One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Fantasy Romance
Series: Weathermages of Mystral, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 608 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me through the Amazon Vine program. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.






Reviled and ignored by her father, punished for her very existence, Khamsin Coruscate, Princess of Summerlea, hasn't had an idyllic life. Up until Summerlea lost the war with Wintercraig, though, Khamsin thought there were some lines that her father would never cross, despite his loathing of her. Tragically, she was wrong.

The Winter King, Wynter Atrialan, is in Summerlea to dictate the terms of surrender and peace following the three year war he'd waged on the kingdom. In recompense for the murder of his brother and heir, Wynter intends to take to wife one of the three beloved and revered Summerlea princess.

Instead of marrying one of those favored daughters, however, Wynter finds himself wed to a princess he hadn't even known existed.

Perhaps Wynter should have taken umbrage with the Summer King for the double cross, but he can't help but be pleased with the switch. There's something about Khamsin Coruscate that stirs his blood and brings a heat that Wynter has long since given up on feeling. Perhaps the fiery Khamsin is the key to breaking the hold that an evil god has on his soul before that evil is unleashed on them all.


I usually prefer more urban in my fantasy romance, but every once in a great while I get a yen for the swords and horses variety. Wilson's The Winter King satisfied that yen nicely. It's exactly the sort of tale I most favor in the genre, a story that focuses heavily on or revolves around the trials and tribulations of a heroine who, through whatever circumstance, is forced to endure terrible things, but in so doing is forged into a strong, independent women who more than holds her own.

Toss in a tormented hero as an alpha-male love interest and at least one loveable sidekick to add a touch of comic relief and I'm a happy reader. Call it formula, but it's one that works for me every time.

Between Khamsin's wretched life with her family and the devastating magic she can't control, Khamsin was a sympathetic heroine from the start. She was also stubborn and willful, and there were a couple of times I wanted to give her a good shake, but she was genuinely honorable, noble and kind, with a quick wit and intrinsically fun nature that kept her likable, even when her behavior got a bit frustrating.

And I loved how Khamsin matures and her character evolves over the course of the book's events.

I can't say I was as fond of Wynter. I liked him most of the time, thought he had some excellent alpha-male moments, and the chemistry between him and Khamsin was off the charts, but his personal losses goaded him into taking some severely questionable actions to give him the power to wage a brutal war that lasted three years and caused the lives of many. And the magic he wields as a result has the sort of consequences that kill entire kingdoms. All of them.

Then again, if he wasn't trying to prevent those consequences, he wouldn't have had any cause to meet Khamsin, so I can at least appreciate the plot-driving of it all.

It would have been a true shame, too, because the two of them together was my favorite thing about the story. Beyond their excellent chemistry and all the yummy sexy times that led to, I loved almost everything about how their relationship starts, then develops and grows as they get to know one another a bit better. Their relationship is fraught with trust issues, which is not normally something I enjoy, but when it comes to Wynter and Khamsin, the absence of trust issues would have been far more glaring. Their romance was much more believable and realistic with them.

There's a flip side to that, though, and it caused the only significant disconnect I had with the book.

This is a very, very long book. I don't want to spoil anything about the climax, so I'll just say that I was disappointed that the trust issues I had loved so much throughout most of the book became such a serious impediment and source of intense aggravation for me during the climax. The misplaced trust just ended up feeling out of character for those concerned and it made the subsequent events doubly frustrating to read.

It sort of took the bloom off the rose for me at the worst possible time, and the end of the book came too quickly after that for me to gain back some of the enjoyment I had lost. Honestly, though, that was my only significant issue with the whole book. I did have a minor issue with the too-linear and simplistic world building, what with the king of the wintery kingdom of Wintercraig being named Wynter and all, but that's strictly a personal preference thing. I would have appreciated a more sophisticated backdrop for what was, truly, an enchanting read when all was said and done.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Lords of the Underwold, Book 10
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 466 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the Amazon Vine program. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Kane has always been a walking disaster. Literally. The Lord houses Disaster, a particularly vile demon that revels in making Kane's life hell. Then Kane actually ended up in hell, suffering horrible torture and rape for weeks on end until he was rescued by a strange female with one particularly odd request for her assistance. She wants him to kill her.

