Review: Duke City Hit by Max Austin + Giveaway

Posted on December 11, 2014December 8, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: mystery, thriller
Series: Duke City Trilogy #2
Length: 183 pages
Publisher: Alibi (Random House)
Date Released: December 16, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Max Austin takes readers back to Albuquerque for another action-packed thrill ride in Duke City Hit, as an elite assassin takes aim at—well, everyone.

According to Vic Walters, the secret to happiness is low overhead and few demands. Living rent-free in a modest bachelor pad behind his boss’s house, he has no debts, no entanglements, and no expensive relationships. He works just a few days a month, but his bank accounts keep growing.

Vic is a high-priced hitman with a legendary record of success. That is, until someone starts eliminating his marks before he can get to them . . . until his manager puts him in the middle of a vicious drug-cartel feud . . . and until a young man walks into his life with a big .45 and a startling revelation.

For Vic Walters, it’s time to step out of the shadows. Which means it’s killing time in Duke City.

My Review:

I picked up Duke City Hit because I enjoyed the first book in Austin’s Duke City Trilogy, Duke City Split (reviewed here). However, even though Duke City Hit is billed as the second in the series, it didn’t really feel like a second book. It reads as a stand-alone, and a bit different (although just as entertaining) as its predecessor.

Both books show the more mundane side of the criminal underworld in Albuquerque, NM, which really is nicknamed Duke City. The criminals in Split were a pair of well-practiced bank robbers who tried to keep under the radar. Their final spectacular failure is the plot of Duke City Split.

In Duke City Hit, we have the story of two family businesses who operate on the shady side of the street, although one doesn’t start out as a family business, mostly because Vic Walters doesn’t know he has a family.

Professional hit men generally don’t have family ties. But Vic is a native of Albuquerque, and he works for Lucky Penny Bail Bonds, even though he isn’t a bail bondsman any longer. For 30 years, Vic has been a contract killer, and the owner of the bail bond company is his business manager, just as her father was before her.

People contact Penny Randall when they want someone to disappear, and Vic makes it happen. He only takes contracts on men, and only on people that he is able to make himself believe that society would be better off without. No women, no children, and especially no one connected with Organized Crime.

He sets out to kill a scumbag named Harry Morino. He plans the job, and gets to Harry’s place to kill him, only to discover that someone has beat him to the punch. So to speak. At first, it just seems like easy money, until someone beats him to his next job, too.

Vic has either a stalker or a copycat. Or, as it turns out, a grown-up son who has come to finally meet his father, and learn the family business. Vic is a little too eager to spill the beans and take a fatherly interest in the young man who he did not know existed, but is definitely his boy.

Then he discovers that old Harry Morino was mobbed up to the eyebrows, and both Harry’s friends and his enemies want a piece of Vic. Or so it appears.

They say the truth will set you free. It might in Vic’s case, if it doesn’t get him killed first, along with his son.

Escape Rating B: While this isn’t as wild and crazy as Duke City Split, it does have some similarities without feeling like a sequel where you HAVE to read the first book.

Vic is a very quiet and successful operator. He’s had a long run as a contract hit man because he’s extremely careful and never flashy in the least. He also has a very good cover story in his association with Lucky Penny Bail Bonds. He says he’s just a paper-pusher, and people decide he’s boring. Of course he isn’t boring, but he is extremely controlled. It’s why he’s good at his job.

When Ryan shows up, Vic’s famous control slips. While he never knew he even had a child, finding Ryan as an adult, or Ryan finding him, strips away his focus. He feels like a father, even though he hasn’t been one until now.

To be fair, Ryan’s mother never told Vic she was pregnant, and Vic appears to have been upfront about his inability to make any long-term commitment. Ryan only discovers that Vic is his father after his mother dies. Once he sees Vic’s picture, the resemblance is way too strong to ignore.

Vic opens up to the young man, and finds that he wants to share his life and even his work. He knows that having Ryan as a partner is bad for the boy, but Ryan takes to the work like the proverbial duck to water. The two men need their connection to each other.

The drama in this story comes from the fallout from their first shared killing, that of not-so-poor Harry. While it was easy to figure out who betrayed whom, the way that the story played out was still fascinating, as was the way that Vic still manages to get the job done, even though it isn’t the job he thought it was.

In Duke City Hit, just as in the first book, the author does a good job of making the reader root for the bad guys, if only to preserve them from the worse guys.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Max Austin and TLC Book Tours are giving away a $25.00 Gift Card from the eBook Retailer of the Winner’s Choice + 1 Copy of DUKE CITY SPLIT by Max Austin
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Vacant by Alex Hughes (+ a giveaway and a scavenger hunt)

Posted on December 10, 2014December 8, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Mindspace Investigations #4
Length: 347 pages
Publisher: Roc
Date Released: December 2, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Nothing ruins a romantic evening like a brawl with lowlifes—especially when one of them later turns up dead and my date, Detective Isabella Cherabino, is the #1 suspect. My history with the Atlanta PD on both sides of the law makes me an unreliable witness, so while Cherabino is suspended, I’m paying my bills by taking an FBI gig.

