Oct 18, 2017 | fantasy, reviews, romance
Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux is hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael. But this time, it’s not a wayward vamp she has to track. It’s an archangel gone bad.
The job will put Elena in the midst of a killing spree like no other—and pull her to the razor’s edge of passion. Even if the hunt doesn’t destroy her, succumbing to Raphael’s seductive touch just may. For when archangels play, mortals break.
Angels’ Blood, by Nalini Singh
I’ve written before about how much I love Nalini’s Psy/Changeling series, which is why it’s odd that it took me so long to get around to reading the Guild Hunter books. You would think that my love of the one would translate into reading all of her other books. And to be fair, it does. Eventually.
Of course, like I’ve written before as well, I’m somewhat picky when it comes to my urban fantasy/paranormal romance. (I’m still not sure which of the two categories I would put this series into; the first book feels like it falls more into the paranormal romance category but the series as a whole seems to alternate between the two.) Which is why I put this one off for a while.
In the immortal world, angels stand at the top, ruled by the Cadre of Ten, a group of archangels. All angels can create vampires from humans, but demand a price of service for the gift of (nearly) immortal life. Naturally, some object after becoming vampires. Elena Deveraux was born a vampire hunter, which gives her some skills useful when tracking rogue vampires to return to their angelic masters. She’s one of the best in the Guild, which is why the Cadre hires her for a very special job.
Raphael might be one of the youngest archangels in the Cadre but he has the strength and the ruthlessness to do what needs to be done. Little of that means anything if he cannot find the rogue archangel, though — and every day Uram remains alive, the death toll rises. Elena’s gifts may be the only thing that can save the world from another Dark Age, but only if she can survive Raphael first.
This is a fast-paced book with a lot going on. It’s our introduction to the Guild Hunter universe, after all, and so there’s a lot of necessary exposition. But the plot also demands quick action by the characters and so the timeline gets compressed. Nalini’s world-building skills are in fine form and she brings a few new twists to a subgenre that is sometimes oversaturated, at least in my opinion. The focus of the story is definitely on Raphael and Elena but there are still a number of interesting secondary characters who I’m looking forward to getting to know better.
Elena is fantastic as a strong heroine who still has her moments of vulnerability. Her past is complex and we really only get a few glimpses into it, setting up some questions to be explored in later books. Raphael is also a bit of an enigma, especially since we know so little about the angels. There are hints that his past has its own tragic secrets and messy family relationships. It makes sense that as the first book of the series, there are a lot of questions unanswered at the end.
Nalini does a great job of wrapping up the important questions though, leaving the reader satisfied if still curious and anxious to read the next one. If you are like me and hesitant to read paranormal romance or urban fantasy without a recommendation, consider one given for this series. I’m looking forward to reading the second book soon.
Aug 11, 2017 | fantasy, reviews, romance
War is coming for the dragon knights…but love may find them first.
A chance meeting with a young male dragon seals the fate of one adventurous female poacher. The dragon’s partner, a ruggedly handsome knight named Gareth, takes one look at the shapely woman and decides to do a little poaching of his own.
Sir Gareth both seduces and falls deeply in love with the girl who is not only unafraid of dragons but also possesses a rare gift—she can hear the beasts’ silent speech. He wants her for his mate, but mating with a knight is no simple thing. To accept a knight, a woman must also accept the dragon, the dragon’s mate…and her knight, Lars, too.
She is at first shocked, then intrigued by the lusty life in the Lair. But war is in the making and only the knights and dragons have a chance at ending it before it destroys their land and their lives.
Maiden Flight, by Bianca D’Arc
Having indulged in a few favorites recently, I was feeling up to something new as I sat waiting for the car at the dealership today. This one was another one of the bargains I picked up on Amazon and I was in the mood for a light read. (I’m still on that not-Regency kick, with a few exceptions. Fair warning.)
Maiden Flight, which is the first in a series, is set in a fantasy world where dragons bond to knights, who are supposed to serve and do all sorts of knightly things (protecting the innocent from marauding creatures, etc.). The knights are exclusively men, although the dragons are a mix of male and female, and it appears (although I’m not 100% sure) that for a man to take a woman as his mate, she must be able to hear the dragons.
The added complication, of course, is that because of the bond between a dragon and his knight, the dragons cannot mate until their human half has an appropriate outlet for the feelings the act inspires. And since the knights are exclusively male and women who can hear the dragons are rare, this typically means that marriage to a dragon knight involves two husbands.
Needless to say this is a somewhat steamy book. The focus is heavy on the dilemma of convincing the heroine to take both Gareth and Lars as her husbands and the secondary issue of convincing her mother, Adora, to move to the Lair as well (there’s some very heavy foreshadowing for the next book) but not a lot of character development or romance. All parties involved fall in love immediately, because fate. The writing style mimics this somewhat, with the focus very much on telling the reader what’s happening.