Still lost in darkness from his ordeal, wrecked in a way he's having a hard time dealing with, one thing is absolutely clear to Kane. He's not killing the feisty, adorable half-fae Josephina Aisling. He's going to rescue her instead.

Then he's going to finally kill the demon inside him. Even if he has to die to do it.


I feel oddly ambivalent about this tenth installment of the Lords of the Underworld series. After Paris' book, which gave readers some much-needed resolution to the nagging problems of the Hunters and Cronus and Rhea, I figured this one would have to be a transitional book. Transitional books tend to not be my favorite books in a series for a lot of reasons, but I've always felt they were a necessary evil and dealt accordingly.

Had this book actually offered some transitional series arc plot development or given any attention to the lingering issues generated by the big battle that ended the previous book, I think I would have been fine with this one in that role. My problem is that it really didn't. In fact, Kane and Josephina's story didn't do much of anything to establish a new, Hunter/Cronus-free direction for the Lords and their allies for the series, nor did it do much to progress the plot line about the hunt for Pandora's box - though that did receive a bit of attention with the kick off of Cameo's story threads and the return of a character I was really hoping to see again in this series.

As for the romance, that didn't really wow me with character or relationship evolution, either.

I like Kane. I've always felt bad for the guy (pretty much the standard for the pre-mated Lords), even when he served as little more than comic relief at the start of the series. It was nice getting a closer look at how he deals with Disaster. I also enjoyed Disaster being given a far more sinister presence than the demons of the other Lords have been given. Disaster just seemed more actively evil than some of the others have been. Not a bad thing, either. I liked it.

We've had a couple of books now, seeing Kane's story unfold, and much of that was pretty horrifying, so I also liked that he got some happiness. What he didn't get, what none of the characters in this series get much of lately, is character depth and complexity or realistic character evolution, and that, along with my issues with the stories themselves, is bothering me a lot in this series.

Yes, Kane is tormented by his time in hell, and rightly so, but that seems to be the sole defining element of his character, and that's just not enough to make him well-rounded and realistic to me. Josephina, maybe because she's new to the series, got a bit more character definition, and I liked her more for that, but again, her role in her family was her defining characteristic and there wasn't a huge amount of depth to her beyond that.

But depth of character and complexity of internal and external conflict have never really been something this series has really offered, and I'm just now starting to remember that. Hellaciously sexy times, yes. Action and adventure, even breath-stealing emotion, yes. Summer-blockbuster-movie amounts of fierce battles and wicked villains, sure. And like those summer blockbusters, not a whole lot of coherent, well-written story surrounding it all.

On a brighter note, I thought the beginning of this book was awesome. I loved when Josephina tried to get Kane to keep his end of the bargain, then turned to Lucien and Sabin when they showed up. I love the idea that the fae were huge fans of the Lords, whose antics they follow as rabidly as the paparazzi dog the Kardashians. I loved Cameo's cameos and Torin's plague-filled drama. And there was other stuff that I truly enjoyed as well.

Kane and Josephina's extended time in the fae world didn't add to the fun. It bored me. And they seemed to spend an awfully long time there, because this was an awfully long book. That's a lot of boredom. Boredom mixed with perplexity, because for the two previous books in this series, several critical things were brewing relating to Kane's fate and the fate of the world, and those threads were just butchered in this book, with no justification or supporting development.

Kane was supposed to start an apocalypse...marry one of the Horseman or the woman who housed Irresponsibility. Or both. Josephina had nothing at all to do with one of those fateful threads and Irresponsiblity had almost nothing to do with the other. Not in anything but a completely transitory way. So what was the point of even having those threads in the previous two books if you're just going to pull in some extremely tenuous threads of suspect connection to go around all of it?

Not deal with it, mind you, completely go around it. Two very different things.

None of that worked for me at all, and all of it, including several threads of resolution, seemed way too convenient and contrived. And the end of the book, with the resolution, was all too typical of Showalter in this series. Completely unsupported by previous development and utterly abrupt. Not to mention repetitive. Seriously, how many books (out of 10) have had an angel (who I guess we're calling Sent Ones now) step in at the critical moment in the climax to flick his wings (or, you know...fiery sword...whatever) to solve all the problems for the main characters and expedite the HEA? More than once is too many. Three times is appalling.

