue. That all worked for me nicely.

And full credit to Donovan for the creep factor and utter horror that was the AMT. I couldn't help but make comparisons to concentration camps in Nazi Germany and it was truly chilling. I find the sort of subversive, subjugating mentality that went into the creation and use of AMTs to be far more effective as a source of external conflict than an individual Big Bad because it's so damn easy to imagine something exactly like that happening, as it's happened before in humanity's darkest times.

I wish I could say I found the second half of the book as entertaining as the first. While the first half provided a solid foundation for the book, was well-conceived and written with a solid focus on fleshing out the world, defining the various factions and introducing the characters, the story took a turn for me at the halfway mark. As soon as Jaxton and Kiarra made it to Scotland and the external conflict became more significant in the plot, I felt like the book started to lose a lot of the cohesion it had established early.

There's a lot going on and it's happening to and with several different characters and their individual points of view. Between the evolution of the main characters, their relationship and all that entailed, their struggles to evade the AMT, the sinister- and almost ridiculously obscure - machinations of Bad Guy Sinclair, and the addition of Kiarra's brother Gio, who was a pretty big question mark to me and seemed an unnecessary source of ancillary conflict, there was too much to focus on. Too much was attempted and not enough of it had payoff. The plot's pacing bogged down and the story got a bit unwieldy and cumbersome.

At times I found myself getting bored - with Kiarra and Jaxton's relationship, with Sinclair's super secret and oh-so-nefarious plans, and with...whatever it was that Gio was trying to do. There were just too many sources of conflict, big reveals, and murky motivations, so many it all became white noise after awhile. It's a shame, because really, there didn't need to be anything beyond the AMT. The reality of those places and the driving force behind their existence is completely horrifying enough on its own to support an entire series of external conflict without needing all the other story detritus that cluttered the back half of this book.

I do think the series has a ton of potential, though, and there are more than enough interesting characters introduced here to provide fodder for many juicy stories to come. This one just didn't quite keep me consistently engaged beyond the story setup and the world-building, and a general sort of appreciation for the romance between Kiarra and Jaxton. Still, I can't say enough about how nice it is to read something that felt truly fresh and original. That alone is worth a lot in a genre glutted on same old same old.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Lords of the Underworld, Book 9
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 504 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle




He is the maestro of the hit-it-and-quit-it. Possessed by the demon Promiscuity, Paris is doomed to have sex with a new partner every day. Sound like a frat boy's idea of heaven? Try thousands of years of having to feed a sex demon every day or risk death. Of never being able to sleep with the same person twice, never having a relationship, never loving anyone or being faithful to anyone who loves you. And if you try to hold out, try to abstain, the demon you house strips away the final strands of your meager control so the sex is no longer your choice, let alone the partner with which you have it.

Until her.

Sienna was human and a Hunter, the group intent on destroying the Lords. Paris was captured by her once, slept with her once, and for the first time in his centuries-long existence, once was not enough. His body responded to her again. It was everything he ever wanted and nothing he ever dreamed could happen.

Of course, she was his mortal enemy...and then she died...but what's a little death between a sex demon-possessed Lord and his only hope for salvation?

Paris has been tirelessly searching for Sienna ever since. And he finally knows where she is. He has been working his way to her side no matter what it has taken, or who he has had to sleep with...or kill to find her. He'll worry about whether or not she still hates him, or blames him for her death, or still wants to kill him, when he gets there.


Finally! It took a few too many books spread out over I don't even know how many years, but I finally feel like there was some pretty significant progress made in the Lords vs. Hunters/Titans, et al series plot. The sort of progress, in fact, that could alter the direction of the series from this point forward and provide for even greater potential catastrophe for the beloved Lords. The lack of that progress has long been a complaint of mine in this series, so I have to admit, I'm pretty happy that I don't have that problem this time.

Oh, yeah, and Paris finally gets some Happily in his Ever After, too.

I had reached the end of the line with Paris in the previous book, my well of sympathy for him had run dry, so I was a little uncertain how this book would play out for me. Showalter did a lot of good things in here with Paris and Sienna. A lot of good things. Was it enough to completely redeem Paris for me? Not totally, unfortunately, and I still have some lingering questions about the ambrosia issue given what Cronus did to Sienna, not to mention Paris' double dose of demon issue, but I was mostly able to set aside any lingering discomfort with his character and appreciate the story that was being told.

And there was a lot of story being told in this book. Maybe even a little too much, as I had been hoping for a bit more depth and dimension in the relationship between Sienna and Paris and a little less focus on everything else that tends to creep into each book. Something more like what Sabin and Kaia had in their book. Sadly, that didn't happen. Paris and Sienna didn't even share a scene until I was deep into the book and the evolution of their relationship was a little truncated for my tastes, with some less than pleasant - even perplexing, at times - elements, but at the very least it got the job done.

