Book Review: Blood Rights by Kristen Painter

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle's body bears the telltale marks of a comarré -- a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world...and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now, Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.

Blood Rights by Kristen Painter is a fresh take on a genre that has been done...and done...and done. Vampires and their culture has been around for so long that so many readers (including me) is getting pretty sick of them. However, Painter's new series has me sticking with vampires a while longer.

In Blood Rights, vampires believe that they are the superior race. Their society structure is based on status determined by wealth and strength but the pinnacle of said status is truly gained by the quality of their comarré and the price in which they paid. These quality blood servants who are born in an academy of sorts and trained to be the best of the best go to live in their new master's households as a cherished member of the family. Comarré are raised without family ties, without even knowing who their parents were, so that their identity truly is supposed to be influenced by whoever purchases them. The comarré need to be fed upon - their bodies are unable to self-monitor and control the amount of blood in their veins like regular humans - and so their relationship with their masters, while usually impersonal, is a necessary one. Comarré are trained all their lives to fight vampires but they are not allowed to let anyone know so in essence, the comarre are like foxes in the vampires' henhouses. (And here the vampires think they're the biggest bad in all the land. I love the irony.) Chrysabelle is incomparable; she is considered to be the highest achievement in comarré lineage. Accomplished in everything, she is purchased by the master of the most prestigious House and has lived a satisfactory life until recently, when she decides to leave. This is where Chrysabelle's troubles begin when her master is found murdered in their home. She flees and becomes a fugitive.

Being a cursed vampire who is tormented by the guilt and voices of everyone he has killed in his long vampire life, Malkolm now spends his time searching for a way to break his curse. He refuses to drink blood straight from the source and when he sees Chrysabelle, a comarré in disguise walking around in a vampire night club, he realizes that he's in deep trouble: she's beautiful, her blood sings to him, and she's a damsel in distress. So he tries to help her and after a rather rocky introduction, they end up working together in an unsure alliance to find out who killed her master.

I really liked Blood Rights. It felt more like Malkolm's story to me than Chrysabelle's, much to my delight; in comparison, Malkolm's life has been much more interesting. So much of the plot is wrapped up in his history whereas Chrysabelle's life is really just beginning. Neither Mal nor Chrysabelle are in a position to be feeling romantic and I appreciated that the chemistry between these two is kept in check. The villain is a bit of the evil monologing-"I've got you in my clutches" type but it meshes rather well with the black humor and dark tone. All in all, I am most certainly going to be reading book two, Flesh and Blood, out on October 25th. 

Thanks to Hachette and Netgalley for letting me read this book.

Kristen Painter's website

Other reviews:

Vampire Book Club

Bewitched Bookworms

Urban Fantasy Investigations

Badass Book Reviews

Paperback Dolls

Review: The President's Vampire by Christopher Farnsworth

The ultimate secret. The ultimate agent. Nathaniel Cade returns.
For 140 years, Nathaniel Cade has been the President's Vampire, sworn to protect and serve his country. Cade's existence is the most closely guarded of White House secrets: a superhuman covert agent who is the last line of defense against nightmare scenarios that ordinary citizens only dream of.
When a new outbreak of an ancient evil-one that he has seen before-comes to light, Cade and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source. To "protect and serve" often means settling old scores and confronting new betrayals . . . as only a centuries-old predator can.

What would our world be like if monsters of the supernatural persuasion were real? What if terrorists could use them to strike at their enemies instead of using bombs? Frankly, I think this world is a scary enough place already without dealing with bugaboos like the ones that Zach and Cade deal with on a regular basis. After finishing The President's Vampire, I was more than a bit thankful that this world hasn't reached this level of crazy just yet. At least, not that we know of.

In Blood Oath, Farnsworth showed us what might happen if some evil mastermind used super-zombies made from the bodies of dead American soldiers to try and invade the White House. In The President's Vampire, Zach and Cade come up against something just as deadly but potentially more dangerous: a highly infectious virus that turns humans into reptile killing machines called "snakeheads". Engineered by "The Company", a black government agency that is run and staffed by people who are chosen specifically for their mal-adjusted sociopathic personalities, this virus is spread by biting or scratching and works instantly to transform its host into a ravenous, slavering monster within minutes. Cade has been working since the 1920's to eradicate the snakeheads but they keep popping up periodically all over the globe. Now that The Company has decided to join the game, the snakeheads are even deadlier than before and with certain politicians working in the background to make sure that Zach and Cade fail, underground government installations hosting experiments made of nightmares, and a plot to set the snakehead creatures loose on a shopping mall full of unsuspecting humans, The President's Vampire is a governmental conspiracy run amuck, stuffed between two book covers.

While I liked Blood Oath (click HERE to see my review) just a tad more than The President's Vampire, the charming aspects of the former are still present in the latter, much to my delight. That Farnsworth frames Cade with people and events that exist in the real world make these books feel somewhat plausible; using different names for the current administration is the biggest concession I could see that makes this fiction other than the, you know, supernatural monsters. I had begun to wonder who would be up next with the cameo appearances though. (TPV stars Bin Laden and John Wilkes Booth, and explains how JFK's assassination was an inside job.) All-in-all, The President's Vampire is another great read and I am already wishing for the next one in this entertaining series.

Review: Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth

ONLY ONE MAN CAN SAVE US… AND HE’S ALREADY DEAD.