And one other thing: I loathe the, "Oops, I was wrong," explanation to force feed a conflict resolution and fast track an HEA and Showalter uses it All. The. Time. Call it a deus ex machina, a plot contrivance, or whatever, it's that moment when you're reading a story that's been written into a very clearly defined corner only to have the author decide the room is really round so the problem is solved. Argh! Drives me absolutely bat-shit crazy.

The one at the end of this book was particularly heinous, too.

There are just too many things going wrong for me with this series lately, so many that I'm starting to wonder if the two year hiatus I took from the series between Amun's and Strider's books was, in fact, long enough. I'm starting to think it wasn't.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Scarlett Bernard, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 297 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Amazon.com through the Amazon Vine program. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




It's good to be home again. For about five seconds, anyway.

She's fresh off a plane and back in LA after a long trip to New York, but magic null and Old World cleaner Scarlett Bernard doesn't even make it out of the airport before LAPD Detective Jesse Cruz is dropping a new case in her lap and glaring at her like she caused it all. Dragging her out to the crime scene, questioning her as if she hadn't just gotten back in the state, the gorgeous detective definitely seems to still have an issue with Scarlett's occupation and her connection to the vampires, werewolves, and witches who comprise the Old World presence in Los Angeles.

Though that's not really a surprise, given how their single date had gone prior to her trip.

Unfortunately, Jesse is also correct about his take on the crime scene. It definitely looks like it has been cleaned, indicating at least some Old World connection. Scarlett just hasn't been back in town long enough to know what sort.

Pressed into investigating a crime she didn't commit...again...doesn't exactly thrill her, but Scarlett soon realizes she's got bigger concerns. Two witches are already dead, and two humans with an eerie connection to Scarlett's past are killed. That's more than enough carnage to let Scarlett know her formerly dead (now undead) mentor Olivia has decided three months of reprieve is long enough. She's coming for Scarlett, and leaving a trail of blood and death in her wake.

If Scarlett can't figure out what game Olivia is playing and stop it quickly, everyone she cares about could fall victim to the same batshit-crazy psychopath who killed her parents.


I liked Olson's series debut Dead Spots. By the end of that book I felt optimistic about the potential for this series and pleased with the world and the characters. Trail of Dead furthers that potential by taking several more strides in the right direction. I think it was a slightly stronger book all around, with a more personally significant external conflict for our heroine, and some of my more minor issues with the first book didn't carry over into this one.

With all her apathy, moral ambiguity, and emotional immaturity intact, Scarlett is back in LA just in time to land herself in trouble once again. There are still moments in the book when I didn't like her. She's a young twenty-three in a lot of ways, and suffers from an appalling amount of emotional immaturity too often to be consistently appealing at this point in the series, but I do still think she's a very unique heroine.

Her lack of a strong moral compass and her questionable ethics make her interesting. It never occurs to Scarlett to do the right thing just because it's the right thing, or out of some inherent sense of honor or concern for the community at large. She's just not that sort of heroine. That's more Jesse's style, and I love that contrast between their characters. Scarlett does only what she needs to do to stay alive in a deadly world and be moderately comfortable while doing so. No more, no less.

She's been living in an emotional vacuum since the death of her parents, torn apart by (misplaced) guilt and barricaded against any and all emotional vulnerability, but that's been slowly changing since Jesse came into her life. Olson is keeping the evolution of her character very slow so far, but it has seemed very organic given the situations in which Scarlett has become embroiled. Sure, sometimes it's frustrating - like when I would prefer Scarlett be a nicer, more mature person in general - but I can't fault the evolution itself.

Jesse, as he was in the first book, is a bright spot in this read and the perfect complement to Scarlett. I like him both as a character and as a man in Scarlett's life. He's the good, decent, kind, honorable sort...and sometimes I just want to gobble him up with a spoon. I'm so happy that Olson maintained the fluid shifts in points of view between Scarlett's first person narration and Jesse's third person. Olson does that exceptionally well and her transitions are flawless. The unique style also allows for more depth and definition for Jesse's character beyond his interactions with Scarlett, increasing his presence in the story. I really love it.

Eli, on the other hand, is just as much a non-entity for me in this book as he was in the first. For all the relationship angst between him and Scarlett, I just don't think his character has been around enough, or has a large enough role, to really impact my feelings about him one way or another. I found his character to be far more effective as a source of conflict and catastrophe late in this book than he's ever been as a love interest or supporting character. Which, frankly, disappoints me, because I think I'd like him - even root for him - if I just got to know him a little better.

