Tag: paranormal

Ebook Review Central for Samhain Publishing September 2011

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> Ebook Review Central> ebooks

This is the third issue of Ebook Review Central. And it is your guide to the Samhain Publishing titles for September 2011.

If you are interested in how this feature came about, or earlier issues, please check out the posts on Carina Press and Dreamspinner for the gory and not-so-gory details. But this week, the focus is on Samhain.

Samhain published 19 ebook titles in September. One of the surprising things about this list is how many Western titles there are. Three Westerns! Maybe there still is a wild, wild West out there someplace.

I always like to make a special note of which books got the most “buzz”, which ones were talked about the most on the list. The Samhain titles were really fascinating in this regard, because there were some huge review numbers racked up by a couple of titles.

Some of that is because there’s a time lapse, these are the September books, and it’s now early November, some of it is undoubtedly good marketing (more on that in a minute) and some is because there were some really great books in this bunch.

Samhain Publishing has done something that I find intriguing, both as a book reviewer and as a librarian. Samhain is participating in Library Journal’s ebook only review program, along with Carina Press. What is unusual about Samhain’s participation is that Samhain ebooks, unlike Carina’s, are not available to libraries on OverDrive. So why does Samhain participate? I confess to being terribly curious. (Full disclosure, I am one of the reviewers for Library Journal)

They certainly get some great reviews from librarians, published in Library Journal Xpress Reviews, and they get name recognition for both their ebooks and the print books. Why Samhain does not participate in OverDrive, I don’t know but I sure do wonder about. It must be a marketing thing.

But speaking of marketing, the first book with a lot of positive buzz this month is Cipher, by Moira Rogers. Not only did Cipher get 10 reviews, all very positive, but there was a lot more. In September, a Cipher giveaway, release party and chat session was held at Fiction Vixen. This was part of a big Southern Arcana Readalong conducted all summer long and cross promoted at Fiction Vixen, Smexy Books and The Book Pushers. It created a lot of anticipation and positive buzz for what looks like a terrific paranormal romance series.

Shiloh Walker’s Locked in Silence is book 5 in her Grimm’s Circle series. I chose it as my second featured book because Ms. Walker is an author who chooses to publish some of her work through traditional print publishers, and some, like her Grimm’s Circle series, through ebook publishers. The author, and the quality of the work, is the same. The popularity, and Ms. Walker’s work is very, very popular, is exactly the same. If hot paranormal romances with demons and angels are what you’re looking for, this series by Shiloh Walker might be a good place to start.

Last, but absolutely not least according to the review, is The Last Detail by Melissa Schroeder. 12 reviews, and all positive. If you like science fiction romance, that’s probably a buy recommendation right there. I’m also overjoyed to see this much interest in SFR! There was also a movie titled The Last Detail with Jack Nicholson from 1973. It’s also about getting someone back to prison, but I think the resemblances probably end there.

Next week’s Ebook Review Central will be the last one to cover September books. Up until now, I’ve been saying that “week 4” would feature a “player-to-be-named-later”. It’s time to name that featured publisher–except it’s going to be publishers, plural. Next week, Ebook Review Central will feature the September books from Astraea Publishing, Liquid Silver Books, and Amber Quill/Amber Heat/Amber Allure.

Tune in next week for another exciting episode.

Shadowlander

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Shadowlander, by Theresa Meyers, had an absolutely terrific first 15 pages. I totally got hooked on the teaser pages. Consider me duly teased.

Catherine O’Connell can see the fae that inhabit our world. Except for her three sisters, no one else can. And it would be very, very dangerous for the fae to ever find out that she can see them. So, when ferretlike fae sample her best friend’s food at an outdoor cafe, Cate has to pretend she doesn’t see them. When a fae practically climbs into her friend’s cleavage, Cate can’t even let herself look, no matter how much she wants to go, “Eww,” just before she squashes the little perv like a bug.

But when the guy her friend Maya hooks up with after a personal ad online turns out to be a big, bad fae, Cate has a really big problem. Because Maya doesn’t know about the fae, and her so-called date abducts her right through a rift into faery realm.

Cate has an even bigger problem. Since she turned 16, she’s had her own personal fae stalker, named Rook. Rook follows her everywhere, all the time, and she can’t ever let him know that she’s perfectly aware that he sits behind her when she’s reading and breathes down her neck, or that she likes it. Or that she thinks he looks like he belongs on WWE, or that she thinks he’s hot.