Zach Barrows is an ambitious young White House staffer whose career takes an unexpected turn when he’s partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the president. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound by a special blood oath, Cade has spent more than 140 years in service to the president, battling nightmares before they can break into the daylight world of the American dream.
Immediately Zach and Cade receive their first joint assignment: one that uncovers a shadowy government conspiracy and a plot to attack the Unites States with a gruesome new biological weapon. Zach soon learns that the world is far stranger, and far more dangerous, than he ever imagined . . . and that his partner is the least of his problems.. (from chrisfarnsworth.com)

If you are a regular reader of My Book Addiction (thanks, btw), you may be surprised to know that I am a fan of Tom Clancy's books. Vince Flynn, too. (Sadly, I have learned more about the inner workings of our government from their books than I did in my high school civics class.) Sure, they can be a bit dry with the technical details but give me a capable man who has to save the world and I'll be happy. At any rate, when I saw the description of Blood Oath, I knew I had to read it. It sounded like a modern cross between Tom Clancy and Bram Stoker and I was so excited about the premise that I preordered the hardback version. This is not something I do regularly - buy new hardbacks of new authors - but I had such a good feeling about it. My gut told me that this would be a good book and fun read and it was right.

Zach considers himself to be hot stuff. Barely out of college, he works in the White House and has frequent face-to-face meetings with the President. After one little bitty drunken mishap with the President's daughter in the Lincoln bedroom, he finds himself face-to-face with a completely different kind of power, the kind that has nothing to do with politics: a vampire. Suddenly, Zach's world is upside down and he's given a difficult choice - work with Nathaniel Cade, aka the President's Vampire, or else. Working with Cade is a sink or swim mentality; there is no training, just on the job learning. Soon, Zach learns that Cade is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the supernatural and his first job involves chasing after Johann Konrad, aka Dr. Frankenstein (as in the original, the doctor from Shelley's book). A group of middle-easterners are taking terrorism to a new level with Konrad's help and it's Cade's and Zach's job to stop them.

I liked Blood Oath for several reasons. One, Farnsworth made Nathaniel Cade a product of his time; he is dated (to an extent) and uses old phrases like, "no soap" and "twenty-three skidoo". Using these old colloquialisms embarrasses Cade and humanizes him, makes him seem more real and not just a killing machine. Two, this book isn't just about a vampire that deals with "human" problems. Cade travels the globe fighting nasty supernatural threats in today's political climate, not the least of which is Dr. Konrad, who makes Dr. Mengele look like Strawberry Shortcake. There are all sorts of beings in Blood Oath, fantastic and monstrous alike. And three, this is just a well-written, well-plotted book that kept my attention from cover to cover. The sequel, The President's Vampire, will be out on April 28, 2011.

Other reviews:
Ms. Bookish
Jenn's Bookshelves
The Vampire Librarian

Review: The Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason

Voss, also known as Viscount Dewhurst, relishes the sensual pleasures immortality affords. A member of the Dracule—a cabal of powerful, secretive noblemen marked with a talisman that reveals their bartered souls—the mercenary Voss has remained carefully neutral…until Angelica. Angelica Woodmore possesses the Sight, an ability invaluable to both sides of a looming war among the Dracule. Her very scent envelops Voss in a scarlet fog of hunger—for her body and her blood. But he is utterly unprepared for the new desire that overcomes him—to protect her.
Now Voss must battle his very nature to be with Angelica…but this vampire never backs down from a fight.

As a big fan of Colleen Gleason's Gardella Chronicles series, I was superexcited to try out her newest vampire series, The Regency Draculia. The cool part is that this time around the vampires aren't necessarily the bad guys.

Voss lives how he believes a real vampire should: he spends his time seeking pleasure, be it by blood or sex or otherwise. Voss's real business is secrets - collecting and selling them - and is more than a little interested to find out that a vampire hunter and ally named Chas Woodmore has gone AWOL and left his sisters' care to Voss' rival and fellow vampire, Dimitri, Earl of Corvindale. What he's really looking for is the Woodmore sister who has the Sight; Angelica can see, by touching an object belonging to someone, where (but not when) that particular person is going to die. She's been using her ability throughout the ton to make money by foreseeing what will happen to young ladies' marriage prospects. What Voss, in all his arrogance and indifference, doesn't expect to ever happen is that he will come to actually care for Angelica, enough to risk his life for hers.

The vampires of the Regency Draculia are all men who have traded their souls to Lucifer for immortality and all the usual vampire tricks. That naughty boy Lucifer takes advantage of certain men when they are at their most vulnerable (and usually in dreams). Afterward, the vamps discover their "Lucifer's Mark", a physical manifestation of the pact they made with Lucifer for their souls that runs down their necks and along their upper backs. It pains them if they refrain from proper vampire behavior; it is a constant reminder of what they gave up, who they gave it to, and how he wants them to behave. In addition, each vampire has a weakness to something tangible, their own kryptonite, if you will. It's an interesting vulnerability and a source of information that Voss gathers ruthlessly. In a society of equally lethal men, what would be paramount to knowing how to defeat all your enemies?

Colleen Gleason writes vampires in a Regency setting so well that I hope she continues in that vein (ha ha) indefinitely. Despite his tendency to be all about me, me, me, I liked Voss and was happy for him in the end. Angelica was a fairly typical heroine for this genre; her ability is really the only aspect that makes her stand out. The ending neatly wraps up the storyline for this couple with a Buffyverse Whistler-type angel popping up here and there to "guide" Voss on his way to redemption. All-in-all, The Vampire Voss is a satisfying romance and I can't wait to read book two of the Regency Draculia series, The Vampire Dimitri.

