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 Miss Alexia Tarrabotti, a half-Italian spinster, also happens to be soulless. Unfortunately for the vampire who tries to attack her, this means that she negates supernatural powers, and his fangs effectively vanish when he touches her. But the vampire’s death by wooden hairpin sparks a whole investigation – why doesn’t he know what she is? Why doesn’t he belong to one of the hives, and if not why isn’t he registered anyway? When Queen Victoria sends in werewolf Lord Maccon to help the investigation, Alexia is caught up in a whirlwind of mystery and attraction.
I’m a little bummed that I didn’t like Soulless. It’s received so very many rave reviews, and it sounded perfect from the description. Since the second book is suddenly appearing on everyone’s wishlists, I figured it was time to read it. Unfortunately I found that the style felt contrived from the very first page. Normally I enjoy authors who write as if they were living in the time period, but it just grated on my nerves here. I also got annoyed at the author’s tendency to put a sentence about how the characters were feeling right before they spoke, because it was obvious that she didn’t need to tell us about it. The characters are often nodding or smiling as they speak – there must be a lot of sore necks in this world. And the repetition got to me, too. We hear often about how horrible it is that Alexia is half-Italian and has darker skin and a larger-than-average nose and curves and how terrible it is that her Italian father is dead. I guess it’s good that she’s a little bit different, but I got that at the beginning. In general because the prose was so odd and repetitive I found it impossible to lose myself in it and enjoy the story. It just all felt like it was done to mask a lack somewhere else, to make it stand out from the current crowd of paranormal romances. Others enjoyed this, so I’d suggest this was just me.
The mystery story was mostly okay, at least as historical urban fantasy goes, and I was interested to see what happened next. I’m not the most demanding in terms of plotlines, but I was entertained. I also really liked the world. It’s mainly a Victorian urban fantasy with some small steampunk elements, which I did think set it a little apart from the pack in a good way. This is one aspect I’d really like to see further developed. I really like all the genres contained in this book and an author who can combine them well is talented.
The romance, however, made zero sense. I could not figure out why the couple liked one another. Lord Maccon was interested in Alexia because she smelled good, mostly, or at least that’s all I can remember from what defined their relationship. I couldn’t honestly figure out why she was drawn to him. They didn’t seem to have any chemistry and their romantic interludes included a startling amount of biting, which I could have done without.
Anyway, the next book in the series, Changeless, is apparently going to include more of the mystery and less of the romance, which for once I actually think I will prefer. I’m not sure I’ll go out and buy it, but I will probably try and find it in the library. The author seems like she’s full of clever ideas and I would like to give the series another shot.
I am an Amazon Associate. I bought this book.
 As at the close of the Liveship Traders trilogy, the serpents have finally made it to Cassarick, where they are meant to hatch into dragons, but something is wrong. None of the serpents emerge as fully grown dragons, and none of them are capable of taking care of themselves. The dragons grow sick of waiting around, and the city grows sick of feeding them, so they agree to head north and try to find the ancient city of Kelsingra. With them goes Thymara, a girl heavily touched by the Rain Wilds and resented by her mother since birth, as well as other Rain Wilds children chosen to care for the dragons. Meanwhile, Alise, a Bingtown Trader’s wife deeply unhappy with her marriage, makes herself into a scholar of dragons and decides to go speak with them for herself.
Robin Hobb is one of my favorite fantasy authors and her worlds never cease to draw me in. We’re back in a familiar place here and I loved hearing more about it and the people in the Rain Wilds. She also draws fantastic characters. I felt so much for Alise and her struggles with her husband. There are many secrets floating around and she is clearly the most hurt by them. I wanted her to reassert her independence and remember who she was over the course of her journey. Thymara is hurt in different ways; she’s younger but has had to deal with parental and societal rejection throughout her entire life. Her father loves her and saved her from exposure as a baby, but her mother has always resented her for being so heavily touched by the Rain Wilds, unable to think of marriage or a normal life. As she embarks on this journey, she’s forced to confront the fact that her preconceptions about life may be wrong.
And there are the dragons, who have personalities of their own. Readers of previous series will be familiar with Tintaglia, but the stunted dragons are very interesting characters in their own right. They remember what it’s like to be dragons from their ancestral memories, but are incapable of behaving the way they know they should. That conflict is fantastically done.
