Month: August 2015

Review: Fearless by Elliott James + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
fearless by elliott jamesFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Pax Arcana #3
Length: 448 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Date Released: August 11, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

When your last name is Charming, rescuing virgins comes with the territory — even when the virgin in question is a nineteen-year-old college boy.

Someone, somewhere, has declared war on Kevin Kichida, and that someone has a long list of magical predators on their rolodex. The good news is that Kevin lives in a town where Ted Cahill is the new sheriff and old ally of John Charming.

The attacks on Kevin seem to be a pattern, and the more John and his new team follow that thread, the deeper they find themselves in a maze of supernatural threats, family secrets, and age-old betrayals. The more John learns, the more convinced he becomes that Kevin Kichida isn’t just a victim, he’s a sacrifice waiting to happen. And that thread John’s following? It’s really a fuse…

My Review:

daring by elliott jamesI rushed into Fearless immediately after finishing Daring (review next week) and I absolutely couldn’t stop reading it all day. Read at breakfast, read at lunch, read on the stationary bike, read during game saves and cut scenes. Just read.

The Pax Arcana series is gripping and gritty urban fantasy of the “hero is a snarkmaster” school of thought. Start with Charming (reviewed here). John Charming isn’t charming, but he has a cynical way of explaining what’s going on that will keep you turning pages long after you should get some sleep.

So far, at least, John Charming isn’t really very charming, and although he can be daring, at least in the “fools rush in” sense, he isn’t fearless either. It’s just that most of John’s fears are for the people around him and not for himself. He’s having a hard time admitting that he deserves a chance at happiness, or peace of mind, or even a decent night’s sleep.

In Fearless, we have the first story where John rushes in to save someone who is not a member of his merry band of tricksters, and a story where John himself does not start out as the primary bait or target.

Sheriff Ted Cahill, former Clayburg police detective (in Charming) and current Tatum County Sheriff and recently made dhampir, has invited John and his friends to help him with a missing persons cases that smells supernaturally fishy.

So John begins this story as a not-so-innocent bystander, sitting in a diner with his almost-girlfriend Sig and watching as seemingly every creepy and/or inanimate being or thing in Tatum starts zeroing in on college-student Kevin Kichida, who feels (or smells) just a little bit supernatural himself.

The trail leads John and Company to a powerful witch baking bread near Tatum, and a supernaturals-only underground fight-club in New York City. As John and Sig navigate the crowded supernatural community of New York, they try to draw just the right amount of attention from the man who runs the fight club – an old man who has spent centuries using his own descendants in an attempt to make himself a god.

Poor Kevin is his grandson, and he’s scheduled to be granddad’s next human sacrifice – unless John and Sig and their friends can get to granddad first. And end him.

Escape Rating A-: Rules are made to be broken. Or in the case of the Pax Arcana, seriously, seriously bent. One of the continuing threads in this series is the way that the bad guys, or the deluded guys, will use the letter of the Pax to get around the spirit of it.

While I’m specifically thinking of the way that the Knights have indoctrinated all of their generations to believe that werewolves and other supes are a threat to the Pax just be their existence (they actually aren’t), the whole thing gets stretched to its limits by the evil dude in Fearless.

He is always very, very careful to hide what he is doing from the normals, even as he pulls shit that makes everyone want to hurl. He never exposes the supernatural community to outsiders. He just wrecks completely magical murderous crap within it.

Breeding descendants solely for the purpose of taking over their bodies and extending your life is so disgusting that even his own ancestors have rejected him.

charming by elliott jamesThe Knights, and other so-called defenders of the Pax are often evil bystanders, and by that I mean in the sense of “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” With a lot of truly evil creatures, the Knights and their associated brethren do a whole lot of nothing, while pursuing too many people who are willing to live and let live, but stretch the Knights’ definition of people.

Like John Charming and his friends. They take on Kevin’s grandfather not because no one else can, but because no one else will.

The way that the final pieces of the plot/counterplot come together at the end is awesome, and also awesomely convoluted. One of the conventions of this series, at least so far, is that we don’t see all of the pieces until after the dust has barely settled, and John finally explains what he and his cohorts did. It lets the reader get caught up in the danger zone, without knowing how it will all turn out. I like it.

I also like John Charming and his rather motley group of friends. John is definitely out of the snarky anti-hero as hero school of urban fantasy. His self-talk and overall narrative tone have the kind of gritty cynicism that reminds me of Harry Dresden in the later Dresden Files, or or John Taylor in Simon R. Green’s Nightside. John Charming is never quite sure whether he’s mostly a good guy because he wants to be, or because he’s compelled to be, or because staying with Sig and their friends is way better for his humanity than going back to being a lone wolf.

Fearless also has the feel of a big caper story. There are a lot of moving parts, some of which are moving in realms and phases that we can’t see. In the end, those parts all come together in an explosive climax that will make you groan, and then, finally and in relief, cheer.

After the end of Fearless, the eARC included a sneak preview of the untitled fourth book in this terrific series. While I’m ecstatic to know that there IS a next book, I’m afraid to read the preview. I know it will be just too much of a tease because I already want it NOW!