Or that she’s just heard him tell one of his fae groupies that her best friend was abducted as a “war prize” for the upcoming “Invasion”.

Except that now she needs a way into the faery realm. And letting Rook know that she can see him might just be her ticket inside. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she’s been dreaming of his touch for years. Does it?

And Rook. He is beyond astonishment when Cate reveals that she can see him. He’s been watching her fourteen years, since she turned sixteen. But Rook is much, much older than that. But knowing that she can see him changes the game. He had intended to capture her as a warprize, but if she can see him, then she is a Seer, a high-caste prize. Higher in caste than the Prince that he is. And he does not want to give her up to the Court. Rook wants her for himself.

Cate just wants to rescue her friend. These goals are not compatible. Not at all.

Escape Rating C: This is the teaser book for a longer series and it shows. The set up of the “Uplander” world (our world) was interesting, where the fae were here, but most of us couldn’t see them. The picture of the havoc they could wreck while we suspected nothing was both funny and nasty.

The fae world needed a LOT more explanation. Cate was a Seer. Because she could “see” the fae in the Uplander world. I got that part. What I didn’t understand was why that made her high-caste in the fae world or why all the Seers before her had chosen to stay in the fae realm. The book was too short for the world-building required. I would like to have seen it, I was definitely intrigued.

The next book in the Shadow Sisters series will come out in the Fall of 2012. Cate’s sisters will each get their own story.

Darker Still

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Darker Still, by Leanna Renee Hieber, is a Victorian ghost story with a twist. The strange romanticism of Victorian spiritualism was particularly suited to this haunting tale of a painting that had captured rather more than just the likeness of its handsome subject.

Natalie Stewart was struck mute at the age of 4 when she witnessed her mother’s death under the wheels of a runaway carriage. When our story begins, the year is 1880, and Natalie has returned to her father’s New York City townhouse after her schooling in the Connecticut Asylum. The Asylum is a school for children with unfortunate handicaps like Natalie’s; some are blind, some are deaf, some are crippled, but all are well-to-do. As is Natalie, since her father is an important man at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An intriguing new painting has arrived in New York. It is a portrait of the late Lord Denbury. Denbury is a compelling subject in his own right, young, aristocratic and handsome. Dead by his own hand just after the portrait was completed, distraught over the death of his parents. His case is tragic. But there is something about the painting itself: it seems as if the man’s spirit inhabits the painting, almost as if he is somehow alive in that canvas.

The story of the tragic young lord compels Natalie to visit the current owner of the portrait, Mrs. Northe, in spite of the fact that Natalie can only “speak” either by writing or by sign language. But Mrs. Northe is eager to meet Natalie.  She almost seems to be waiting for her…and Mrs. Northe knows how to sign!

When Natalie is brought before the painting of Lord Denbury, she is certain, she feels, that Denbury is trapped in the painting. Each time she looks at the painting, she sees that something has changed, something has been moved. In the painting, Lord Denbury is writing on the desk, asking her questions, communicating with her!

Natalie takes Mrs. Northe into her confidence, fearful that she will be thought mad. But when Mrs. Northe believes her, they conduct an experiment. Natalie touches the painting, and falls in–to the world of the painting, where Lord Denbury waits for her to save him.

On that other side of the canvas, Natalie must face her greatest hopes, and her greatest fears, in order to have the chance at a real life. The one thing that she feared her handicap had placed forever beyond her reach.

Escape Rating B+: This was a neat story to be reading the night before Halloween. Very gothic, with an added slice of the Picture of Dorian Gray thrown in for good measure. Just a slice.

While I enjoyed Natalie as a character, I found that having the entire story told from her first-person point-of-view to be a little limiting. I wanted to know a lot more about why the other characters were doing the things they did. Mrs. Northe’s motivations were not as clear as they might have been. Was her flirtation with Natalie’s father a ruse, or was she genuinely interested? Why did the demon choose Denbury in the first place? What society of devils? Who else is involved? I still have questions.

And how are Natalie and Denbury going to get out of the pickle they’re in? When is the next book?????

The Iron Knight

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

More than Team Ash, more than Team Puck, I’m on Team Julie! The conclusion to Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series, The Iron Knight, is simply awesome. As in full of awe and wonder and all of the things that we read fantasy in order to find.