Sienna also wasn't quite as strong a heroine as I prefer. Kaia was a much nicer fit for my tastes in that regard, but I did like Sienna, and she was extremely understanding and gracious when it came to Paris' past. On that front I was satisfied, because Paris needed someone who could accept his past without letting it color their relationship. It takes a very special sort of person to be able to do that, and Sienna was that person.

She was just a little too good to be true, even though she's been housing Wrath for a while now. She's still naive and a bit innocent, and just a shade too decent for me, despite everything she's been through. She does have a big heart, though, and she had a strength of will and determination that I enjoyed, most notably when she's struggling to resist Cronus' myriad manipulations.

And Showalter broke my heart a little with Sienna's sister. That was damn tragic.

This was a bit of a darker book than its predecessor, and there was less humor in it. I like the humor, so that was a bummer, but the darker elements did fit with the downward spiral Paris has been on, so it maintained an organic feel. And the story also answered a question I've been wondering for years, so that was a bonus.

I can't say this was a be-all-end-all read for me, and the sheer bulk of the story was the largest problem. By this point in the series, there's just so much going on with so many different characters that giving each sufficient attention bogs down the story's pacing quite a bit. I don't know that I needed...or particularly cared for...Narcissism's introduction and the views we get from her point of view. Nor did I need quite so much time spent with Kane.

I can't help but wish Showalter would focus more on the featured characters and their relationships in their own books, because though we've known Paris and Sienna for quite some time in the series, there was a lot of room to add character depth and relationship evolution that was spent on highlighting other things. I know how important it is to weave several different elements into each book, but I think the romance arc lost out some in this one.

No doubt, though, the series is still going strong, and there are many positives that have reawakened my interest and investment in the Lords. Paris's book isn't a series favorite of mine, but it was a long time coming and I'm glad he finally got some peace and found the woman he loves. Though...she's still dead...and I'm not completely sure how that's going to play out given how the story ends. I guess I'll find out.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Monster Haven, Book 3
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 236 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Inveterate wedding planner by day and sole Aegis in the whole of the country by night...and day...and, well, every moment in between, Zoey Donovan is feeling the strain of the growing needs of the Hidden who are showing up at her door. The influx of magical, mystical, and beastly traffic has gotten so bad that even with the help of her closet monster Maurice and several other good friends of both the human and Hidden variety she's just barely squeaking by.

With a dire message about impending doom looming on the horizon and refugees with tales of Hidden loved ones being abducted, it's quite clear that things are just going to get worse. Something is coming. Something bad. And if the pattern of the mass exodus of Hidden and reports of the missing bear out, that something is heading right for the only Aegis left who can do anything at all to stop it...if it doesn't stop her first.


I'm a huge fan of this series. I love the world and I couldn't be happier with the wide array of wildly colorful and eminently lovable characters. Zoey is quirky and fun and one of the more unique heroines I've read in urban fantasy, but it's really the secondary characters who have stolen my heart. Closet monster Maurice in particular and the rest of Zoey's crazy coterie of friends in general elevate each book and make almost every single moment of each one of them a real good time to read.

I can't say this was my favorite of the three books, though. It started a little slow for me. Despite my rabid adoration of the veritable cornucopia of Hidden misfits who find their way to Zoey's home, I felt the development and execution of the story's main plot conflict got off to a rocky and anemic start in the first half of the book. For the first time in the series, I felt my attention waning more than once, wondering when the meat of the plot was going to really get going.

Fortunately it does get going, and when it does, there are several intense, action-packed, emotional moments (one of which broke my heart) and a couple of big developments that helped broaden and deepen the series plot arc. There's some very solid and highly entertaining storytelling going on in this book, for sure. I just I felt like the story tread water for too long before all that goodness really started.

I also can't say I cared for the return of a character we met in the first book. I wouldn't call Councilwoman Alma Dickson a Big Bad, really. She wasn't the story's main antagonist in this book any more than she was in the first, but she was just as big a tertiary source of conflict in this one as she was before. That felt a little too much like double-dipping into the character pool for me to really appreciate the conflict with her here.

On a brighter note, this is the first time in the series that I didn't have issues with Riley, Zoey's main squeeze. I haven't been impressed with him in the series to date, and still can't say he thrills me as Zoey's romantic interest, but he played a larger role in this one than in either of the previous books and I didn't mind having him around at all. He just seemed to have more of a presence in this book, and I liked it. His relationship with Zoey also gets some much-needed evolution in this one and I liked that, as well. I just wish they had more chemistry.

Naquin keeps surprising me, too. Zoey's wacky life and the wonderful weirdness that comes from the Hidden lend a lighter, more humorous tone to the series than the grittier, more dystopian urban fantasy series out there. That said, in each book there have been elements that remind me that Zoey's world isn't all fun and games by any stretch. There are Bad Things that happen to and around her characters. Very Bad Things. I won't discuss any spoilery stuff here, but the Bad Thing that happens in this one hit me hard and left me reeling.