Fearless Button 300 x 225

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

As part of the tour, there is a prize of one $15 Amazon Gift Card to a lucky commenter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***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: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
youre never weird on the internet by felicia dayFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: autobiography
Length: 272 pages
Publisher: Touchstone
Date Released: August 11, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

From online entertainment mogul, actress, and “queen of the geeks” Felicia Day, a funny, quirky, and inspiring memoir about her unusual upbringing, her rise to Internet-stardom, and embracing her individuality to find success in Hollywood.

The Internet isn’t all cat videos. There’s also Felicia Day—violinist, filmmaker, Internet entrepreneur, compulsive gamer, hoagie specialist, and former lonely homeschooled girl who overcame her isolated childhood to become the ruler of a new world…or at least semi-influential in the world of Internet Geeks and Goodreads book clubs.

After growing up in the south where she was “homeschooled for hippie reasons”, Felicia moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress and was immediately typecast as a crazy cat-lady secretary. But Felicia’s misadventures in Hollywood led her to produce her own web series, own her own production company, and become an Internet star.

Felicia’s short-ish life and her rags-to-riches rise to Internet fame launched her career as one of the most influential creators in new media. Now, Felicia’s strange world is filled with thoughts on creativity, video games, and a dash of mild feminist activism—just like her memoir.

Hilarious and inspirational, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is proof that everyone should embrace what makes them different and be brave enough to share it with the world, because anything is possible now—even for a digital misfit.

My Review:

This is a difficult book to review. I enjoyed it. A lot. I was compulsively reading it while at a baseball game with a bunch of friends and colleagues, which was rude but I couldn’t stop. But after reading it I have the feeling that I’m part of the intended audience, after all, I’m a female geek. Just not one with half the courage that Felicia Day demonstrates in her story.

You’re Almost Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is definitely a book for the same audience as The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy (reviewed here), even though it covers the same ground in a very different way – and is also less optimistic and more upfront about the trolls that have invaded geek spaces and have their axes out and ground and waiting for any woman to dare to invade their defended turf.

There was an old cartoon in The New Yorker, back in 1993 before the internet became completely ubiquitous. Thanks to Wikipedia, I’m reproducing it here:

Peter Steiner's cartoon, as published in The New Yorker
Peter Steiner’s cartoon, as published in The New Yorker

But this cartoon sums up the early parts of Felicia Day’s involvement with computers and the internet – she was a somewhat isolated homeschooled kid who liked very geeky stuff and didn’t have a community she could be herself in – until she discovered computer gaming and online chat rooms and all the slightly awkward and totally amazing online communication tools that predated the WWW explosion.

And in those online spaces she found people who shared her passions, and who had no way of knowing that she was a 14 or 15 or 16 year old girl. But then, she knew little about their real lives or in-person selves either.

There was a lot of freedom in that ability to hide behind an avatar and a screen name that allowed her, and lots of others like her, to flourish.

It’s unfortunately the same kind of anonymity that permits the garbage spewed by gamergaters and their ilk, but that was then and this is now.

The story here is how Felicia managed to take all of that geekish wonder, along with a certain number of possibly OCD compulsions and a need for an audience, and turned it into a very quirky twisty-turny career that may have begun by being in the right place at the right time, but also included a lot of sheer cussed determination and a tough ability to fight her own personal demons while living a life out loud and online.

This is a story for anyone who believes in the adage, “Do what you love and the money will follow,” who is willing to put in a lot of unpaid sweat equity and put up with a lot of sweaty fears to finally reach that point where the money knocks on the battered door.

Reality Rating B+: If you have some personal history of geekishness, Felicia’s description of her journey into the early online spaces and the effect they had on her life can’t help but remind you of your own.

Or at least, it did me. I built my first PC in 1979 from a Heathkit, and the difference having a word processor and letter-quality printer made between my undergraduate and graduate degrees was amazing, even if the letter-quality printer did sound a lot like a small-scale artillery barrage.

I wasn’t as involved with online communities anywhere near as much as Felicia, but I remember the way the world opened up as it became possible to be involved with people all over the world who had the same geekish interests that I did – those same interests that generally get one laughed at or teased among people with more down-to-earth hobbies.

This experience was one that a lot of people who were online in the 1980s and 1990s will appreciate and remember fondly, like the sound of an old modem making a connection. I thought it sounded like a dragon breathing.

But Felicia did something that most of us don’t do – she made a career out of all of her geekish loves, in spite of being classically introverted and more than a bit shy. She pushed herself, and all of her friends, into pursuing a goal that either seemed crazy or unattainable at the beginning, and she made it happen.

She also talks about the cost to herself as she relentlessly pursued goals sometimes to the point of obsession, and certainly to the point of burnout. As in most fairy tales, the ring comes with a curse, and it bit her.

So she’s pretty upfront about her gaming addiction while she was still struggling, and her depression and burnout when she started making it but couldn’t let herself off the merry-go-round pursuit of perfection in all things. There’s a cautionary tale in here along with the quirkiness and the joy.

