Tag: paranormal

Dearly, Departed

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

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel is an excellent read. It’s also absolutely the best YA post-holocaust steampunk zombie romance I’ve ever read. Admittedly, it’s also the only YA post-holocaust steampunk zombie romance I’ve ever read.

Nora Dearly is the daughter of the late Dr. Victor Dearly. As in Dr. Victor Dearly, the recently departed. The title of the book is a pun. Oh is it ever.

Miss Dearly’s world is that of the Neo-Victorians. You see, we screwed up. Climate change happened, and it sucked. The survivors ended up in our equatorial regions, and they were the hardiest of the survivors. They deliberately looked back in history for an era of peace, stability and civilization. What did they choose? The Victorian Era! Even as they recovered our technology, and even surpassed it, their society became further entrenched in the cultural and societal norms of the Victorian Age.  So by Miss Dearly’s time, we have airships, steampower, electric power, digital diaries, parasols, crinoline, and corsetry. In other words, we have steampunk.

The Neo-Victorians are at war with the Punks. The two sides have somewhat different views of how technology should and should not be used. And everybody wants everyone else’s territory. War is like that. But there’s a much bigger, badder threat from the outside, and both the NVs and the Punks are using the war against each other as a smokescreen to cover up who they are really fighting. They’re really fighting–zombies.

There’s a mutated disease out there in the wilds. It’s called “The Laz”. That’s a bit of appropriately gallows humor, as Lazarus was a man raised from the dead. Well, the Laz does that too, sort of. Victims of the Laz may or may not be as functional as the biblical Lazarus when they come back.

Nora’s father, Dr. Victor Dearly, figured out a way to keep victims of the Laz mentally functional and as physically capable as possible for as long as possible. For that, he became Director of Military Health of the Department of Military Health. It’s usually referred to as DoMH, pronounced “Doom”.

With the aid of Dr. Dearly’s research, there are now zombie troops fighting zombie incursions. In secret, of course. Nora knows none of this. All she knows is that her father is the only one who treats her like an intelligent human being, instead of a decoration, which is what girls are supposed to be. Then he dies and leaves her an orphan in the care of a cold-hearted Aunt.

Then the zombies come to New London. Opposing forces converging on Nora Dearly. One set to protect her, one to capture her. Nora finds herself whisked away from her home to the base for the NV Zombie unit in the care of Captain Bram Griswold, and her entire universe falls apart and reassembles itself, much like the human body does when it is attacked by the Laz disease.

It should be the end of the world as Nora knows it. A proper Neo-Victorian young lady should fall apart. But Nora is done falling apart. The new Nora kicks aside convention and kicks some serious ass. I like her a lot.

Escape Rating A: This turned out to be a great book. There was a tremendous amount going on, but all the elements were needed to make it work. I couldn’t figure out how anyone could make a zombie the hero/love interest, but it honestly does work in this book. On the other hand, if this were a contemporary book, and Nora actually wanted to have sex, I’m not sure how that would be managed. But since it is totally realistic for her not to even think of going there, it works. Nora wants someone to treat her like a real person and not a decorative object. Bram completely does that. This is about emotion, not body parts.

I’m looking forward to the next book, Dearly Beloved. I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here. I hope there’s a cure. I want Bram and Nora to have a happy ever after. That’s not realistic, but I want it for them just the same. Call me an optimist. Or call me a romantic.

Jingle Hells

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

If Lucifer is capable of true love, is he really such a bad guy? Misty Evans’ Witches Anonymous series keeps teasing me with that question.  Jingle Hells is the second book in the series, and I’m having even more fun following Amy Atwood’s adventures in the town of Eden, as she tries to resist Luc’s charms and stay true to her vow of “no more magic”.

Amy’s boyfriend, Adam the actual first man, is off on a trip to the Middle East to find the location of the Garden of Eden. Amy is lonely for Christmas, and her ex, that old devil Lucifer himself, would just love to worm his way back into Amy’s bed, and into her heart. The fact that Luc really is thinking about Amy’s heart makes me think that Luc isn’t such a bad guy after all, which is a very strange thing to say about Satan. Even romantically speaking.