The Iron Knight is a blend of old fairy tales and modern myths, and it casts the time-worn tales into new guises. This story is a marvel. And the more I think about it, the more I find.

Julie Kagawa has stated that the story was intended to be a trilogy, and it was supposed to be Meghan’s story: her journey from the half-caste daughter of the Summer King to become the Iron Queen in her own right. But the ending was bittersweet. She comes into her own at the cost of her great love. Ash, the Winter Prince, literally cannot live in the Iron Realm. The defeat of the evil Ferrum comes at a very high price. With great power comes great responsibility–Spiderman’s Uncle Ben strikes again. If Meghan were not willing to pay that price, she wouldn’t be worthy of being the Iron Queen in the first place.

But Ash is not a King. He only wants to be her Knight. And an Unseelie fey capable of truly loving anyone no longer has the emotional defenses capable of surviving in the Winter Courts. But in order to survive in Meghan’s Iron Realm, Ash can no longer be a Winter fey. He must become human. And for that, he needs a soul.

The Iron Knight is the story of Ash’s quest to become human. Like any quest story, Ash takes companions along on his journey. Ash’s crew is more motley, and more legendary, than most. Robin Goodfellow accompanies Ash. Of course he does. Puck loves Meghan as much as Ash does. So much so that he is willing to help his dearest rival achieve his greatest happiness, because it is Meghan’s best chance at joy.

Grimalkin is the guide, well, some of the time. Grimalkin has all the tricksiness of the Cheshire Cat, and all the dignity of Bast. The Big Bad Wolf decides to join them, in the hopes of extending the life of his legend, and consequently, his own life. And, as with Grimalkin, the legend is the modern version, so think of the Wolf as influenced by Bill Willingham’s Fables. Except he’s always in wolf form.

Then there’s the surprise mystery guide. Spoilers after the rating.

Escape Rating A+: Read the book. Read the whole series, because the payoff comes if you’ve read everything. I received The Iron Knight from Netgalley, and I hadn’t read the series. I bought the rest from Amazon, and swallowed in one gulp. Yum.

Ash’s journey is kind of a reverse Orpheus and Eurydice. Everything about the Iron Fey is a very neat meld of traditional fairy tales and modern myth, and this was just beautifully done. Ariella, Ash’s first love, has been waiting for Ash and Puck to make the journey to the End of the World for Ash’s soul. It was necessary for Ash and Puck to be there to help Meghan, and the only way for that to happen was for Ariella to die, and stay dead. Ariella is a seer, and she saw that her death brought about the best of all possible options regarding the incursion of the Iron Fey.

But Ariella still loves Ash, and she wants him to be happy. Just like Puck wants Meghan to be happy.

The Orpheus and Eurydice myth is that Orpheus goes to Hades to bargain for his love’s soul with Hades, God of the Underworld. The deal is that if Orpheus takes the long, dark journey back to the surface, with Eurydice following behind him, and Orpheus trusts that she is behind him without him ever looking back to check, when they reach the surface she will be free.  Orpheus looks back very close to the exit.

But the concept, the idea of traveling down a river (there are 5 rivers in Hades in Greek myth) to the End of the World (Underworld) so that Ariella can give Ash her soul so that he can be reborn, it works.

It all works.

Ebook Review Central for Carina Press September 2011

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> Ebook Review Central> ebooks

This issue of Ebook Review Central is your guide to the Carina Press titles for September 2011.

Carina published 19 titles in September! For each title, I’ve listed the usual basic info, the title, author, if it’s in a series, suggested category listings from the publisher, the retail price and the ISBN so you can buy it from your favorite ebook pusher. Oops, I meant supplier. No, I meant seller. (If ebooks are your drug of choice, you know already what I mean).

There’s a cover picture, only going to show that we do judge books by their covers.

Following the basic info, there’s the all important grid of review links as of yesterday, 10/23/11. The grid includes the name of the reviewer (if the site provided a name), the name of the site, a link to the actual review, and the grade or rating if one was given.

Grades and ratings generally come in two flavors. Some reviewers grade on the letter scale, A through F. A is great, F is awful, just like in school. Some things never change.  Others rate on a numeric scale, usually but not always 1-5 with 5 being fantastic. Those ratings are represented as 3/5 or 4/5, meaning a rating of 3 on a scale of 5 or  4 on a scale of 5. Occasionally, a rating will defy reduction to either a letter or numeric rank. Those will be posted verbatim.

