Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight Saga, Book 1)

For some reason, the Twilight craze swept right by me. Despite reading a lot of great reviews, it never struck me as a book that I desperately wanted to read. I was curious, though, and when the film came out, I finally put the book in reserve at the library so I could read it before I see the film.

Twilight has so many obvious flaws, and yet I couldn’t put it down. Here’s a sample of what went through my mind as I read this book:

Half of brain: Why are we still reading this?
Other half of brain: Shut up, I’m reading.
HoB: This is ridiculous
OHoB: OMG, so thrilled!
HoB: Teenage boys would never say that.
OHoB: Aw, so sweet…
HoB: Bella sucks. And why is her default reaction icy?
OHoB: She’s a nerd, but popular … it’s just the way I always though high school should’ve been.
HoB: Edward seems to scowl a lot. And smirk. Smirky teenage boys are beyond annoying.

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Angel's Blood by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter, Book 1)

FIRST EVER BLOG GIVEAWAY: Read on for a chance to win a free copy of Angel’s Blood. The giveaway is open to readers overseas and ends midnight on Thursday, March 19 AEDT.

You would think a book written by a New Zealand author would manage to get to our shores by the release date. People, it took me almost a week to find an Australian bookseller that had Angel’s Blood in stock. Lucky for me, Jill from Romance Direct heard me whingeing and told me she had some on hand. They arrived packed in bubblewrap, in pristine condition, before 10am the next day. My first online book buy, believe it or not.

Angels’ Blood was one of my most anticipated books this year. Not only am I a fan of Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series, I’m a fan of angel mythologies and I wanted to see how this book stacks up against Meljean Brook’s Demon Angel. The premise of the story and the mythology behind the creatures in the novel are different from Brook’s The Guardian series. I think if you found Demon Angel too wordy and slow paced, you’ll probably find Angels’ Blood just right.

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Dawnkeepers by Jessica Andersen (Final Prophecy, Book 2)

Once upon a time in Central America, an ancient people known as the Mayans ruled this part of the earth. They were a highly sophisticated civilisation, with a keen interest in astrology/astronomy and prophecy. The Mayans predicted that the world would end approximately December 21, 2012, and this is the central focus of the Final Prophecy series.

Dawnkeepers, the second book in the series, focuses on Nate Blackhawk and Alexis Gray, two descendants of the original Nightkeepers, or protectors of the barrier that is meant to stop evil from being unleashed on the world and ultimately destroying it on the prophesied date. Prior to the first book, where they were brought together, most of the Nightkeepers had no awareness of their true purpose in life. Dawnkeepers focuses not only on Nate and Alexis’s relationship, but on how the Nightkeepers begin coming into their own and how they grow stronger as a group.

This is part of what I liked about this series—the continuity is quite clear, they don’t suddenly develop all their superpowers overnight, and it’s not easy for them to defeat the baddies.

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Angel's Pawn (Guild Hunter, Companion Novella)

Nalini Singh is evil, evil, evil.

First, she writes a new series with a fresh spin on the whole angel thing that immediately sucks you into her world—there’s no warm and fuzzy touched by an angel huggy stuff here.  In Angels’ Pawn, angels run different districts where they offer immortality in  the form of vampirism in exchange for a century of service. Vampires that violate the conditions of their contract are hunted down by guild members like Ashwani, the heroine of the novel.

Ashwani has a love-hate relationship with Janvier, a 200-year old  vampire she occasionally has to hunt only to find, mid-hunt, that he’s made up with whichever vampire he’s pissed off. Ashwani approaches Janvier for assistance as she investigates and eventually conducts a rescue for a kidnapped vampire. The action is tightly written and fits well within the bounds of the novella. Click here to read an excerpt.

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King of Sword and Sky by C. L. Wilson (Tairen Soul, Book 3)

I love this series. I’ve always loved high fantasy, but I’ve often longed for more (and happier) romance in them. When I found C. L. Wilson’s Tairen Soul series, I was hooked.

King of Sword and Sky picks up the story where Lady of Light and Shadows ended. Ellie Baristani, truemate of the King of the Fey, travels to the Fading Lands where she hopes to find a way to save the tairen—fierce magical creatures—from extinction. But far from being welcomed by the Fey, Ellie is treated with increasing suspicion and hostility, and Rain finds himself constantly negotiating small but significant political battles, indicating that the Fey haven’t forgotten the years Rain spent on the brink of madness.

Meanwhile, the evil High Mage Vadim Maur dispatches minions to find weaknesses in the Fey’s human alliances and magical defences while he continues his breeding experiments to produce powerful creatures of magic whose souls are bound only to him.

When Ellie finally discovers what she must do to save the tairen, she knows that the solution will not only cast further suspicion on her and undermine Rain’s political standing,

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Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark, Book 6)

Rydstrom is the deposed King of Rothkalina, kingdom of the rage demons, who lost his kingdom centuries ago to Omort, the evil baddie who can’t die. Rydstrom has been trying to recover his kingdom ever since, with the help of his brother Cadeon, who is supposedly responsible for his loss of said kingdom.

