Review: Shadowed Souls edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes

Posted on October 31, 2016October 30, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

Shadowed Souls by Kerrie L. Hughes, Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, Rob Thurman, Tanya Huff, Kat Richardson, Anton Strout, Lucy A. Snyder, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Erik Scott de Bie
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 352
Published by Roc on November 1st 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In this dark and gritty collection—featuring short stories from Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and Rob Thurman—nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil..
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line.
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s Cold Case, Molly Carpenter—Harry Dresden’s apprentice-turned-Winter Lady—must collect a tribute from a remote Fae colony and discovers that even if you’re a good girl, sometimes you have to be bad...
New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire’s Sleepover finds half-succubus Elsie Harrington kidnapped by a group of desperate teenage boys. Not for anything “weird.” They just need her to rescue a little girl from the boogeyman. No biggie.
In New York Times bestselling Kevin J. Anderson’s Eye of Newt, Zombie P.I. Dan Shamble’s latest client is a panicky lizard missing an eye who thinks someone wants him dead. But the truth is that someone only wants him for a very special dinner...
And New York Times bestselling author Rob Thurman’s infernally heroic Caliban Leandros takes a trip down memory lane as he deals wih some overdue—and nightmarish—vengeance involving some quite nasty
Impossible Monsters
.
ALSO INCLUDES STORIES BYTanya Huff * Kat Richardson * Jim C. Hines * Anton Strout * Lucy A. Snyder * Kristine Kathryn Rusch * Erik Scott de Bie *
From the Trade Paperback edition.

My Review:

Shadowed Souls seemed like an absolutely perfect book to review for Halloween. This is a collection of slightly creepy, slightly spooky urban fantasy stories where all the heroes are anti- and all of the action is conducted in the darker shades of gray. And by gray I mean cases where the heroes commit acts that may seem villainous, or at least questionable, in order to prevent an even greater evil.

These are stories where the ends actually do justify the means, as long as you like your means on the dark and grim side of the equation.

Most story collections have hits and misses. It’s the nature of the beast. That’s not true in this case. All of the stories in Shadowed Souls are at least very good, and many rise to excellent, sometimes hauntingly so.

While I liked every story in this collection, there are a few that stood out from the ghostly crowd.

Tanya Huff’s If Wishes Were is a return to the world of her Vicki Nelson series, 20 years after the end of Blood Debt. Victoria Nelson has been a vampire for 20 years, and looks permanently in her mid-30s. But the man who keeps Vicki tied to her humanity, Mike Cellucci, is now pushing 60. Vicki is forced to face the inevitable future, that the man she loves will die, possibly of his current injuries, but certainly in what will, to her, seem like a short and painful 20 or 30 years. Even if Mike were willing to become a vampire, it is no solution. If he changes, they will be forced to part. If he dies, they will be forced to part. When a villain tempts Vicki with a third choice, she has to decide just how much she is willing to sacrifice to retain what’s left of her humanity – along with what’s left of her heart.

This story is haunting and bittersweet, and resonates both with Vicki’s particular situation, and for anyone who has faced the inevitable loss of a loved one.

Sales. Force. by Kristine Kathryn Rusch is definitely a story from the dark side of the house. Like If Wishes Were, this is also a story about love and loss. And not just the loss of love but also the loss of humanity. The revenge in this story is served icy cold. Even as the reader shivers with that cold, one is left with the feeling that it wasn’t enough. That as dark as this ending is, nothing would be enough. Read it and weep.

In all of the deep and dark and serious in this collection, there is one ray of light. Definitely call it gallows humor. Eye of Newt by Kevin J. Anderson is a short story set in his Dan Shamble series, and it is laugh out loud, read out loud to your partner, funny. In this definitely urban fantasy series, where the private investigator is a zombie, his girlfriend is a ghost, and nearly every name is a pun, the author manages to set up both a mystery and a riotous send up of TV cooking shows at the same time. You will laugh until your sides ache. And want more of the series.

Escape Rating A: I don’t DO this for collections. There are always at least a couple of stories that fail for me. But not this time. The stories are all different. Except for Eye of Newt, they all reside creepily in the neighborhood of dark urban fantasy. And they are all at the least compelling, if not absolutely enthralling.

Read this one with the lights on, and have a scary good time.

Happy Halloween!

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-30-16

Posted on October 30, 2016October 29, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Last week was definitely a “B” week. I really liked both Gladiator and The Tides of Bara, but they didn’t quite have enough fairy dust, or whatever the appropriate element is, to make that leap from B+ to A-. But I am definitely looking forward to future books in both series!