This wasn't a perfect book for me, but I think it was an important one for Zoey's continued development and the evolution of the series. The issues I had with the external conflict were a bit more serious than they were in the previous book, and I'm a little worried that neither one was quite up to the fun level of the series debut. I love this world and the characters so much that I want to love everything else, too. I hope to get another chance to try soon, because I really can't wait to spend more time with Zoey and her fabulous friends.

The Monster Haven Series:

Genre: Steampunk Romance
Series: London Steampunk, Book 2
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 437 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Sourcebooks Casablanca publisher Sourcebooks via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





When Lena Todd was growing up, all she wanted was to be a part of the Echelon, the ruling class of blue bloods and their human thralls, but that was before her father was murdered and her life irrevocably changed. Then her sister met and married the rogue blue blood Blade and her brother safely transitioned after being infected with the craving virus. Lena was able to leave her home in the warren...and the infuriatingly attractive verwulfen who lived there...for another chance at her dream.

It was a dream that became a nightmare. Now Lena sees the Echelon for who they really are, and uses her position as ward of her blue blood half-brother to gather information on them and pass it on to Mercury, the leader of the Humanist party. Lately, though, Lena's been growing more and more uncomfortable with her role with the group and she's starting to wonder what their end game truly is.

Will Carver knows the fire that destroyed the Echelon's draining factories, the filtering and storing factories that supply the necessary blood to the ruling class, is an act of aggression that the Echelon won't take lying down. The Humanists have started a war that could level London under a swath of destruction.

He should've known if there was trouble, Lena Todd would be up to her pretty neck in it. The woman is as irritating as she is beautiful and as stubborn as she is elegant. She's also the only woman Will has ever wanted, but because of the loupe virus that taints his blood, she's nothing he can ever have. That doesn't mean he won't do everything in his considerable power to protect her.

Will doesn't know exactly how she is connected to the Humanists, but he's going to find out. Lena may never be his, but the only way the woman will become collateral damage in an escalating conflict between blue bloods and humans is over his dead body. And a protective verwulfen in a berserker rage is almost impossible to kill. Almost.


Kiss of Steel, the first book in Bec McMaster's London Steampunk series, was one of my favorite reads of 2012. I fell in love with McMaster's authorial voice and the gritty, dangerous world she created. The characters were vibrant and layered and their struggles and triumphs captivated me. It was a fresh and original read that stuck with me long after I turned the last page.

That's an awful lot to live up to, but even allowing for that going into this book, I ended up less entertained by this second installment. The world is still well-drawn and wonderfully atmospheric, with a myriad of dangers ranging from the mundane realities of day-to-day living in the rookeries to the paranormal threats posed by powerful blue bloods, and McMaster's writing is just as awesome a blend of detailed description and pulse-pounding action, but neither the plot nor the main characters of this book thrilled me like the first one did.

I couldn't warm up to Lena. I wasn't crazy about her in the previous novel, and she didn't do much to endear herself to me in this one. She's young and reckless with it, which too often put her in the role of a helpless victim bordering on stupid, and that bothered me. Even late in the book, when she'd gone through some pretty significant changes, she still couldn't manage to get herself out of trouble without help. And the games she played with Will through most of the book were immature and showcased an unappealing insecurity.

Will was the more likable of the two of them. He's the definition of taciturn, and he has that self-sacrificing martyr gene that tends to rub me the wrong way, but he's also a strong, protective, possessive alpha male. That appealed. I just wish I'd gotten as good a feel for him as a character as I did Blade in his book, but too much of his character definition revolved around him having loupe, not who he was as a man, and it made him seem a bit limited and two-dimensional to me.

When their relationship finally started to gel, I enjoyed both of them much more, but that came surprisingly late in the book. The reasons for the slow progression of the relationship arc were fairly significant and valid, and their chemistry in shared scenes was strong, and if the external plot conflicts had more appeal to me, everything would have been great.

The blue blood political plot threads and the Humanist agenda may not have been as personally appealing to my tastes for plot conflict as a rampaging vampire slaughtering the masses, but it was solid and well blended, if not as detailed and spectacular as I would have liked. The steampunk elements had more presence in the narrative, which worked well for me. It got off to a slow start for me, though, and it didn't really start to work for me until I was well into the book.

Right or wrong, had the first book not wowed me as much as it did, I think I would have liked this one more than I did. Some things were great, and it was certainly just as well written as its predecessor. Other elements just didn't provide the same level of visceral pleasure I got from that one. That being said, I can't wait for my next visit to McMaster's London Steampunk. I really like the story potential of the characters that will be featured in the next installment.


The London Steampunk Series:

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Dead in the City, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 320 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Sourcebooks Casablanca publisher Sourcebooks via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Three hundred years ago, Olivia Hollingsworth watched a monster slaughter the only man she ever loved, then was forced to become a monster herself. She's never quite gotten over it.

