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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My Favorite Earthling by Susan Grant (Otherworldly Men, Book 2)

Jared Jasper is from a very close knit California political family on Earth. In the previous book, Your Planet or Mine (which you don’t have to read to get what’s happening), he helped his sister Jana and her man Calvin of Far Star, from the Coalition, saving the earth from invasion.

The Coalition consists of a vast political entity that rules a whole lot of planets. They are peaceful, and they worship the goddess, who descends directly from a line of goddess/rulers, unbroken from the very beginning of their history. Their goddesses do not live above them, literally or figuratively, but instead live with the people and are symbols of benevolence and of what they have.

The Coalition is perpetually at war with the Drakken horde, an evil and equally vast political entity—think the Empire in Star Wars—that is basically a military dictatorship which outlaws religious worship and has a fondness for going around killing things.

Earth is a very small part of this universe—it barely registers a bleep, and it’s not advanced enough to keep up, but somehow it gets swept up in all of it,

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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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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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Lady of Light and Shadows by C. L. Wilson (Tairen Soul, Book 2)

After reading Lord of the Fading Lands, all shame flew out the window and I begged e-mailed the publisher to see if they’d be willing to part with an ARC of the sequel. If at all possible, these two books should be read back to back because while Lord of the Fading Lands focuses on Rain’s courtship of Ellie, Lady of Light and Shadows develops the external plot further and adds much more complexity to the story.

The heroine

Ellie Baristani has been claimed as the truemate of the Lord of the Fey, but as far as Ellie’s concerned, she’s a woodcarver’s daughter pretending to be a queen. Her first official engagement as queen ended in complete disaster when she accidentally wielded magic–of the lusty kind–right in the middle of dinner! Hers is an unpredictable skill that seems to get her into trouble time and again. Now, amidst the suspicion of her own family and friends, Ellie struggles to accept and control the magic she has always feared.

The hero

Rain Tairen Soul, King of the Fey, is convinced that his most bitter enemies, the Mages of Eld, are preparing for an attack. But despite his relentless campaigning, his allies are unable or unwilling to see the danger that is imminent. Meanwhile, he must continue to court Ellie so that she might fully accept their mating bond–for she is now his greatest vulnerability.

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Lord of the Fading Lands by C. L. Wilson (Tairen Soul, Book 1)

I won an ARC of Lord of the Fading Lands via Dear Author, and it’s taken me a while to blog about it because I wanted to read it a few times to do the book justice. Lord of the Fading Lands is a blend of epic fantasy and good old-fashioned romance–two of my favourite reading pleasures. I expected great things from this novel on the strength of Jane’s review, and for the most part, it didn’t disappoint. C. L. Wilson’s writing is lush without being bloated, and the romance … well, it made me giggle and blush in very good ways.

The heroine

Ellie Baristani, adopted daughter of a Celierian woodcarver, was plagued with nightmares and torments as a child, which has caused her to fear magic. With one year to go before she’s considered a pitiable spinster, Ellie’s marriage prospects are grim. Her family isn’t rich enough nor is she beautiful enough to attract suitors, and Ellie is tricked into a betrothal with a man who repulses her.

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Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair

One of the first things that struck me about this story was that the sci-fi aspect is well fleshed out. It didn’t feel cliched to me, and I didn’t feel as though the author, Linnea Sinclair, was pulling back on the plot to concentrate on the romance. However, there’s so much information to learn about Sinclair’s world and her characters’ backgrounds that it sometimes gets a bit much, to the point where I found myself skimming in some parts. I’ve since discovered that this book was conceived as a series but turned into a stand alone, and that’s probably why it seems like there’s a lot of background info to get through. I wonder, though, if a prologue might have done the job better. I was left with a lot of questions regarding the Alliance, the Nasyry and biocybes in general.

The best thing about the story is Kel-Paten, the hero who’s been pining for Sass for twelve years. His attempts to show her how he feels, his insecurities about being part machine, his fear that someone will discover his secrets all add up to some very enjoyable angst, although at times he veers into too-sappy territory. I like Sass, the heroine, but her feelings towards Kel-Paten change too abruptly, and I would have preferred a more gradual progression from lust to love.

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