And last but not least, some serious talk about the entrenched misogyny in some online geek spaces and her own battles with the trolls. It’s sad and scary and sooner or later affects all women who think about standing out in online culture. This is true whether they stand up and stand out like Felicia and Anita Sarkeesian, or whether they self-censor or opt-out like so many of us do out of fear of online reprisal.

All in all, though, this is a positive story about figuring out what you love and pursuing that dream – and fighting your demons along the way.

***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: Stormbringer by Alis Franklin + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
stormbringer by alis franklinFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: The Wyrd #2
Length: 374 pages
Publisher: Random House Hydra
Date Released: July 21, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Ragnarok—aka the end of the world—was supposed to doom the gods as well. Instead, it was a cosmic rebooting. Now low-level IT tech and comic-book geek Sigmund Sussman finds himself an avatar of a Norse goddess. His boyfriend, the wealthy entrepreneur Lain Laufeyjarson, is channeling none other than Loki, the trickster god. His best friends, Em and Wayne, harbor the spirits of slain Valkyries. Cool, right?

The problem is, the gods who survived the apocalypse are still around—and they don’t exactly make a great welcoming committee. The children of Thor are hellbent on reclaiming their scattered birthright: the gloves, belt, and hammer of the Thunder God. Meanwhile, the dwarves are scheming, the giants are pissed, and the goddess of the dead is demanding sanctuary for herself and her entire realm.

Caught in the coils of the Wyrd, the ancient force that governs gods and mortals alike, Sigmund and his crew are suddenly facing a second Ragnarok that threatens to finish what the first one started. And all that stands in the way are four nerds bound by courage, love, divine powers, and an encyclopedic knowledge of gaming lore.

My Review:

The road FROM Hel is also paved with good intentions. And every story needs a villain – but it doesn’t need to be the SAME villain. Not even when that villain is Loki.

One last important point, by way of the American humorist Will Rogers, “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” There are all too many people (and beings) in Asgard that think they know all about Loki and his lies and betrayals, only to discover that what most of them know is wrong, and it’s that wrong that gets everyone in seriously big trouble.

liesmith by alis franklinStormbringer picks up right where Liesmith left off. And if you haven’t read the absolutely awesome Liesmith, Stormbringer is going to be more than a teensy bit confusing. On the other hand, Liesmith is utterly fantastic urban fantasy, so if you love UF, go get Liesmith.

A lot of the things that Asgard believed about Ragnarok come not quite true at the end of Liesmith. (It helps if you know a little about Norse mythology, but deep knowledge isn’t strictly necessary).

Way back in the day, over 1,000 years ago, Odin had plans to subvert Ragnarok by having his beloved son Baldr and his always sacrificed frenemy Loki body swap. Unfortunately for Odin, Loki’s wife Sigyn did a swap of her own, and attended Ragnarok in Loki’s place wearing Loki’s armor. So Baldr and Loki stayed swapped. For a millenia. It messed them both up something awful. Naturally.

Asgard has never recovered from what it perceived as Loki’s betrayal. He wasn’t guilty, but since the prevailing mythos that surrounds Loki is that he is always guilty, everyone acted on that belief, often to their detriment, nearly always to Loki’s.

The story in Stormbringer is all about a whole bunch of Asgardians believing that Loki is the root of all evil, and treating him so horribly that while it can definitely be argued that they are way more evil than anything Loki is even thought to have done, he feels forced to do some fairly bad stuff to fix the mess he has walked into.

Meanwhile, back at the Lokabrenna ranch, Loki’s daughter Hel enlists Sigmund and his friends Wayne and Em on a quest of her own. It turns out that Hel set up a whole chunk of the events in Liesmith for her own purposes. She wants to get her people, the supposedly dishonored dead into Valhalla. But Valhalla is only for those who died in battle, which Hel has finally done.

That not many people die in battle these days has caused a serious population explosion in Hel. Their goddess wants to remedy that by getting them all into Valhalla, and by the way reuniting the dead warriors in Valhalla with their not-illustrious but still beloved wives and small children, who generally did not die gloriously in battle.

So while Loki is being abused all over Asgard and the associated realms by one group, Hel, with Sigmund and Wayne and Em recreate Aragorn’s march from the Paths of the Dead from Return of the King by heading towards Valhalla. The difference is that Aragorn’s march was intended to end in a battle. Hel hopes for peace and reunification, and only ends up with a battle after someone cheats.

The story, like Liesmith, ends with a surprising bang, and goes nowhere that anyone involved, including the reader, ever imagined.

And it’s utterly cool.

Escape Rating A-: One of the things that always gets me about modern interpretations of Loki stories is that Loki is always evil and the big villain. Except he wasn’t. He was a trickster god, a chaos agent. Every mythology seems to have one.

Chaos is not necessarily evil per se, but it is always upsetting to those who benefit from the current status quo and don’t want anything to change.