I’ve been hired to play telepathic bodyguard for Tommy, the ten-year-old son of a superior court judge in Savannah presiding over the murder trial of a mob-connected mogul. After an attempt on the kid’s life, the Feds believe he’s been targeted by the businessman’s “associates.”

Turns out, Tommy’s a nascent telepath, so I’m trying to help him get a handle on his Ability. But it doesn’t take a mind reader to see that there’s something going on with this kid’s parents that’s stressing him out more than a death threat…

My Review:

Alex Hughes’ Mindspace Investigations is a series that absolutely requires starting at the very beginning. (This seems to be my week for that.) If the idea of an urban fantasy series that reads like a marvelously twisted cross between Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and J.D. Robb’s In Death series, you’ve come to the right place.

Just start clean with the first book in the series, Clean (reviewed here). The following titles in the series are Sharp (reviewed here) and Marked (reviewed at The Book Pushers) It is SO worth it, and also necessary to help figure out the roots of the case in Vacant.

Like so many of the titles in this series, that word, Vacant, is a multiple entendre. It refers to Isabella Cherabino’s career, Adam Ward’s ethics, and the office they come to at the end of the story. Possibly also to any threads of a future that Adam might have, but we’ll see.

The cases that Adam and Isabella have to solve in the present are very much tied in with a larger conspiracy that they uncovered in the earlier stories. But even though that possibility is fairly clear to the reader, it is only a vague hint on the horizon for Adam, and not at all on Isabella’s radar.

This is the first time that they solve a case completely separately. It is also the first time that Adam is away from DeKalb County and operating entirely on his own and without training wheels or a support network. He’s on his own for the first time after his descent into addiction and in his long hard climb back to sobriety.

That separation nearly wrecks his extremely slowly developing relationship with Isabella Cherabino. More importantly, it nearly wrecks him. But he comes out stronger for it, albeit with a few more broken places. The difference is that he is not filling those broken places in with drugs. At least not today.

Isabella is charged with police brutality, and becomes the county’s poster child for non-tolerance of such a crime. The only problem is that she didn’t do it, and both the evidence and the hearing are rigged. The question that is asked throughout the story, and only answered by the end, is that of the rigger.

Adam is off in Savannah, chasing down a precognitive vision with the help of the FBI, although they consider that he is helping them. A child will die if Adam can’t figure out how to subvert the vision before it is too late. In order to derail the vision, he also needs to figure out what a judge in a high-profile case is hiding, and who benefits from killing her child.

And what does any of this have to do with actions in Adam’s past? In the end, it is all about him. And not in a good way. Saving that kid may not fix any of the other things that Adam has broken, but it will be enough to make today worthwhile. It gives him yet one more reason to remain clean.

But some of his screwups still catch up with him. Payment will be demanded, but not all of it today.

Escape Rating A: The world of Mindspace Investigations is a very dark and gritty one. While it seems that things are getting better after the chaos of the Tech Wars, it’s going to be a long, hard time until society gets back to where it is in our now. The levels of pollution in the air and water are a factor that Adam is constantly aware of on his trip to Savannah, and so are we.

What is different about this case is that Adam is operating completely solo. While the series has been told from his first-person perspective from the very beginning, we are always aware of Adam’s nearby support group; especially his police partner Isabella Cherabino and his NA sponsor Swartz.

In Savannah Adam is forced to work with an FBI team that he has never met, and one that resents the need to bring in an unknown teep on an emergency basis when theirs is injured. Adam is there to save a 10-year-old boy’s life, and the FBI team is there to prevent a second kidnapping attempt on that same boy.

Adam is also there because the Telepath Guild is yanking his chain, but that’s nothing new. One of the ongoing themes of the series is that Adam wants to distance himself as much as possible from the Telepath Guild, but he keeps getting sucked back in. It is very convenient for everyone, the police, the FBI, the Guild themselves, to have a telepath whose loyalties seem somewhat fluid.

They aren’t, and that’s what keeps getting him into trouble. Although in this story that same sense of loyalty also keeps him out of trouble. Just a bit.

Adam is forced to make a choice. Actually, he’s forced to make a lot of choices, and they are all choices between bad and less bad. He never really gets to choose between bad and good. He’s come a long way from the drug user he remembers being. He makes the best choices he can, and then lives with the consequences, knowingly.

In addition to the harrowing case that Adam is investigating, what we see is him learning to stand on his own again. The question, as always, is for how long.