Sabine, Queen of Illusions, is Omort the evil baddie’s half-sister. Thanks to a special hold he has over her and her sister Lanthe, she is stuck living with him,  to all appearances supporting his evil desires while at the same time plotting a better future for her and her sister.

Omort has been told via prophecy that Sabine is the destined mate of the King of the Demons and their son will be destined to unlock the secrets of the Well of Souls, a font of power within the castle that the Demons were created to protect before Omort usurped them all.  Rydstrom, as per the last book in the series, had just become aware that someone has supposedly created a weapon that could finally kill Omort.  On his way to get it, he is trapped by Sabine who is determined to seduce him and bear his child so that the prophecy can come to pass NOW.

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A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark, Book 1)

There are some books that you re-read and remember and, as you begin again, wonder why you read it. This is one of them. While I love the Immortals After Dark series dearly, I remember only starting it because I had heard wonderful things about book 3 and I had to get there. So I started it. I’m glad A Hunger Like No Other was not my first Kresley Cole book—I had read her historicals before—or else I might have gone, Whut? and hurled the damn thing.

Lachlan, leader of the Lykae Clan, has been imprisoned for 200 years. While chained underground he scents his mate, manages to find the strength to bust free, and goes off to find her. Emmaline is half vampire, half Valkyrie and about as innocent as Britney Spears would have liked you to believe she was when she still sang Sometimes I run, sometimes I hide… Anyway, he semi convinces, seduces, abducts, you can call it anything, her and tries to get her to Scotland before the full moon.

What I liked: The world building and the riotous adventure,  constantly wondering what would happen and what Cole would decide to unfurl next. While it starts out as a battle between a semi-deranged Lykae and an innocent virgin,

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Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dark-Hunter, Book 4)

While I am an avid Dark-Hunter fan, I haven’t read anything Dark-Hunter in a while. In fact, I haven’t even read Acheron despite receiving a copy before the US release date, thanks to being in Australia (yes, I know it’s blasphemy). I don’t remember why I read everything in order except for Zarek but that’s what I did, so I only read it now.

Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon features Zarek, a former Roman Slave who was made a Dark-Hunter. Generally deemed insane and irredeemable, he lives in the middle of nowhere in the Alaskan wilderness after being banished for an unspeakable deed he did about a thousand years ago or thereabouts. After fucking with a bunch of gods in the previous novel, Acheron, effectively his boss, and Artemis, the “bitch goddess” who founded the Dark-Hunters, argue about whether or not he should be executed. To maintain impartiality they send the goddess Astrid, baby sister to the Fates, to judge him guilty or innocent.

Astrid has never found anyone innocent in all the years she’s been sent to judge a Dark-Hunter.

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Sea Fever by Virginia Kantra (Children of the Sea, Book 2)

Sea Fever is the second book in the Children of the Sea series by Virginia Kantra. I haven’t read the first book, but will probably be getting it soon. That said, there is enough information in this book to not leave you feeling left behind, and although there are references to the first one, everything necessary is explained well enough.

Regina Barone is an ex-aspiring chef who returned to her island hometown when she got knocked up by the head chef of the restaurant she was working in, a Gordon Ramsey-esque type who dumped her and ended up with his own TV show. She now works for her mum’s restaurant, has an 8-year old son, and is generally trying to make the most of what she has got. Her character is quite balanced, not with too many obstacles against her, or not trying too hard the way some authors make their characters angry grrrls that push back at the world because they’re so pissed off. In short, she’s normal.

Dylan Hunter is a selkie. For those unfamiliar with the legend, basically selkies are like seals, who shed their pelts to become human. These pelts are usually left hidden in the cliffs near the seashore and without them selkies cannot return to sea.

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Stroke of Enticement by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series) in The Magical Christmas Cat

Is it sad that I’m posting on Christmas Day? (Um, that was a rhetorical question). Since many of us are celebrating Christmas, I thought it only fitting to talk about a Christmas-themed book.

Stroke of Enticement is the first story in the anthology The Magical Christmas Cat, and it’s the second novella set in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series. I loved the previous novella, Beat of Temptation, so I had very high expectations for this one. While enjoyable, Stroke of Enticement didn’t quite reach the sames heights for me.

In Stroke of Enticement, we meet two new characters, Annie and Zach. A near-fatal childhood accident has had a lifelong impact on Annie, the most significant of which is her mother’s insistence on treating Annie as fragile. A leopard changeling with soldier rank isn’t exactly on her mother’s list of acceptable boyfriends for Annie. At the same time, Annie has difficulty imagining that she can have the kind of love she dreams of–an enduring love that won’t fizzle out and turn into a trap as her parents’ marriage has become.

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