But while Adam is out of town, Amy has a whole bunch of otherworldly visitors–also of biblical origins. For a girl who has already sold her soul to the Devil, Amy is suddenly receiving an awful lot of signs from the godly side of the street. First both Samson and Delilah burst into her ice cream shop wanting her to solve their millenia-old lover’s squabble. Then two bands of angels arrive, one from above, one from below. And get this, it’s the so-called “good” guys who want to keep Samson and Dee apart! And then there’s this cat…and Luc arranges for a delivery of the Bible, with instructions for Amy to read Genesis, just before Adam returns from his trip.

If you read the last book, you might remember that Amy’s sister Emilia started everything by getting luring Luc into her bed. Well, she’s back. And it’s all her fault.

Java Brownie Chip ice cream is the cure-all for breaking up with your boyfriend. There’s a liberal application of it required in this story.

Escape Rating B: This is fun stuff. I like Amy. She’s someone I’d want to have coffee with. Or better yet, some of that ice cream of hers. There was less of her Witches Anonymous group in this story, which was too bad, because some of them are hilarious, but more clarity about the folks in Amy’s personal life. I liked the backstory on how Amy met Luc, and where Keisha (her partner/coworker) fits into things. Adam’s role was much clearer.

Gabe, AKA Gabriel the manipulative Archangel, made a cameo appearance. He will clearly be back as the man/angel of mystery.

Emilia got off just a little too easy. She needs to feel some serious guilt and remorse for the mess she caused. I hope that comes in the next book, but right now, Emilia’s story feels a tad unfinished to me.

I like Luc more everytime he shows up. Which goes back to my original question. If the devil feels true love, how bad can he really be? Just bad enough to be really, really good?

 

A Vampire for Christmas

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

Who would have thought that a vampire might be a good thing to find in your Christmas stocking? Or even better, helping you out of your Christmas stockings! In the new anthology, A Vampire for Christmas, with novellas from Laurie London, Michele Hauf, Caridad Piñeiro and Alexia Morgan, sometimes a vampire is just what a girl wants Santa to bring her for the holidays.

Like all collections, the stories vary in appeal.

Laurie London’s “Enchanted by Blood” is for those who prefer their vamps to come complete with political machinations. Trace Westfalen has already given up his human lover Charlotte Grant once. And wiped her memories. All in the service of preserving the secret that vampires live among us. And in the interests of preserving his possible seat on the ruling council. Not to mention the secret of his nasty cousin’s even nastier habits. However, when he finds Charlotte in trouble, he can’t resist coming to her rescue. When he sticks around long enough to let her fall in love with him again in spite of her memory wipe (he never fell out) their troubles begin all over again. Will Trace decide that love is worth the cost?

Caridad Piñeiro’s entry, “When Herald Angels Sing”, is a Christmas redemption story with a twist. A guardian angel’s assignment is to redeem the soul of a vampire. Little does she know that the vampire’s task is to redeem her heart.

On the other hand, “All I Want for Christmas”, by Alexis Morgan, has a very pronounced urban fantasy flavor. Everyone who frequents Della’s Diner, from the fry cook to the customers to the punks who try to rip her off, seems to be some sort of supernatural creature. Including the cop investigating drugs and disappearances and finding himself wanting to sink his fangs into purely human Della.

My favorite story of the bunch was Michele Hauf’s “Monsters Don’t Do Christmas” for its terrific characters and very unusual take on who is and who isn’t a real monster. Daniel Harrison is a vampire, but he’s not the real monster of the story. The real monster is a purely mortal woman, who just so happens to be a superstar. I loved this story.

Escape Rating B: Collections are always mixed. Some of the stories work for me, and some don’t. But that’s the point, you discover someone or something new. For me it was Hauf’s story. Her take, that the superstar machine creates a person who feels more of a monster than an actual monster, made the entire book.

Witches Anonymous

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

Witches Anonymous, by Misty Evans, is almost as deliciously tempting as the Dove chocolate square that the main character keeps promising herself if she manages to resist all of the other temptations that keep getting thrown her way. Poor Amy, most of us find Dove chocolate difficult enough to resist!