While the events in this particular story had a lot to do with previous cases, there was also a sense that the events in this book have pushed the story into a different direction. After the bombshell at the end, I’m on pins and needles waiting to see what happens next.

Reviewer’s note: When I began this series, part of the fun for me was that I used to live in the Atlanta metro area where this series is set. As I write this, I am moving back to the Atlanta area. It made reading about the places involved that much more fascinating for me. I could see it, I have seen it, and I’m going to see it again.

GIVEAWAY AND SCAVENGER HUNT

Alex is giving away an ebook copy of the winner’s choice of one Mindspace Investigations novel (INT). To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Alex is also conducting a scavenger hunt based on the game CLUE. Here is the clue for this stop on the blog tour:

So you can cross this clue off your checklist. For more details on how you can use this clue to get the grand prize of a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble, a signed copy of Marked, and a character from a future book named after him/her., visit this page that explains the contest and tells you where to find the other clues.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Wanderer’s Children by L.G. O’Connor + Giveaway

Posted on December 9, 2014December 7, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> Book Giveaway> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: urban fantasy, paranormal romance
Series: Angelorum Twelve Chronicles #2
Length: 506 pages
Publisher: Collins-Young Publishing
Date Released: December 16, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

The Wanderer’s mission three decades ago: secretly sire children to hide his bloodline, and protect them until their destinies can unite in the final battle between good and evil. That time has come…

Cara Collins, the First of the Holy Twelve, longs for one last peaceful weekend with her bridesmaids as she plans her wedding to Simon Young, her former Trinity Guardian, before duty calls with the Angelorum to gather the Twelve and prepare them for battle. Life, as she knew it, has changed; weird is Cara’s new normal. Her newly acquired Nephilim DNA is wreaking havoc on her and those closest to her as her body transforms into Amazonian proportions and an overabundance of pheromones threatens to land her in hot water with Simon—not to mention a sudden suspicious outbreak of “insta-love” among her friends.

Michael Swift, Cara’s Trinity Messenger, has spent months running from his attraction to Cara’s brazen best friend Sienna, the only woman who has ever skirted his considerable defenses. But if he wants a future with her, he must confront his tormented past head on, or risk losing her and destroying the future of the Angelorum.

As dark forces and outside threats gather, Cara has more to worry about than fitting into her wedding dress and playing Cupid to her friends. A second encounter with rocker Brett King shows Cara once again that there are no coincidences. One of the Wanderer’s children, Brett and his secret siblings are the key to gathering the rest of the Twelve.

When the newly forming team finally comes together, an unexpected revelation shakes them to their core. They must all look deeper into their souls as new secrets come to light to discover what’s really at stake in the final battle between good and evil…if betrayal and Lucifer don’t rip them apart first.

My Review:

I picked The Wanderer’s Children because I read (and reviewed) the first book in this series, Trinity Stones, earlier this year. It is such a complex story that I had to see what happened next.

It is still a complex and convoluted story. In my possibly not so humble opinion, it is also still one single story. It’s not just that the action from The Wanderer’s Children follows directly from the end of Trinity Stones, but the complexity of the worldbuilding and the interrelationships among the characters is getting more intense. Reading The Wanderer’s Children definitely requires reading Trinity Stones first. The story is piling on layers within layers, and it only makes sense if you know how everyone got to the point (or fix) they are currently in.

I think we’ve even met all the characters, or certainly all the important ones, in Trinity Stones. It’s just that in The Wanderer’s Children, some of the focus is shifted from Cara and Simon to other people involved in the upcoming battle between good and evil, especially their friends Michael and newly met Brett King, as well as all of Cara Collins’ best friends.

I did have a momentary fear that we were going to head into romantic triangle territory, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Instead, we have Cara throwing off so many pheromones that everyone in her vicinity pairs up as soon as they meet.

In spite of the insistence on free will on the part of the angels (yes, I said angels) and angelic sympathizers working on keeping evil at bay, we do stray rather close to “fated mate” territory with some of the newly introduced couples. The free will part seems to come into play in the way that the couple may not get their acts together as a result of secrets or baggage that they are carrying.

So there are a bunch of things going on in The Wanderer’s Children. One of the major plot threads is the continuing growth of Cara’s powers. She nearly died at the end of Trinity Stones, and the cure that she was injected with continues to play havoc with her body and mind. Mostly in a good way, but there are definitely some downsides.

The romance in this story is between one member of her angel/guardian trinity and one of her best friends from college. (See, I said you needed to read the first book first)

The course of true love does not run smooth, or it wouldn’t be worth fighting for. Michael has some serious baggage from his childhood, and he doesn’t realize that Sienna has her fair share of demons (not literally) to fight. His reluctance to bring his trauma out into the light contrasts nicely with Sienna’s mostly out there personality. She hides with bravado, he hides by running away. Their mutual exploration and explosion is lovely to see straighten out.