The Vampire Voss will be released on March 22, 2011.


Other reviews:
Among the Muses
A Great Read
Reading the Paranormal

Review: Insatiable by Meg Cabot

Sick of hearing about vampires? So is Meena Harper.
But her bosses are making her write about them anyway, even though Meena doesn't believe in them.
Not that Meena isn't familiar with the supernatural. See, Meena Harper knows how you're going to die. (Not that you're going to believe her. No one ever does.)
But not even Meena's precognition can prepare her for what happens when she meets—then makes the mistake of falling in love with—Lucien Antonescu, a modern-day prince with a bit of a dark side. It's a dark side a lot of people, like an ancient society of vampire hunters, would prefer to see him dead for.
The problem is, Lucien's already dead. Maybe that's why he's the first guy Meena's ever met whom she could see herself having a future with. See, while Meena's always been able to see everyone else's future, she's never been able look into her own.
And while Lucien seems like everything Meena has ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, he might turn out to be more like a nightmare.
Now might be a good time for Meena to start learning to predict her own future…
If she even has one.

First off, can I just say that I think I'm in love with Meg Cabot. I finished Insatiable early yesterday evening and was so caught up in her style of writing that I whipped out Every Boy's Got One and promptly devoured it. I plan on raiding my local public library for her other titles on Monday. Insatiable isn't my first Meg Cabot, you know. I also read and thoroughly enjoyed She Went All the Way awhile back but was slightly discouraged by the proliferation of series YA in her backlist. I saw The Princess Diaries and didn't feel like reading the books. Don't get me wrong - I'm a BIG fan of YA fiction. I just was just in the mood for big girl books at the time.

So. Insatiable has it all: a love triangle, vampires, vampire hunters, a soap opera, and haute couture. I was worried at first as it took me a while to get into it; my life hadn't allowed me much time to read in the past few days since I started Insatiable and I hoped that it was me, not the book. Well, I can tell you that it was, indeed, me, and not the book. Once I sat down with it today, Insatiable grabbed my attention and held on for dear life. (This would explain why we didn't get to eat our dinner last night until 8 pm.)

Is it too cute to pick a name like Meena for the heroine in a vampire novel? Almost, though it did constantly remind me of "Mean-a Irina" from season six (?) of Project Runway. (I was disappointed that she won. Anyway...) Meena isn't mean-a, in fact, she's anything but. She goes out of her way to save people by giving them "advice," thus hoping to help them thwart Death and prolong their lives. It's hard for her to manage her ability most days since people don't generally like it if you try to tell them when they're going to die. It's for this reason that she's drawn to Lucien Antonescu; just as Sookie Stackhouse prefers vampires for their mental silence, that she can't see Lucien's death is relaxing to Meena. Relaxing, that is, until Alaric Wulf, a handsome Palatine Guard Vampire Hunter straight from the Vatican, shows up to lop off the head of the Prince of Darkness, a.k.a. Lucien, and spills the beans on who Lucien really is. This puts Meena right smack in the middle of a vampire war and the aforementioned love triangle for Alaric finds that he's drawn to Meena, even if she is a vampire minion, albeit a pretty one.

The only aspect I could have lived without was Meena's brother, Jon. The victim of corporate layoffs, he mooches off his sister while dreaming of being a cop for the NYPD. He has neither the fortitude nor the athleticism he would need to pull it off and when he hears about what Alaric does for a living, he sets his mind to becoming a vampire hunter with all the enthusiasm of a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert. Unfortunately, he has no idea what he's doing and generally makes every situation worse. He's critical of Meena without being unkind and she puts up with him. I know he was probably meant for some comic relief but he just got on my nerves.

The story in Insatiable moved along at a good clip; there wasn't any lag in the plot. I was so relieved to find out that this is the first in a series - there wasn't much of a resolution - as I liked this book so very much. It felt more like, That's All for Now, Folks! We'll See You Later! Oh yes, they definitely will. The sequel, Overbite, will be released on July 5, 2011.

Review: Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead

Rose Hathaway has always played by her own rules. She broke the law when she ran away from St. Vladimir's Academy with her best friend and last surviving Dragomir princess, Lissa. She broke the law when she fell in love with her gorgeous, off-limits instructor, Dimitri. And she dared to defy Queen Tatiana, leader of the Moroi world, risking her life and reputation to protect generations of dhampir guardians to come.

Now the law has finally caught up with Rose - for a crime she didn't even commit. She's in prison for the highest offense imaginable: the assassination of a monarch. She'll need help from both Dimitri and Adrian to find the one living person who can stall her execution and force the Moroi elite to acknowledge a shocking new candidate for the royal throne: Vasilisa Dragomir.

But the clock on Rose's life is running out. Rose knows in her heart the world of the dead wants her back...and this time she is truly out of second chances. The big question is, when your whole life is about saving others, who will save you? (from dust jacket)

Well, it's over. (Sort of.) Last Sacrifice is last in Richelle Mead's five book YA series about vampires. A question I kept asking myself as I was reading Last Sacrifice: Why am I reading Last Sacrifice? Did I expect an ending different from the one I got? If you are a fan of this series, what did you expect? Here's what I figured would happen (and did), in very general terms:

1. Rose would end up with Dimitri. Duh! You don't spend four angst-filled books pining for the man you can't have to give up on him by the end. Poor Adrian. He didn't have a hope in hell from the very beginning. I really liked him and hope to see more of him in Bloodlines, the Vampire Academy spin-off.
2. Rose would be exonerated. Duh! She didn't do it. And Richelle Mead would probably fill us in on who did.
3. There would lots of big reveals and surprises. Duh! There has to be SOMETHING to fill up those gaps between those adoring gazes Rose gets from Dimitri (and vice versa). 
4. Everybody (except the murdered and murderer and Adrian) would get their HEA. Duh! 