Still, even if it was more erotica than romance, there were still some interesting ideas and I’d read the next one in the series if it were available on Kindle Unlimited. It’s very much a “what you see in the description is what you get” sort of book so if the description intrigues you, I’d pick it up if the price is reasonable. (Free is always a reasonable price for me.) It definitely met the “light read, bit of fluff” criteria for my read today.
Jun 24, 2017 | fantasy, reviews, romance, young adult
Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear.
Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer to make it happen. He’s a man who can get you anything you want … at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects.
But for one of his clients, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now. When Callie finds the fae king of the night in her room, a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, she knows things are about to change. At first it’s just a chaste kiss—a single bead’s worth—and a promise for more.
For the Bargainer, it’s more than just a matter of rekindling an old romance. Something is happening in the Otherworld. Fae warriors are going missing one by one. Only the women are returned, each in a glass casket, a child clutched to their breast. And then there are the whispers among the slaves, whispers of an evil that’s been awoken.
If the Bargainer has any hope to save his people, he’ll need the help of the siren he spurned long ago. Only, his foe has a taste for exotic creatures, and Callie just happens to be one.
Rhapsodic, by Laura Thalassa
I’ve been on a paranormal kick recently. This is perhaps a little inconvenient, in part because I am supposed to be working on the next book (it’s in progress, I promise!) and in part because we’re going to London shortly for a vacation/family wedding/research trip. Because what kind of a Regency romance author would I be if I didn’t jump all over this opportunity to explore London?
But sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants (as a romance author knows all too well) and so I’ve been trolling through some of the Amazon offerings and found this one. I wish I could remember how.
Rhapsodic is on that strange border between young adult and paranormal romance. It probably falls into the new adult category that I am less familiar with. (I will freely confess that book categories can really confuse the heck out of me and what I put something in is probably very different than what someone else would say.) It’s the first of a series that is, of yet, incomplete — and while each book does wrap up its part of the story, there are some cliffhanger elements. Fair warning for those who dislike that sort of thing.
This is one of those books where I’m not sure how I feel about it. (This can frequently happen with books in this genre.) Callypso is a flawed heroine. There are times I don’t like her very much. She’s had some difficult experiences in her past (relating to sexual assault) and sometimes it’s hard to tell what is her working through the consequences of that and what is just her. Still, there are flashes about her past that have me curious and I don’t actively dislike her.
Desmond, on the other hand, is a fascinating character to me. Probably the main reason I kept reading (and then read book two). He’s mysterious, has some incredibly protective instincts without coming across as smothering, and smolders. Oh boy does he smolder. I really enjoyed getting to know him over the course of the book. The plot too does an excellent job of helping to drive the book forward — it’s very well paced, I think. I could have appreciated a little more world-building; there’s a number of questions I have about how much the “real” world knows about the “supernaturals” that’s never really talked about, for example, but these are probably minor quibbles.
If the best measure of a book is how hard it is to put down, this one certainly achieved that. I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next book in the series. (I’m hoping it’s the conclusion to the overarching storyline, because in my experience those are hard to carry off longer than a trilogy.)
Also, on a superficial level, the cover design for this series is gorgeous.
Jun 2, 2017 | fantasy, reviews, romance
Sophia Westlake is an Extraordinary Seer, gifted with the ability to see past, present and future in Dreams and Visions. Her talent led to the destruction of the Caribbean pirates plaguing England’s shipping and gained her renown and the accolades of her peers. But when she accuses a prominent politician, Lord Endicott, of embezzling from the Army, her Dream is “proved” false and she is disgraced, her reputation ruined and her career in the Army’s War Office over.
Humiliated, Sophia returns to London, but Lord Endicott follows her, intent on making her life increasingly miserable. Furious and desperate, Sophia takes the only course left to her: she sets out to discover Lord Endicott’s criminal enterprises, to expose him as the fraud he is and bring him to justice.
Sophia’s allies are few, but loyal. Cecy, her best friend, supports Sophia in her quest, while her cousin Lady Daphne, an irrepressible Extraordinary Bounder, is always ready for a challenge that will strike at Lord Endicott’s heart. And always watching her is the mysterious Mr. Rutledge, who claims to be interested in Sophia’s friendship—and possibly more than that—but who has an agenda of his own.
But as Sophia delves deeper into prophetic Dreams, Cecy and Daphne begin to fear for Sophia’s health and sanity. Driven to collapse by her frequent Dreaming, Sophia is forced to reevaluate her motives: does she want Lord Endicott brought to justice, or is it revenge she seeks? As Sophia draws closer to the secret of Lord Endicott’s criminal enterprise, a counterfeiting ring, his torment of Sophia increases, until the two are bound together by their respective obsessions. Though Sophia insists she is in control, her friends fear she is turning into the man she most hates.
Sophia’s Dreams and Visions are leading her to just one place: the destruction of Lord Endicott. But the cost of her vengeance may be too high—and may demand the sacrifice of her own life.
Wondering Sight, by Melissa McShane
I really loved Burning Bright, the first book in the Extraordinaries series (you can see my review here). The worldbuilding was intriguing and I really enjoyed the magic system that was set up. I wasn’t sure at the end of that one if the next book would be a direct sequel or focus on new characters and I was happy to see that it did, in fact, star a new couple. So I was excited to dig in and read it.