When Stormbringer begins, Loki and Baldr are both kinda sharing the body of Lain Laufeyjarson, who isn’t either of them exactly, but isn’t not, either. It’s as confusing for Lain and his boyfriend Sigmund as it may be for the audience. The entire confusion factor is much higher because Sigmund is the reincarnation (more or less) of Loki’s wife Sigyn, and his BFFs Wayne and Em, who are both female in spite of Wayne’s name, are reincarnations of Valkyries.

Hel needs Sigmund’s Valkyrie friends. Lain needs Sigmund to rescue him from the mess he has been dropped into, only partly of his own making, in Asgard. And Asgard and all of the other realms surrounding it need to seriously get themselves updated from the 10th century to the 21st.

A lot of what goes wrong on the Asgard side revolves around not paying attention and not keeping up. The Earth has moved on from the days that the Vikings went a-Viking, but Asgard never got the memo. And that’s in spite of warriors in the intervening centuries who have found themselves in Valhalla, WITH all their kit.

So there are two stories going on, Thor’s kids taking Lain on what they believe is a one-way trip to retrieve their father’s treasures by way of a past that never was, and Sigmund and his friends supporting Hel in what becomes a 20th century style protest movement against a tyrannical regime that has gone on way too long.

The story is crazy wild and utterly absorbing. I did find myself wishing I knew a bit more about Norse mythology, but that’s just me. There is enough explanation to get the reader through the mythical bits.

The Asgardians, who are all-too-appropriately called as, pronounced ass, have acted like asses to everyone around them. The reader wants them to get their comeuppance. Lain falls all too far into the trap of being Loki, and discovers that he really needs Sigmund to keep him making good decisions. Sigmund discovers that he can be a hero with a little help from his and Lain’s friends. It makes their relationship just a bit more equal.

But the thing I loved most about this story was the way that the eventual solutions to the mess all come from women’s ideas and women’s decisions. Not just Hel, but also Wayne and Em and Thor’s daughter Trud and especially Baldr’s wife Nonna. With a little bit of help from the Loki’s other daughters and the part of Sigyn that lives in Sigmund.

Even though the majority of this story is set in Asgard, I would have preferred that the author had stuck to the common English translations or transliterations of most of the names. It is possible to get a bit lost, especially attempting to search Wikipedia for what else is known about some of the characters.

On that infamous other hand, that Lain’s car turned out to be Sleipnir was just plain awesome.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

As part of the tour, the giveaway is a $25 gift card to the eBook retailer of the winner’s choice + eBook copy of LIESMITH by Alis Franklin

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 8-9-15

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

Sunday Post

Today is officially National Book Lovers Day!

I’m not sure a single day is sufficient. If you believe in the “so many books, so little time” school of thought then one day barely scratches the surface (or makes a dent in the towering TBR pile). But it is lovely that there is an official day to promote the love of books and reading and to support those of us who are perpetually lost in a good book. Even when we are sometimes lost in a bad book.

The summer doldrums also seem to be over. We have giveaways again, and winner announcements. There are also a couple of giveaways coming up this week, so stay tuned.

eReaderGiveaway_Horz_BPCurrent Giveaways:

Two Kindle Fires, one Kindle Paperwhite, one Kindle Touchscreen plus dozens of author prizes in the Summertime eReader Giveaway
All 6 titles in the Harlequin End of Summer Tour, a limited edition Harlequin notebook plus a $50 Visa gift card in the End of Summer Tour

Winner Announcements:

The winner of Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann is Brandi D.

back to you by lauren daneBlog Recap:

Summertime eReader Giveaway
Guest Post by Lauren Dane – Hurley Family Summer Itinerary + Giveaway
B+ Review: Back to You by Lauren Dane
B+ Review: Charming by Elliott James
B Review: Whiskey and Wry by Rhys Ford
B+ Review: One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron
Stacking the Shelves (147)

 

 

end of all things by john scalziComing Next Week:

Stormbringer by Alis Franklin (blog tour review)
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day (review)
Fearless by Elliott James (blog tour review)
The End of All Things by John Scalzi (review)
Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse by A.L. Kennedy (review)

Stacking the Shelves (147)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves

I generally find books irresistible. As if you couldn’t tell. And once I get caught up in a series, I find it difficult to let go.

I’m saying this because I’m still surprised that I pre-ordered a copy of The Last Time I Saw Her by Karen Robards. I’ve read the whole series, but there have been eARCs before. Not this time. This particular series have been “train-wreck” books for me. They all strain the willing suspension of disbelief, and sometimes even the willing suspension of stupid. But they’re like crack. Or as I said, train-wreck. I know it’s going to be horrible, and I absolutely can’t turn my eyes away. Over and over and over. I laugh at myself for reading this series, but I can’t make myself stop.

once in a great city by david maraniss
commissioned in white by donna mcdonald
lamp black wolf grey by paula brackston
long upon the land by margaret maron
game of the red king by jael wye
owl and the city of angels by kristi charish
last time i saw her by karen robards
sisters in law by linda hirshman
make me by tessa bailey
penrics demon by lois mcmaster bujold
here all along by crista mchugh