I’ve got a few serious books coming up this week. I’ve got high hopes for Rejected Princesses. No rejection planned! And two excellent books to start the week. I finished Shadowed Souls this afternoon and it is an awesome collection. Meanwhile, I’m reviewing Robin D. Owens’ Ghost Maker over at the Book Pushers tomorrow with my co-conspirator E. And Ghost Maker is definitely the best of that series so far. Another winner!

Happy Halloween!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop (ENDS Halloween!)
Beauty and Attention by Liz Rosenberg
$25 Gift Card from BJ Daniels and Harlequin

Blog Recap:

C Review: Honor Bound by B.J. Daniels + Giveaway
B+ Review: Gladiator by Anna Hackett
B- Review: Beauty and Attention by Liz Rosenberg + Giveaway
B Review: The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick
B+ Review: The Tides of Bara by Jeffe Kennedy
Stacking the Shelves (208)

Coming Next Week:

Shadowed Souls edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes (review)
Let it Snow by Jennifer Grey (blog tour review)
Everything Explained that is Explainable by Denis Boyles (review)
My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (review)
Rejected Princesses by Jason Porath (review)

Stacking the Shelves (208)

Posted on October 29, 2016October 28, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

October is almost over. The holiday season is about to commence! Or has already commenced, depending on one’s perspective. Personally, I am not looking forward to two solid months of Xmas carols and Xmas advertising. I don’t often miss the so-called “good old days”, but I do miss the days when Xmas advertising didn’t go into high gear until Black Friday – which didn’t used to be an official thing, either.

On that other hand, we don’t feel the seasons so much down here, and that’s a good thing. I don’t miss the winters in either Chicago or Anchorage. Seattle was just a bit gloomy, but not horribly cold, so not too bad. But winter in Atlanta still feels like Fall to me, which segues directly into Spring. Just about perfect.

secrets of worry dolls by amy impellizzeri

For Review:
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Becoming a Legend (Kavanagh Legends #3) by Sarah Robinson
Demons of the Flame Sea (Flame Seas #2) by Jean Johnson
Four Princes by John Julius Norwich
Girl in Disguise by Greer Macallister
Let it Snow by Jeanette Grey
Secrets of Worry Dolls by Amy Impellizzeri
Those Texas Nights (Wrangler’s Creek #1) by Delores Fossen

Purchased from Amazon:
Hunted Warrior (Dragon Kings #3) by Lindsey Piper

Review: The Tides of Bara by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on October 28, 2016October 27, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

The Tides of Bára (Sorcerous Moons, #3) by Jeffe Kennedy
Formats available: ebook
Series: Sorcerous Moons #3
Pages: 200
Published by Brightlynx Publishing on October 29th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Kobo
Goodreads

A Narrow Escape
With her secrets uncovered and her power-mad brother bent on her execution, Princess Oria has no sanctuary left. Her bid to make herself and her new barbarian husband rulers of walled Bára has failed. She and Lonen have no choice but to flee through the leagues of brutal desert between her home and his—certain death for a sorceress, and only a bit slower than the blade.
A Race Against Time
At the mercy of a husband barely more than a stranger, Oria must war with her fears and her desires. Wild desert magic buffets her; her husband’s touch allures and burns. Lonen is pushed to the brink, sure he’s doomed his proud bride and all too aware of the restless, ruthless pursuit that follows…
A Danger Beyond Death…
Can Oria trust a savage warrior, now that her strength has vanished? Can Lonen choose her against the future of his people? Alone together in the wastes, Lonen and Oria must forge a bond based on more than lust and power, or neither will survive the test…

My Review:

The action in The Tides of Bára picks up immediately after the end of Oria’s Gambit. Or perhaps I should say the failure of Oria’s gambit, as they are both the same thing. Unfortunately for Oria and Lonen.

In other words, this is not the place to start Sorcerous Moons. Start at the beginning with the marvelous Lonen’s War. The Sorcerous Moons series isn’t so much as series as it is one long story, broken up into publishable-sized chunks.

They’re short chunks so start at the beginning.

The Tides of Bára is the second half of the middle book in what is so far projected to be a four-book series. The author hasn’t committed trilogy, she’s committed tetralogy. But that tetralogy feels like it is necessary for this story to reach its conclusion.