But the more interesting issues revolve around Brett King, the rock star Cara met in Trinity Stones, and her other college best friend Jessa. It’s pretty clear that their romance will come in the next book, but they have a long way to go first. It’s not just that Brett has discovered the world of the angels and his place in it, but also that Jessa has one scary, possessive, evil stepfather.

And then there’s Cara’s other friend, Irene. She has scary bosses in the NSA who send her to spy on her best friend for reasons yet to be revealed.

And Irene has totally misinterpreted everything that has happened with her friend Cara and her fiance Simon (and Michael and Brett and everyone else). Irene has let herself fall into one serious misunderstandammit that might just tip the balance of power the wrong way.

If Jessa’s stepfather doesn’t scare her into tipping it first.

Escape Rating B: The action in this story is incredibly absorbing. Every single person has a big part to play in the battle between heaven and hell, and most of them have no idea that there even IS a battle coming. One of the neat things in this story is the way that Cara takes Brett under her wing to help him adjust to this strange new world that he is suddenly part of.

Michael and Sienna’s relationship is the core romance, and their journey towards each other (after a lot of running away on Michael’s part) is sweet as well as hot. They both have a lot of healing to do, and it needed to take them time to do it.

I will say again that this world has a lot of “moving parts” and there is still considerable ongoing worldbuilding. Reading Trinity Stones is required to make things make sense, and I’m really glad there was a list of “dramatis personae” at the beginning to get me back up to speed.

While the story is careening madly down the hill toward the epic confrontation at some point in the future, I had some issues with Irene’s storyline, and to a lesser extent, Jessa’s. Irene is clearly being misled by her NSA handlers, and it is not clear which side they are on. It is very clear that they are not on Irene’s side. But Irene increases her own heartache by keeping huge (and slightly unbelievable) secrets from her friend Cara, and letting herself be led down a complete path of misdirection, mostly self-inflicted. Irene feels either too smart to fall for this stuff or too stupid to carry out her clandestine mission. YMMV.

Jessa’s freaky-jealous stepfather seemed a bit over-the-top when added to all the issues that Irene brings to the table. And there are two huge cliffhangers that the reader gets dropped off of at the very end that made me want to scream in frustration. As much as Irene and Jessa drove me batty, I want to see what trouble they get Cara into next very, very badly.

GIVEAWAY

L.G. and TLC Book Tours are giving away a copy of The Wanderer’s Children to one lucky U.S. or Canadian winner:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Review: Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor

Posted on December 8, 2014December 6, 2014 by Galen Charlton | Author : Galen Charlton | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: paperback
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: speculative fiction
Length: 241 pages
Publisher: Prime Books
Date Released: September 29, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Kabu kabu—unregistered illegal Nigerian taxis—generally get you where you need to go. Nnedi Okorafor’s Kabu Kabu, however, takes the reader to exciting, fantastic, magical, occasionally dangerous, and always imaginative locations you didn’t know you needed. This debut short story collection by an award-winning author includes notable previously published material, a new novella co-written with New York Times-bestselling author Alan Dean Foster, six additional original stories, and a brief foreword by Whoopi Goldberg.

Review by Galen:

Picture a spider made of metal on an oil pipeline, standing attentively as it is serenaded by a woman. This is but one of the fantastical images that await the reader of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story collection Kabu Kabu.

One takes a taxi to get from one place to another, to make a transition of place. Kabu Kabu is full of transitions. The title story, written with Alan Dean Foster, tells the tale of a trip that a lawyer, Ngozi, takes from Chicago to a village in Nigeria to attend a family wedding. This would be an ordinary enough trip, save that Ngozi finds the one kabu kabu in Chicago and misses her flight, but ends up making a more fundamental trip through the byways of legends to her other home.

Some of the tales occupy the intersection of Nigeria, its colonizers, and those who are stripping it of oil. “The Magical Negro” is a little confection that turns the trope of that name on its head and answers the question of what would happen if a Magical Negro decides to stop putting up with being a secondary character in the tales of other, paler, folk. “Spider the Artist” is a science fiction tale that posits oil companies dealing with theft from the pipelines by installing killer, spider-like robots to patrol them. These monsters, created without regard for the people driven by desperation, make transitions of their own: becoming so smart that they take up agency on their own account (and declare war) — but also, at least in one case, becoming able to make connections with people through music. “The Popular Mechanic” explores another response to the pipelines snaking their way through the land, while “Moom!” takes a news account of a swordfish attacking a pipeline and… expands on it.

Several stories follow transitions of women from traditional roles to owners of their own tales. One set of stories (“How Inyang Got Her Wings”, “The Winds of Harmattan”, “Windseekers”, and “Biafra”) tell part of the tale of Arro-yo, a windseeker. “The Palm Tree Bandit” is an origin story for a super-heroine who defies norms by climbing palm trees… and then grows into a legend.