Not that I want to perpetuate the love triangle between Scarlet and Jesse and Eli. I don't. I hate love triangles, and think they are agonizingly overused in the genre.

I loved the plot arc of the conflict with Olivia in this book, though more so in the second half, when the crises really started to go critical and puzzle pieces started to lock into place. It was a far more personal conflict for Scarlet than that of the previous book, and that added emotional impact in several tense, gripping scenes. I can't say all the pieces of the puzzle fit together for me, and I was left with a few question marks about Olivia's actions and motivations, as well as confusion about the intended end game for the other Big Bad, but overall, I found it very satisfying.

I did start to question the timeline in some of the backstory though, and I'm not entirely sure some plot points didn't contradict established history. Scarlett has been adamant about blaming herself for her parents death (I won't even get started on how I feel about that nonsense this time), and I could have sworn it was established that her guilt was what impacted her relationship with her brother since their parents' death five years ago. But Scarlett only found out Olivia killed her parents the week before Olivia "died," which was less than a year prior to the events of the first book and about a year before this one.

Because of that appearance of contradiction, as well as some other confusing timeline issues later in the story, some crucial scenes didn't track as well for me as they might have. I also had a hard time buying the purported timeline of Olivia's partnership with the other Big Bad in the story, and elements of the external conflict strained my ability to suspend disbelief during the climax and resolution because of it. I just couldn't completely believe everything we're told given Olivia's mental instability and her obsessive relationship with Scarlett.

Honestly, though, those were more minor grievances than true stumbling blocks for me. As a whole, this was a great installment for the series. I liked it even more than I did its predecessor, and would rate it four and a quarter stars if I could. I'm in love with the world and I adore Jesse. If Scarlett continues to evolve into a more consistently appealing heroine in future books, I can easily see myself falling absolutely in love with this series.

The Scarlett Bernard Series:

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: Paranormal Romance
Series: Love at Stake, Book 12
Rating: 1 Star
Length: 374 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me through the Amazon Vine program. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Phineas McKinney has fought the good fight since Malcontents stole his life and turned him into a vampire. He's been rockin' the Love Doctor persona of Dr. Phang since then, making all the undead ladies happy, but after a few years of that, it's gotten kind of old. Phineas wants what so many of his friends have. Love. Family. Commitment.

It doesn't matter that his professional life is super sweet right now, or that all sorts of attention is rolling his way since he started doing the commercials for the vampire's newest fusion drink, Blardonney - half synthetic blood, half Chardonnay. That, on top of his security job, has set him up right. But he's still feeling that emptiness inside him. That need.

Going undercover on a job for MacKay Security and Investigation has him playing turncoat in the hopes of catching Corky Courrant, current leader of the remaining Malcontents. The setup was going well until the self-proclaimed Queen Corky got away from Phineas and the security team sent in to catch her. When fresh intel reaches the vampires about Corky's possible location, Phineas heads to Wyoming to try to track her down.

Problem is, Phineas is a city vamp, born and raised...and killed and raised again, so he's going to need a bit of help in the form of one vampire-hating, prickly werewolf named Brynley Jones. She knows the area, it's where her pack lives. Phineas has some hot memories of Brynley from when they first met. Memories like how strong and proud she is. How her eyes remind him of a cerulean blue sky he can no longer see. How much she loathes vampires in general and him in particular.

Yeah, that last one is a problem. But he needs her help, and if working with the lovely but caustic woman as they spend time in very close quarters ends up leaving his heart feeling like she's taken a stake to his chest, well then...so be it. After all, love hurts.


I haven't read a book in the Love at Stake series since Secret Life of a Vampire, the sixth installment, but I am familiar with the series. I enjoyed several of the earlier books, appreciated that it was lighter in theme than my normal paranormal romance reading, but had some darker elements that appealed, too. Almost nothing about this book appealed to me.

Not only did I find the plot one dimensional and the story absurd, but I thought the main characters...and more than one secondary and ancillary character...had the emotional maturity of average twelve-year-olds. And frankly, while I commend Sparks on writing a romance that crosses racial lines, I would have preferred the characterizations of both Phineas and his brother had they not been limited to sad, overused punchlines in off-color jokes. It would have been very nice had they been defined by something more than a mess of egregious racial stereotypes.