Last Sacrifice is a decent end to a decent (but not great) series. As I figure to be the case with most of the other readers, I kept reading because I wanted to see Rose and Dimitri reconcile. I wanted my payoff! It was worth it to put up with Rose for that long; I find her immature and irritating most of the time. I was actually surprised (and disappointed in) the identity of Titania's murderer; I felt betrayed too. I liked him/her! (Ha! Not telling!)

Bloodlines has a release date of August 23, 2011. Will I be reading it? Probably, yes. Mead's website claims that it will be written in third person, we will get to see what happens to Sydney, and that Rose will be making an appearance. Please, may be have some more Adrian? Please?

Review & Giveaway: Bloodshot by Cherie Priest

Raylene Pendle, (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn't usually hang out with her own kind. She's too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist - even though Ian doesn't want previous artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files: documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn't bargain for is a case that takes her from the frozen outskirts of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta. And with a psychotic, power-hungry scientist on her trail, a kick-ass drag queen at her side, and Men in Black popping up at the most inconvenient moments, the case proves to be one hell of a ride.

This is my first book review from the loot I brought home from NYCC 2010. Yes, I am that lazy.  But guess what? I'm giving this one away to whoever wins my first giveaway! I'm so nice.

So, Bloodshot. It felt a bit uneven to me and took me a long time to get into it. There was a period between pages fifty and 100 where I considered calling it quits but I am glad I didn't because things really pick up after that. And I have to say that pairing up a vampire and a former Navy SEAL drag queen was definitely something new for me. When I read that line on the back about the "kick-ass drag queen" I immediately got a picture of Sally Sweets in my head from Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. (Sadly, I haven't run across that many drag queens in my books.) Adrian is no Sally, let me assure you. Not even close.

Raylene is a contradiction. She's an eighty-odd-year-old vampire who is a discriminating thief and surrogate mother for two runaway kids who live in an old building she owns where she stashes all her stolen goods. She's thoughtful and paranoid. She also kills without compunction, for either food or in battle. At the beginning and with the exception of the two kids, she's all alone in the world. She doesn't know the real names of her fellow thieves/mercenaries/etc. and only generally has conversations with one of her best clients, a man who lives across the country. By the end, she has friends. A family, almost.

I mostly liked Raylene and I know I liked her sense of humor. I think Cherie Priest was trying to make Raylene a total badass but she fell a little short and sounded a bit dated to me; repeatedly referring to the government as "Uncle Sam" sounds old. She has the vamp skills and all but the paranoia and anal-retentiveness of being super prepared made her somehow seem diminished, not sure of herself and ready to roll instead of confident. She's tenacious though, I will give her that.

Despite my issues with Raylene, I did like Bloodshot enough to want to find out what will happen in the next book. I want to know what happens with Ian and Sister Rose, as well as find out more about Raylene's history with the vampire Houses. Sounds a bit like Chloe Neill's Chicagoland vampires series setup. Cherie Priest has created an more than interesting world with Bloodshot and I hope to see more of it in the future.

Bloodshot will be released on January 25, 2011.

About the giveaway: Anyone who would like my copy of Cherie Priest's Bloodshot should leave a comment with your name and email address between now and November 30, 2010 to enter. The winner will be chosen at random. I will mail Bloodshot to the winner personally.

A Book Review Roundup

Potent Pleasures by Eloisa James is written in James’s typical engaging style but her protagonists are utterly maddening to the point where this book almost became a wallbanger. I wanted to shake Charlotte vigorously and kick Alex in his private parts. Why in the world would James have these characters make such hideous choices? Worse than any plot of Three’s Company, the misunderstandings and assumptions made – mostly on Alex’s part – caused a disgusting amount of unnecessary heartache for everyone involved. By the end, I wanted to spit. The worst part? I want to read book two in this trilogy, Midnight Pleasures. Starring Charlotte’s good friend Sophie and Alex’s twin brother Patrick, I am confident that these two might not be so awful.


Nicole Peeler’s Tempest Rising, the first in her first series about a girl named Jane True, is a refreshing urban fantasy novel with lots of romance and has a likable heroine who is vulnerable yet resilient. Jane is introduced to the world of supernatural creatures, many of them right in her backyard. The town outcast with a painful past, Jane lives a quiet life of caring for her father and working in the town bookstore. A murder throws Jane straight into the investigation and a relationship with a vampire named Ryu. I liked Tempest Rising enough that I went out and bought book two, Tracking the Tempest, before I was halfway finished. I am curious to see what happens next between Jane and Ryu AND Jane and Anyan. Something tells me that the vampire won't be here to stay. Not for very long anyway.


