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 From the back cover:
After their victory in Aurenen, Alec and Seregil have returned home to Rhiminee. But with most of their allies dead or exiled, it is difficult for them to settle in. Hoping for diversion, they accept an assignment that will take them back to Seregil’s homeland. En route, however, they are ambushed and separated, and both are sold into slavery. Clinging to life, Seregil is sustained only by the hope that Alec is alive.
But it is not Alec’s life his strange master wants – it is his blood. For his unique lineage is capable of producing a rare treasure, but only through a harrowing process that will test him body and soul and unwittingly entangle him and Seregil in the realm of alchemists and madmen – and an enigmatic creature that may hold their very destiny in its inhuman hands … but will it prove to be savior or monster?
I didn’t realize how much I really wanted to spend time in a fantasy world when I picked this up, but I really, really was in the perfect mood for it. This is the fourth book in the Nightrunner series; it was intended to be a trilogy but proved so popular that the author appears to have written more! I’m very happy about this, especially given that this is a wonderful addition to the series as it stands. I love Alec and Seregil and their world, so of course I was happy to spend another book with them. In this one, they venture to another new country (albeit unwillingly) and we get to see some of Plenimaran culture. They also run into an unpleasant reminder of Seregil’s past.
I had forgotten most of what happened in the first three books; I read them at least a year ago, before I began blogging seriously, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. I remembered enough to understand the dynamics between all the characters and picked up what I’d forgotten fairly quickly, but I’d probably recommend reading the whole series in order and fairly close together. This one definitely leads into the next one, The White Road, which is coming out next February, but wraps up its own storylines for the most part.
That storyline is very exciting; the plot twists and turns and it’s hard to know what’s going to happen next. Seregil and Alec are fantastic characters as usual; the secondary characters aren’t huge here but they also show up and remind us why we like them so much. All in all, this is a very respectable, solid fantasy novel. It does its job of transporting its reader to another world extremely well. I’m really looking forward to The White Road!
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon | Amazon UK
In an effort to bulk up my reading in June, I read three books which I feel don’t really need a full review. I read a fourth one in July. I wasn’t crazy about any of them, but I’d like to record my thoughts for posterity, so here goes.
 Simply Magic, Mary Balogh
Recently, I welcomed Mary Balogh to my favorites list. She doesn’t do badly in this book either, although I’m beginning to see her formula to an extent. Susanna, a teacher at Miss Martin’s School for Girls, is a charity case who became such a wonderful student that she earned a place among the faculty both as a teacher and friend. When visiting her friend Frances, Susanna meets Peter Edgeworth, Viscount Whitleaf, and they proceed to become friends and eventually fall in love. As I said, Balogh definitely has a formula. The characters become good friends and then realize there is more to their relationship. There is also always the “just one night” mentality, meaning that the couples do it just before they separate for good. This has gotten to me a little bit; maybe once, but every single one of her female characters is relatively unconcerned about pregnancies? I can understand the mentality but I don’t know how much I’d share it if an accidental pregnancy was an irreparable tragedy. I still liked the book but I hope the next one I read by her deviates from this formula.
Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton
Everyone always talks about how the first few books of this series are pretty good but the series goes downhill after that. I figured I’d try it anyway. Luckily or unluckily, I really wasn’t fond of this first book and have no plans to read more. The book is virtually dripping with sexuality even before the series has denigrated; it already disturbed me and it could only get worse. I understand that most of vampires’ appeal is that sexual aspect, but there is a point where it is too much. Worse, I didn’t really like Anita, I didn’t like the style in which the book was written, and I actually missed the world-building explanations I’ve found in other urban fantasy series. This one just tossed me in, which might have worked if I’d liked the plot, but I wasn’t feeling it in any way.
 A Little Bit Wicked, Victoria Alexander
I thought this would be a good, unconventional romance. The heroine has had affairs and been married before (gasp!) so I figured she would be relatively aware of the world. It’s not really different, though. The hero is jealous of all her former lovers and of course has to be the best of all of them. Judith is an interesting heroine, but Gideon, the hero, feels like more of the same. I also really dislike when everyone knows the couple is in love before they do. Well-meaning, but I can’t say I’d want someone telling me how I felt, so it always annoys me when they try it in the books I’m reading. I prefer the couple to develop that through their relationship, not through someone else telling them they’re in love because they have a special twinkle in their eye or something. I think I need to stop reading romance novels for a while. I’m getting tired of them; too many of them are the same and not really believable love stories.
 To Catch an Heiress, Julia Quinn
This is another cute, funny romance from Julia Quinn. I think this is one of her first books, but it still comes across fairly well and doesn’t drown in stereotypes. Caroline and Blake are a sparkling couple, full of witty dialogue and snarky comebacks. Some of the events that happen here are laugh-out-loud funny and I just loved the little blurbs at the beginning of each chapter with a vocabulary word and Caroline’s explanation of why she was thinking of it at the time. I did find that the espionage plot felt a little tacked on. It was in evidence from almost the beginning, but it seemed more a convenient foil to bring the hero and heroine together than a major plot point, until the end when the suspense suddenly takes over. I didn’t find the threat all too convincing and felt that the couple could have realized the extent of their love in some other way. Still, this is easily my favorite of the four books I’ve mentioned here and Julia Quinn is definitely remaining as my favorite romance author.