The problem, however, is that not really all that much happens here. There is a whole lot of building up but not a lot of moving, and I fear fans of other fantasy novels might consider this one boring. Plus, it has no real plot of its own, no arc contained in this book, not even a cliffhanger at the end to mark the close. I can see why the second book is being released only a few months after, instead of the normal year, because to be honest readers would probably forget to buy the next one otherwise. It’s obviously only half a book for all its length and I have to admit that I hope the second volume will be a little more exciting. I’d suggest waiting and reading both of them together.
Robin Hobb is still an amazing author, though, and her works draw me in like almost nothing else. I’m very much looking forward to the next book in this duology. Fans of the series will love Dragon Keeper, but I think newcomers would be better starting off with her Six Duchies books.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
These are books 2, 3, and 4 in the Vampire Academy series. I reviewed the first one here.
I read all these right in a row, so it’s hard for me to differentiate them from each other. And it’s impossible to avoid spoilers. So I’m just mushing them all into one “thoughts” post, to remember what I thought about the series when the next one rolls around. For those who haven’t read them, I’ll just tell you that if you like YA boarding school stories with vampire romance, and don’t mind some diversions outside of the boarding school, this is a good series for you.
  
All of these books are from Rose’s viewpoint, with occasional peeks from her into Lissa’s head. I still liked Rose and I thought her relationship with the older Dimitri was sweet, but I have to admit that I thought her emotions were overwrought at times, especially in the last book, Blood Promise. She has loads of memories that we never saw in the first three books, except for the one time they had sex, and it kind of irritated me that we didn’t experience as much of their love story as I might have liked. If we had, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like she was being constantly dramatic, for all her talent as a master Strigoi killer. Her grief in Frostbite and the beginning of Shadow Kiss was more interesting.
I loved that Rose went to Russia and explored another part of the world that Mead created. I like the world and I felt like it became much more fully fleshed out in these three books. I liked that Rose’s mother showed up, and more than once, so we learn that there’s a reason behind this heroine’s absent-mother syndrome, and that her mother does love her. Rose and Lissa discover more about their shadow-kissed bond, and find other people who have it, too, as well as finding another spirit user. Since that’s been established, the fact that they might need to use spirit, as implied in the cliffhanger, doesn’t feel like a deus ex machina. The roots of all these problems were in the first book. Still, I had cause to wish the plots were tighter, especially in Shadow Kiss and Blood Promise. There is some purposeless rambling, and even more annoying one of the covers has a teaser line that isn’t answered until the last 100 pages of the book. I hate that, but it’s obviously not the author’s fault that the publisher is trying to make the book sound more exciting.
I do have to say that I really enjoyed this series. They were all very fast reads and I generally don’t mind cliffhangers when I have the next book right with me. I’m looking forward to the next one, but I’m not in a rush. I just hope that the series isn’t never-ending and doesn’t get longer and more dramatic with the next installment, but I will be reading it in May when it comes out.
I’m an Amazon Associate, I bought all these books.
 This is a collection of short stories set in Charles de Lint’s urban fantasy city of Newford. This city – I’ve always thought it was in Canada but I don’t recall ever actually reading that – has its fair share of the poor, the needy, and the ones who choose to take advantage of them, but it is also full of magic for those with the ability to embrace it, like artist Sophie who dreams another world into existence. Though these stories have all been published before and can be treated as separate entities, the book also works well as a collection with many of the same characters appearing over and over again.
My previous experience with Charles de Lint has been confined to The Onion Girl, which is set in this same city, and Moonheart, which is set elsewhere but still falls under an urban fantasy heading. I knew that Newford started out with short stories and I always wanted to start from the beginning. The Ivory and the Horn isn’t the beginning, but it was close enough for me when I got tired of waiting to be able to buy the first collection!
This is urban fantasy, but it’s a different kind of urban fantasy than the glut of books about badass heroines falling in love with/killing vampires/werewolves/etc which is currently dominating the market at the moment. Much as I do enjoy those books, I also really enjoy this, because I feel that Newford is very much a real city with a real city’s issues, even if its inhabitants transport themselves to other worlds on occasion. There is poverty here. There is murder that has nothing to do with blood-sucking. To me, this is more like real life with a fantasy edge, not a book that is fantasy with few touches of real life. The fantasy is so subtle in some of the stories that it could be explained away as a dream or delusion, until it’s confirmed by someone else.