Other tales take incidents from the lives of the author, her sister, and her mother and recast them in a fantastic light. Once, Okorafor and her sister visited a house that had been built for their father… but whose contents had been stripped by relatives. They decided to nonetheless stay in the house for three days. “The Carpet” takes that incident and gives magical life to the noises in the night during their stay. “The Baboon War” takes her mother’s story of fighting of baboons on her way to school and adds a deeper layer: what if the baboons were protecting something along the path?

Escape Rating B+: This collection is a great introduction to Okorafor’s range as a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. There is also a horror story (“On The Road”) that, while being really creepy, also portrays a woman’s transition from city cop to… someone new.

I recommend this collection to anybody who enjoys science fiction and fantasy, but who also is tired of some of the genres’ hoary tropes.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-07-14

Posted on December 7, 2014December 6, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

Silver City is the halfway point. So today, we’re taking it easy and moving on to El Paso. We’re going to be in Texas 3 or 4 days on this drive! But since one of those days we’ll be visiting a friend in Houston, it isn’t all bad.

The cats are very unhappy with the whole “chase into the carrier” thing every morning. We’re all going to be glad to get to our new home. But in the meantime, there are still books to read and reviews to write!

Coming Next Week:

Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor (review by Galen)
The Wanderer’s Children by L.G. O’Connor (blog tour review)
Vacant by Alex Hughes (blog tour review)
Duke City Hit by Max Austin (blog tour review)
Third Claw of God by Adam-Troy Castro (review by Cass)

Stacking the Shelves (113)

Posted on December 6, 2014December 6, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

I’ve decided not to make this any worse and shift anything not currently on the list to next week. Where I’ll hopefully have my double-screens back and be in our new home. Or at least have ended this journey.

Today (and last night and tomorrow morning) we’re in Silver City NM with Cass and her adorable kittens Ripley and Vasquez. Our cats are very confused, but as glad as we are not to be on the road.

They don’t know that their holiday present is going to be a Katris just like the one Cass’ kitties have. It’s awesome.

inheritance trilogy omnibus by nk jemisin

For Review:
The Awakened Kingdom (Inheritance Trilogy #4) by N.K. Jemisin
Blood Moon (Moon #3) by Lisa Kessler
Bring On the Dusk (Night Stalkers #6) by M.L. Buchman
Cannonbridge by Jonathan Barnes
Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale
Ghost Killer (Ghost Seer #3) by Robin D. Owens
Give it All (Desert Dogs #2) by Cara McKenna
The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus by N.K. Jemisin
Of Silk and Steam (London Steampunk #5) by Bec McMaster
Pirate’s Alley (Sentinels of New Orleans #4) by Suzanne Johnson
Romantic Road by Blair McDowell
Shadow Study (Soulfinders #1) by Maria V. Snyder
Vacant (Mindspace Investigations #4) by Alex Hughes

Review: The Highland Dragon’s Lady by Isabel Cooper + Giveaway

Posted on December 5, 2014November 30, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: paranormal romance, historical romance
Series: Highland Dragon #2
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Date Released: December 2, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Regina Talbot-Jones has always known her rambling family home was haunted. She also knows her brother has invited one of his friends to attend an ill-conceived séance. She didn’t count on that friend being so handsome… and she certainly didn’t expect him to be a dragon.

Scottish Highlander Colin MacAlasdair has hidden his true nature for his entire life, but the moment he sets eyes on Regina, he knows he has to have her. In his hundreds of years, he’s never met a woman who could understand him so thoroughly… or touch him so deeply. Bound by their mutual loneliness, drawn by the fire awakening inside of them, Colin and Regina must work together to defeat a vengeful spirit – and discover whether their growing love is powerful enough to defy convention.

My Review:

I enjoyed the first book in this series, Legend of the Highland Dragon, quite a lot (see review) and this second book is even more fun than the first one, in spite of the fact that there isn’t much more info about that Legend, and that there isn’t a whole lot of dragon. I was having too much fun to care.

That’s because the hero and heroine in this one, Colin MacAlasdair and Regina Talbot-Jones, are incredibly fun characters themselves (Stephen and Mina in Legend were a bit on the serious side)

Colin has spent the 110 years of his existing mostly trying to keep from being bored. In the present Victorian era, he’s playing the role of younger and slightly disreputable son of nobility to the hilt. It allows him to have a bit of a reputation and travel wherever the mood strikes him.

As a member of the MacAlasdair clan, he even has access to his very own wings if he needs to travel a long distance in a short time. Colin, like his older brother Stephen, is a dragon-shifter.

Unlike Stephen, Colin has also dabbled a bit with magic. After all, the MacAlasdairs are living proof that there are more things in this world than science can rationally account for.