In Lonen’s War, we saw the set up. We saw the arrogance and corruption of the Bárans first-hand, both through the eyes of neglected Princess Oria and conquering “barbarian” Lonen. Lonen has brought war to Bára, a war that was only begun because the Bárans were stealing water and mass murdering his people using nearly unkillable golems. Lonen brought the war to Bára to make them finally face some risk to their own people.

Oria breaks herself out of a literal ivory tower existence that was supposedly for her own good, but was mostly to benefit those in power. As such things usually are. When the peace she brokered between Lonen and her people is betrayed, Lonen returned to Bára in Oria’s Gambit to punish someone for that betrayal. He thinks that someone was Oria. When he finds out that it wasn’t, Lonen and Oria join forces.

Oria sees a marriage of convenience to Lonen as the only way to re-take power before her corrupt brother manages to seize the throne. The marriage takes place, but in spite of her political maneuvering, her power grab fails and her brother tries to have her killed.

As The Tides of Bára opens, Lonen and Oria are fighting their way out of Bára . While Oria believes that the wild magic of the desert will kill her sooner or later, she has some hope that she can find a way to survive. And she is certain that if Lonen can get out of the city, he will survive to go back to his people. Remaining in the city is guaranteed death for both of them. A sliver of hope of survival is better than none.

But once they are free of the city, after a hair-raising escape, they have a long and dangerous journey ahead of them to reach the Destrye, Lonen’s people, with no guarantee that Oria will survive the journey, or that if she does, she will be capable of helping his people survive. Or even if they will let her.

In spite of the odds against them, they have to try. It is their only hope. But what neither of them expects is that along the way, their marriage of convenience will change into something much, much more.

Escape Rating B+: The Tides of Bára is a road story. It’s the story of Lonen and Oria’s literal journey from Bára to Destrye, and it is also the story of the journey of their relationship from marriage of convenience to marriage of love. The physical journey has more than its share of very real dangers, but the emotional journey is equally as charged.

They began this story on opposite sides of a battlefield. Out in the desert, Lonen and Oria, with the help of Oria’s familiar Chuffta and Lonen’s stalwart battle stallion, the incongruously named Buttercup, are all alone in a vast sea of sand. Bára has drained the life out of the land for endless miles around. What little water there is rises in sudden and deadly tides, and is not merely undrinkable salt water, but is actually poisonous to humans.

They seem to be all alone in the world, and absolutely forced to rely upon each other. Initially their pride keeps them apart, but as they journey, the barriers between them break down. It’s an emotional journey from wary trust to love. To the point where they are each a bit too willing to sacrifice themselves for each other, with nearly disastrous consequences. They are still both learning that they are stronger together than either can possibly be separately, and it’s a difficult journey with a lot of two-steps-forward and one-step-back. As it should be.

This is a necessary part of the story, for the action to switch from Bára to Destrye, and for Oria to be forced to leave everything she knows behind so that she can finally become who and what she is meant to be. But the journey itself is grueling, and bears an unfortunate resemblance to another grueling journey in fantasy, that of Frodo and Sam through Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. The land is equally desolate, and the long dark night of the story and the soul is equally difficult to read through.

And it sets up the story for what I hope will be an epic and glorious conclusion in book 4. Soon please!

Review: The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick

Posted on October 27, 2016October 26, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 304
Published by Harper on October 11th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A magical, intoxicating debut novel, both intimate and epic, that intertwines the past, present, and future of two lovers bound by the passing of great comets overhead and a coterie of remarkable ancestors
Róisín and François are immediately drawn to each other when they meet at a remote research base on the frozen ice sheets of Antarctica. At first glance, the pair could not be more different. Older by a few years, Róisín, a daughter of Ireland and a peripatetic astronomer, joins the science team to observe the fracturing of a comet overhead. François, the base’s chef, has just left his birthplace in Bayeux, France, for only the second time in his life. Yet devastating tragedy and the longing for a fresh start, which they share, as well as an indelible yet unknown bond that stretches back centuries, connect them to each other.
Helen Sedgwick carefully unfolds their surprisingly intertwined paths, moving forward and back through time to reveal how these lovers’ destinies have long been tied to one other by the skies—the arrival of comets great and small. In telling Róisín and François’s story, Sedgwick illuminates the lives of their ancestors, showing how strangers can be connected and ghosts can be real, and how the way we choose to see the world can be as desolate or as beautiful as the comets themselves.
A beautiful, skillfully crafted, and emotionally perceptive novel that explores the choices we make, the connections we miss, and the ties that inextricably join our fates, The Comet Seekers reflects how the shifting cosmos unites us all through life, beyond death, and across the whole of time.