Pride Mates by Jennifer Ashley was an ebook I got through my nook when I saw B&N had cut the price to $2.62 (it has since gone up to 5.59). I have only read one book by Ashley - a historical romance - and I wanted to see how she handled the pararom genre. No surprise here; she handled it just fine. This was a good paranormal romance about werewolves and how they're integrated into human society with some social commentary on the side. Set in a version of our world where werewolves are "out" but not really "in," Pride Mates is about a defense lawyer who is given a murder case involving a shifter and how she gets dumped into the middle of shifter politics. She also ends up mated to one. I am mightily looking forward to the next chapter in this series, Primal Bonds, that focuses on Liam's brother Sean. He carries a big sword and knows how to use it.


In the Woods by Tana French is an unusual pick for me. A murder mystery written by an Irish woman is something that generally makes my eyes cross. That's my issue not theirs; fiction like that is too dense for me and makes me give up way too easily. In the Woods sounded promising with a cold case of the unsolved disappearance by two children from a group of three where the third was found in a wood, catatonic with no memory of what happened and blood soaked into his sneakers. This third grows up and becomes an incognito detective who catches the new murder case of a teenage girl who is found pretty much where he was twenty years prior. I loved French's style but with a frustrating ending and somewhat obvious mystery, In the Woods disappoints.

Review: Twice Bitten by Chloe Neill

Merit, Chicago’s newest vampire, is learning how to play well with others. Other supernaturals, that is. Shapeshifters from across the country are convening in the Windy City, and as a gesture of peace, Master Vampire Ethan Sullivan has offered their leader a very special bodyguard: Merit. Merit is supposed to protect the Alpha, Gabriel Keene—and to spy for the vamps while she’s at it. Oh, and luckily Ethan’s offering some steamy, one-on-one combat training sessions to help her prepare for the mission.

Merit must accept the assignment, even though she knows that she’ll probably regret it. And she’s not wrong. Someone is gunning for Gabriel Keene, and Merit soon finds herself in the line of fire. She’ll need all the help she can get to track down the would-be assassin, but everywhere she turns, there are rising tensions between supernaturals—not least between her and a certain green-eyed, centuries old master vampire. (from chloeneill.com)

Man. This series just gets better and better. I feel pain every time I think about the whole stinking year that has to pass before I get a new Merit read.

Friday Night Bites was about Merit and her internal struggles; Twice Bitten is about her external ones. Merit's finally getting a grip on her vampire and is training to actually be one (her blood requirements notwithstanding). She's working solely with Ethan now to hone her skills. Merit also gets wrapped up with the shifters after Gabriel Keene, Alpha of the region, requests her help as a bodyguard during the upcoming Shifter Convocation, a gathering of all shifters under Gabriel's jurisdiction. The shifters are facing a decision like The Clash: should they stay or should they go? Do they want to get involved with the vampires and their war looming on the horizon or will they leave and go to their territory in Alaska and stay uninvolved? The shifters also toss a mystery to solve in Merit's lap. It was a bit of a relief to see the vampires and their machinations take a back seat here. Merit definitely has enough on her plate.

Merit broadens her familiarity with other vampires in Cadogan House this time. She's still feeling like an outsider but is starting to become more accepted. There's less of her non-vampire friends, like Mallory and Catcher, but with all the new people Merit meets here, I didn't miss them all that much. Nice Poltergeist reference by Mallory though.

The best part of Twice Bitten is Merit's relationship with Ethan. Ethan Sullivan reminds me an awful lot of Eric Northman from Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series: They are both incredibly handsome yet relatively old vampires who hold a measure of power in a bigger scheme. They are both involved with women who they desperately want but don't want to let themselves have. They are both good leaders who will use whatever and whoever they need to be successful. They are both decent and well-meaning but are frequently thoughtless. They have both chosen women who are appealing on their own but possess talents that make the men look better. Eric has his mind-reading Sookie and Ethan has his ass-kicking Merit.

I wish I could say that Merit should just dump Ethan for good since he breaks her heart in all three books but I can't because Ethan and Merit are good together. I just wish he wasn't such a putz each time. There are some awesome scenes in this book between Merit and Ethan and I loved every word in them. I have a feeling that Merit won't make things easy for Ethan in book four, Hard Bitten (working title), coming next July.

I just love this series and have been kicking myself for giving away my copy of Some Girls Bite last year. There is no ebook available that I've been able to find anywhere but amazon so I bought a new paperback copy again. I never do that - buy books twice - but I wanted a set of the three to keep. By next summer, I'll probably have to reread them just to remember what happened but there is one thing I won't forget - Merit's first name :)

Other reviews:
http://www.larissaslife.com/2010/07/review-twice-bitten-chicagoland.html
http://www.bewitchedbookworms.com/2010/07/review-twice-bitten.html
http://yummymenandkickasschicks.com/?p=1863
http://moydrook.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-post.html

Review: Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill

Vamps in Chicago!

You'd think headlines like that would have provoked the fine citizens of the Windy City to take up arms against us bloodsucking fiends. Instead, ten months later, we're enjoying a celebrity status reserved for the Hollywood elite—fending off paparazzi only slightly less dangerous than cross and stake-wielding slayers. Don't get me wrong, Joe Public isn't exactly thrilled to be living side-by-side with the undead, but at least they haven't stormed the castle yet.

But all that will change once they learn about the Raves—mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle and drink themselves silly. Most civilized vampires frown on this behavior, putting mere mortals at ease with their policy of asking a person's consent before taking a big gulp of the red stuff. However, that doesn't make good copy for a first time reporter looking to impress his high society family.