For Review:
Game of the Red King (Once Upon a Red World #3) by Jael Wye
Here All Along (Kelly Brothers #7) by Crista McHugh
Lamp Black, Wolf Grey by Paula Brackston
Make Me (Broke and Beautiful #3) by Tessa Bailey
Once in a Great City by David Maraniss
Owl and the City of Angels (Adventures of Owl #2) by Kristi Charish
Sisters in Law by Linda Hirshman

Purchased from Amazon:
Commissioned in White (Art of Love #4) by Donna McDonald
The Last Time I Saw Her (Dr. Charlotte Stone #4) by Karen Robards
Long Upon the Land (Deborah Knott #20) by Margaret Maron
Penric’s Demon (World of the Five Gods #3.5) by Lois McMaster Bujold

 

Review: One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
one good dragon deserves another by Rachel aaronFormat read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Heartstrikers #2
Length: 463 pages
Publisher: Aaron/Bach LLC
Date Released: August 1, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

After barely escaping the machinations of his terrifying mother, two all knowing seers, and countless bloodthirsty siblings, the last thing Julius wants to see is another dragon. Unfortunately for him, the only thing more dangerous than being a useless Heartstriker is being a useful one, and now that he’s got an in with the Three Sisters, Julius has become a key pawn in Bethesda the Heartstriker’s gamble to put her clan on top.

Refusal to play along with his mother’s plans means death, but there’s more going on than even Bethesda knows, and with Estella back in the game with a vengeance, Heartstriker futures disappearing, and Algonquin’s dragon hunter closing in, the stakes are higher than even a seer can calculate. But when his most powerful family members start dropping like flies, it falls to Julius to defend the clan that never respected him and prove that, sometimes, the world’s worst dragon is the best one to have on your side.

My Review:

In the end, One Good Dragon Deserves Another was a compelling and completely wild ride. It builds up a bit slow, but once the story really kicks into gear, the fun never stops.

nice dragons finish last by rachel aaronOne Good Dragon takes place a month after the end of Nice Dragons Finish Last (reviewed here). For our heroes, “nice dragon” Julius and his human mage friend and business partner Marci, that month is definitely the calm before the very big storm.

It’s the first time in his relatively short (for a dragon) life that Julius has felt successful, and it’s the first time he’s ever really been happy. It is necessary to read Nice Dragons Finish Last to understand just what a marvelous change this is for Julius.

He is happy because his family has left him completely alone. Not only is no one kicking him around (literally) and reminding him what a failure he is as a dragon at every turn, but he’s working, he’s reasonably competent at it, and Marci is his best friend. That he’s also in love with her is pretty much the icing on the cake. Even though he’s afraid to say or do anything to upset the balance of their friendship, he’s happy just being with her every day.

Then everything goes to hell in a handbasket, fought over by multiple psychopathic dragons, and Julius is caught right in the middle. He’s going to have to seriously “dragon up” in order to get himself and Marci out of the mess that his family has dropped them into, but he has to do it by being more of who he is, and not succumbing to who they are or who they expect him to be.

It’s a very tall order for the Heartstriker clan’s most undragonish dragon – but it is only by being himself that he might possibly save them from themselves – and save the world.

Escape Rating B+: This story starts out very small, and gets bigger (and wilder) as it goes along. I found the first third a bit slow going, but once Julius, and the reader, discover how big the stakes really are in this fight, I couldn’t flip pages fast enough.

Part of the slow start is that Julius and Marci are living a very quiet life, which we need to see in order to contrast it with what happens later. The other thing for this reader is that I found Julius’ family situation intolerable and hated every single of one of his relatives, especially his psychopathic mother.

Some of his siblings do reveal their true colors and become more tolerable, but mother never gets any better. And while I understand more of Bethesda’s motivations now than I did in the first book, she is still a whole lot of evil for evil’s sake, as well as arrogance for arrogance’s sake and a whole bunch of other nastiness thrown in.

While the plot of this story involves a clan war between the Three Sisters Dragons and Bethesda’s Heartstrikers, the core of the conflict is love gone very, very wrong, and all the way beyond hate. Estella of the Three Sisters is a dragon seer, and she wants to wipe out her former lover and only rival, Brohomir (usually called Bob) of the Heartstrikers. Estella is so far gone that she doesn’t care if she sacrifices her sisters to her obsession, and is perfectly willing to destroy the world to accomplish her goal.

That we see the world the dragons came from, and discover that Estella’s methods really can destroy the world explains a lot about dragons in general and Estella in particular. It’s also very sad and quite affecting.

The big theme of this story, through all the battles, all the setbacks and all the machinations, is that Julius needs to quit being ashamed and guilty about being a “nice dragon” and discover the true power of being willing to see the other side and reach out to other clans and simply negotiate with others in good faith instead of doing unto them before they even think of doing onto him.

That’s his mother’s way, and all it is has done is sacrifice too any of his brothers and sisters and bring the Heartstrikers to the brink of war – over and over and over. He has to stand up for himself, and those he calls friends, and even for the concept of friendship, in order for all of them to survive.