My Review:

This feels like an easy book to like but a hard book to love. Your mileage, even to Antarctica and back, may vary.

I want to say this is a story about two people who feel connected to comets, and through that somewhat ephemeral connection find themselves connected to each other. At first their connection seems to be an accident, but in the end we discover that some gravitic force has been moving them towards each other all along.

Róisín is an Irish astrophysicist. She has been following comets since she was a child, and wants nothing more than the chance to study them. But Róisín is from a tiny Irish village, and while her family understands her need to see the universe, her first love does not. Every part of her journey away seems to encompass just a bit pain, a worry about what might have been if she and her cousin Liam had ever had a real chance.

Ironically, or coincidentally, or a bit of both, Róisín’s journey around the world, the journey that eventually leads her to Antarctica, keeps intersecting with François’ journey. Francois is younger than Róisín, but as she travels and explores the world and her profession, she keeps almost bumping into Francois and his mother Severine.

Not just when François and Severine make their one great trip, to Edinburgh, but also when Róisín finds herself working on a grant project in Bayeux, the home of the famous tapesty and the place that Severine and François call home.

Much of the story is Severine’s. She finds herself tied to Bayeux by the family ghosts. Down the centuries, from Aelfgifu in the 11th century who worked both herself and Halley’s Comet into the tapestry, all the way to the 21st century and Severine’s own grandmother, members of Severine’s family appear to Severine as rather lively ghosts whenever there is a comet in the sky over Earth. Severine loves her family, both the dead as well as the living, and can’t bear to part from the ghosts. But there is a price to be paid for keeping them close beside her – she has to stay close to them as well. If she leaves Bayeux, she loses her family.

BayeuxTapestryScene15 — Where a cleric and Aelfgyva…

BayeuxTapestryScene32 — These people marvel at the star

Of course, her son Francois thinks she’s lost her marbles, just as Severine’s mother thought had happened to HER mother. Severine’s mother was astonished to find herself a member of the family ghostly choir upon her own death!

The story begins on a scientific expedition in Antarctica, where Róisín is studying the heavens and chef François is keeping everyone fed. They are both there to get away from, or let go of, losses that they can’t bear around other people. And as their story progresses, we see the stories of all of the comets, and all of the members of François’ family who have been tied to their own particular comets.

Because the ghosts are telling their stories, one last time before they go.

Escape Rating B: I enjoyed the individual stories, but they just didn’t quite hang together into a single anything for me. This may explain why I often don’t quite get literary fiction – I keep expecting a plot there isn’t there.

The through story line is how Róisín and François reached the place where they can finally see each other. Not just because he had to grow up first, but because they each needed to experience their own profound losses before they were ready for a possible future together.

But we only glimpse their stories in bits and pieces. Most of the book feels like it is taken up with the visitations of the ghosts, and the different times that each of them experienced a comet passing through the sky. And all of the stories seem to have a tragedy in their hearts, whether it is the death of young Antoine, Severine’s uncle, or the tragic lives of Aelfgifu in the 11th century and Brigitte in the 15th.

We also only see Róisín and François’ lives through the tail of a comet – the narrative is not sustained through their lives. Instead we get glimpses through the 20th and 21st centuries as one comet after another makes its way into, or through, our solar system. So not just Halley’s Comet in 1986, but also Hale-Bopp, Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Hyakutake. It’s been a busy half-century for comets, which provides lots of points to observe their lives – but still not the same as a more straightforward story.

The historical vignettes are not in chronological order either, making it easy for the reader to get a bit lost among the stars. And comets.

Individual sections are often lyrical, but somehow the book just misses cohering into a whole. I’m flailing a bit, trying to convey that this book didn’t quite do it for me. It got close a few times, but just missed.

The Comet Seekers is a debut novel. Those lyrical parts of this story are lovely, and I have hopes for this author’s future work.