Amy Atwood is the witch in Witches Anonymous, and we meet her as she is about to attend her first meeting of the self-help group. Yes, WA is modeled on AA, complete with 12-step program. Amy used to be perfectly okay with being a real, honest-to-badness witch–up until she caught Lucifer with his devilish hands (and other body parts) all over her sister Emilia.

Until Amy caught them in the act, Emilia had always been the “good” witch, and Amy had always been the “bad” witch. Now the tables are turned. Emilia has turned to the dark side, and Amy has sworn off cursing and hexing and all spell casting. Because as everyone knows, one spell leads to another, and once you start down that slippery slope, it leads right back to having Lucifer in her bed, and Amy is through with him. If he wants Emilia, he can have Emilia. He only gets one sister. Period.

But at her first WA meeting, Amy meets Adam on her way in. Adam, tattooed, Harley-riding, Adam, looks like more than enough “bad boy” to keep Amy happy, even if he is only human.

But nothing is quite as simple as it seems. Adam really is Adam. As in Adam and Eve. That Adam. And the Archangel Gabriel has arranged for him to re-enact that original temptation, with Amy cast in the role of Eve. Gabe is hoping that Adam will resist this time, and that Gabe will get to play God in Eden, the revised edition. But Lucifer has other plans. You see, he really is in love with Amy, and he wants her back. Bad. But can a devil who truly loves actually be all bad?

And Amy’s formerly goodie-two-shoes sister? She really is kind of a demon.

Escape Rating B-: Oooh this was fun! Witches Anonymous is mind candy of the purest form. Which is a really good thing. I giggled all through dinner reading it. This is a “put your ereader in a baggie and read in the bathtub” book. I liked Amy a lot. She’s a fun character. I got less of a handle on Adam, or Luc. I was never quite sure how much Adam, the Harley-riding firefighter, knew about his role as Adam, the first man and possible resetter of the cosmic balance.

But I loved that Gabriel, the angel, was actually the bad guy and Lucifer was actually the good guy. Very cool.

Brass and Bone

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

Brass and Bone by Cynthia Gael was a pretty good one-third of a story. The only problem is that I was expecting a whole story. A fairly short whole story (I knew the book was only 86 pages) but a whole story nevertheless.

What I got was a decent beginning to something. And then an abrupt “Epilogue”. Simon, one of the two point of view characters says that he feels like he’s fallen into a “penny dreadful”. Fallen into is right. And just as suddenly dropped out of.

Brass and Bone started out as lovely Steampunk. Two secret agents, one clearly a guttersnipe raised above his station, the other a Lady working considerably out of class, stealing secret plans and fantastic machinery for Queen and country from, and for, mad scientists. Airships fly overhead and steam men ply the streets alongside horse-drawn carriages.

Did I mention that Simon, the raised-up guttersnipe, has been in love with Abigail, the Lady of the piece, for years? And that she seems to be totally clueless in the matter?

But in addition to Simon and Abigail, there is a second plot involving Cynara and Henri. Cynara is a witch and Henri is an agent of the Witchfinder General. The Witchfinder General seems to also be a corporation known as WFG, Ltd. A very rich and influential corporation.

There is clearly some backstory about WFG, Ltd. from Gael’s previous work, Balefire and Lodestone, and Balefire and Moonstone. But due to the brevity of Brass and Bone, the backstory wasn’t in evidence here. There was just enough to tease, but not enough to satisfy.

When the two stories join things both get interesting, and get too involved to wrap up in the 86 pages available.

Escape Rating C-: I liked what I got, but I’m incredibly annoyed. This was really the first 7 chapters of a much longer story. I want that longer story. At least, I want to know when the rest of it is coming out. I expect novellas to have beginnings, middles and ends, not just beginnings. I was just starting to really get into the story when it stopped. The rating would be higher if I could find an announcement anywhere of when the next installment was coming out! Grrrr!

The Usual Apocalypse

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

“With great power comes great responsibility.” Isn’t that how Peter Parker’s uncle said it? Then there’s the flip side, “Who watches the watchers?” In other words, who makes sure that the ones who have that great power use it responsibly?