That’s both how Colin meets, and some of what he thinks, when he meets Regina Talbot-Jones. She’s usually referred to as Reggie, a name that fits her considerably better, especially considering that she meets Colin by climbing a tree down to the room that she believes is occupied by her brother.

Colin has come to Regina’s home on the trail of a ghost story told by her brother. Colin just expects a little entertainment, but instead he comes face to face with an all too real ghost. And Regina, who is also just a bit more than he expected.

And vice-versa. Reggie has a magicaly talent, she can see people’s memories when she touches them. Colin grabs her arm to keep her from falling, and she sees his memories of flying. She’s the first person who has discovered his secret (as opposed to being told after some preparation) in decades.

Reggie surprises Colin on every turn, not just with her talent, but also with her quick wit, her thoughtful intelligence, and her forthright courage.

She’s damned surprised that he’s a dragon. But when her father’s ill-advised seance rouses the estate’s malevolent ghost, Reggie and Colin need all the courage and resources they can muster to keep her from striking again. And again.

Escape Rating A-: Although the title of this book is The Highland Dragon’s Lady, it’s really a chilling ghost story with a romance to up the ante. If anything, it’s a descendant of those lovely old Gothic Romances, with lots of eerie atmosphere. The big change is that those old Gothics didn’t include sex.

Reggie and Colin definitely get around to indulging all of the delicious sparks they cause in each other. But this is a couple who seduce each other with clever words before they finally get between the sheets. Except its actually a hayloft, and the scene is delicious.

As Colin and Reggie court and spark (and spark), the investigation into the local ghost is serious enough to send a shiver up the spine. It’s not (thank goodness) a family ghost. Reggie’s parents bought the estate, ghost and all, about three years previous to the story. The ghost doesn’t care that they aren’t her family, all she wants are more victims, and she’s very clever about getting them.

Reggie and Colin have to work hard to save each other, and Reggie’s family, from everything that this malevolent ghost has to throw at them. Even a dragon needs a bit of help now and then, especially when the stakes are very, very high. And I love it when the heroine gets to rescue the hero!

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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Emissaries from the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro

Posted on December 4, 2014December 4, 2014 by Cass | Author : Cass | A Reviews> book reviews> Draconismoi

Format read: Paperback (purchased)
Formats available: ebook, audiobook, paperback
Genre: Science Fictions
Series: Andrea Cort #1
Length: 387 pgs
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Date Released: February 26, 2008
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Two murders have occurred on One One One, an artificial ecosystem created by the universe’s dominant AIs to house several engineered species, including a violent, sentient race of sloth-like creatures. Under order from the Diplomatic Corps, Counselor Andrea Cort has come to this cylinder world where an indentured human community hangs suspended high above a poisoned, acid atmosphere. Her assignment is to choose a suitable homicide suspect from among those who have sold their futures to escape existences even worse than this one. And no matter where the trail leads her she must do nothing to implicate the hosts, who hold the power to obliterate humankind in an instant.

But Andrea Cort is not about to hold back in her hunt for a killer. For she has nothing to lose and harbors no love for her masters or fellow indentures. And she herself has felt the terrible exhilaration of taking life

My Review:

Andrea Cort is considered a War Criminal by the standards of her society. Not because she participated in genocide, created weapons of mass destruction, or otherwise participated in a war. Andrea Cort has been a war criminal since the grand old age of 8, when she dared to survive the homicidal frenzy that whipped through and ultimately decimated her community.

The things that happened one night on Bocai had caused such a diplomatic firestorm that the authorities, including the Confederacy and the Bocaians themselves, had declared the survivors better off permanently disappeared.

I still don’t know what happened to most of the others. I suspect they’re dead, or still imprisoned somewhere. But I’d been shipped to someplace I don’t like thinking about, there to be caged and prodded and analyzed in the hope of determining just what environmental cause had turned so many previously peaceful sentients into vicious monsters.

My keepers spent ten years watching for my madness to reoccur. It had been ten years of reminders that I was an embarrassment to my very species, ten years of being escorted from room to room under guard, ten years of being asked if I wanted to kill anything else. The people who studied me during these years were not all inhuman. Some even tried to show me affection, though to my eyes their love had all the persuasive realism of lines in a script being read by miscast actors. Even the best of them knew I was a bomb that could go off again, at any time; if sometimes moved to give me hugs, they never attempted it without a guard in the room. Others, the worst among them, figured that whatever lay behind my eyes had been tainted beyond all repair, and no longer qualified as strictly human—and being less than strictly human themselves, treated themselves to any cruel pleasures they cared to claim from a creature awful enough to deserve anything they did to her.

Even freedom, when it came, came in a form of a slightly longer leash.