Sure, being a vampire has its perks, but mostly Olivia just tries to keep her coven, those vampires she's turned and the humans she's saved, safe and gainfully employed at her night club. In all that time, through every thing she's seen and done, with every soul she's saved...one way or another, she has never forgotten the man she gave her heart and body to all those years ago.

For the past two decades, against everything she knows to be true about her kind, Olivia has dreamed of that man. Her Douglas. The one she couldn't save. And then he walks into her club, alive, breathing, and decidedly human, and Olivia's reality takes a quick trip to the land of surreal.

Homicide detective Doug Paxton has a grisly case on his hands, a victim who looks like he was mauled by an animal, the blood drained from his body. All evidence points to the night club near where the body was found. Meeting the owner, however, rocks Doug to his core, because for all that he knows he's never met the deliciously gorgeous Olivia before, he's seen her almost every night for as long as he can remember. In his dreams.

Two souls separated by centuries, divided by more than surface differences, are destined to complete each other in ways neither had ever dreamed. If the forces working against the city's inhabitants and the vampire race itself doesn't kill them both first.


I had some trepidation when I picked up this book. I wasn't a big fan of Humphreys' Amoveo series debut and I was a little worried by this book's title and cover, which gave me the impression of this being a fluffier book than I favor for my paranormal romance. Fortunately, however, that impression was wrong. This is more the sort of darker-edged story that I prefer.

In fact, neither the story nor the characters are anywhere in the vicinity of fluffy, and for almost three-quarters of the book I was highly entertained by the foundations of the gritty world that Humphreys started fleshing out here, as well as the deadly plot and intense characters. I enjoyed the role reversal in the power structure of the relationship between Olivia and Doug. For all that Doug is quite obviously an alpha male, he is human when he's introduced as a character and Olivia is not. She's a former warrior and current savvy business woman, fiercely independent and more than a little jaded about her kind.

She is the power in the relationship and I liked that dynamic between them very much. I was less fond of her three hundred year celibacy, but that was more in how it kept being mentioned. After three hundred years, one would think the subject would be played out, that it would be a moot point, just a fact of Olivia's unlife or whatever, so it didn't feel natural that it kept coming up in the narrative. I get that readers need to be made aware, but a more organic way would have been appreciated.

That was a relatively minor hiccup in my fondness for Olivia's character, however. She's keenly intelligent, loyal to her family, and struggles with the darker side of her nature. I found her interesting and wish the story had provided even more depth to her character, delving into more of her issues with the dark impulses of her kind. She's obviously set herself up as an outsider in her world, and her entire coven are misfits, all survivors of one tragedy or another. I would have loved to have a more comprehensive view of all of that.

With so strong a female lead, I was surprised to find myself liking Doug as much as I did Olivia. Humphreys tread a delicate line in their relationship. Olivia was strong in ways that didn't undermine or contradict Doug's own strength of character, and that thrilled me, but he was also quite endearing, mostly for his butt-over-brains reaction to coming face-to-face with the woman of his dreams. He was so adorably poleaxed by Olivia I couldn't help but be charmed. That he was also a no-nonsense homicide detective with a hella amount of sexy going on just upped his appeal.

Well...I did for most of the book, anyway. My appreciation for Doug as a character in general and as the romantic hero went through a very large change right around the same time he did. Frankly, I thought he was more than a little bit of a douche bag at times in the latter half of the book, and he spouted off some pretty unpalatable plans to address his new condition.

I think I could have accepted that as a part of his character evolution, though, had there been a corresponding evolution of the romance arc surrounding it. As it was, I just couldn't engage in any of the sexy good times between Doug and Olivia so soon after he tossed himself on the not-so-metaphorical pyre and acted like a judgmental, ignorant wanker. And there was a disappointing lack of addressing that issue throughout the end of the book.

Unfortunately, that downturn in the romance coincided with a couple of elements of the external conflict in the plot that didn't appeal to me. For the majority of the book, this was a nicely woven, darkly suspenseful tale with a strong thread of romance tying it all together. Then things went just a step too far down the road of implausible, illogical, and abrupt and I had to shake my head a little.

Beyond my issues with the not-so-fabulously changing Doug, the conclusion to this book was not to my taste. The resolution of several of Olivia's and Doug's life-threatening problems got handed to them on a silver platter that came out of nowhere, and it included some very odd story developments and awkward attempts to hash out a few more quick bits of world building and shady explanation. In a few pages, what had been a dramatic Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads morphed into into a quick, way-too-convenient and tidy conclusion. It was a very uncomfortable deus ex machina that left me feeling confused and a little frustrated.