So now my "master," the centuries old, yet gorgeously well-preserved Ethan Sullivan, wants me to reconnect with my own upper class family and act as liaison between humans and vampires—and keep the more unsavory aspects of our existence out of the media. But someone doesn't want people and vamps to play nicey-nice—someone with an ancient grudge. (from chloeneill.com)

As I tweeted this morning, I stayed up until 2 am last night to finish this book. I don't know what I was thinking, starting it after dinner because I knew that once I started it, I would be physically unable to stop until I was done. It was totally worth every yawn I had this morning too.

Here's what I wrote last July about the first Chicagoland Vampires book, Some Girls Bite:

Some Girls Bite rocked. This is related to one of the post ideas I've been working on, but when I started thinking about it I couldn't figure out what my point would have been, so I've dropped the idea. Some Girls Bite wasn't just a good vampire book, it was a good read period. I loved Merit, our protagonist, her friends, her love interest, everything. The only thing to complain about it that the next one doesn't come out until October. The ironic thing about this book is...Merit doesn't bite :)

Prompted by Jane, I picked up Friday Night Bites yesterday to get ready for Twice Bitten, the third book in Neill's series, which is on it's sweet way to me as I, um, speak. Friday Night Bites picks up right after Some Girls Bite ends, as Merit is preparing to move into the Cadogan house so she can be a better Sentinel, the official house warrior. Unfortunately, this puts Merit into closer proximity to Ethan, the head of Cadogan and her boss, and she's afraid that she won't be strong enough to keep Ethan at arm's length. Merit is also still kinda dating the head of the Navarre house, Morgan, having been manipulated into it by both Morgan and Ethan in the first book and she hasn't forgiven either of them.

Not long after Merit moves in, she gets orders to help her house gain an entree into Chicago society through her family's social connections. This is something that Merit definitely doesn't want to do for more than one reason; first, it will require her to deal with her father and all his political and social aspirations and he is certainly not beneath using his newly vampired daughter to get what he wants and second, it would mean lots of time spent with Ethan, most likely without any of the vampire hierarchy to keep them apart.

Merit's also having trouble with her vampire self. This was an integral part of the plot and I loved it. It brought some issues about Merit to light that I had wondered about and I'm glad they were (somewhat) resolved. These issues were affecting her training with Catcher and ultimately her friendship with Mallory, her BFF, but especially her strange relationship with Ethan. Merit's vampire wants some bad things bad and is keeping Merit in a constant fight for her sense of self and her humanity, something she is desperately trying to hold on to, while also doing her job and dealing with Ethan. By the end of Some Girls Bite, I pretty much loathed Ethan. A master manipulator, Ethan both wants Merit for himself and the House but also still thinks of her as a means to an end - an alliance with Navarre through her relationship with Morgan. Some inside information wouldn't be bad either. The houses don't get along, reminding me of Gryffindor and Slytherin from Harry Potter. Neither one is wholly good or evil on their own but their differences come from their attitudes and actions.

I have to say, the cast of characters Chloe Neill has set up here is fantastic. Merit is trying to straddle a very narrow line between the vampire world and the human one and it gives Neill the opportunity to introduce all sorts of folks. Witches with blue hair, sorcerers, geeky shifters, and more quirky vampires than you can shake a stick at. The sheer volume of the snark is just awesome and I laughed out loud several times. I found myself (again) emotionally invested in what happened to Merit, outraged when she was outraged, choked up when she was choked up, well, you get the idea. I would put the appeal and level of writing of Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampires series on par with Ilona Andrews's Kate Daniels series. Yes, it's that good.

Where did my copy come from: Jane

Other reviews:
http://www.literaryescapism.com/4967/friday-night-bites-by-c-neill
http://wickedlilpixie.com/2009/10/07/friday-night-bites-chloe-neill/
http://readermusings.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/review-friday-night-bites-by-chloe-neill/

Review: Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead

After a long and heartbreaking journey to Dimitri's birthplace in Siberia, Rose Hathaway has finally returned to St. Vladimir's—and to her best friend, Lissa. It is nearly graduation, and the girls can't wait for their real lives beyond the Academy's iron gates to begin. But Rose's heart still aches for Dimitri, and she knows he's out there, somewhere.

She failed to kill him when she had the chance. And now her worst fears are about to come true. Dimitri has tasted her blood, and now he is hunting her. And this time he won't rest until Rose joins him . . . forever.

This fifth book in the Vampire Academy series was much better than book four, Blood Promise. Rose is trying to move on from Dmitri with Adrian. Only makes sense, right? Boyfriend becomes a vampire = break up. They certainly aren't Buffy and Angel. Only Rose has a crazy idea that was planted in her head by her father - turning Dmitri back from vampire to dhampir. In order for her plan to work she'll need the help of Victor, Lissa's ruthless uncle. So....Road trip! Dmitri's on her tail too as promised. Rose has lots of decisions to make and life lessons to learn but none of them will be easy.

Having graduated from the academy, Rose is now a BIG GIRL and a guardian which means that Rose has to grow up and it's about time, I say. All through these books she's been determined to be Lissa's protector but in book four she ditched all that and went to Russia after Dmitri, leaving Lissa behind at school. A dedicated guardian wouldn't do that. She wouldn't call Queen Tatiana stupid to her face either. I actually like Rose; she's tenacious as a pit bull and loyal yet emotionally vulnerable and I have to remind myself that she, and all her friends, are teenagers. I don't like Lissa; she's irritating and annoying and acts more her age. Makes me wonder why Rose is so attached to her.