It’s damn hard and the way that he does it is pretty awesome.

But no good deed goes unpunished, and that punishment looks like the theme of the third book in this series, tentatively titled A Dragon of a Different Color. I can’t wait.

***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: Charming by Elliott James

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
charming by elliott jamesFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Pax Arcana #1
Length: 366 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Date Released: September 24, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

John Charming isn’t your average Prince…

He comes from a line of Charmings — an illustrious family of dragon slayers, witch-finders and killers dating back to before the fall of Rome. Trained by a modern day version of the Knights Templar, monster hunters who have updated their methods from chainmail and crossbows to kevlar and shotguns, he was one of the best. That is — until he became the abomination the Knights were sworn to hunt.

That was a lifetime ago. Now, he tends bar under an assumed name in rural Virginia and leads a peaceful, quiet life. One that shouldn’t change just because a vampire and a blonde walked into his bar… Right?

My Review:

I’m not sure why, but when I originally picked this up, I thought it was going to be slightly cutesy. I think it might have had something to do with the whole “Charming” name. The mental trail went from Charming to Prince Charming to fairy tales to cutesy.

Having read Charming, I can see just how off-base I was, and in a good way. There is a connection between John Charming and Prince Charming, but not the way I thought. The book Charming is urban fantasy of the kick-ass anti-hero school, where the hero and monster hunter is none too sure whether or not he’s one of the monsters himself.

And the kind of dark and gritty world where bad things happen to good people every bit as often, sometimes moreso, as bad things happen to bad people. Or bad monsters. Or just bad things.

This is also a story where the vampires are very definitely the bad guys, and where the werewolves may or may not be much better.

The setup for this particular urban fantasy world is pretty awesome. It’s the Pax Arcana, and as a founding myth, it’s rather cool. The concept is that there has always been magic in the world. The supernatural has always walked (or slithered, or whatever) among us. But, and it’s a very big but, when the fae folk left our world for wherever, they left behind a powerful spell that prevents any normal human from truly seeing all that magical weirdness that happens all around us.

And being tricksy fae, they also created an all too human group of Pax enforcers and scattered them all over the world, under a magical compulsion that makes them fight the supernatural and protect mankind. It also makes them reproduce so that they make new generations of guardians to protect the world.

The internet is making their lives a bit difficult, something that will probably feature more in later books.

This story, and the series, centers on John Charming. He’s supposed to be one of those Knight-enforcer types, but something went seriously wrong. His mother was bitten by a werewolf just before he was born. He might be a werewolf. He might not, But his former colleagues have decided that whatever he is, he’s an abomination who must be eliminated. They keep trying, often with catastrophic results and collateral damage. Their neverending hunt keeps John alone and on the run.

Until a Valkyrie walks into his bar, hunting a very stupid vampire who has some surprisingly smart friends.

John finds himself in the middle of her vampire hunt, and part of a group of surprising, and surprisingly ept, volunteer monster hunters. John finds himself doing the right and wrong thing simultaneously, as he falls for the Valkyrie and drives her lover to become an even bigger monster than the ones they are hunting.

And all he wanted to do was stay safe, keep his head down, and quietly tend bar. But John Charming’s life is never that quiet.

Escape Rating B+: While the dark and gritty setting and tone of this story will remind a lot of readers of every urban fantasy they’ve ever read and loved, the creation and explanation of the Pax Arcana itself is extremely cool. It’s a combination of self-fulfilling prophecy and vicious cycle all rolled into one. One often very nasty, but still, one.

The story is told in John’s first person perspective. It gives the author an excuse to explain the way the world works, and we see John’s twisted view of his world and everything in it. In some ways, John and his world remind me of the early years of The Dresden Files, without as much descent into the male gaze. Although at least so far, John’s love life is every bit as unlucky as Harry’s.

One of the things I liked about the overall story is that it doesn’t descend into a romance, or even worse, the dreaded love triangle. It’s not that John and Sig the Valkyrie don’t have strong feelings for each other, but there’s no hearts and flowers, and certainly no HEA or even HFN. Instead, they act as catalysts in each other’s lives, making the other realize that there is shit they need to take care of before they might be ready for each other or someone else.

Of course, some of Sig’s shit nearly gets everyone killed.

I hope we see the good parts of this team again. Both Molly and Choo represent different and equally bizarre and believable ways that regular people might find themselves discovering the Pax. Sig’s story about how she enlisted Police Detective Ted Cahill by hanging him over a building and forcing him to see the magic is equally off-base and equally plausible in this world. She needs a cop, so she recruits one by force.

All things considered, Charming is a very interesting introduction to a new-to-me gritty urban fantasy world. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series. And for anyone interested in snagging a copy of Charming for their very own, there is a Goodreads giveaway going on right now.

daring by elliott jamesI’m headed straight to Daring, the second book in the series, to see how John gets himself into even more trouble.