It was still a better read than I was expecting, though. I didn't have a lot of luck with the Amoveo series. It just wasn't my cuppa, and I was worried this book would also fall short. It didn't, really, even if the ending was too abrupt and clean for me. The larger portion of the book was a lot better than I was expecting and highly entertaining for it all. I may have absolutely no idea what direction the series is heading in - not after that conclusion - but I'd be interested in finding out.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: The Order, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 246 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Out of everything in the world she could possible have, all Tara Collins wants is one thing: a normal life. A normal life that doesn't include twenty-two years of living a lonely, secluded existence with a sheltering, secretive aunt. A normal life to be found beyond the borders of a small town in the middle of Nowhere, England, one that includes friends, a formal education at an actual university, and breaking every single rule her aunt had drilled into her head as she was raising her.

To have that normal life, Tara has to first find out exactly who she is, but for that she needs professional help. Five minutes after meeting private investigator Christian Roth, Tara has no doubt he can help her find the truth about her identity. She's less certain, however, that she can afford the answers.

From the moment Christian catches the tantalizing scent of Tara Collins he wants her. In over five hundred years as a vampire, he's never smelled anything quite like her, certainly not anything human. And if nothing else, his senses tell him Tara is very human.

Of course, that begs the question of why demons are trying to kill her.

Delving into her murky and suspect past, Christian is forced to face one grim fact. It's no longer who she is that matters. It's what she is. Unfortunately, the answer to that puzzle will definitely kiss goodbye any hopes of her having a normal life. Right before it kills her.


Even after giving it some thought, I'm not totally sure how I feel about this book. On one hand, it's old school vampire romance, which I've always enjoyed. On the other, the plot was predictable to the extreme and neither the world, the characters, nor the narrative itself had much in the way of depth or detail. I even found the dialogue painfully pedestrian in places.

As far as the story goes, it wasn't bad, it just didn't bring anything new to the table, and while the characters had their moments, there were also several times I could have cheerfully throttled both of them. By the halfway mark, if Tara complained one more time about wanting a normal life, I would have been thrilled had Piers just eaten her and been done with it.

Still, I managed to like them well enough, and I was particularly fond of how Croft keeps her vamps from being paragons of virtue. They're not evil exactly, but they're sure not fluffy bunnies, either. They fit comfortably into that gray area where I find the most interesting characters in fiction. With more detail and definition, they could have been really spectacular.

Despite my annoyance with Tara's perpetual insistence on a normal life, she was my favorite of the two main characters. She had a nifty habit of being pointedly sarcastic, irreverent, and dismissive of danger. It didn't always balance out the moments when she came off as an insipid victim, but there was enough there to keep me interested in what happened to her. Christian was a fairly typical alpha male, but his tendency to make decisions based on his opinion of Tara's best interests is a hot button of mine and kept me from really embracing him as a romantic lead.

One of the more frustrating aspects of the read was the unrealized potential. The secondary characters were interesting and diverse, but without really having anything to do besides stand around and glower, or pop in and out when the action was low, they didn't get a chance to really add much to the read. The predictable plot could still have been fully entertaining if the climax hadn't been so abrupt and anticlimactic and the resolution so odd. The romance could have been hot and sexy and completely satisfying if the main characters had a bit more to say to each other that went beyond the surface.

Too many could have beens and not enough was was my biggest problem, and it kept me from fully enjoying the read. There was absolutely nothing that was so egregious that I was totally turned off, but neither was their anything specific that wowed me. I was mostly entertained, and the book was a lot of fun at times. Just not quite often enough.

Quotables:

"I love you," he said, and she went still at his words. "I might not have mentioned it yesterday, but I wanted you to know. I've never loved before. I'm new to this. I just hope I get it right."

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: Play Action, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 145 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Brazen publisher Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





When NFL quarterback and hometown hero Cade Reynolds returns to Harper Falls for the first time in sixteen years to do a favor for his old high school football coach, the town's welcome is...well...slightly underwhelming. No one even recognizes him. At least, no one but the stunningly sexy woman who is on her way out of the coffee shop when she sees him sitting at a table.

The heated recognition that flares in her eyes puts Cade's blood flow on a southward bound sex train. He should probably meet her first, however, before asking her to be his lusty conductor.

Angie Peterson couldn't imagine what her former high school crush was doing back in Harper Falls after all these years. She knows he's still rehabbing the shoulder injury that knocked him out of the game for almost two seasons, but all reports indicate he should be heading back to the sport soon. She should know, she's followed Cade's career as devotedly as she follows football. One is her life and her passion, the other, well, a different sort of passion. So the frank interest she sees in his eyes when she meets his gaze thrills her to her core.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to remember her. That opens the door for all sorts of delightful recreation. After all, it's not like the illustrious Cade Reynolds is likely to be in town for long.

After a decadent night of unbridled passion, Angie returns to the real world and her job as math teacher and assistant football coach for the high school. Coming face-to-face with Cade at work so soon after relegating their fabulous night together to the past is a shock, but it's finding out exactly why Cade is back in town that really tilts Angie's world on its axis and threatens everything she's worked so hard to achieve.