Review: Beauty and Attention by Liz Rosenberg + Giveaway

Posted on October 26, 2016October 25, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Beauty and Attention: A Novel by Liz Rosenberg
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 211
Published by Lake Union Publishing on October 25th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The riveting story of one brave young woman’s struggle to free herself from a web of deceit.
For misfit Libby Archer, social expectations for young women in Rochester, New York, in the mid-1950s don’t work. Her father has died, leaving her without parents, and her well-meaning friends are pressuring her to do what any sensible single girl must do: marry a passionate, persistent hometown suitor with a promising future. Yet Libby boldly defies conventional wisdom and plans to delay marriage—to anyone—by departing for her uncle’s Belfast estate. In Ireland, Libby seeks not only the comfort of family but also greater opportunities than seem possible during the stifling McCarthy era at home.
Across the Atlantic, Libby finds common ground with her brilliant, invalid cousin, Lazarus, then puts her trust in a sophisticated older woman who seems to be everything she hopes to become. Fraught with betrayal and long-kept secrets, as well as sudden wealth and unexpected love, Libby’s journey toward independence takes turns she never could have predicted—and calls on courage and strength she never knew she had.

My Review:

This is a difficult book to review. I finished it last night, and now that I’m done, I’m not exactly sure what happened. And that feels weird.

The story takes place in the mid-1950s, at a time when women were supposed to marry young and become model wives and mothers. While a tiny number of careers were open to women – teacher, nurse and secretary – the ambition was to become a stay-at-home wife and mother.

I’m so glad I wasn’t an adult then, because, well, that is so not anything I would have wanted.

And it isn’t what Libby Archer wants, either. Not that she is actually sure what she does want in her early 20s, but that just makes her normal in our 21st century eyes. It does give her contemporaries a great deal of pause, however.

The man who loves her is just certain that she should marry him, right now. And he places way too much pressure on someone who finally has a chance to spread her wings, so she runs.

Libby’s alcoholic father has just died. And after years of tip-toeing around his cold withdrawals and drunken rages, after years of suppressing her every desire and ambition to care for him in his decline (as good daughters were supposed to do) she wants to discover who she really is before she becomes a part of somebody else.

So she goes to Ireland to visit her aunt and uncle and cousin. These are people that she remembers fondly from her childhood, before her mother died and her father started drinking himself to death. Uncle Sacks is her mother’s brother, and it was easy for her dad to drop the connection.

Libby picks it back up again. She finds a second home with her aunt and uncle, and a fast friend in her dying cousin, ironically named Lazarus. Whatever is killing Lazarus, which is real but ill-defined, he will not be rising from the dead.

She finds strength as part of their rather eclectic household, but she is still drifting inside herself. When her uncle dies, the household scatters to the winds, and Libby finds herself drifting again, but this time, drifting into all the bad decisions that her friends back home warned her about.

It is only at the side of her cousin’s deathbed that she begins to pick up the reins of her own life. Where those reins lead her is left to the reader’s imagination at the end of the book.

Escape Rating B-: I liked the first part of the story very much. Libby is a bit lost and uncertain, and so she should be. She’s free of her father’s domination, and feels both exhilarated and guilty at the same time. After years of being forced to deal with her father’s “illness” she wants the freedom to explore herself, and everyone else’s very forceful good intentions just feel like an attempt to put her in a different cage.

Only because they are.

Libby’s life in her uncle’s house, and the story of her deep friendship with Lazarus, are bittersweet. It is a safe harbor that is doomed to end, but still surprises Libby when that end comes.

One of the fascinating things about Libby is that she is so much of a blank slate. She is bright, naive and innocent and has a desperate need to please. Several men fall in love with her, not necessarily for who she actually is, but what they think they can make of her.

And she is easily manipulated and led. Which is what happens. Someone she thinks is a friend seems to maneuver her into the terrible marriage that everyone back home feared for her. But one of the faults of the book as that we don’t see it happen. One page, she’s just meeting the future Mr. Awful for the first time. The next page, she’s married and obviously miserable. That missing link took the heart out of the story for this reader.

In the end, the reader is left with the impression that Libby has finally seized her life in her own hands, but there are fits and starts even to that. Her independence is not assured, merely seems to be in the offing. And the equivocation of the ending left this reader a bit bereft.

I hope that Libby finally rescued herself. But I wish I knew.

GIVEAWAY

I am giving away a copy of Beauty and Attention to one lucky US/Canada commenter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Gladiator by Anna Hackett

Posted on October 25, 2016October 24, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B+ Reviews> book reviews

Gladiator (Galactic Gladiators #1) by Anna Hackett
Formats available: ebook
Genres: science fiction romance
Series: Galactic Gladiators #1
Pages: 250
on October 25th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

Fighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim…

When Earth space marine Harper Adams finds herself abducted by alien slavers off a space station, her life turns into a battle for survival. Dumped into an arena on a desert planet on the outer rim, she finds herself face to face with a big, tattooed alien gladiator…the champion of the Kor Magna Arena.