I felt the dialogue was adolescent and unrealistic and the relationship evolution between Phineas and Bryn raced from contentious to lusty to love with such alacrity that it gave me whiplash. The humor, a strength in other books of the series, was juvenile in this one...though I have to admit, one scene with Phin and a particular item of Bryn's did make me laugh out loud. Character actions and reactions lacked logic and I struggled to find any sense at all in some places.

Why does Phin need to stock up the cabin and sleep in the basement in Wyoming? He can teleport (and does) back and forth between there and New York any time he wants, with no apparent drain on his energy. Why does Bryn care about her father's feelings about her being with Phin? She banished herself from her pack five years ago with no intention of ever going back, and sacrificed her relationship with her sister for her freedom. For that matter, what does she fear her father would do about it that she hasn't already done to herself? Illogical stuff like that, prevalent in the book, drives me bonkers, even when it doesn't have a large impact on the overall story.

I know this series is wildly popular and my opinion is in the minority. I had fun reading several of the earlier books, too. Hell, I still chuckle to myself when I think about Angus MacKay checking under his kilt every time he teleports just to make sure all his bits made the trip. That's still funny to me. After this installment, though, I think my reading tastes and preferences have diverged a bit too far from where this series is now to consider reading any more of it.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Celestial Blues, Book 1
Rating: 5 Stars
Length: 432 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me through the Amazon Vine program. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




A Centurion's gig should be simple. Someone dies a sudden and violent death, he shows up to escort the terminally confused into the Everlast. That's how it's supposed to go, anyway. Doesn't mean it always goes that way.

It's not that former PI and current angel Griffin Shaw doesn't sympathize with the hooker who got her throat sliced by her last john. She's dead. It sucks. He knows, because fifty years ago he was murdered, too. He deals with it. Mostly.

So okay, he's not the most sympathetic Centurion, and no, he doesn't believe his latest Take when she is adamant about not being a hooker. Fortunately, believing the dead isn't a requirement for the job. Still, he can't see forcing her to spend eternity in those working girl threads she's wearing, so he bends the rules just a little. Biggest mistake Grif's ever made.

That one moment of sentiment sets into action events that force him back to the mudflat, wings gone, slammed into a suit of meat. Skin. Breath. Life. Sounds great, except for an angel...now not-so-angelic...it hurts. And his punishment isn't over. His "good deed" such as it was, has consequences, and his punishment is to watch those consequences unfold, suffering through them all the while.

Now Grif, a gentleman from way, way back, is supposed to watch the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen get attacked by two men, be raped, then murdered. And stand by doing nothing. Because it's his fault Katherine "Kit" Craig is now fated to die.

Reporter and rockabilly enthusiast Kit is devastated by the murder of her best friend. They had been working together on a potential career-making story when Nic went undercover to get some corroboration on a tip. Now all Kit can do is follow through with that story, because besides ripping her heart out, there's one other thing that Nic's death does to Kit...it convinces her the story she and Nic were trying to verify has teeth. Nic wouldn't have been killed unless those teeth were extra pointy and sharp.

Problem is, only Grif knows that Kit is going to be next. And there's nothing he can do about it.


Gritty and decadently dark, the sheer artistry of Pettersson's new series debut totally rocked my socks. The concept alone is brilliant, and pairing a punished angel who was a PI in the fifties with a reporter who embraces the rockabilly lifestyle to the fullest is the hot fudge on one delicious hardboiled mystery sundae. Pettersson's gift for writing and her superlative grasp of all things Vegas spun the narrative of this tale like a well-oiled and glittery top, neon flashing over the soul-deep rust of human corruption, greed, and sexual deviance.

Grif and Kit were fantastic characters and perfect foils for one another. Kit is the idealistic reporter, passionate in her beliefs and clear in her grasp of black and white. A little naive at times, she cloaks herself in the detritus of a bygone era out of a combination of the yearning for simpler times and perhaps willing ignorance of the sad fact that there are no simpler times. Emotional and intelligent, she is forged by grief but untouched by the seedy violence around her.