De Lint’s fantasy has also always felt very natural to me. It’s bound up in what I imagine are Native American myths. Some of the characters transport themselves to a desert and speak with animal spirits, or perform magic that leaves behind bits of bone and grass. It always feels to me like it touches on what people actually believed was real at one point. It’s difficult to describe the essence of it, but I really like it.
I even liked the characters. Short stories are often a hard sell for me. I find it really hard to relate to anyone when they’re only around for thirty pages or so, and I don’t think the plot always can develop either. But here, because everyone pops up again and again, and similar issues are dealt with, and the city stays the same, I actually really appreciated the short story format. The stories kept my attention and I could get to know the characters as well as find out a new angle about their lives. It’s about a community.
I’m really anxious to read more Newford stories. I’m still not supposed to be buying books, but we’re halfway through February now and it’s almost March, when I can be a little freer with my purchases. So, recommendations – I fully intend to read Dreams Underfoot, but what else is excellent by de Lint? Let me know!
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book, and I’m sorry I waited so long to read it!
 On the West Coast of this alternate United States, vampires reign supreme, but Marius Dumont has a problem. He’s in love with Jillian Cooper and always has been, but he must marry Tatiana Asprey, a New York werewolf, in order to maintain peace between their races against the humans. He’s determined to put his love aside for politics until a deadly virus hits the vampire population, and he and Jillian must team up to discover a cause and a cure before it’s too late. Interspersed with their gripping story is the Victorian tale of Edward Vaughan and Charlotte Paxton, an uneven match that proves the basis for everything Jillian and Marius deal with in the present day.
Even though Crimson & Steam is apparently the eighth novel set in this universe, I had no trouble at all quickly picking up on the story and surprisingly falling in love with it. It will shock no one that the Victorian sections were my favorite part. When it comes to romance, generally the only kind I like is historical, and Edward and Charlotte have a very sweet story that is totally relevant to the modern day part.
What is surprising is how much I liked that modern day part. Jillian and Marius don’t really have a romance exactly; they are soul mates and Marius is capable of hearing Jillian’s thoughts and sensing her emotions no matter where she is. It’s established that they’ve had this connection for a good long while. At first, I had Jill pegged as a very weak and whiny heroine, incapable of facing the world without a man she’d come to rely on. She got stronger in the end, but ultimately I still preferred Charlotte, the Victorian heroine. Marius could have been annoying himself, given his clear love for Jillian yet insistence on marrying someone else, but I thought the political situation was well played out and I understood his motives.
I liked it all so much, I think, because there was a clever plot behind it and the focus was on that, rather than what was happening between Marius and Jillian. The side characters of Tatiana and Hayden, Jillian’s ex-boyfriend with some back story issues of his own, really livened up the story. There is just the right amount of suspense and because it doesn’t feel much like a romance novel, I wasn’t sure the happy ending was guaranteed in either of the storylines. I found I was much more engaged and interested as a result. Plus, I loved the steampunk world and reading about it in the present day and then back to its Victorian origins was a lot of fun.
Crimson & Steam was a great light read that I’d recommend to romance or urban fantasy fans. An intriguing world, a clever plotline, and a few great characters make this a very enjoyable book.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book from the author for free as an ebook.
 In this sequel to Inda, Sherwood Smith follows her young hero through some seaside adventures as he grows up learning to fight against pirates after his exile from his childhood home. Inda’s complex plans and capers form the basis for most of the storyline, but exciting events are also afoot in Iasca Leror, Inda’s birthplace. When his brother is killed, Inda becomes the heir to Choraed Elgar, his family’s realm, and they launch a search to find him. Treachery strikes the royal court and if Inda ever goes home, he will find a completely different place than he expects.
While I really enjoyed Inda and found it was a great fantasy to lose myself in, The Fox suffered from second book syndrome. A lot happens, but it’s spread out over the 750+ pages, and as a result the book feels fairly slow even though there is actually plenty of action. Not much at all is resolved, but progress is generally made across the plotlines as the characters that were introduced as children in the first book grow up.