Mead ends this one in a heck of a cliffhanger, leaving the last book to finish the story and wrap everything up. Last Sacrifice will be out on December 7, 2010.

Look at What Followed Me Home Today From the Library

Continuing the YA parade that's been through here lately we have:

From World Fantasy Award winner Jane Yolen and Mythopoeic Award winner Midori Snyder comes a tale of two worlds, two exiles, two lost souls - and the one destiny that binds them all.

Sisters Serana and Meteora are proud members of the high court of the Fairy Queen - until they discover a secret Her Highness would like to keep hidden. Cast out from court and stripped of their powers, they are banished to the coarse and brutish mortal realm of Earth.

Meteora bonds with the troubled young girl who lives in the apartment below her. But when she sees the ornate tattoo on the girl's neck, Meteora recognizes as a magic symbol that will surely draw evil to them. Serana, meanwhile, takes in a homeless boy whose mind is plagued by dark visions and nightmarish creatures - creatures that Serana recognizes as being from the world of her birth. The sisters know that these signs point to a force whose power is rising - one that threatens both the fairy and human worlds.

Vladimir Tod: Normal Eighth Grade Student? Or Powerful Vampire?

Junior high really sucks for thirteen-year-old Vladimir Tod. Bullies harass him, the principal is dogging him, and the girl he likes prefers his best friend. Oh, and Vlad has a secret: his mother was human, but his father was a vampire. With no idea of the extent of his powers and no one to teach him, Vlad struggles daily with his blood cravings and his enlarged fangs. When a strange substitute teacher begins to question him a little too closely, Vlad worries that his cover is about to be blown. But then he realizes he has a much bigger problem: he's being hunted by a vampire killer who is closing in...fast!

The first book in this ghoulishly funny series by first-time author Heather Brewer leads readers on a nail-biting adventure that is filled with dark characters and mystical glyphs, secret identities and hidden agendas, unearthly powers and teenage angst.

It starts with a phone call.
"I'm dying," a voice tells Dusty.

Who is he and how did he get her phone number? Dusty wants no part of this strange boy...until he begins saying things that only someone who knows her intimately could say. And saying things that lead her to think he knows the whereabouts of her brother, who disappeared over two years ago. Suddenly drawn in, Dusty very much wants to save this boy. Trouble is, she cannot find him - he won't let himself be found. He is too dangerous, he says. There are mobs of people who agree and who want to see this boy disappear...and who will hurt anyone who stands in their way. 

From Carnegie Medal-winning author Tim Bowler comes a gripping, hair-raising mystery about a boy not of this world, and girl determined to protect him. 

I also got these two:

I sure hope that Preston & Child don't kill off any other entertaining characters from the Pendergast series. I would find that to be most aggravating and I'm still not over what they did to Bill Smithback. The Christopher Moore looks amusing but I'm worried I won't be able to get through it. Ta!

Review Roundup

While I take a break from laughing at Tumbling Through Time by Gwyn Cready, I thought I'd go ahead and jot down a few things about some of the books I've read lately but haven't reviewed. I'm trying to be a good girl these days. *snort*

Archangel by Sharon Shinn was a provoking read. Definitely a different take on gods and angels and their interactions with humans. It also had one of the most stubborn women I've ever encountered in a book. Not that she didn't have some reasons to be but I thought to myself as I read Archangel that she could give a mule or jackass a run for their money! I do love those novels where the story comes full circle and so I loved the ending. I liked this book, as you can see since I have it an A-, but I'm not sure if I'll read the other two in the trilogy. Reading a blurb inside the front cover that I managed to avoid before I read Archangel, I got the idea that I'll probably not like what happens. As with Outlander, I'm thinking that continuing on with the series will make me like the first book less than I do now. We'll see.

The Poison Eaters by Holly Black is a collection of short stories. Some of them are a decent length seeing how there are twelve stories in a book that is 212 pages long. My main interest lied with anything related to her Modern Faery Tale books and I was curious if she would revisit Kaye and company. She does in "The Land of Heart's Desire," where we get to see the coffee shop that Kaye talks about opening in the end of Ironside. It focuses on Corny and Roiben surprisingly enough, and is good for a snicker or two. I also read "Going Ironside," a four-page ramble of the inner monologue of a faery who is jonesing for her next hit of what sounded like heroin. Cautionary tale perhaps? It didn't make much sense, that much I know for sure. The first story in the book, "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown," is about vampires and is rather sad. Once I read it (I started with it as it starts the book), I decided to skip through to the faery parts. 

Hero at Large by Janet Evanovich was surprising to me because it was a little more serious than her romances tend to be. A single mother's car breaks down one morning while on her way to work and the unsurprisngly handsome man that stops to help her insinuates himself into her life and her heart. However, he is not what he seems and has a lot to answer for. Can she forgive him and hopefully not break any more of his bones? It has the patented Janet Evanovich humor but wasn't as light as her other reprinted romances and not as entertaining either.

Lady of Light and Shadow by C. L. Wilson is the second chapter of her five-part series about the Tairen Soul. Faeries seem to be my thing these days and so I very much enjoyed this one. It takes a while for it to wind up and therefore drags a little for the first half of the book but it's a good continuation with a satisfying ending and so I can forgive the dragging. It ties up a few things and sets up the third chapter. Rain and Ellie finally marry and head back to Faerie for King of Sword and Sky. The last book, Crown of Crystal Flame, comes out October 26.

That's it people! I am now caught up. I will be doing the review for The Iron King by Julie Kagawa in the next few days and am now going to return to Tumbling Through Time. Thanks for reading!