This first time, and in future issues,  I plan to feature two or three books, based on the reviews and ratings of my fellow book bloggers. These are the books most buzzed about from the publisher listed in the past month.

For the Carina September titles these are the books with the most buzz:

Altered Destiny by Shawna Thomas not only received 8 reviews, but those reviews were almost all positive to the max. Also, Romantic Times (otherwise known as RT Book Reviews) doesn’t review a lot of ebooks, so when they do review one, it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. The reviewers describe this as a tempting read for those Urban Fantasy fans out there.

 

 

My second pick is Redemption by Eleri Stone.

There are a lot of excellent reviews, one as recent as this weekend, so word is still going around. This looks like a good book for those who like shapeshifter romances, and that’s a pretty big audience!

 

Last, but certainly not least, a romantic suspense title. Deadly Descent by Kaylea Cross has been reviewed all over the blogosphere so far, everywhere from Dear Author to Smexy Books to the Maldivian Book Reviewer. This romantic suspense title will particularly appeal to those who like to see some military action.

 

 

That’s all for this week. Please come back next Monday for the Dreamspinner Press September review roundup.

Revealing Silver

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Revealing Silver is the conclusion of the Silver Maiden Trilogy by Jamie Craig. With a very small amount of recap, it picks up exactly where Touching Silver left off. And thank goodness for that! The cliffhanger at the end of Touching Silver was a real doozy!

The oldest story in the world is boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. As a society we’ve finally admitted that there are tons of wonderful stories in the variations on that theme–boy meets boy, girl meets girl, variations where three or more can play, whatever happens to float your personal boat. Science fiction and fantasy have added even more flavors, for example: boy or girl meets robot, or boy or girl meets vampire or shapeshifter, but the basic concept still stands. The love story is a classic, and the pattern is the same, they meet, they get separated, they get back together.

In Chasing Silver, Remy and Nate meet because Remy gets dragged back in time 70+ years. For them, it’s a miracle. They save each other.

Touching Silver was Nate’s partner Isaac’s story. When Nate and Remy find each other, Isaac is left out in the cold. He’s been the one keeping Nate from the abyss for the past five years, and suddenly he’s a fifth wheel. Until Detective Olivia Wright walks into his life. Olivia doesn’t need saving, but she would love to be his partner.

Two couples who have both fulfilled the first part of the love story equation, in the middle of Nate and Isaac’s investigation of a gang war between their two worst enemies; Cameron Parker, the man who set them up five years ago, and Gabriel de los Rios, the gang leader obsessed with the Silver Maiden coins, and the one who kidnapped the seven young girls in Olivia Wright’s Cold Case files.

At the end of Touching Silver, Nate, Remy, Isaac and Olivia interrupt a ritual Gabriel and his cousin are conducting, a ritual designed to bring back the original Silver Maiden. Gabriel and his cousin Marisol may be crazy, but six girls are still missing, and Remy knows that this ritual is building up the same kind of power that sent her back in time. She stops the ritual by throwing herself into the ritual circle, and finds herself jumping time again, this time back to Los Angeles in 2000. Her only hope is to contact Isaac and Nate in that time, while they were still both LAPD, and try to get help without screwing up her own personal timeline.

Nate is still back in 2010, and is devastated almost beyond repair. He tried to go through the circle before it closed, and Isaac stopped him. Their friendship, their brotherhood, is in tatters. Olivia is also linked to the Silver Maiden coins: Gabriel and Marisol both say that she a “Keeper”, a part of the coins in her own right.

When Gabriel and Marisol’s agendas diverge in their desires to use (or abuse) the Silver Maiden’s power, Gabriel kidnaps Olivia and uses her “Keeper” power to send her back in time to fix the things that he believes Marisol has broken, while he holds Nate hostage in 2010 for her “good” behavior. It’s a wild race to the finish.

Escape Rating B+: I was up until after 2 am trying to finish this. I was that caught up in it. The characters do make references to being caught up in a Doctor Who episode, and that’s pretty appropriate. There are a certain amount of “timey wimey” bits involved. But definitely in a fun way.

I will say that enjoying this story depends on having read the other two. This is the third book of a trilogy, and it assumes prior knowledge. It does wrap up all the loose ends very nicely. Justice is served, and the good guys get their well-deserved happy ending.