A former prince abandoned to the arena as a teen, Raiden Tiago has long ago earned his freedom. Now he rules the arena, but he doesn’t fight for the glory, but instead for his own dark purpose—revenge against the Thraxian aliens who destroyed his planet. Then his existence is rocked by one small, fierce female fighter from an unknown planet called Earth.

Harper is determined to find a way home, but when she spots her best friend in the arena—a slave of the evil Thraxian aliens—she’ll do anything to save her friend…even join forces with the tough, alpha male who sets her body on fire. But as Harper and Raiden step foot onto the blood-soaked sands of the arena, Harper worries that Raiden has his own dangerous agenda…

My Review:

This one is purely for fun. There’s no great message here, and I’m not too sure about any overarching story, like Hell Squad or Phoenix Adventures. This is just plain fun.

It’s also a good take on the infamous “Mars needs Women” trope in science fiction romance, A trope I don’t normally like, but is done well in this case. Because it isn’t Mars as a whole (so to speak) that needs Earth women, just three intergalactic gladiators in particular.

It has to get started somewhere. The somewhere in this case is Space Marine Harper Adams, stationed on a scientific research station orbiting Jupiter. Disaster strikes in the form of interplanetary slave raiders, the Thraxians, who look like the Terran equivalent of demons and break into the station and kidnap several of the scientists and marines stationed there, including Harper.

But unlike many of the captives, Harper is a trained warrior. Whenever she has the opportunity, she fights back. It earns her several beatings, and the undying enmity of one of the leaders, but also keeps her in fighting shape. A preparation she needs when she is sold on an outer Rim planet as a potential gladiator for the Kor Magna Arena on Carthago..

And that’s where everything changes. Harper is a good fighter to begin with, but she’s also deceptively strong. She’s smaller and shorter than most of the gladiators in the arena, but she’s also faster. It turns out that Earth has a slightly heavier gravity than Carthago, so she gets an unexpected strength boost.

It takes her a few days to find out both the good news, the bad news, and the dangerous news.

The bad news comes first. The Thraxians found Earth by accident, through a temporary wormhole. Earth is on the far side of the galaxy. Even if she stole a ship, it would take 200 plus years to get home. It’s a blow, but not as big as it might have been. Harper has nothing and no one left on Earth. She can make a home on Carthago if she can manage to accept her new circumstances.

Those new circumstances are nothing like she expected. She’s been enslaved, and she sees the gladiators in the arena as slaves, and thinks the gladiatorial contests are like the popular perception of the Roman Empire. That might be true in some of the other houses, but not in the House of Galen, the House that bought Harper’s “contract”.

Once she fights her way through her trial bout, Harper discovers the good news, for certain select definitions of good. She learns that the House of Galen, for all of its deserved badass reputation on the arena sands, has a surprisingly soft heart. All the gladiators are free, and they all fight because they can, and because the fights that they win allow them to bargain for the freedom of those who have been brought to Carthago from far-distant worlds but who are not suitable for the arena.

There is also the dangerous news. Fighting in the arena, fighting with the team that belongs to the House of Galen, Harper finds a place where she belongs, a purpose she can believe in and a man that she has come to love.

And it all threatens to go pear-shaped when the Thraxians dangle the presence of two of her friends from that Earth space station in front of her eyes. She’ll do anything to rescue her friends from Earth, no matter what the cost to herself, to the House of Galen, or to any future she might possibly have with the love of her very surprising life.

Escape Rating B+: For a story that is this much fun, there is a lot going on. While for this reader it feels like the focus is on Harper, because she is the one who has to make the big adjustment, there is definitely a romance here.

Raiden is the lost prince of a world that the Thraxians literally destroyed. They didn’t just wipe out the civilization, they placed bombs in the planet’s core so that it would break apart. Just like Harper, Raiden can’t go home again. He’s made a life for himself as a gladiator, fighting to free as many people as possible, one way or another.

Harper makes him feel, which is both dangerous and life-affirming, especially when they both have a nasty tendency to go off alone in dangerous situations to solve their problems.

I would love to know how things got to be the way they are in this place. Also more about the Thraxians. They have a bit more “evil for evil’s sake” in them than I would like. In other words, Hell Squad got much better for me when we learned the Gizzida’s motives. I may not like their motives, but understanding them helps me enjoy the series a whole lot more. We need to see that here on Carthago.