Review: Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

A Fae War has left the supernatural community of Bon Temps, Louisiana, in chaos - and waitress Sookie Stackhouse mentally and physically drained. And still, the peace and quiet she so desperately craves is hard to come by...

Even with the blood of two vampires in her system, Sookie is having trouble healing from the terrible torture she endured at the hands of her great-grandfather's enemies during the brief but deadly Fae War. Worse are the emotional wounds - especially over the loss of her own personal fairy godmother and the near death of her first love.

Sookie is hurt and she's mad. Just about the only bright spot in her life - besides the fact that she is, after all, still alive - is the love she thinks she feels for vampire Eric Northman, who is under scrutiny by the new vampire king because of their relationship.

As the political implications of the shifters' coming-out are beginning to be felt, Sookie's connection to one particular Were draws her into the dangerous debate. And, unknown to her, though the doors to Faery have been closed, there are still some fae on the human side - and one of them is angry at Sookie. Very, very angry.

First, I would like to say that I didn't mean to read this book today. I wrote last night that I couldn't dump Magic Strikes for a Holly Black book and what do I do the first chance I get: read Dead in the Family as soon as I got it in my hands. I apologize to Ms. Black and to Ilona Andrews. I didn't mean to do it. The devil made me do it. No, the devil didn't really make me do it and I will be returning to Magic Strikes ASAP. OK.

I picked up DitF to read the inside flap of the dust jacket and before I knew it, I was on page ten. Then I figured, What the hell, and read the rest of it after dinner :) DitF is the tenth volume in the Sookie Stackhouse series and boy has her life become complicated since Dead Until Dark. I was surprised at how much Charlaine Harris crammed in this book and I had to really think about it because once I finished it, I had a thought that not much happened in this one. Certainly not like Dead and Gone. I was wrong and lots of things happen.

In much of DitF, Sookie goes Dark. Dark Sookie. That was a little disconcerting even though I liked Dark Sookie because I have always appreciated Sookie's character and how moral she is, or at least how she always tries to follow her moral compass to stay as close to the straight and narrow as possible. That's not to say she's a goody-goody but more like that she's just a good person that tries to do the right things for the right reasons. I love how she uses her grandma as her yardstick (the marks on that are getting blurry though). Here, she's finding that the effects of what happened in Dead and Gone are not just physical, like the flap says and I have a feeling that Sookie is heading for some kind of serious sea change, a radical shift in her associations. There's only so much that one person can take before they snap. I just keep wondering when she'll dump Eric for Sam. I keep hoping for that in each new book. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now. Uh, nope. Harris certainly loves to keep Sookie's options open and there are appearances by Eric (duh), Bill, Sam, and even Alcide. Maybe she should just set everyone up like on Love Connection and pick one that way. 

I liked Dead in the Family but I love everything Charlaine Harris writes. I also love her blog. Check it out HERE. She's been busy lately and hasn't written for several weeks but usually has insightful remarks to make about whatever she's reading. Only another year to go before the next new Sookie book...

Review: The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce

The Darkangel

The servant girl Aeriel must choose between destroying her vampire master for his evil deeds or saving him for the sake of his beauty and the spark of goodness she has seen in him.

A Gathering of Gargoyles

Painfully aware that her husband Irrylath is still not free of the White Witch's spell, Aeriel sets out on a dangerous quest to gather the winged steeds that Irrylath and his brothers need to do battle against the powerful witch.

The Pearl of the Soul of the World

With the aid of a shimmering pearl, Aeriel battles the White Witch to free her husband Irrylath and discovers her own true destiny.

These books really surprised me. I borrowed them from the library without much prior knowledge of what they were about but since I've been on a YA kick lately, I thought I would give another YA series about a vampire a try. Imagine my puzzlement when I started The Darkangel and was introduced to Aerial, a slave girl who gets kidnapped by a "vampyre". "Vampyres" in this series appear as a cross between vampire and angel, black and sinister and horrible. Aerial's vampyre isn't quite there yet as he hasn't yet fulfilled the requirements needed to gain complete vampyre existence and she starts falling for him just a little bit at first sight. Aerial's quest begins several months after she's kidnapped and sets out on a journey across her world, meeting fantastical creatures much like those in the Narnia books. 

Aerial's quest continues throughout the first two books and into the third where she finds out her destiny. Here's where the books lost me somewhat though: Aerial fights and fights to save her husband, Irrylath, and the rest of the world and then yank! There goes the rug, right out from under me. These books combined are a true fairy tale in that the reader may not get their expected happy ending and I do love a good happily ever after ending. That aside, the Darkangel trilogy was exquisitely written, never losing the fairy tale feeling that is so enjoyable. They also hold up well having been published in the late '80s and I love the covers that are on the reissued copies. I hope soon to have time to continue with Meredith Ann Pierce's Firebringer trilogy since I very much enjoyed this one.

The Vampire and the Virgin by Kerrelyn Sparks **spoilers**

As I was recently telling someone, Kerrelyn Sparks won me over when I read book three in her Love at Stake series, Be Still My Vampire Heart. That book made me laugh but it was Angus, the big bad vampire highlander who just had to check under his kilt to make sure Junior was still there after each time he teleported, that I found especially delightful. I love that one in particular but pretty much every book in this series has been enjoyable and The Vampire and the Virgin is no different, if you can get past the title (it certainly didn't keep me from buying it).