If I have piqued your interest in the Silver Maiden Trilogy, here are my reviews of Chasing Silver and Touching Silver so you can get the complete picture.

Touching Silver

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Touching Silver is the second book in the Silver Maiden Trilogy by Jamie Craig. When I finished Chasing Silver, the first book in the trilogy, my review implied that I wanted three things from the next book; I wanted Isaac’s story, I wanted to know more about the Silver Maiden coins, and I wanted more story and less sexual mechanics. I’m pleased to say I pretty much got what I wanted. I love it when that happens.

Touching Silver is definitely Isaac’s story. Isaac McGuire was Nathan Pierce’s partner, back when Nate was a cop with the LAPD. Isaac is still Nate’s partner, except Nate isn’t a cop anymore. And Isaac isn’t willing to let anyone else close enough to become another partner, so Isaac has been working alone ever since. And that’s going on five years since.

But since Remy Capra dropped into Nate’s life, Nate has managed to move on from the betrayal and clusterfuck that took him out of the LAPD. It’s time for Isaac to move on, too.

Enter Detective Olivia Wright from the Cold Case Squad. One of her cold cases has not only warmed up, it’s intersected with Isaac’s long-standing hunt for Gabriel de los Rios.

A young woman, missing for five years, has turned up alive and traumatized. Gabriel de los Rios was one of her captors. Gabriel normally operates in gang territory, where witnesses are thin on the ground, and manpower to investigate is hard to come by. But kidnapping and holding a clean-cut, All-American girl who is still underage after five years in captivity? That charge will stick.

Isaac wants to take the formerly cold case and add it to his own caseload, but Olivia Wright won’t let it go. She wants in on the investigation, and won’t take “no” for any answer, no matter who she has to work with, including a former cop and his girlfriend who looks like a hooker.

But when Olivia finds one of the Silver Maiden coins at a crime scene, her reaction to it has her believing in things that are way, way outside of a cop’s normal jurisdiction. And her attraction to Isaac has her doing things that break all of the rules that she ever set for herself when she became a cop. But some rules are made to be broken, and what you believe in your heart is more important than what used to be cold, hard facts.

Escape Rating B: Touching Silver is a much better book than Chasing Silver. There is more story in it. Isaac and Olivia both have good reasons for not getting deeply involved, and the author shows them struggling with why they shouldn’t, but then groping toward the realization that they are better together than they are apart. Isaac needs to eat a major serving of crow to get there, and it tastes pretty awful going down, as it should!

Remy and Nate take a trip to South America to find the origins of the Silver Maiden. Finally, some background! It’s a little murky, but at the reasonable point. The coins are old, and the origins are somewhat lost in the sands of time. But Gabriel knows how to work them, or thinks he does, which means there is information to be found. If someone in the story knows it, then the reader should get to learn it. We do.

The one thing about trilogies that always bugs me is that there has to be a middle book. Middle books end in one of two ways. They either end on a downer, or a cliffhanger. This one does both. I’m starting the final book, Revealing Silver, right now!

Chasing Silver

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Chasing Silver by Jamie Craig is a time travel romance of the very hot and steamy variety. I really liked the gutsy heroine who, as she says, “doesn’t do damsel”, and the hero who hasn’t let himself feel anything in way too long. The device that started the whole time-travelling jaunt in the first place, well, let’s hope there’s more explanation for that in book two (or three) of the Silver Maiden trilogy.

The year is 2085. Remy Capra is running for her life from Kirsten Henryk, Senator Henryk’s daughter and paranoid enforcer. Kirsten does have something to enforce in Remy’s case. Remy is a gang member and small-time thief, and Remy has just stolen something important from the Senator’s house in DC: one of the coins known as a Silver Maiden. In what Remy was sure were the last seconds of her life, Remy clutched the coin as wished for safety.

The year is 2010. Nathan Pierce, ex-cop and bounty hunter, is in a warehouse in Culver City, chasing down a bounty jumper known as Tian. He almost has him, when a severely injured woman falls out of the sky, raining blood, glass and small explosions. His bounty escapes, and Nate is left with Remy Capra bleeding all over him, trying to pretend she isn’t so wounded she can barely stand.