He may be there to take a job that should rightfully be hers, but when it comes to football, Angie is a master at strategy, and this is a game she has every intention of winning. Even if it is against the only man she's ever truly wanted.


As a mostly cute and wickedly sexy little contemporary romance with heavy sports influences, Barbosa's series debut works nicely and even has a few nifty little unorthodox touches. I enjoyed both characters, even though Cade's character stayed fairly consistent with the wounded sports hero stereotype. He had enough charming traits that went against-type to keep him interesting. It was Angie's character, though, that really brought a breath of fresh air to the read for me.

I loved that she's not only an assistant coach, but she's brilliant with game strategy and play calling. That was a particularly nice touch in a sub-genre where the female protagonists are usually stuck working for a sports team's front office or as some sort of sports reporter.

Angie and Cade had excellent chemistry, too, and the level of competition between them set the evolution of their relationship on a very nice simmer as the story progressed. And it has to be said...Barbosa completely delivered on the page-burning, sizzling sex. It was fan-worthy and positively delicious.

The overall plot wasn't terribly complex, and the few threads of external conflict were fairly anemic in both depth and definition, with a resolution that I found lacking. Still, this isn't the sort of story that necessitates a tremendous amount of complexity to be entertaining. Some elements were pretty far from realistic, others could have been a little more believable with a little more foundation, but those are really pretty minor issues, all things considered.

I didn't like the end of the book, though. That was a problem. And I hate when a book ends an unsatisfying or disappointing note when so much else in the story works for me. Whenever that happens, my overall impression of the read takes a hit. Too much about this ending, though, felt more like a setup for the next book than a satisfying conclusion to this one and I just wasn't happy with it.

I was happy with much of the rest of it, though. It was sexy as hell, with solid characters in a contentious but fiery romance and a story that had just enough individuality to make it memorable. A steamy-hot way to spent a few fun reading hours. Speaking as a football lover, I'd say this one made it to the end zone, even if it missed the extra point.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Sons of Kane, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 209 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Covet publisher Entangled Publishing, LLC via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Alice Shepard is thrilled about her sister's upcoming wedding, but the idea of attending alone and having to face her cheating bastard of an ex-boyfriend and traitorous ex-best friend makes her sick inside. She needs a date. Actually, she needs a sinfully handsome guy to act completely enthralled with her for the duration of a wedding cruise. And Alice is certain that her long-time neighbor, the gorgeous and enigmatic Noah Thorpe, is perfect for the role.

Convincing him to go along with the plan is another matter altogether.

Noah is in a bind. The Council, the group of vampires who rule his people, is pushing him into a forced bonding with a stranger out of some high-handed and misguided concern for his welfare. Though his best friends are trying to reason with them on his behalf, it's not looking so good for Noah's continued bachelorhood.

Getting out of town for awhile may be just what he needs, and Alice's offer may come just when he needs it, but the idea of spending a week on board a cruise ship full of humans with his gorgeous but odd neighbor as his date is a hell of a price to pay to slip The Council's leash. On the bright side, sharing a small stateroom with the woman and having her alluring, addictive scent and delectably perky body teasing his senses every minute of every day may go a long way to footing that particular bill.


I don't normally favor paranormal romance with this sort of fluffy, romantic comedy tone, and the romance theme, drag-a-stranger/friend/neighbor-to-a-wedding-as-a-fake-date-and-fall-in-love, has been done far too many times for my taste, but I have to admit, there was something about the combination of these characters and Allee's writing that made the story work for me a lot better than I was anticipating.

Alice was a little quirky and odd, but plucky and cute. Noah was all dark and broody in his own mind, but endearingly out of his depth when Alice is in his personal space and absolutely charming with her family. They had great chemistry from the start and I enjoyed their relationship evolution quite a lot, despite the week-long time frame.

The non-paranormal elements of the read were fairly formulaic. The threads of conflict between Alice and her ex could have been in any of a hundred other similarly-themed stories I've read. I still enjoyed seeing Noah deal with him. The paranormal elements weren't as defined as I would have preferred, and they had a more understated impact on the whole of the story than I was hoping, but there were a few nice surprises and one twist in particular that absolutely delighted me.

I could have done without the Big Misunderstanding as the relationship conflict, and I never felt Kane's sudden appearance made all that much sense for the external conflict, nor did I feel his motives were clear, but overall, there were no big issues that put a serious crimp in my reading enjoyment. Mostly this was just a sexy, fluffy, fairly superficial but cute read. It definitely provided more fun than I was anticipating. Enough to make me interested in reading more stories with the other sons of Kane.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Scarlett Bernard, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 283 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me through the Amazon Vine program at Amazon.com. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Scarlett Bernard is mostly human, but it's the very rare and not-so-human part of her that makes her valuable to the three magical factions of the Old World that calls Los Angeles home. Scarlett is a null. A magical dead zone. If a vampire or a werewolf comes within ten feet of her, the magic that makes them what they are shorts out and they become human again, and witches can't so much as mutter a spell in her vicinity.

