An life update

I know, I know. I haven’t posted in ages, but to be truthful I am not sure how many people is actually reading this blog. *g*  The main reason for not posting in ages is because I spent most of June studying botany. Which was intense, but fun.  It also meant I  was online for most of the month. So everything  was basically on hold.  ( And yet I somehow managed to collect 5 ARCs… ).   Which means July should be calmer, right?

Uhm. Not so much.  See, all the things that I put on hold during June still needs to be done.  Like deciding which subjects I’ll blog about over at Ecology for Writers ( I think Invasive Species are first up), and write reviews and other blog posts for Book Recommendations.

And write, of course.  I have been really productive the last days. I have typed in 2000 words, so far.  A part of me is whispering that I could finish the type in this weekend, but at the same time it is summer and I have been in door for the last two days since I got a cold. ( Or at least the beginnings of one.)

And I have discovered that most publicizing sites wants to follow new people for me at Twitter.  My reaction to that: Hell no!  I’ll just keep on being spotty with marketing my blogposts. ( Although I really should do it more often, esp for Book Recommendations)

I have come to the conclusion that I need a desk.  Except the only place for a desk is the corner were I keep the bags with books that I don’t want to keep…

Friday Deals: Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance

This is a really good week for lover of PNR and Urban Fantasy.    I am really happy, since several of the books have been on my wishlist for awhile :).

3.99:

Eleven thousand years ago a god was born. Cursed into the body of a human, Acheron spent a lifetime of shame. His human death unleashed an unspeakable horror that almost destroyed the earth. Brought back against his will, he became the sole defender of mankind. Only it was never that simple. For centuries, he has fought for our survival and hidden a past he never wants revealed. Until a lone woman who refuses to be intimidated by him threatens his very existence. Now his survival, and ours, hinges on hers and old enemies reawaken and unite to kill them both.
War has never been more deadly… or more fun.


Charley sees dead people. That’s right, she sees dead people. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e. murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an Entity who has been following her all her life…and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.

A smashing, award-winning debut novel that introduces Charley Davidson: part-time private investigator and full-time Grim Reaper

2.99:

As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ’s boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.

Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.

While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.

To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo

1.99:
All the creatures of the night gather in “the Hollows” of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party…and to feed.

Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining – and it’s Rachel Morgan’s job to keep that world civilized.

A bounty hunter and witch with serious sex appeal and an attitude, she’ll bring ’em back alive, dead…or undead

Free:
Sebastian DelaCourte has lived centuries, always seeking, wondering about the woman who made him vampire. He desires love. He needs blood. Scarlet Rose captures his heart, and promises love—but not without forcing the two to face the twisted fate of time and undying passion.
This is a twofer, both book one and two combined into one omnibus.

War is coming for the dragon knights…but love may find them first.

A chance meeting with a young male dragon seals the fate of one adventurous female poacher. The dragon’s partner, a ruggedly handsome knight named Gareth, takes one look at the shapely woman and decides to do a little poaching of his own.

Sir Gareth both seduces and falls deeply in love with the girl who is not only unafraid of dragons but also possesses a rare gift—she can hear the beasts’ silent speech. He wants her for his mate, but mating with a knight is no simple thing. To accept a knight, a woman must also accept the dragon, the dragon’s mate…and her knight, Lars, too.

She is at first shocked, then intrigued by the lusty life in the Lair. But war is in the making and only the knights and dragons have a chance at ending it before it destroys their land and their lives.

This book has been revised for rerelease.
Note: This book is Samhain’s current Bookclub pick, which means it will go up in price on Monday. 

On hiatus

You might have noticed that my last post was on June 11th.. The reason for that is  simple.  Right now, I go up at 6.30ish, leave at 8ish, spends the day in the field doing excursions, and returns at 6.00 pm.  Couple that with social obligaions, like birthdays and graduations, and I am too busy to even start the computer most days. 

So I am putting the blog on hiatus until July 1st, since by then things should have calmed down.  