Grif is like the shadow that Kit casts. He is all about the gray areas, full of a chilly cynicism that he calls having a solid grip on reality. Even fifty years as a Centurion, touched by the celestial as he was, didn't shake his world-weary view of human weakness. He's filled with angst over his death and the murder of his wife, but he's a man's man and stoic with it. He could have stepped out of a Sam Spade novel, or hung out with Phillip Marlowe and been right at home. He is definitely of a type, yet Pettersson avoids the pitfall of stereotype in lovely and unique ways.

The story, though obviously seeped in the paranormal, reads far more like a mystery than an urban fantasy. The supernatural elements become more like background noise as the story progresses, ancillary to the investigation that Kit and Grif are working on. There are times when it flares up throughout the story, and comes closer to the front towards the book's climax, but it's largely inconsequential to the bulk of the narrative.

That obviously wasn't a detraction for me, especially as I absolutely adored every moment of the leisurely-paced mystery plotline and tend to be picky about angel-themed fiction as a general rule. Fans of more traditional urban fantasy, as well as those who have little interest in this particular style of mystery, might have a less favorable view of the read. For me, it couldn't have possibly been any better.

The relationship between Grif and Kit was complex and added some delightful moments of levity to what really is a pretty horrific case. For all that they are picture-perfect together in appearance, Kit is a modern woman and Gif is a fifties man, and that sparked some great conflict between them. For all that conflict, though, there was also a nice give and take in their relationship that superseded the secrets Grif held, and absolutely enough sexual chemistry to light up the Vegas skyline.

Though there is a thread of romance through the book, this is not a romance novel, and the relationship between them evolved in a way that I felt heightened the intensity of the plot, especially towards the end. I also thoroughly enjoyed Kit's reaction when Grif comes clean, after, of course, Kit started putting pieces together and asked the tough questions. That changed the dynamic of their burgeoning partnership in some interesting ways.

Completely unique and utterly original, this book was a treat on every front for me. The Bad Guys were as bad as it gets, the crimes heinous, the mystery rich and meaty, and the characters vibrant and three dimensional. I can't wait to sink my teeth into the next book in this exciting new series and highly recommend it for fans of highly stylized noir fiction. Plainly spoken, it's art, and while art is always in the eye of the beholder, this particular beholder wants much more to see.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Dragonfury, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 412 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book through the Amazon Vine program on Amazon.com. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.

Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense; Futuristic
Series: Fighting Destiny, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 416 Pages
Formats: Hardcover, Kindle
Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book through the Amazon Vine program at Amazon.com. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.
Warning: This book contains scenes of rape, torture, and murder of both women and children. Some of these scenes are graphic in nature and may be disturbing for some readers.


In a time not far from now, America stands on a precipice. Rocked by years of economic turmoil, jobs are scarce, poverty has risen, and support for the struggling masses is controlled by the greedy and the rich. The poor and downtrodden struggle to get by, to make ends meet and keep a tiny light of hope alive in an ever-widening, crushing darkness.

In that climate, a new and fatal drug is coveted by those who still have everything. It brings health and youth, it births mental and physical powers that are off the charts. It is instantly and brutally addictive and it occasionally causes its users to go sadistically, murderously insane. It is called Destiny. And it is winning.

In a Research and Development facility known as the Obermeyer Institute, scientists and doctors have discovered that a small percentage of the human population have special gifts, mental gifts, that are nearly superhuman. In a handful of those people, they are superhuman. Those gifted few are called Greater-Thans. Their neural nets, their minds, are more highly integrated than the fractions, the Non-Greater-Thans...the normal ones. Though they publish their research and have proven their talents, they are still largely thought of as a fringe group, delusional and seditious.

And they are the only ones with the power to wage war on the spreading stain of Destiny abuse who have any hope of surviving the battle.

Blacklisted Navy SEAL Shane Laughlin is more than skeptical of alleged Greater-Than powers, even after being invited to the Institute as a Potential, but after a mind-blowing night with a woman he suspects is a member of the Institute, a woman he knows only as Mac, he has no intention of declining OI's invitation. Mac may have pushed him away as soon as she found out he was slated to go to OI, but he's not one to give up that easily.