It's a very useful gift to have when dealing with things that can kill you before you could blink.

It's also useful to the supernatural community. When one of their own does something that leaves a mess of the dead body, blood and gore, or spell-gone-wrong variety, Scarlett gets a call to go in and clean it up so humans don't become aware of all those things that go bump in the night.

Her current call is at the abrupt command of the most powerful immortal in the city, the vampire Dashiell. Three unidentified victims have been butchered in horrific fashion and left in a public park, but before Scarlett can do so much as open up a trash bag to start collecting the...pieces, LAPD detective Jesse Cruz stumbles onto the scene and gets an up close and personal glimpse of the darker side of the Old World.

As if keeping Dashiell from killing Jesse for his new-found knowledge isn't enough to deal with, Scarlett has even bigger problems. The victims were vampires, and the evidence in their grisly murders is pointing at the only person in town who could have incapacitated three of their kind at the same time: Scarlett.

Now Scarlett has less than forty-eight hours to bring the real killer to Dashiell for retribution. If she doesn't, the master of the city will execute her for the deaths of his people. Whether she proves she had no hand in their deaths or not.


Urban Fantasy used to be one of my favorite genres, but lately I've been having trouble finding new series that hold my interest. There are too many interchangeable heroines with varying degrees of personal damage and emotional retardation, too many love triangles...or quadrangles...or pentagons...etc., too many worlds that aren't unique enough or interesting enough or dangerous enough, with stories that leave me feeling ambivalent.

I keep trying, though, hoping for the series that will spark my old love for the genre.

I don't yet know if I've found that with Olson's series debut, but it wasn't a bad start and it's definitely got promise. The world is interesting, and I love the idea that LA is the Old World equivalent of Nowheresville. It's not exactly the happening place for otherwordly creatures. It's still dangerous, though, and the vampires in particular are more deadly than sexy hunks of non-breathing love.

Scarlett is also not one of those interchangeable heroines. She's less kick-ass than cover-her-own-ass. In a world where things bite and claw their way to the top, she's just a step above human, and her gift often puts her at odds with the very people for whom she works. She is also not particularly constrained by the concepts of human morality and ethics, which makes her interesting to me as a reader, even though her moral ambiguity made me uncomfortable in a couple of places.

Unfortunately, her character, while interesting, isn't always likable. She is dragging around a pretty big suitcase of emotional baggage, and the guilt she feels for her parents' death always felt grossly misplaced. She's got the exact sort of emotional retardation that most bugs me, so whenever the focus was on her damage, I started to get itchy, and it came up in the story too often for my tastes.

The plot was strong, though, with several nice twists that added danger and intrigue, and it started off with a devastating prologue that hit hard. I was also pleased with the smooth transitions in the shifting points of view in the narrative. I've rarely seen it done as seamlessly as it was here. Shifting between Scarlett's first person point of view to third person omniscient for scenes focused on Jesse was a nice way to get readers into Jesse's head and define his character without being colored by Scarlett's opinions. It made him a more three dimensional character than he might otherwise have been.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about Eli. He wasn't fleshed out enough for me to get a good read on him. Considering his history with Scarlett and how he felt about her, that was a bit of a problem for me, and it created another point of contention with her as the heroine. There wasn't a love triangle, per se, but that's more because Scarlett is too damaged to be seriously interested in any man, not because both Eli and Jesse aren't interested in her. They are, so I foresee a bunch of emotional angst between the three of them in the future. Can't say I'm looking forward to that.

I am looking forward to more in the series, despite that, though. Scarlett wasn't consistently likable, but she definitely had her moments. I loved her moral ambiguity and when she wasn't beating herself up for the past, she was sympathetic. I also love that she holds her own despite being the most fragile of creatures in a deadly world. With the twist at the end, which was a particularly nice tease for the next book, I'm looking forward to my next visit to LA, Old World style.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Night Runner, Book 0.5
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 91 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Being a courier for the technologically challenged vampire population is a balls-to-the-wall adrenaline rush that pays very well, but it doesn't come with any of those nifty bennies that safer, tamer jobs offer. Like a long life. In fact, at twenty-six, Sydney Kildare is the oldest runner in Anchorage, and she's just a few runs shy of her goal of retiring somewhere hot and sunny. And vampire-free.

Unfortunately for Sydney, one of her runs lands her smack in the middle of a vampire turf war, and as excellent as Sydney is at staying off vampire radar in normal situations, the grim fact is that they are the ultimate predators. If they focus their attention on finding you and using you, you get found and used. For whatever nefarious purposes they have.