ARC Review: Fire Inside by Kristen Ashley

The Particulars: Contemporary Romance, Forever Yours, available as e-book.
The Source: Galley from Netgalley
The Grade: C
The Blurb:
Lanie Heron isn’t looking for love—no surprise, considering her last serious relationship nearly got her killed. So when Lanie propositions Hop Kincaid, all she wants is one wild night with the hot-as-hell biker who patrols with the Chaos Motorcycle Club…

For Hop, Lanie has always been untouchable. She’s too polished and too classy for his tastes. But when she gives Hop the once-over with her bedroom eyes and offers him a night in paradise, he can’t say no. And he doesn’t regret it when he finds that Lanie is the best thing that’s ever happened to him—in or out of bed. Now the trick will be to convince her of that

The Review:
I read and liked Motorcycle Man, so when I got the chance to read an Arc of Fire Inside, I took it.
It was intresting to revisit Chaos and Ride, and see how they lived now. At the heart, they hadn’t changed.  They were still rough bikers, that had a honor codex they strived to follow. I appreciated how they were determinded to defend their turf.  
I loved Hop. He was rough, he had a temper, but he also had a heart of gold. And my heart melted when I saw all the ways he helped Lanie.  Lanie…  In the beginning, I struggled a bit with Lanie. She had a lot of issues, both from how her fiance died, and how her parents treated her. It was intresting to follow her path from a disharmonic bitch, to being more certain of herself. She grew on me through the book, especially when she started to face her fears.  This  might sound odd, but I appreciated the fact that their relationship wasn’t easy.  That they had their rocky moments, since it added  a sense of uncertainty if they would reach their HEA.

But, despite the fact that I liked several things with the book, the problems I had with  Lanie was too big. Mainly because I never felt the angst Lanie felt after her nightmares, or the passion between them.  I cannot pinpoint why. For me  it just lacked that magical something that takes a good book to a great book.

Embarrassment of Riches May Round up:

I know, I know. This one is a bit late.
A Taste of Magic by Traci Madison.
This was an old, old freebie I had in my Kobo account. I read 5 pages before giving up on it. It just felt.. bland. Which is too bad, since I normally like lighter paranormal romances.
Murder in the Marais by Cara Black
This was another DNF. It was well written, and I liked the character so I’ll probably give it another try later.
Unnatural Issue by Mercedes Lackey
I posted a review of it here, and I’ll just say it wasn’t one of her better ones. Normally I like this series, but here the romance part failed.

Why I stop reading a series

The series goes on and on
Don’t get me wrong, I love opened ended series. But when the books are a tightly connected, we are at book 14 and the author happily announce book 16-18 and states it isn’t the end? I walk away.
I get having a long series, but when I have to re-read the books to remember what happend it isn’t fun anymore. A part of it is also what May wrote about in her post at Smexybooks in May : Keeping your readers informed. It is one thing to say that ” I plan the series to be 13-16 books long, and then I’ll write stand alones.” and one thing to say ” I plan to write in this world forever.” The first makes me keep reading. The second? Makes me walk away.
There are no series arc
Even if the series are focused on just one character, I want a series arc. I want that an event in book one sets up book 2, and book 2 in turn sets up book 3 and so on. If there is no series arc all the books start to blur, and feel the same around book 4.
The characters doesn’t change
This is the most important for me. The characters doesn’t change. They do the same mistakes again, and again. And it just never occurs to them that their actions affect the world around them.
The plot starts to feel formulaic
For me it comes a moment when I read a book, and I realises that it could have been any of the previous books by the author. The books might still be good, but the series isn’t on my autobuy list anymore.

Friday Bargains: All about indie books

The first four books in Karina Halle‘s Experiment in Terror series are discounted to 0.99. ( Actually, book one is free, but  the next 4 books are discounted.)

I loved  Evil Genius by Patricia Rice when I read it a couple of years ago, and right now it is discounted to 2.99. Which is a bargain for this novel.  

I like Marie Force Gansett Island Series, but I haven’t read her Harrington series yet. But it is on my wishlist, and right now Treading Water, book One, is free at Amazon, Smashwords, BN and Kobo.

The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan is also free at the moment. I liked it when I read it last year. ( In fact, I need to get the rest of the series.)

Tarnished Heart by Bec Macallister is free right now. I have heard good things about her, so I’ll probably  read it soon.

Review: Heart of Obsidian by Nalini Singh

WARNING: Contains mild spoilers ( the name of the hero and the heroine) 

The Particulars:  Paranormal Romance, Berkley, available as e-book and in Print

The Source:  The bookstore
The Grade: B
The blurb:

Step into New York Times bestseller Nalini Singh’s explosive and shockingly passionate Psy-Changeling world…

A dangerous, volatile rebel, hands stained bloodred.
A woman whose very existence has been erased.
A love story so dark, it may shatter the world itself.
A deadly price that must be paid.
The day of reckoning is here.