When the existence of Greater-Than abilities is proven to Shane beyond a shadow of a doubt, and he sees for himself the good they do, he's ready to sign on. Of course, making a place for himself at Mac's side has more than a little to do with that, despite her continued resistance. The stakes, though, get infinitely higher when a young girl is kidnapped by a group known as the Organization. Manufacturers of Destiny, brokers of psychopathic insanity, purveyors of pain and terror, the Organization is a true conglomerate of hell. Stopping them from peddling the results of their butchery and sadistic torture is the ultimate goal. Rescuing one little girl, the immediate concern.

Living long enough to do either...well...that's the challenge.


Set in a grim near-future and featuring a truly stellar ensemble cast, Brockmann not only kicks off a new series with this book, but she takes her first foray into the paranormal with a rock 'em, sock 'em paranormal romantic suspense thriller that is as action-packed and pulse-pounding as it is imaginative and creative. Brockmann paints her gritty world with broad strokes, leaving much of the details of the world beyond the Obermeyer Institute's grounds up to the reader's imagination, but what is there is dark and desperate and disturbingly easy to imagine.

The focus of the narrative is on the characters and the plot, and given the nature and abilities of the Greater-Thans, aspects of OI and its members vaguely reminded me of X-Men...though the Greater-Thans have a far more pedestrian wardrobe and they're much less covert. Their mental capabilities and the intricate and deviously realistic "science" behind those abilities as created by Brockmann were impressively solid and well-crafted. Believable even beyond the normal limits of wild improbability. It created a flawless and comfortable background for the horror that is in the story particulars.

I loved the characters. Though several were heavily featured, and I consider it an ensemble effort, Shane and Mac edged out the most page time. Shane was a fairly classic SEAL - little bit Boy Scout, little bit crazy-ready for anything. He's driven, committed, intense, unwavering...when he isn't being wildly passionate and insouciant at turns, or sensitive and insightful and damn understanding to the irascible Mac. He was easy to fall for and hard to forget.

Dr. Michelle "Mac" MacKenzie was more of a weak link for me. She was awesome in a total kick-ass, don't-bother-taking-names sort of way, and when it came to her work, her character shined. On a personal level, she's deeply flawed, dark, and hostile for most of the book. She struck me as an almost classically tragic literary figure - the empathetic siren - she lures men to her, even if she doesn't mean to, and is cursed to sense their unwavering devotion...never able to trust it's because of who she is instead of what she is. Makes dating a bit of a downer.

It's great for tragedy and angst, makes for impressive character intensity and individuality, and marks her a three dimensional, believable character. Unfortunately, Mac was a stone-cold bitch about it and to Shane throughout most of the book. I totally get why. Doesn't make for many sweet romantic moments in the romance plot threads, though, and it kept her character at a distance for me. As a result, the romance didn't work for me as much as I'd hoped.

There were a few other, minor things that didn't work for me, either. For a futuristic novel, there wasn't much future in it. Cars, motorcycles, cell phones, etc. didn't seem any different than what we have today. Nothing but the science and medical aspects struck me as even marginally advanced. Thinking of the technological advances in just the past five years made the seeming absence of them in over an approximate thirty-year jog into the future stand out to me. So did the kitschy mentions of the thirty-something season of Dancing With The Stars (or So You Think You Can Dance?...I can't remember which), and the forty-something season of American Idol. Add in some of what would be peculiarly antiquated pop culture references for that time, and the futuristic setting never really struck me as futuristic.

I also had a problem with a rather abrupt and sudden shift in one character's personality and actions late in the book - they seemed grossly exaggerated for the seeming and unsubstantiated offense, especially given everything that another character had done on her behalf. Plus, for all that these OI Greater-Thans were all about the science, experimentation, and research, they weren't very smart about some pretty obvious and elementary correlations. That frustrated me. They're intelligent and competent in every other way and yet they just kept getting smacked in the head with the obvious and just didn't see it. And yeah, I'm being purposely vague to prevent spoilers.

Thing is, though, even with those petty and relatively minor annoyances, my first experience (and where the hell have I been that I can even say that) with a Brockmann book pretty much rocked my world. The story was dark, dangerous, and intensely disturbing and the characters were definitely the sort of good guys I find so easy to love and satisfying to root for. I can't wait to get a chance to see Shane again, see how Joseph handles things, hopefully spend more time with Nika, moon over the adorably geeky Stephen and Elliot (and their storyline, while very abbreviated, just made me smile all the way through it), and find out just what's next for all of them. Maybe I'll get lucky and Mac will have some true resolution to some of her issues. And I wonder who we're going to meet next. I can't wait.