In Christine Price’s futuristic The Usual Apocalypse, the great powers involved are of the paranormal variety, and the ones who take responsibility just call themselves “The Society”. The Society polices those who have paranormal ability. It also finds children who have talent, and it solves crimes against the talented. It’s a combination of the police and the FBI and the CIA. It even has its own Internal Affairs division!

The story in The Usual Apocalypse is the one about all the chickens coming home to roost, and not in a good way. I mean the chickens, not the story. The story was great.

The Society went through a really, really dark patch during a time when it was run by a group that treated the talented as experimental subjects rather than people. Talent doesn’t seem to be native to the human population. Anyone with significant talent can be thought of as not human, because they are descended from someone who wasn’t. Truly.

But the housecleaning was swift, thorough and brutal — and nearly a generation ago. But Agent Matt Whitman is tying up one of the loose ends. One mad doctor tried to recreate her sick, twisted experiments. Matt shut her down, finally, but wanted to give something back to the men whose lives she nearly destroyed. Six months later, he finally got a lead on Brennan Kincaid, one victim’s younger brother.

Matt finds Brennan and brings his  brother back to him. Reuniting the two brothers should have been the close of a long and brutal case. But then, senior agents start dying, and it all ties back to the bad old days, and all the deep, dark secrets come out of the shadows. No one is able to hide, not even the super-secret head of the Society. Because someone is trying to bring the bad old days back again.

Escape Rating B: I got wrapped up in the story, and wanted to know more. The Society is interesting. It reminded me of what the Council might have been like in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series if the Psy had kept their humanity and managed to police themselves instead of going completely Darkside. The Society went over the edge and pulled themselves back. I enjoyed the way that Matt and Brennan’s relationship developed. How to get a workaholic to stop being a workaholic is all too easy to relate to.  Matt and Brennan both have paranormal talent. Brennan hears people’s thoughts. Matt can make anyone spill their secrets by asking a question. This is an incredibly cool talent for a cop. One of the neat things about futuristic stories is exploring the differences. In this author’s world, there is way more prejudice against Matt and Brennan because they have paranormal talents than because they are gay. Good romance, good mystery, neat world-building.

Lord of Rage

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

Goldilocks and the three bears was never this hot.

Lord of Rage is Jill Monroe’s entry in the Royal House of Shadows multi-author series. The three bears in this story are brothers, and the Goldilocks is an exiled princess. A princess who learns to kick some serious ass. But otherwise, the fairy-tale thing totally works. With a slight dose of Snow White (mostly the dwarfs) added in for comic relief.

The Royal House of Shadows is the story of the fall of the house of Elden. The country is overthrown by a Blood Sorceror, and the last, desperate act of the King and Queen is to send their four children away from the carnage in the hopes that the princes, and one princess, might avenge their deaths. But the compulsions of royalty and parental love have different agendas.  With the force of their dying breaths, and the force of their death spell, the royal pair’s last spell compels their adult children to two almost diametrically opposed agendas. Their father’s spell obligates them to revenge themselves on the Blood Sorcerer. Their mother’s spell requires them to survive at all costs.

Breena has been a protected princess all of her life until the night that the Blood Sorceror invaded Elden. Now in her mid-20s, she has become restless and yearns for freedom from the restrictions that have bound and controlled her life. She should have married long ago, but her father has been saving her for the most advantageous political marriage. Her mother has promised her that her magic will come to her when she is married. Until the attack, her only magic was in the ability to walk in dreams, and the dreams she walks in are those of a warrior who may be real, or may be a construct of her imagination.

But during the attack, due the force of her parents’ spell, she reaches out for the one person who can help her survive, and help her find vengeance–the warrior of her dreamscape. And finds herself in a deserted woodlands, far from home. After wandering for days, she practically stumbles into an empty cabin in the woods. It represents food, shelter, and a relatively safe place to rest.

When the residents of the cabin return, they find spilled food, a broken chair, and a blonde woman sleeping in one of the beds. The owners are the last of the Ursans, men who take on the spirit of the bear when they fight. They are berserkers. Or, at least one of them is. Osborn, the oldest, is a true berserker. His two brothers are too young. Their people were slaughtered before the boys could learn the Ursan tradition. But Osborn has kept them safe on Ursan land. “Goldilocks” has been found by the three bears, after she has eaten their “porridge”, tried out their furniture, and is sleeping in one of their beds.