***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: Back to You by Lauren Dane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
back to you by lauren daneFormat read: paperback provided by the publisher
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Hurley Boys #3
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Date Released: May 26, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Former model Kelly Hurley has finally put the ashes of the past behind her. After a passionate but turbulent marriage to rock star Vaughan Hurley that ended in heartbreak and divorce, Kelly rebuilt her life in Portland, where she settled so their two young daughters could be close to their father. Just not so close Kelly couldn’t truly make her own way without interference from the man who shattered her heart. Now Kelly’s finally ready to move on, and she’s planning to marry another man.

But not if Vaughan has anything to say about it.

Vaughan knows he was a fool all those years ago. A young, selfish—and prideful—fool. Even as he buried himself in the fast, decadent rock star lifestyle, he could never drown out the memory of Kelly’s beauty and love. Or the sweet, searing heat whenever they touched. For years, he’s had to deal with the pain of seeing her only because of their daughters, but it was never enough. Now Vaughan must prove that he’s the only man Kelly needs, before he loses her for good. And there’s only one way to do it….

My Review:

August is Romance Awareness Month, so it seems appropriate that the first review of the month is a romance title. Today’s review is also part of the End of Summer Blog Tour, which features, you guessed it, a whole lot of romances all month long. See yesterday’s post for the giveaway.

Back to You is the third book in Lauren Dane’s Hurley Boys series, As the title of the series suggests, the interconnected stories are all about the Hurley brothers, who also make up the hit rock band Sweet Hollow Ranch.

best kind of trouble by lauren daneAll of the stories are second-chance stories. In The Best Kind of Trouble (reviewed here) Paddy Hurley gets a second chance at love with the one girl he never forgot. Now that more than a decade has passed, he has a chance to discover if the chemistry they had so long ago still burns hot enough for the happy ending he never thought he wanted.

In Broken Open (reviewed here), oldest brother Ezra Hurley gets a second chance at life with Tuesday Eastwood, a young widow who is finally ready for her own second chance at love. Ezra just needs to finally realize that he has earned back the love and respect he lost when he took a dive into addiction, and that he deserves to be happy.

During both Paddy’s and Ezra’s stories we get glimpses of the events in their brother Vaughan’s slightly messed up life. Once upon a time, Vaughan was married to Kelly, but they were both much too young to make it work, especially in the middle of Sweet Hollow Ranch’s meteoric rise to the top.

Vaughan wasn’t ready to grow up. Neither was Kelly, but the birth of their first daughter forced her to be a parent whether she was ready or not. She hoped that a second child would pull together the pieces of their rapidly failing marriage, but that worked about as well as it usually does, leaving Kelly a divorced single-mother with two daughters and a broken heart.

Vaughan took a decade to finally grow up. He’s always been a good father to his two girls, but he also had a life on the road, and a house on his parent’s ranch. So it could easily be said that he still lived with his mother and never had to really face adulthood.

Kelly’s engagement to another man finally pulls Vaughan’s head out of his ass. He’s never stopped loving Kelly, and he’s pushed into the realization that if he doesn’t man up instantly, the love of his life is going to marry another man and his daughters will end up calling someone else “Daddy”.

So when Vaughan stops by the house to discover one of his daughter’s about to burst her appendix, he steps up and takes care of the family. His family. And by finally being the man he should have been all along, Kelly kicks the other guy to the curb. Not because of Vaughan, but because the idiot shows that his true colors don’t respect Kelly the way that she requires.

Basically, Mr. Almost Right shows himself to be a complete jerk. While Vaughan steps up to be a true partner in the care of his daughters, and Kelly has to ask herself whether indulging in the chemistry that has never burned out between them is worth the pain when he breaks her heart again.

It takes a lot of proving for Kelly to decide that it might be worth the risk to let Vaughan Hurley back into her heart, as well as into her bed. All it will take is for Vaughan to finally tell his family the truth about just how small a child and how big a jerk he was when their marriage ended the first time around.

Making Vaughan choose between his own mother and the mother of his children could be the worst mistake that Kelly ever makes – or the only way to have the life that she deserves.

broken open by lauren daneEscape Rating B+: I liked Back to You every bit as much as Broken Open, and quite a bit more than The Best Kind of Trouble. The tension in Back to You feels very, very real every step of the way. There’s no manufactured crisis the way there was in Best Kind of Trouble. Vaughan and Kelly have very real and very serious problems. They hurt each other a lot and over and over and for a number of years. They had a lot of trust at one point but Vaughan did an epic job at destroying that trust.

And groveling isn’t the solution. He needs to prove to Kelly, day by day and over and over, that he is ready to be her partner and not just a playmate.

One of the interesting things about this story is the way that it parallels Best Kind of Trouble. If Paddy and Natalie had attempted to stay together way back when they first met, they might have ended up like Vaughan and Kelly.

Another parallel is that all the women have real and serious parent problems. Natalie’s father and Kelly’s mother are both vicious and narcissistic users, of their daughters and anyone else who comes within their sick and twisted orbits. Tuesday’s problem in Broken Open is with her former mother-in-law, who is just as nasty as the other two, but had more time to screw up and over her late son than she did Tuesday. (Tuesday’s own mother is just plain awesome.)