Well, either that or you get real dead, and that would definitely put a crimp in Sydney's retirement plans.


Novellas and short-length novels are often hit-or-miss with me not so much because of what's written on the pages, but because of what isn't. Novellas such as this one, which appealed to me on a lot of levels, can still leave me feeling like I was missing something from the read. When the story is especially promising, or the characters particularly likable, as was the case here, I can often feel very frustrated by the end.

I loved Sydney, and the gritty, dangerous life she's living as a vampire runner. Her character, which is nicely rounded out with several quirks and peccadilloes to make her interesting, had enough heart and inner strength to make her an easy champion for the series. The brief but tragic glimpses into her past were especially nice. I loved Malcolm, too, though I still don't feel like I've got a complete handle on his character just yet.

The world they inhabit felt fresh and original, and the amount of world-building was excellent for novella-length fiction. For all that goodness, though, I felt several key elements of the external conflict lacked the definition and explanation necessary to make it really work for me.

The bulk of the plot conflict revolves around Sydney's significance to the vampire community in general and the master vampire Bronson in particular, but I never really felt that the importance of her job and her uniqueness in doing it had been defined well enough to allow me to accept the amount of effort spent in targeting her. Because of that, and despite how much fun her being targeted was to read, the reasons behind it fell flat, which crippled the plot for me.

I was okay with the abrupt ending and lack of resolution to a big portion of the external conflict, though, which surprised me. Maybe the fact that I had the "first" book in the series to read at the end of this "prequel novella" tempered my feelings in that regard. I will say this, though, I can't imagine, given where and how this novella concluded, that reading the "first" book in the series would be a good idea without first reading this "prequel." This story just contains too much groundwork for a world and conflict that, if not resolved in this story has to at least be given some attention in the next.

With Sydney's appeal as the heroine, and the intensely awesome burgeoning relationship between her Malcolm, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Summers can do with it all in a full-length novel. Using this novella as a measuring stick, this series has a ton of potential to rock my Happy Reader buttons in all the right ways.

Genre: Fantasy Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 142 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Princess Kimri of Anagard is furious with her brother the king. He has traded her hand to the King of Helsmont for an alliance and weapons. A worthy enough cause, given the toll the ongoing war with Kenasgate has taken on her land and people, but that doesn't excuse him bartering her like a piece of property.

Especially not to the enigmatic king rumored to have a dragon guarding his mysterious kingdom.

Arriving in Helsmont to meet her betrothed brings all manner of surprises to Kimri. The king is neither old nor unpleasant as she'd feared. In fact, he's quite arresting in stature and gracious in nature, and instead of a quick wedding, he is abiding by mountain custom and allowing her a year to make sure they suit before committing to the marriage.

As Kimri settles herself into an unfamiliar kingdom and acquaints herself with her betrothed and his people, finding acceptance and freedoms she hadn't even enjoyed in her own land, Kimri can't help but start to think that when it comes to betrothals to a handsome and kind mountain-king, perhaps a year is too long.


This was a lovely little tale, and despite having some issues with several elements of the storyline, I enjoyed it. The characters were likable and the writing was well-crafted and wonderfully descriptive. There was a fantastic amount of world building, especially throughout the first half of the book, and Kimri's character, as well as a couple of secondary characters, were memorable.

It's good that I enjoyed Kimri's character as much as I did, though, as she was the sole main character, and that's where my problems with the book started. At best, Tathan was an ancillary character in the story, sharing only a handful of scenes with Kimri. They spend a bit more time together off page, as Kimri refers to sharing their morning meals and accompanying him around Helsmont, but it still wasn't close to enough for me to be able to consider him a romantic lead character.

Kimri spends far more page time with Prince Herrol of Kenasgate, and while those scenes were nice enough to build towards the plot elements late in the book, it hampered my appreciation for the romance between Kimri and Tathan. That romance was understated nearly to the point of nonexistence and I felt Tathan, who I liked very much from what little I saw of him, was painfully underutilized. It was truly a shame, as this could easily have been a story I absolutely loved had he and their romance had more presence in the tale.

I did love the big reveal during the book's climax, even though I saw it coming, but that's about all I loved in the final quarter of the book. The storyline, which had been evolving at a relatively slow but pleasant, steady pace once Kimri arrived in Helsmont, started to come apart a bit for me as layers of external conflict were added into the plotline. The pace definitely picked up, and that would have been fine, but I thought the various plot points and elements of conflict got glossed over and rushed through as the story reached its climax.

Still, there were very many good points in this read, and I enjoyed Lee's authorial voice. Had the story evolved just a little differently towards the end, and had Tathan had a much larger role, this could easily have been a five star read for me. It fell short in that regard, but I would still love to revisit this world if given the opportunity. Several characters, Commandant Beatris in particular, left a lasting impression. I was saddened by how her role in the story ended and would love to know what becomes of her.