The boys want to keep Breena. They think she will cook and clean for them, not realizing that she has never done such things. Osborn wants to keep her, too, but for much more adult reasons. He has dreamed of her. Many, many nights. But he always thought she was a creature of his own fevered imagination. Breena wakes to find that her warrior is real, and very, very angry.  Osborn thinks Breena has been manipulating him all along, especially when she asks for his help. He’s been a mercenary. He gave up that life to take care of his brothers and to take care of the Ursan lands. He doesn’t want to go back to being just a hired sword. Especially not for this woman who has invaded his dreams.

Escape Rating B+: I liked Lord of Rage even better than Lord of the Vampires, the first book in the series. The relationship between Breena and Osborn develops gradually–even though they’ve been dreaming about each other, dreams don’t translate to instant knowledge. They have a lot of real-world issues to work through first. There’s a big trust issue they need to get past, and the story shows them both working on it. Breena and Osborn earned their happy ending. We just won’t know if they actually get one until the end of the whole series.

Stone Cold Seduction

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

When first we meet our heroine, Elleodora Fredricks, she is in the process of burgling her sperm donor’s office building. As the story opens, Elle only thinks the jerk is spawn of Satan. By the time the book ends, Elle realizes he might actually be a demon. Or the next nearest thing.

Stone Cold Seduction by Jess Macallan opens with a kick-ass female Robin Hood clinging to the side of a high-rise in a catsuit. If our heroine had only thought her evil dad was just the usual corporate variety of evil, this would have been an interesting enough premise. But…

Elle has some serious memory issues, because Dear-Old-Dad isn’t just your typical corporate badass. Dad is the King of the Shadow Elves, and Elle feels like Alice tripping down the proverbial rabbit hole as all of her friends start revealing everything King Dad, AKA “the sperm donor” has deleted from her memory. It’s one of his powers that she has also been made to forget.

But now, Dad is after her, along with his goon squad. And so are all the other powers in his “Shadow World”. Because Elle hasn’t been stealing mere baubles like she thought she was. She’s been stealing something much more important. She’s been stealing “soul gems”, an item, and a concept, she didn’t even know existed a few days ago.

And her friends, her “crew” who have been helping her? They’re not who they seem either. Her best friend Teryl turns out to be an oracle. And the new man in her life, Jax? He answered an ad for a stockroom clerk at her store. But he’s really a gargoyle. Now he says he’s her fated mate.

And what’s this fate thing all about? Elle isn’t sure she believes in this destiny thing. A few days ago, she was happy running her custom perfume store, trying to right some of the wrongs her dad did. Now, not just her life but also her entire universe has turned upside down.

And in the middle of it all, a man from her past returns. And guess what? Not only is MacLean a phoenix, but he is also her fated mate.  What’s a girl to do?

Verdict: I really liked the Elle who was clinging to that building. The catburglar Elle was fantastic! But the more Elle finds out about herself and her lineage, the more she retreats into her 17-year old self, and that person is in a really bad place. I want to see Elle get her mojo back, and that’s not going to happen until the next book.

Because this is a series (Stone Cold Seduction is the first book of Set in Stone) I will say I liked Elle enough to want to see what she does next. At the end, I could see that she was starting to get her own back. Good on her.

At the end, Elle got to see her fate, and she has not one, but two fated mates, and it is her choice which one to pick. I’m looking forward to watching her make both men grovel in the next book!

Escape Rating: B in anticipation of Elle getting her groove back in the next book.

Lord of the Vampires

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

Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter is the first book in the Royal House of Shadows from Harlequin Nocturne. The series is about the children of a royal family in a world that exists parallel to our own. This is a world where magic exists, the king is a vampire, and the queen is a witch. Unfortunately for this particular ruling pair, their throne was coveted by an evil sorcerer, and they were murdered. But not before they each cast one final spell. The king’s spell imbued his four children with an unstoppable need for revenge. The queen used her last ounce of power to send each of her children far away from the sorcerer, from the kingdom, and unfortunately, from each other.