Unfortunately Wondering Sight didn’t work nearly as well for me as the first one did. Sophia is a Seer and the plot revolves around her quest to clear her name and reputation with the War Office by proving that her Dream was not false. This quest is so important to her that she’s willing to cross several boundaries and hardly ever thinks of what effect it’s having on her health or on her relationships with people she supposedly cares about, despite being called out on this several times during the book.
This is the same drive that led her to make new discoveries when she was working in the War Office about how the Seers’ abilities work, but she ends up coming across as selfish and obsessed from the beginning. Her positive characteristics get subsumed by her quest, to the point where I found myself a lot more interested in the secondary characters than I was in her. Mr. Rutledge, for example, is a mysterious and interesting character — but then those questions don’t get fully resolved. I hoped for some clue of what Cecy’s illness might be, even if just in the afterword/acknowledgments, but that was also missing. I also liked Lady Daphne, who is clearly being set up as a potential future heroine in the series; her book will be an enjoyable read, I think (and so clearly my opinion on this book is not changing my mind about the series as a whole, which still offers a very interesting twist on the normal historical romance).
The book at least picked up in the second half, and Sophia became a slightly more likeable character for me. I could still wish for a little more explanation of the difference between Dreams and Visions in the first half of the book, and more interaction with Mr. Rutledge. I doubt I’ll find myself compelled to get the audiobook for this one though, like I did with the first book. I’ll still watch for the next one in the series though, and if you did enjoy the first one I recommend at least giving this one a shot. The secondary characters are worth meeting, and the end is better than the beginning!
May 6, 2017 | fantasy, reviews, romance
In 1812, Elinor Pembroke wakes to find her bedchamber in flames—and extinguishes them with a thought. At 21, she is old to manifest magical talent, but the evidence is unmistakable: she not only has the ability to start fires, but the far more powerful ability to control and extinguish them. She is an Extraordinary, and the only one in England capable of wielding fire in over one hundred years.
As an Extraordinary, she is respected and feared, but to her father, she represents power and prestige for himself. Mr. Pembroke, having spent his life studying magic, is determined to control Elinor and her talent by forcing her to marry where he chooses, a marriage that will produce even more powerful offspring. Trapped between the choices of a loveless marriage or living penniless and dependent on her parents, Elinor takes a third path: she defies tradition and society to join the Royal Navy.
Assigned to serve under Captain Miles Ramsay aboard the frigate Athena, she turns her fiery talent on England’s enemies, French privateers and vicious pirates preying on English ships in the Caribbean. At first feared by her shipmates, a growing number of victories make her truly part of Athena’s crew and bring her joy in her fire. But as her power grows and changes in unexpected ways, Elinor’s ability to control it is challenged. She may have the power to destroy her enemies utterly—but could it be at the cost of her own life?
Burning Bright, by Melissa McShane
Apologies this is late. It’s Friday. It’s Friday after a particularly trying week and so I went to our local fusion Mexican place to have a drink for lunch and then remembered I hadn’t written this week’s review, even though I’ve had the book picked out since I finished it on Sunday. Apparently in my brain choosing the book is equivalent to writing the review and that got checked off. Hah. Very helpful, brain.
Anyway, it should not be a surprise by now that I like things in the Regency setting. That being said, I’m not adverse to bending the rules a little bit – and in this case, the rules get bent in a very interesting way, looking at what the world might look like if there were people among us who had special powers. Think, vaguely, X-men meets Regency England, except I use the X-men comparison mostly because of the genetic component that’s mentioned in the book. (You can hardly avoid it, the heroine’s father is one of the foremost experts on the bloodlines of Extraordinaries.)
Be that as it may, I loved this book. I loved the world building. I loved the hero. I loved the heroine. I wanted more and was sad when the book was done. I went out and got the audiobook, which is a clear sign that I intend to read/listen to this again. I was curious about the different groupings of powers. I though the development was clear and straightforward. I enjoyed the plot, which still felt true to the period without being obnoxious. (It does help when you escape the rules of the London setting, as she does by having the heroine escape to Naval service. I’d be really interested to see if we can get a sequel set in London.) And I was so, so satisfied with the conclusion.
Which isn’t to say that there weren’t a few loose ends I would have enjoyed seeing wrapped up. We never get a very satisfactory answer to what happens with one of the villains (I say no more than that to avoid spoilers). I’m not 100% clear on whether a sequel will follow Elinor and Miles or focus on a new couple (and make no mistake, the first book is most certainly a romance, if not explicit). (For the record, I would be absolutely okay with a new couple, but there’s no clear “next couple” as you so often see so I’m unsure which direction the plan is to go.) Miles’ best friend is introduced but not really used much as a character, which seems a little odd. But these are all small things and shouldn’t stop you from READING THE BOOK which I highly, highly recommend if you enjoy a blend of fantasy and romance.
I suspect this book is next on my listening rotation as I work on finishing up my current needlework piece.