“We’ve gotten your latest test scores, Andrea. They’re quite remarkable. You deserve every educational opportunity we can provide for you. But we can’t quite justify letting you go. There are just too many races out there that don’t believe in pleas of temporary insanity, and unless we come up with some solution that stays their hand, they’ll do whatever they can to extradite you. But if you want, you can walk out of here and enjoy Immunity. All you have to do is allow us to remain your legal guardians, for the rest of your natural life.”

We meet Andrea well into her lifetime of servitude to the government that blamed a child for surviving a massacre, and subjected her to a cycle of hatred, rape, and torture before it realized the financial advantages of enslaving her mind in addition to her body.

Andrea is thus titled a Counselor – a Prosecutor for the Diplomatic Corps – authorized to conduct investigations into crimes occurring on various diplomatic bases, and prosecute the identified offenders. All while her supervisor continuously raises legal challenges to her Diplomatic Immunity and the criminals she prosecutes bask in their moral superiority over the Counselor busting them. They may sexually enslave their subordinates or brutally murder their colleagues, but they, at least, are not infamous War Criminals.

The primary plot of Emissaries for the Dead is pure murder mystery, as Andrea investigates the two deaths that brought her to the diplomatic nightmare that is One One One. These murders unexpectedly lead Andrea to uncover the long-buried truths of her past and the massacre that defines her existence. Both plots are skillfully intertwined and engaging, jumping with ease between the two so that we share Andrea’s fatigue and frustration at being forced to simultaneously juggle so many personal, professional, and political issues, but also cannot wait to discover what exactly is going on at One One One.

The supporting cast of characters, ranging from spies to victims to world-weary bureaucrats are as carefully developed as the protagonist. Andrea’s tendency to distrust ensures that she refuses to accept anyone at face value, and keeps digging until we have a full comprehension of each character we meet.

Adam Troy Castro creates an impressively vast world for Andrea to inhabit. There is never any doubt that she exists in a universe filled with hundreds of sentient species, thousands of governments, and one giant bureaucratic clusterfuck that barely manages to pull together the unified human front necessary for our species to navigate impossibly complex interstellar relations. He also manages to skillfully include one of the most apt descriptions (and criticisms) of administrative government that is as true today as it is in the future inhabited by Andrea Cort and the other denizens of One One One (just exchange the futuristic bonds to get off-world for modern student loan debt):

“As far as I’m concerned,” Lastogne said, with weary contempt, “the Dip Corps is a meritocracy in reverse. By its very design, nobody who sticks around is any good. The genuinely talented work off their bonds quickly thanks to incentives and bonuses. The incompetent get fined with extra time and find themselves shunted to more and more irrelevant assignments. Everybody in the great big mediocre middle, and everybody insane enough to fall off the scale entirely, winds up assigned to Management—and Management’s never been interested in really doing the job, not at any point in human history. Management’s true agenda has always been making things more pleasant for Management.”

Perhaps this is why the Diplomatic Corps went to such lengths to enslave Andrea? In the normal course of things, brilliant young minds such as hers flee government servitude, while she has been forced to embrace the slightly larger cage offered by her tormentors. I guess you’ll just have to read Emissaries From the Dead to find out!

Escape Rating A for Andrea Kicking Ass! In the end it is impossible to disclose too much about the plot without spoilers. It is safe to say that this War Criminal Turned Space Lawyer is a riveting read that you will not be able to put down. The world-building is top notch, the characters are fully-developed and consistent. The plot is a page turner that kept me up all night and forced me to immediately delve into Book 2, The Third Claw of God, which I will be reviewing next week. (Spoiler Alert: Loved It!)

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Festive in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on December 3, 2014November 29, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook borrowed from the library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, large print paperback, audiobook
Genre: mystery
Series: In Death, #39
Length: 390 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: September 9, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Personal trainer Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition. If you didn’t count the kitchen knife in his well-toned chest.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who’d been loved and left by the narcissistic gym rat. While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler’s enemies, she’s also dealing with her Christmas shopping list—plus the guest list for her and her billionaire husband’s upcoming holiday bash.
Feeling less than festive, Dallas tries to put aside her distaste for the victim and solve the mystery of his death. There are just a few investigating days left before Christmas, and as New Year’s 2061 approaches, this homicide cop is resolved to stop a cold-blooded killer.

My Review:

I love this series, and every time I read one, I get a different answer as to why.

For one thing, Dallas’ version of deadpan snarker makes me laugh every single time. She has all the gallows humor of a career police officer, combined with a nearly complete lack of reference to what other people think is normal.

There’s a running gag in Festive in Death that cliches and proverbs make zero sense when analyzed. Which is true in every single example that comes up. And every time Eve tries to parse one out, she sends Roarke down a verbal rabbithole that drags him completely off his original topic. They are absolutely marvelous together.

A lot of this particular story is about family. For Eve and Roarke, the Christmas season is all about the “family you make”. Or in their case, watching the families that each of them has made continue to blend together into a single, slightly crazy, whole.