It is ironic that Vaughan’s mother, is generally fantastic, but has been nasty to Kelly over the years because, well, Vaughan screwed that up for both of them and it’s one of the many things he has to make right before he can earn Kelly’s trust.

Although Vaughan is often the point of view character, this is really Kelly’s story. Not just because she has grown up into a fantastic person who Vaughan might not deserve, but because she also refuses to accept anything less than Vaughan’s respect before he earns her trust.

Also, unlike most romances, this is a story where the heroine is very, very clear that love alone is not enough. If Vaughan can’t prove he understands what he did wrong (and it was pretty much all on him) and can’t take care of all the other crap that he has piled up, Kelly shows that she is absolutely willing and able to kick him to the curb again.

In the end, I’m glad that Vaughan finally grew up. Because Kelly really deserves that happy ending.

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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.

Guest Post by Lauren Dane – Hurley Family Summer Itinerary + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways

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Kicking off the End of Summer Blog Tour and Romance Awareness Month, I’d like to welcome one of my favorite authors, Lauren Dane, back to Reading Reality. Today’s guest post is all about the Hurley Family, the stars of Lauren’s latest terrific series, The Hurley Boys. I’ve already enjoyed (and reviewed) the first two books in the series, The Best Kind of Trouble and Broken Open. Tomorrow’s featured review will be the third book, Back to You. I loved it and I hope you will too. In the meantime, just to tide you over until tomorrow, here’s Lauren on just what the Hurley Family has been up to this summer, along with your chance to win a copy of Back to You and all the titles featured in this End of Summer Blog Tour.

Happy reading!

Hurley Family Summer Itinerary

As it happens, the Hurley family is pretty big on being outdoors. It’s a good thing, as they live on a ranch so horses, ATVs and daily work mean they spend a lot of time out in the elements.

Summer means more time to play as well as work. Hood River, Oregon, is right on the Columbia River so there’s plenty of opportunity to get out on the water to boat, windsurf, swim and kayak.

It also means Vaughan and Kelly’s daughters are out of school, so while the newly reunited couple will seek some quiet alone time, they’ll also have time spent with their family in mind.

It’s their first summer back together and these locations are on the itinerary!

1. Sweet Hollow Ranch
More than just the name of the band the Hurley brothers formed well over a decade before, it’s the place they grew up. There’s a rope swing for the nearby creek, and plenty of evenings the girls will sleep over with their grandparents so Vaughan can have Kelly all to himself.

2. New York City
Vaughan and Kelly first met in New York when both were barely out of their teens. Over a decade later, they can come back as a reunited family and enjoy the city they both love so much. There’ll be picnics in Central Park and all manner of shows and things to do.

3. London
One of Kelly’s fondest memories is of when she and Vaughan rode the London Eye when she was pregnant with their oldest child. At the close of their trip Vaughan will propose, for keeps this time.

If you’re a fan of second chances, real love and some pretty amazing grovel, I hope you’ll give BACK TO YOU a read!

About the book:

back to you by lauren daneBack to You by Lauren Dane
Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: HQN Books (May 26, 2015)
What won’t he do for a second chance?
Former model Kelly Hurley has finally put the ashes of the past behind her. After a passionate but turbulent marriage to rock star Vaughan Hurley that ended in heartbreak and divorce, Kelly rebuilt her life in Portland, where she settled so their two young daughters could be close to their father. Just not so close Kelly couldn’t truly make her own way without interference from the man who shattered her heart. Now Kelly’s finally ready to move on, and she’s planning to marry another man.
But not if Vaughan has anything to say about it.
Vaughan knows he was a fool all those years ago. A young, selfish—and prideful—fool. Even as he buried himself in the fast, decadent rock-star lifestyle, he could never drown out the memory of Kelly’s beauty and love. Or the sweet, searing heat whenever they touched. For years, he’s had to deal with the pain of seeing her only because of their daughters, but it was never enough. Now Vaughan must prove that he’s the only man Kelly needs, before he loses her for good. And there’s only one way to do it…

Purchase Links
Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Enter here for your chance to win all six featured titles in the End of Summer Blog Tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER. Purchase or acceptance of a product offer does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes opens 8/3/2015 at 12:01 AM (EDT) and closes 9/1/2015 at 11:59 PM (EDT). Enter online athttps://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/82ae250c9/. Open to legal residents of the U.S. and Canada who have reached the age of majority or older. Void where prohibited by law. Void in Quebec. One (1) prize available to be won consisting of: one (1) print copy of each of Back to You by Lauren Dane, Finding Glory by Sara Arden, Taking the Heat by Vitoria Dahl,Can’t Fight This Feeling by Christie Ridgway, and Second Chance with the Billionaire by Janice Maynard; one (1) e-book copy of Riding Dirty by Jill Sorensen; one (1) Harlequin tote bag; and a Fifty dollar ($50.00 USD) VISA gift card (Total ARV: $92.00 USD). Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received. Full details and Official Rules available online at https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/82ae250c9/. Sponsor: Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

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