From “the alpha author of paranormal romance” (Booklist) comes the most highly anticipated novel of her career—one that blurs the line between madness and genius, between subjugation and liberation, between the living and the dead

The Review:

I snapped up a copy when my local bookstore by mistake started selling this book too early.  (I got a bit lucky, since they had computer issues, so they couldn’t see that the book had a hard street date 🙂 ) This  is an excellent addition to the Psy Changeling series.

The world of the Psy is crumbling in this book, and there were a lot at stake.The plot was fast paced, with  a deft mix of action and romance.   I couldn’t stop reading, as the book builds toward the final confrontation with Pure Psy.  There were times were I hated Pure Psy for the decisions they made, and the lines they crossed.  
Interwoven in this is the romance subplot.  It was exquisite.  From how Kaleb guided Sahara back out of her shell, to how Sahara started to rebuild her life.  What I liked was how Kaleb opened up with Sahara. And the things he revealed was heart wrenching.   I liked Sahara. She had a spine, which made me cheer for her. I also appreciated that she made her own path during the book. And her gift made me shiver, yet it made sense in a way. I loved how Kaleb and Sahara grounded each other, and created something that was whole from two flawed halves.

Maybe it was because I had been looking forward to this book for so long, but I had some trouble sink in to the story.  Because of that I had trouble connecting with Kaleb and Sahara. It is possibly that it partly stems from  my uncertainty if  they were too scarred to truly love at times. But when they got their HEA it felt right, and they had earned it..



 


Anticipated June Releases

It’s June! Summer, sunshine, and a lot of reading :). And, I am back with my monthly book round up of anticipated releases. It is a bit sparse this month, but it will be PACKED in July ( and even more so in August),


Heart of Obsidian by Nalini Singh

Step into New York Times bestseller Nalini Singh’s explosive and shockingly passionate Psy-Changeling world…
A dangerous, volatile rebel, hands stained bloodred.

A woman whose very existence has been erased.

A love story so dark, it may shatter the world itself.

A deadly price that must be paid.

The day of reckoning is here.

From “the alpha author of paranormal romance” (Booklist) comes the most highly anticipated novel of her career—one that blurs the line between madness and genius, between subjugation and liberation, between the living and the dead.

 If you haven’t read it yet, you are in for a treat! It wasn’t perfect, but it was really, really good.


 His past could end their future
Vampire Dragos Ibanescu, Mayor of Maggie’s Grove, is about to lose his mind. His mate, the dryad queen Mina Chainey, refuses to have anything to do with him after her ordeal at the hands of an evil witch. If he doesn’t mate with her soon, he may lose control of the beast within him—a force far more dangerous than anyone in town knows…

Mina’s nightmares of her time with the witch haunt her. The Queen of the Forest can’t muster the strength needed to fight her terror. Unable to leave the Throne, she vows she will not accept Dragos until she can stand at his side as an equal. But the nightmares are only growing in strength, and soon she realizes that there’s more to her pain than simple fear.

Dark forces are converging on Maggie’s Grove, and a horde of hunters stalk
supernaturals from the shadows. Only by uniting in body and mind will Mina and Dragos find the strength to defend their home.

Dana Marie Bell is one of my autobuy authors, and I loved the first book jn this series. Maybe my problems with this one stems from the fact that I have been anticipating it too much? Not sure. But it is a good book, even if itsn’t one of her best. 
  Lanie Heron isn’t looking for love—no surprise considering her last serious relationship nearly got her killed. So when Lanie propositions Hop Kincaid, all she wants is one wild night with the hot-as-hell biker. After one night in paradise, Hop realizes Lanie is the best thing that’s ever happened to him—in or out of bed. Now the trick will be to convince her of that.
 I squeed when Hachette made this able for Read Now at Netgalley, and downloaded it on the spot. It is next up in the review que.

When Ellie Watt returns to the desert town of Palm Valley, she’s counting on Camden McQueen to still be in love with her. What she’s not counting on is how easily unrequited love can turn into obsession over time. When Camden discovers Ellie’s plan to con him, he makes her a deal she can’t refuse. But her freedom comes with a price—and it’s one that takes both Ellie and Camden down a dangerous road.
 I bought this when Mandi at Smexybooks raved about Karina Halle awhile ago ( February, I think), but I haven’t read it. This was picked up by Hachette, and is released today.