Warning: This book contains scenes of rape, torture, and murder of both women and children. Some of these scenes are graphic in nature and may be disturbing for some readers.

Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Spindle Cove, Book 1
Rating: 5 Stars
Length: 372 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book through the Amazon Vine program at Amazon.com. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




As a singularly unique woman with definite ideas on a woman's place in society, Susanna Finch is ahead of her time. She's spent several years molding her corner of the world to suit her, and the small seaside town of Spindle Cove has fallen nicely in line with her ambitions and her goals. It's been transformed into a haven for women of unique thought and temperament. Gifted, special, or otherwise socially unfavorable women like Susanna, a highly intelligent bluestocking with a sharp mind and sharper tongue, are not only welcome there, they are celebrated. And Susanna will fight tooth and nail to make sure the sanctuary she's created remains undisturbed. And almost completely free of men.

Lieutenant Colonel Victor Bramwell has come to Spindle Cove for one reason and one reason alone. To get the famous inventor and respected military adviser Sir Lewis Finch to petition his contacts in London and request Bramwell be returned to his military command. A shot in the knee and months of recovery had knocked him out of the war against France, but being a warrior for the crown was all he knew, all his father knew, and no lingering limp and a bit of pain was going to take him from that world. Not if he has anything to say about it.

As it turns out, he doesn't. Sir Lewis has another position in mind for young Bramwell. Before he can begin to wrap his mind around what's happening, Bram has been given a ruined castle and bestowed the title of Earl of Rycliff. Sir Lewis tasks him with forming a militia in Spindle Cove on behalf of the crown, and to have it ready for display maneuvers in time for the visiting dignitaries and generals who will be visiting in a few months.

To say Bram is a little overwhelmed and a bit disgruntled would be an understatement...but that pales in comparison to the onslaught of one seriously annoyed and mightily offended Susanna Finch, Sir Lewis' daughter. Sir Lewis' delectable, beautiful, more-irritating-than-Bram-can-say daughter.

Feeling betrayed by her father in light of recent developments, she's even more put out by what the new Lord Rycliff intends to do. Spindle Cove is a female retreat, a sanctuary, a Utopian paradise! If she has to she will go toe-to-toe with Bram over each and every one of his plans to wrest control of the town out of the hands of the women who need it, curse the man. Curse the tall, fearsomely handsome, fabulously masculine man!

Quotables:

"It cannot be thunder," Minerva said.
"No. No, it's not thunder. It's...an atmospheric phenomenon, brought on by intermittent gusts of..."
"Sheep!" Charlotte cried, pointing down the lane.
A flock of deranged, woolly beasts stormed through the ancient stone arch and poured into the village, funneling down the lane and bearing down on them.
"Oh, yes," Susanna muttered. "Precisely so. Intermittent gusts of sheep."

She lay in the shallows, tracing lazy circles with her arms while foamy waves lapped at her breasts.
Focus, Bramwell.
Milk-white breasts, just the perfect size for his hands. Tipped with pert, rosy nipples.
Focus on something else, you addled fool.

How predictable. Just like a man. Here she'd been worried he was dead, and he had the nerve to be alive. Outrageously, manifestly virile and strong and alive. How dare he. How dare he?

"I have to offer for you. I have to offer for you, or I can't live with myself."
"You have offered." Tilting her head, she gestured loosely between them. "In some way that involves no declaration of sentiment or actual posing of questions, you've offered to wed me in haste, bed me with enthusiasm, and then leave me alone to deal with speculation and scandal, all so you can go throw yourself in front of another bullet with a clear conscience. Please accept my polite refusal. My lord."

"How is it you've never married?"
"It's an easy enough thing. Every morning I wake up, go about my day, and return to bed at night without having recited marriage vows. After several years, I have the trick of it down."

"Ah, so you're scared."
"I'm not scared."
"Of course you are. You're human. We're all scared, every last one of us. Afraid of life, of love, of dying. Maybe marching in neat rows all day distracts you from the truth of it. But when the sun goes down? We're all just stumbling through the darkness, trying to outlast another night."

Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 352 Pages
Formats: Hardcover, Kindle, Paperback (Available for Pre-Order)
Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book through the Amazon Vine program at Amazon.com. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.