Lord of the Vampires is the story of the crown prince, the oldest son Nicolai. The spell flings him naked out of his own kingdom, Elden, and into the slave markets of Delfina, where he is quickly sold as a sex slave.  His memories are wiped away by magic, and he knows nothing except rage and his dreams of vengeance against a sorcerer whose name he cannot remember.

In our world, a woman named Jane Parker receives a leather-bound book, along with a note bearing four simple words, “I need you, Jane”. Jane is disbelieving. No one needs her. Her family was killed in a car crash, and she was the only survivor. She has just regained the use of her legs. She is totally alone. But touching the book brings back memories that she doesn’t think are hers, as well as dreams that she barely remembers. In dreams she has experienced what the book details, and she knows it. What she doesn’t know is how it is even possible. She worked in quantum physics before her accident, she has met creatures from the parallel world, but she is sure what she feels just isn’t logical.

But just the same, she can’t stop thinking about the book, her dreams, and her memories of those dreams. So when logic fails completely, she settles down to actually read the book itself. And when she falls asleep over the book, she crosses the barrier between the worlds, and meets her destiny. And Nicolai, who needs her.

Lord of the Vampires fell into the “just plain fun” category for me in spite of the dark themes throughout the book. The evil characters were all caricatures of evil, particularly the ones who have been “keeping” Nicolai for the last several years. The link between our world and Nicolai’s was just a bit too convenient. And although Nicolai summoned Jane to help him escape from his captivity, when she turns out to be his chosen mate, they are both surprisingly agreeable to being bound together for life. On the whole, Lord of the Vampires was mind candy, but it was pretty good mind candy. The next book in the series will be Lord of Rage by Jill Monroe, followed by Lord of the Wolfyn by Jessica Andersen and last by definitely not least Lord of the Abyss by Nalini Singh. It will be interesting to see how different authors manage to handle the different siblings while still retaining the continuity.

Escape Rating: C+: Definitely worth following the series, but the cliché count rose to high to keep me up all night reaching for the ending.

Dark Awakening

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

There’s a subgenere of urban fantasy that ought to be given a name. It goes something like this: once upon a time, meaning right now, there was a young woman. She has been alone and unloved her entire life. She was either orphaned in horrific circumstances or adopted under mysterious circumstances. Either way, she doesn’t know her real origins. She has some unknown power and no one she can ask about that power–see orphaning or adopting above. When her power is suddenly required, a hunter is sent after her, and life as she knew it goes to hell in the proverbial handcart.

The heroine’s journey is to discover her previously unknown power, and make it work for her in time to save herself from the evil that has been stalking her all her life. Sometimes all her previous lives as well. She usually discovers the secrets of her past, As an added bonus she may manage the redemption and love of her hunter.

So, if we’ve all read this story before, what makes it worth reading again?

Dark Awakening by Kendra Leigh Castle threw in some new elements to this old story. Lily Quinn, the heroine of this story, was no pushover. She never expected to be rescued. Lily was an active participant, an equal player in everything that happened once she understood what the stakes were. Speaking of stakes, both the good guys and the bad guys were vampires. A big part of the story had to do with vampire internal racism. Apparently these vampires think that vamps who can turn into animals are less vampy than those who turn into mist. Of course, to the humans, fangs are fangs. (Yes, I read this as commentary about humans. Your mileage may vary)

The vampire who comes to hunt Lily is one of those vamps on the supposedly lower end of the vamp social register. Ty is a member of the Cait Sith–he hunts as a cat. He also purrs when stroked, whether whichever form he happens to be in.

Escape Rating B: Humans love to write about vampires with convoluted political structures. In this case, the politics have become so twisted they have turned on themselves. And any vampire society where House Dracul (yes, that Dracul) turn out to be the good guys (again, for certain select definitions of good) has more than enough twists and turns to keep me looking for the next book. Expect to meet a representative of every vampire family you’ve seen from everywhere and everywhen, but used in ways you were not expecting.

Lily isn’t quite what anyone was expecting, either. And that’s a very good thing…for everyone.