Neither of them wants to go to the cops. Nate’s lost his bounty. Again. Remy has no ID in 2010. She won’t even be born for 50 more years. And she doesn’t know yet whether Kirsten is still after her or whether she has a chance to make a fresh start. Neither of them starts out willing to trust the other, even a little bit. Nate was set up and betrayed by the last woman he trusted. Remy is a child of the gangs in the DC she comes from. And would anyone believe her story? But their attraction to each other proves stronger than their doubts and fears.

When Kirsten does follow Remy, using another Silver Maiden coin as passage back in time, Nate, Remy and Nate’s partner Isaac must set aside all their misgivings about each other and their past, whenever that past might have been, in order to fight for a chance, any chance, at any future at all.

Escape Rating C: This story was either too long, or too short. On the one hand, we don’t get enough about why Kirsten was so gung-ho to wipe Remy out. There was definitely some old, bad blood between those too, but we don’t know enough. There was something personal on Kirsten’s part. Remy was trying to survive.

I empathized with both Remy and Nate as characters. They had both been to dark places, and they understood that about each other. They had a chance to make each other better, but neither was made out of sweetness and light. And they wouldn’t have worked together if they had been.

I’m very glad that one of the later books is Isaac’s story. He deserves a happy ending of his own. And I really want to know what his deal is.

The reason I said the books might be too short is that the legend of the Silver Maiden coins, what they do, why they do it, how they work, who knows about them, is still unclear at the end of the book. Remy and Kirsten both made them work. The coin reacts to Nate. Gabriel, another baddie, knows about them. But the readers need more details!

On the other hand, the reason the books might be too long is that there are probably too many detailed sex scenes. I had to think about why I thought this. Romance is interesting, because it’s a story. How did they meet? How long did they resist the attraction? What made them give in? Unresolved sexual tension is interesting because how and why they resist is a story. The first time a couple kisses or has sex or makes love in a romance is note-worthy. Possibly even the second time, since it should be different. In a story, the first time there are emotions involved and not just body parts is definitely note-worthy. Break-up and make-up sex, but because of the emotions, not the “tab a goes into slot b”, no matter how you dress it up, or undress it.

The only romance writer who has been able to successfully write an unlimited number of sex scenes involving the same two partners is J.D. Robb. And only because she talks more about how Dallas and Roarke feel than about what they do.

Steam & Sorcery

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

When I went looking for something to read purely for fun, I indulged myself by picking up Cindy Spencer Pape’s Steam & Sorcery. My journey through the steampunk world of Pape’s Gaslight Chronicles was utterly fantastic. And eminently enjoyable!

Sir Merrick Hadrian is a Knight of the Order of the Round Table. Except in this alternate version of the Victorian Era, the descendants of King Arthur and his knights hunt monsters using not just swords, and now pistols, but also arcane talents. Merlin’s descendants serve the order as well as Gawain’s and Lancelot’s.

One night, Sir Merrick is in the London stews facing more vampyres than he counted on and finds that his only available allies are a group of street urchins–led by a teenage boy with all the talents of a budding Knight. After the battle, he brings all five children into his bachelor household only to discover that all of the children are uniquely talented: not just the unclaimed Knight, but also a mechanical genius, a highly powered medium, one who can see the future, and one who is simply a genius.

Sir Merrick and his Aunt Dorothy, who shares his household, need a governess for the children. Enter Miss Caroline Bristol. Caroline is intelligent, pretty, opinionated and out of a job without a reference. Again. After having vigorously defended herself from yet another employer’s rather importunate advances and being turned out.

Dorothy is certain that Caroline is the perfect governess for the unruly brood. Caroline is less than convinced. She has a secret of her own. Anything mechanical breaks when she touches it, including her new charge Wink’s fantastic mechanical inventions. Caroline’s other secret–she finds her new employer, Sir Merrick Hadrian, positively irresistible.

Meanwhile, there are vampyres infiltrating London high society. They have banded together in order to get their claws on a formula that will finally allow them to blend in with mortals, at least at night. And they seem to have a spy somewhere in the Knights organization!

As Merrick and Caroline try and fail to resist their increasing attraction to one another, Merrick must also figure out who among the Knights has been suborned to the vampyre cause, all while adjusting to the utter disruption of his formerly placid bachelor life. The game is afoot!

Escape Rating A: I stayed up until after 1 am reading this, finished, and then I was sorry it was over. I looked at the time, decided “oh, what the heck” and read Photographs & Phantoms before I went to sleep. I hope the author returns to this world. I’d like to see Tommy’s story and Wink’s. There were hints that those might be interesting!