I will admit freely that part of the problem I had with this book is that so much of it took place on a ship. I’m one of those strange people that really prefers fantasy books in particular settings, and aboard ship has just never been one of them. The only exception to this rule so far has been Robin Hobb. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been on a ship, but I just found it really hard to continue paying attention during the sea battles, and given that 2/3 of the book takes place there, this was a problem. I always enjoyed it when the narrative returned to Inda’s family and friends on dry land in Choraed Elgar because I vastly prefer kingdom politics to piracy politics. Luckily, this one seems to indicate that more of book three will be spent on land, so my enthusiasm for the series is not as diminished as it could have been.
Regardless of my criticisms, I really enjoyed how the characters developed and I found myself caring a lot about them. I’m interested to see where the story is going and that is really what matters here. It’s still a fairly solid continuation to a promising epic fantasy saga, and I think approached in that way would be a very enjoyable read for anyone who likes that kind of book.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 As a young Norseman, it is Eyvind’s ultimate dream to become a Wolfskin, a warrior dedicated to Thor, his life sworn to do the warrior god’s bidding. As a strong, tall boy, with his older brother a Wolfskin, no one doubts that Eyvind’s dream will come true. One summer, Eyvind’s brother brings a boy, the younger brother of one of his friends, and asks Eyvind to make him more of a man. Reluctantly, Eyvind takes this small, strange boy under his wing, teaching him what he knows as he is startled by Somerled’s goals and questions. Eyvind is so unsettled by Somerled, and so pitying towards the friendless boy, that he even makes an oath of brotherhood to him, sworn in blood. The disastrous consequences of that oath only become clear on a journey to the Orkney islands, when Somerled’s ambition takes over and Eyvind must fight in a completely new way to save a woman he loves and her culture.
Readers of this blog will surely know that Juliet Marillier is one of my very favorite authors. This is one of her earlier works and I think lacks something of the polish that she’s acquired over the past few years, but I still loved it.
The beginning of the book was a bit slow and perhaps put me off initially racing through it like I had intended. The relationship between Eyvind and Somerled is complex and often frustrating; as a reader I wanted to hit Somerled and even Eyvind when he didn’t seem to see the truth of things. Moreover, the back cover told me that they were going to set off on a voyage, and I basically wanted them to go. Once they did, I felt the story really started, but also discovered that the slow beginning and building of Somerled’s character is really what made the rest of the book rich, understandable, and fascinating. Somerled is clearly the villain here, but he is also a multi-faceted character that reveals different aspects of himself to different people. His relationship with Eyvind is the only way to see what really goes on in his mind.
As ever with Juliet Marillier, I also fell hard for the love story. She always weaves them seamlessly into a larger plot, giving me virtually everything I want from a big fantasy novel. Eyvind doesn’t only fall in love. He also deals with the reality of his life as a warrior, betrayal by his best friend, and learns strength that he didn’t realize he had. He makes shifts in his thinking and develops as a character remarkably. Marillier has a wonderful touch with these developments and with character relations. She hasn’t let me down here. The plot feels as though it moves very quickly through the last three hundred pages, but it’s all woven up with precision and beauty. This one lacks the fairy tale feel of much of her other work, but doesn’t fail to be a great story.
Wolfskin was a lovely historical fantasy that I can definitely recommend. I’m very much looking forward to Foxmask, which picks up with the children of some of these characters some years on.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 This is book eight in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I am reading these books in part for the challenge hosted over at Beth Fish Reads.
After the explosive disaster that was the vampire summit, Sookie needs some time to recover. But she’s still worried about her missing boyfriend, Quinn, and fretting over the many changes in the vampire world. Now that Sophie-Anne is seriously injured and has lost her closest bodyguard, the vampire state of Louisiana is virtually up for grabs. The were world isn’t easy, either, with someone pitting the two factions against one another. Sookie’s going to be dealing with a lot of changes and very soon.