The whole “alternate gladiator” thing reminded me of another book, which of course I had to look for. If you like this kind of scenario, but want something darker and grimmer, you might like Lindsey Piper’s Dragon Kings series, starting with Silent Warrior. The way that the gladiator contests work has a similar feel, even if Dragon Kings is set on Earth.

I enjoyed Gladiator a lot, and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Warrior. It looks like each book will match one of the gladiators of the House of Galen with one of the Earth women who was brought to Carthago. And it looks like a whole lot of sexy, sweaty fun!

Reviewer’s note: I don’t often see the name Galen used in fiction. My husband’s name is Galen, so I got a big kick out of thinking of him in the role of the leader of these gladiators!

Review: Honor Bound by B.J. Daniels + Giveaway

Posted on October 24, 2016October 21, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> book reviews> C Reviews> Giveaways

Honor Bound (The Montana Hamiltons, #6) by B.J. Daniels
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Montana Hamiltons #6
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on October 18th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Protecting her life will mean betraying her trust

Ainsley Hamilton has always been the responsible one of the family. As the oldest daughter of presidential candidate Buckmaster Hamilton, she's also a potential target. For months she's sensed someone following her. When an expedition to scout locations for a commercial takes a terrifying turn, she's rescued by a natural-born cowboy who tempts the good girl to finally let loose.
Sawyer Nash knows just how reckless it is to fall for someone he's gone undercover to protect. Yet masquerading as an extra on set, he starts to see beneath Ainsley's controlled facade. And with the election—and a killer—drawing closer, Sawyer stands to lose not just his job and his life but the woman for whom he'd gladly risk both.

My Review:

Honor Bound is the sixth book in the author’s Montana Hamiltons series. As someone who has not read the rest of the series and got totally lost in this book, I highly recommend that if you think this book sounds interesting, or if someone recommends it to you, and you haven’t read the rest of the series, start at the beginning with Wild Horses, or don’t start at all.

All the loose plot threads from all of the previous books get wrapped up in a bow in this one, and some of those plot threads are absolute doozies. For faithful readers of the series, this book serves as the perfect ending for all of what came before, but for readers just starting, like me, it comes off as too many subplots and too much stuff going on to be packed into one book.

I felt like the long arm of coincidence (or as we call it around here, co-in-key-dink) got much, much too long. Too many crazy things happen all at once, and it pulls at the willing suspension of disbelief. Of course, for those following the series, all of those converging subplots are cathartic, as everything gets wrapped up and tied off.

Considering that I read this as we were gearing up for the final presidential debate this season, having the book start out with a Republican being elected President by a landslide was more than a bit bizarre on a number of levels. However, Buckmaster Hamilton is a way different brand of Republican than the current candidate.

The series overall has followed his candidacy, as well as providing an HEA for each of his six daughters in turn. Honor Bound is oldest daughter Ainsley’s chance for her HEA. FBI Agent Sawyer Nash arrives at the remote Montana valley where Ainsley is scouting locations for an advertising campaign to investigate her reports of a stalker. Unfortunately for both Ainsley and Sawyer, her stalker ramps up his interference after seeing the relationship between Ainsley and Sawyer heat up.

There are multiple coincidences, or so it feels, in Ainsley’s situation. One of Sawyer’s ex-lovers is also undercover at the location shoot, but Kitzie is investigating a ring of jewel thieves who seem to be operating within the production company. Kitzie is jealous of Sawyer’s interest in Ainsley, and steps way, way, way outside the lines of professionalism in an attempt to sabotage their developing relationship. And in spite of every terrible thing that Kitzie does, in the end she is still one of the “good guys”, for select definitions of both “good” and more obviously “guys”.

The overarching plot that has driven this series, as a counterpoint to Buck Hamilton’s election campaign, is the story of his wife Sarah. As the series began, Sarah, who had been missing and presumed dead for 22 years, returns with no memory of the intervening years. No one seems to trust her and her motives – with good reason.

Sarah led a double-life. Not only did she marry Buck Hamilton and have six children with him, but she was also a notorious terrorist code-named “Red”, at least in college and possibly later. “Red” may have been the true leader of The Prophecy, a terrorist group with ambitions to take out as much of the U.S. government as possible. Sarah doesn’t remember it all. But her ex-lover, and the current leader of the group, Joe Landon, is stalking Sarah and threatening her family if she doesn’t cooperate. And there’s a very, very shady doctor in the background who claims to be the person who removed Sarah’s memories, and who also claims to be able to put them back.