Meanwhile, Steam & Sorcery was an absolute hoot! I loved Merrick’s adjustment from having a bachelor household to having a family. His failure to resist was portrayed with a lot of gentle humor. You know he’s going to succumb, but it’s still fun to watch. The tutor either had a bit too much of a stick up his arse or he had a bit too much of a conversion by the end, I’m not quite sure which.

The romance between Merrick and Caroline was terrific. Neither wants to get involved, but they are the right people for each other, and it’s very clear in the story. It’s easy to root for them to get their happy ending.

Lord of the Wolfyn

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Lord of the Wolfyn by Jessica Andersen is an interesting twist on the old Red Riding Hood story. It is also the third book in the Royal House of Shadows series. The fourth and final book, Lord of the Abyss by Nalini Singh, will be out in November.

Dayn was the second prince of Elden.  The Crown Prince Nicolai’s story was told in Lord of the Vampires (reviewed here). When the Blood Sorcerer attacked, Dayn was outside the castle with a hunting party. Not just because hunting dangerous beasts who roamed near the castle was part of his duties, but because he was angry with the King and Queen, his parents, for telling him he had to marry a princess instead of the continuing to dally with whomever he pleased. Their argument was the last time they ever spoke before their deaths at the hands of the Blood Sorcerer.

Their final spell saved his life, as it did the lives of his siblings. His father’s spell for revenge, and his mother’s spell for him to survive. Their spell created a vortex and bound his life with the wolfyn he was chasing at the time of their deaths. It transported him to the realm of the wolfyn and gave him the power to transform into one of the powerful werebeasts. But Dayn was also vampire, like his brother and father, and the wolfyn realms hated and feared with vampires. Dayn spent the next 20 years pretending to have “vortex sickness,” hiding all his gifts from the wolfyn he lived among by pretending to be only a human traveler with a small amount of magic.

Dreams and visions told him that he would be visited by a guide when the vortex began opening again. He waited 20 years for that guide, never expecting a woman from Earth with no belief in magic or vortex travel would be the one supposed to guide him back to his kingdom, or back to his true self.

Reda Weston has been haunted by the tale of Red Riding Hood since she was a little girl. Not the Disney version, but a very special version, from a “one-of-a-kind” illustrated edition of the story that her mother used to read to her. In Rutakoppchen, the wolf seduces Red first, then he enslaves her, then he plays with her until he gets bored, and then, and only then, does he finally eat her all up. Her mother told her this as a bedtime story?

But Reda’s father made her sell the book after her mother’s death, and now Reda is compelled to get it back. She’s been dreaming about the Woodsman, and those dreams are the only part of her life that feels real anymore. Reda used to be a cop. But one night she froze when her partner got caught up in a convenience store robbery that went bad, and Reba isn’t a cop anymore.

Finding Rutakoppchen again does more than bring back childhood memories. It opens a door for Reba. It opens a vortex–straight through to Dayn. And the wolfyn.

At first Reba thinks she’s having a really vivid dream. She’s dreamed of Dayn before, and those dreams have always been really good. And really hot. But never in her dreams has the Woodsman turned out to be a vampire. Nor have predatory trees tried to make the ground swallow her alive.

This is Reba’s journey as much, or more, than it is Dayn’s. She needs to find her cop’s courage again so that she can be the guide that he needs in order to help re-take his kingdom. And Dayn needs to find his true self and true purpose in order to be the mate that Reba deserves.

Escape Rating C+: I liked the twist on Red Riding Hood. Dayn turns out to be both the Woodsman and the Wolf. Literally and not just figuratively. Reba comes a long way in picking herself up and taking charge of her own fate. Coming through the vortex lets her grab the missing pieces of herself. It’s clear she’s been letting other people tell her who she’s supposed to be for way too long, and it’s great to see her realize that.

While I enjoyed the parts with Dayn and Reba, even though I wished that Dayn wouldn’t have kept so many secrets from so many people for so damn long, the issue with series like Royal House of Shadows is that chunks of the same story have to be told each time, just from different points of view. The first time it’s new, the second time it’s not so bad (sister Breena’s tale was Lord of Rage—see review here), but by the third time around, it’s too much. I’m more than ready for the conclusion. It’s time for that dark sorcerer to DIE!