This installment of the Sookie series possibly has the least amount of cohesive plot ever. A lot of things are happening, but there isn’t necessarily one overarching point to it all. A lot of this book is Sookie going about her life and coping with what’s happened. I didn’t mind as much, but it was definitely a slower read than previous Sookie books because I wasn’t necessarily racing to find out what happened next. The end, however, has made me really want to pick up the current last book in the series, the ninth one, to see what happens there.
My favorite part of this one was definitely the relationship between Sookie and Eric. Like most people who read these books, I have a huge soft spot for Eric. Ever since he and Sookie were together in the fourth book, I have decided that I want him and Sookie to give it a shot, even if it wouldn’t work. I liked that he had something of a presence here and that he’s remembering what happened between them. I also thought their blood bond was interesting, and I am wondering if Sookie’s new-found ability to feel his emotions will have repercussions for the rest of the series.
Even though From Dead to Worse was somewhat lacking in the solid plot department, it still had a lot of action and was a fun read. So far, I can still recommend the series all the way.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 This is book seven in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I’m reading these in part for the challenge hosted over at Beth Fish Reads.
Sookie’s telepathic skills are about to come in handy for the Queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne. The vampires are having a summit and Sophie-Anne wants to know what the humans are thinking. Sookie mostly wants time to get over her traitorous ex, Bill, and get used to her new relationship with were-tiger Quinn, but she accepts Sophie-Anne’s offer. She’ll be generously paid and she’s curious. Vampire politics are complicated, though, and soon Sookie finds herself in a far bigger mess than she’d ever expected.
I’m still very much enjoying this series. Quite a bit happens in All Together Dead, keeping my attention very effectively. At the beginning, there is quite a bit of happening in Sookie’s normal life – her brother gets married to were-panther Crystal, for example, and Sookie has a new roommate in Amelia Broadway, witch. Her former friend Arlene bonds with the Fellowship of the Sun and Sookie finally gets a little closer to Quinn and develops some hope for their relationship. Her world is certainly never boring, but the vampire summit is clearly the high point of this book. As it should be, because this is really what develops the events in the entire supernatural world.
I really liked Sookie’s developing relationships. In the last book I thought I was fond of Quinn, but I’m not sure here. He’s been hiding things from Sookie and I’m not sure I like that. I am really enjoying the way her relationship is going with Eric though. It’s always interesting to see where each book goes. As always, Sookie herself is definitely the attraction for this series. She’s a sweet, honest, and genuinely interesting character and it’s nice to have a main character that feels so familiar over the course of the series.
As I’ve said in possibly every review so far, I’m recommending this series and looking forward to reading more.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 This is a collection of short stories and poems that Neil Gaiman has either written for publication elsewhere or had lying around for other reasons and collected in this volume. The stories are extremely varied, many are dark and involve magic (as one might expect), and there are even a few fairy tale retellings. A few of the stories pay homage to other writers and the explanations for these are given in the introduction, which is extremely helpful as one goes on.
I found this collection to be a bit of a mixed bag. I really enjoyed a lot of the stories, but I’m not a huge fan of poetry, and these didn’t strike me as particularly good. This may just be my own personal defect, but I enjoyed the prose short stories much more. I found myself at a disadvantage occasionally because I hadn’t heard of the author Gaiman was imitating or honoring, but for the most part these were interesting selections.
I haven’t read Gaiman in a while and I was surprised by how sexual some of his stories were, too. One was particularly explicit, describing virtually everything that goes on in a bedroom scene, and I hadn’t really expected that at all. Another one is about a man obsessed with finding a girl photographed naked in a magazine, always aged nineteen no matter when the pictures appear. I didn’t remember if this was typical of his work or if he’d just made exceptions here. A lot of the stories were creepy and had dark or ambiguous endings. As I was going along, I thought this would be perfect for the RIP challenge, even though it’s a long time until the next one.
I don’t really have any deep thoughts about this collection, but I think it speaks volumes that while I normally take forever to read short story collections (I’ve had a different one going for a couple of weeks), I finished this one in a couple of days. The stories are often very short, two to three pages, and Gaiman writes well. The stories go oddly well together, often picking up on themes, like magicians’ magic (hence smoke and mirrors) and using various bits of mythology to make his reader think.
Overall, Smoke and Mirrors is recommended, especially if you enjoy short stories and creepier fantasy.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
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