The pacing and plotting are not as balanced as in the first book. Mostly we’re just along for the ride—but it’s still a fabulous trip.
Blood Bound is the second book of Patricia Briggs’s hugely popular urban fantasy series featuring Mercy Thompson, a coyote shapeshifter nominally mated to a werewolf and formerly employed by a fae mechanic. (As I mentioned in my review of Moon Called, this series is book crack.) After Mercy’s adventures in the first book, she’s asked to return a favour by accompanying her vampire buddy, Stefan, on a mysterious errand that ends in gruesome violence when they discover a demon-possessed sorcerer turned vampire on a killing rampage.
This new vampire is deadly, and Mercy reluctantly agrees to leave the hunting to stronger creatures. After one of the werewolves turns up barely alive, Adam, the pack alpha, and Samuel, Mercy’s werewolf housemate, go hunting themselves. Unfortunately, werewolves turn out to be highly susceptible to demon magic, which causes them to lose control. When Mercy gets a late-night visit from the demon vampire, she realises that her friends are in the vampire’s hands and she has until sunset to save them.
Read the rest of this post.
Heartless by Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate, Book 4)
The latest instalment of the Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series proves that some things can get even better with time.
Alexia Maccon (nee Tarrabotti) has got herself into trouble again. Aside from the ‘infant inconvenience’ that has led to everyone trying to kill her—featuring, this time around, zombie, semi-mechanised porcupines—she has to solve a plot to assassinate the Queen. All while waddling about, moving, investigating her husband’s past, fussing over members of the pack and having tea.
This latest instalment of the Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series proves that some things can get even better with time. This book was just as witty and compelling as the others—I read it at every possible moment—and even more creative. (The porcupines were totally original.) Alexia, despite being preggers and totally dependent on her parasol, hunky werewolves and her unflappable butler to prop her up, still manages to save the day and pop out a baby besides. (Yes, the progeny makes its appearance in this one, which is not a spoiler since you can tell that from the size of her in chapter one.)
Read the rest of this post.
Decadence looks back at the books that highlighted her 2010 reading year.
If I had to sum up 2010 in one word as a reading year, it would have to be growth. I read a total of 80 books, which is the most books I’ve read in a year since I started recording them in a spreadsheet in 2007. I read an average of almost 7 books a month and doubled the number of new authors I’ve read from 15 in 2009 to 30 in 2010. I reread 11 books and have 201 books in my TBR.
My best reading month was December with 12 books, and 3 books makes February my worst reading month. I began 2010 with Salvation in Death by JD Robb and ended the year with Bloody Valentine by Melissa de la Cruz.
Genres
The numbers are a bit funny, partly because quite a few of my books cross genres (e.g. some of my paranormal reads were also YA, which is how I classified them).
Read the rest of this post.
Decadence gives us a run-down of Carrie Vaughn’s visit to Galaxy last Sunday.
Spoiler warning: So much happens in each book to further Kitty’s development that even reading the blurb on later books constitutes a spoiler. This post contains spoilers from the Kitty Norville series.
When I heard that Carrie Vaughn was coming to Galaxy for a signing, I visited her website and found an excerpt (click on the Werewolf Psychologist link and scroll down to ‘Dr. Kitty Solves All Your Love Problems’) that sold me on Kitty and the Midnight Hour, the first in her werewolf Kitty Norville series, which I liked so much, I glommed the rest of the series. This is a really good time to do that, with eight books published so far.
Read the rest of this post.
Blameless by Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate, Book 3)
After the cliffhanger that was Changeless, the latest instalment in the Parasol Protectorate series brings us back to romance territory.
After Changeless, I was very frustrated. It was a total cliffhanger, and I went as far as DMing Gail Carriger on Twitter to ask what was going to happen next. She very nicely replied, I’m very sorry but I can’t tell you. Fortunately, Kat got a review copy of Blameless last Friday, which coincided with Carriger’s visit to Galaxy to randomly sign things. She assured us that, as a believer of happy endings, she always makes sure everything ends with a HEA.
Read the rest of this post.
Moon Craving (Children of the Moon, Book 2)
A paranormal Scottish historical featuring a werewolf laird and a deaf English heroine that won’t leave you wanting to hit the characters on the head.
Talorc, laird of the Sinclair clan, is a Chrechte, part of an ancient tribe of werewolves that integrated itself into the clans of the Picts in Scotland to preserve their heritage. As the laird, he’s a subject of the King of Scotland, who orders him to marry an Englishwoman. Abigail became deaf through a childhood affliction. As a survival mechanism, she has learnt to speak clearly and to read lips. Her relationship with her family has led her to believe that she will be shunned because of this affliction, and as a result she has learnt to hide it well, and continues to do so with her new husband.
This is a beautiful love story of two people coming together. Talorc is tough and gruff, like the typical Highlander in most novels but he has a gentleness about him, despite his wolf nature that is well interpreted. Monroe also does a good job of showing Abigail’s vulnerability and how she holds herself together and tries to be strong.
Read the rest of this post.
Soulless by Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate, Book 1)
Gail Carriger’s steampunk paranormal historical romance mixes Victorian manners, werewolves and hickeys in a book that’s a little different from the average paranormal fare.
Alexia Tarabotti is a souless (literally!) spinster with a fondness for parasols, living in a Victorian London populated by supernaturals who are well organised and fully integrated into society. One day she accidentally kills a vampire, and Lord Maccon, head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR) is compelled to investigate. (Did I mention Lord Maccon is a hot werewolf?) Alexia’s propensity to get herself into trouble—though by no real fault of her own—means that she and Lord Maccon are constantly being thrown together, with expected and unexpected results.
Soulless is what I would call a steampunk romance. There’s enough technology and innovation to constitute an exploration of that theme, and there’s enough kissing and werewolf hickeys to make it a romance. It’s a good intro to steampunk for urban fantasy readers who are looking to try it
Read the rest of this post.
Mysteria (Anthology)
This book contains four short stories set in the land of Mysteria by popular paranormal writers MaryJanice Davidson, Susan Grant, P. C. Cast, and Gena Showalter.
Mysteria is a small town in Colorado that was literally created by a very random act of kindness. It’s a haven for the supernatural, where anything and everything can come and live without fear, where “magic has coexisted with the mundane world”.
MaryJanice Davidson’s story, Alone Wolf, was my favorite. It’s about a lone werewolf who ends up in Mysteria, buys a house, and falls for the short, busty real estate agent. I like how it’s done mostly from the guy’s point of view, and how you can really hear him thinking. It was quite funny.
Susan Grant’s story, Mortal in Mysteria, is about the demon who created Mysteria by mistake, and how he ends up with a preacher proves that the devil has a sense of humor. The Witches of Mysteria and the Dead Who Love Them by Gena Showalter involves three witch sisters, mainly focusing on the middle one and how she’s been obsessed with this one man for most of her life
Read the rest of this post.