That’s a whole lot of plot for one book. Without the previous background, the separate and unrelated stalkings of Sarah and Ainsley strain credulity. Not having read the previous books put this reader at an extreme disadvantage.

But for those who have been through the whole saga, this feels like just the wrap up they’ve been looking for.

Escape Rating C: In the end, I came to the conclusion that this just wasn’t my cup of tea, which explains why I haven’t read the rest of the series.

It felt like too many long-shot coincidences, and too many subplots and too many perspectives for a single book. Knowing that this is the end of a series makes those things make sense, but it doesn’t work for someone who is not in on all the action.

When it comes to the central love story in Honor Bound, Ainsley and Sawyer’s relationship comes off as a very serious case of insta-love. Not that that doesn’t happen in real life, but they needed a bit more time together for this reader to buy into their romance.

And I’ll admit to a personal pet peeve about 34-year-old virgins. It just didn’t seem realistic, and it made it difficult for me to identify with Ainsley. It made her feel like a throwback to the old days of formula romances, when the heroines were always virgins and the heroes were always experienced. And dominant. As I said, that is very much a personal pet peeve, and your mileage may vary.

To recap from the very beginning of this review – if you are a faithful follower of the series, you will probably want to run and not walk to get to this concluding story. If you are a newbie, this is not the place to start.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

B.J. and Harlequin are giving away a $25 Gift Card to one lucky entrant on this tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-23-16

Posted on October 23, 2016October 21, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

The Spooktacular Giveaway Hop started one day earlier than I expected, which kind of threw out my schedule for the end of the week. I’m booked nearly solid for the next several weeks, so Spaceman will be back sometime in the future. For reasons that I can’t go into, sometime before December 1.

Giveaway season has definitely begun. The Bugs & Hisses Giveaway Hop just ended, and Spooktacular has just begun. And it is far from the last giveaway hop of the season. I am also hoping against hope that the Black Friday Book Bonanza will hop again this year. The day after Thanksgiving is a perfect day for a giveaway hop. Everyone is either still sleeping off their tryptophan coma after the turkey extravaganza the day before, or they are thinking of the fast approaching present-giving season. A giveaway hop is possibly all the attention many of us can spare!

The year is rapidly drawing to a close. I’m already starting on my “Best of 2016” lists. There were a lot of great books this year! Whittling it down to a reasonable number is always the hardest part.

Coming Next Week:

Honor Bound by B.J. Daniels (blog tour review)
Gladiator by Anna Hackett (review)
Beauty and Attention by Liz Rosenberg (blog tour review)
The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick (review)
The Tides of Bara by Jeffe Kennedy (blog tour review)

Stacking the Shelves (207)

Posted on October 22, 2016October 21, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

This is the first time in a long time, possibly ever, that I have more purchased books and library books in the stack than I do review books. I still think that this slump in review books is brought to you by the months of December and January. Not a lot happens in the depths of winter except the holidays, followed by the post-holiday trough.

We have a paperback of Stardust by Neil Gaiman around here someplace – of course we do. But I signed up for a tour, and I find reading the ebook easier. I read late at night, and I like the backlighting of my iPad. Also the ability to blow up the font a bit so I can read without my glasses. And the book stays open for me while I’m trying to get the cat out of the way.

I picked up Highest Duty because we saw the movie Sully a couple of weeks ago. While we had a good quibble in the car on the way home about how true to life the treatment of the post-crash hearing might have been (or not been) we both enjoyed the movie. For a story about a whole lot of boring tests and hearings, interrupted by an extremely tense one minute catastrophe, the movie is surprisingly riveting. There aren’t a lot of interesting movies out right now, at least not until Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Doctor Strange hit the theaters in November followed by Rogue One in December, so it was nice to find one worth watching. And reading about.

harry potter and the cursed child by jk rowling

For Review:
Absolute Trust (True Heroes #3) by Piper J. Drake
Flying through Fire (Dark Desires/Blood Hunter #6) by Nina Croft
Gladiator (Galactic Gladiators #1) by Anna Hackett
Seconds to Sunrise (Black Ops: Automatik #3) by Nico Rosso

Purchased from Amazon:
Cutlass (Motor City Alien Mail Order Brides #1) by Ellis Leigh
Disruptor by Sonya Clark
The Gone Dead Train (Detective Billy Able #2) by Lisa Turner
A Little Death in Dixie (Detective Billy Able #1) by Lisa Turner

Borrowed from the Library:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne
Highest Duty by Chesley B. Sullenberger
Stardust by Neil Gaiman