Their crazy-in-a-good-way but slightly dysfunctional family is contrasted directly with the family of two of the suspects in this episode’s murder-of-the-week.

At first, Eve isn’t sure that they ARE suspects. What is certain is that they were victims of the recently deceased scumbag, and that the way that he victimized them gives them and their families strong motives for murdering him.

This case was a bit different in that no one is mourning the dead jerk. Even Dallas is slightly conflicted; she’s not sorry he’s dead, at least partially because it robs her of the opportunity to lock him up for a couple of decades.

Trey Ziegler was a personal trainer who did not stick to his day job. He also fucked his clients for money and favors, which makes him a prostitute. In Eve’s version of the future, Licensed Companion is a profession, and yes, notice the licensed. Unlicensed selling of sex for money is still illegal. But Ziegler went two better (or worse). He used date-rape drugs to remove his clients’ inhibitions, and then he blackmailed them for having seemingly given in.

As I said, dead scumbag leaving plenty of victims with motives behind him.

Two of the many women he screwed over were sisters, which creeps both of them out. But even more scummy, he was also blackmailing one sister’s jerkwad husband over keeping a mistress using his rich wife’s money.

The problem that Eve has to solve is not who had motive and opportunity, or even who benefits (dead blackmailer lets lots of people off the hook), but whose applecart did the guy most threaten to upset?

In the middle of dealing with, and sometimes running away from, the biggest Christmas party that Eve and Roarke have ever hosted, Eve worries away at solving the crime. The person she wants to be the murderer is scummy, but may not quite be scummy enough.

It’s only when the killer claims a second victim that Eve finally puts it all together.

Escape Rating B+: I pored through this one until late in the night. It was just plain fun to read, and there were lots of laugh out loud moments.

But what I enjoyed was watching Eve and Roarke’s family celebrate the holidays. Eve is starting to see this very mixed gang of cops and corporate types as their family, and it’s a revelation for her. Also, as unsocialized as she sometimes is, seeing her see and feel that there are some things you just suck up because, well, family was a lot of growth that happens without going back to the angst-factory.

Eve’s intense dislike of parties, socializing and being the center of attention does not count as angst. It usually counts as funny.

I love these people, not just Eve and Roarke but the entire gang. I can’t wait to find out how they’re doing after Christmas in Obsession in Death.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Post by Author Sonya Clark + Giveaway

Posted on December 2, 2014November 30, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> Giveaways

Today I would like to welcome back Sonya Clark, who recently published the third entry in the Magic Born series, Firewall (reviewed here). If you like dystopian fiction with a romantic and scientific twist, the Magic Born series, starting with Trancehack (reviewed here), is absolutely awesome.

Silver Wheels and spoilers
by Sonya Clark

It’s really hard to talk about some of my favorite things about Firewall without giving away spoilers, but I’m going to try. In Trancehack, the first Magic Born book, witch Calla Vesper is shown stealing a little WI-FI from an arcade. She uses it to trancehack, a type of magic that uses astral projection to enter cyberspace. In the next book, Witchlight, I introduced a new game popular at the arcade, called Silver Wheels. In Firewall, the creator of the game is introduced as a secondary character.

Here’s a little about the game itself: Silver Wheels is set in a futuristic oppressive dystopian world. The name comes from the main character of the game, an anonymous champion of hacktivists and free-information advocates. Silver Wheels is seen in gameplay speeding around on a super-fast motorcycle, wearing a mirrorball helmet. As tensions rise in New Corinth and protests become a weekly event, the character of Silver Wheels becomes a symbol to the Normals who want the Magic Laws that take their magic-capable children away from them. And the witches trapped inside the zone known as FreakTown are happy to spell random objects to turn into witchlight versions of Silver Wheels, to be tossed into the streets during the protests.

Now for a little about Silver Wheels, the character: By the time Firewall starts, fugitive witch Tuyet Caron, who works for the Magic Born underground, has been in contact with the game’s creator for some time. She refers to him as Silver Wheels. He also helps the underground, working within cyberspace to find information, monitor Normal communications, facilitate Magic Born communications between zones, and anything else he can do. And he does it from within cyberspace because that’s where he exists. Silver Wheels is a witch who has permanently trancehacked.

I’d love to talk about the reasons for this, but it’s a spoiler. His real identity is confirmed in my favorite scene in the book, which I can’t post as an excerpt because it’s a spoiler. Darn spoilers! It’s frustrating to not be able to talk about certain aspects of a book because of spoilers, but worth it in the long run so that readers make those discoveries on their own.

About Sonya Clark
Sonya Clark grew up a military brat and now lives in Tennessee with her husband and daughter. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance with a heavy helping of magic and lots of music for inspiration.

To learn more about Sonya, visit her website.

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