 Ever since Leslie’s life spiralled out of control and she was raped by her brother’s friend, with his permission, she is desperate to reclaim control of herself and her body. She sees a tattoo as the way to do that, laying a mark on her skin that is for her benefit alone. But the tattoo design she chooses is not that simple and instead links her to the king of the Dark Court of the faerie, Irial. Isolated from her friends, especially Aislinn who cannot tell Leslie about the world she now inhabits, Leslie finds herself in a dark place which harbors the unlikeliest heroes.
While this book is definitely considerably darker than Wicked Lovely, I found myself enjoying it just as much if not more. I like darker stories and I completely admired Leslie, who sometimes makes wrong decisions but certainly has her heart in the right place. After what happened to her, almost anyone would be damaged, and I thought that she was for the most part on the right track, strong enough to attempt to save herself but still vulnerable enough to also inspire the best in others. This creates for some fascinating character dynamics revolving around Leslie and her friends.
Many of the characters from Wicked Lovely return, like Seth, Keenan, and Aislinn; Niall returns for a very important role, which I was happy to see since I hadn’t learned much of his character before. I love when books take minor characters and flesh them out in such ways. This is definitely more of a sequel to Wicked Lovely than I had initially expected. It’s very interesting to see the characters from the first book through the eyes of others who don’t know about the world they inhabit or the deals they’ve made to continue the status quo. Leslie discovers the faerie world for herself but in a completely different way from Aislinn for obvious reasons. Her journey is more painful but more affecting as a result.
I’ve also come to really appreciate the world that Melissa Marr has created. The faerie court is fascinating and multi-faceted. Seeing another of the courts in close detail like this has really broadened the perspective that Marr has given to the series and I can’t wait for it to expand even further. I’m really looking forward to going back for more with Fragile Eternity to see how these characters develop and interact in their future.
These books are wonderful. I definitely think they can be appreciated by adults as well as their target YA audience. If you want to spend some time in a faerie world, look no further.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon | Amazon UK
 Mercy Thompson; woken at 3am by a vampire. Stefan also happens to be a friend, and he needs her help. He has to deliver a message to a fellow undead and needs a witness that won’t be noticed – and Mercy’s shapeshifting abilities make her the perfect candidate.
But the assignment turns into a bloodbath and Mercy attracts the attention of not just a powerful vampire, but the even more powerful demon possessing him. She can count on the supernatural community for protection – and alpha werewolf Adam would like her to rely on him in other ways, too – but when it comes to being proactive, she’s on her own.
Mercy Thompson is probably my favorite of all the urban fantasy heroines I’ve encountered so far. I love that she is gutsy and smart but knows when things are a little too tough for her. She knows to call in reinforcements. In this case, she starts out as a reinforcement herself, which makes things very interesting. She’s got her skills and she knows how to use them. Another thing I absolutely love about Mercy is the fact that she’s got a handle on her sex drive. It always bothers me when women in novels just can’t hold back even when their minds tell them they should. Mercy knows how to go slowly and get to know a guy before she risks deeper bonds. I like that a lot.
As far as series books go, this one is a nice follow-up to Moon Called. The characters are still awesome and their bonds only grow stronger throughout this book. We start to learn a little more about them. There is a new evil introduced that puts favorite characters in serious danger and had me racing through the book hoping that they were okay. The book isn’t hard to race through, given that my UK edition is only 326 pages. I also really enjoy the fact that this is a complete story but with some hooks to keep me reading the series. I’ll definitely be doing that; Iron Kissed is waiting for me on my TBR pile!
Powell’s | IndieBound | Amazon | Amazon UK
(Aside: Does anyone else find that generally reviews of series books are much shorter than of others?)
 Though born as a child of the Maghuin Dhonn, Moirin has always seen two different gods, the bright lady and the man with a seedling in his hand. As she grew up with her mother in a cave, she had no idea that she was also half D’Angeline and destined for greater things than a life in the wilderness. When Moirin gains adulthood and undergoes the rite to discover whether she is truly one of the Maghuin Dhonn, she realizes that she has a mission and that her diadh-anam is leading her to Terre d’Ange and further, into a world she scarcely imagined and a life as far as possible from her cave in the wilderness.
I have loved every book that Jacqueline Carey has written. No exceptions. I even enjoyed The Sundering duology, which most people don’t really like. Naamah’s Kiss is not an exception to this rule because I loved it too. I’m actually left wondering just how this woman writes amazing book after amazing book, but I’m not complaining at all.
As usual, I love Carey’s writing style. Many people have referred to it as purple prose, but I think it suits the book beautifully. It succeeds completely in grounding me in her world and reminds me instantly where I am because it’s certainly distinctive. I do agree that her writing has improved over the course of the past few years and has become even more beautiful. Here’s how this book opens, narrated by Moirin:
I was born to the Maghuin Dhonn.
We are the folk of the Brown Bear and the oldest magic in Alba runs in our veins. Once, there were great magicians among us – men and women capable of seeing all the skeins of the future unwind in the great stone circles, capable of taking on the shape of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself.
No more.
It changed long before I was born, when a prince of Terre d’Ange wed a princess of the Cullach Gorrym, the folk of the Black Boar. The greatest magicians among us saw the seeds of our destruction in that union. They acted to avert it; and in the end, they succeeded.
– p. 1
I also really appreciated that Moirin is not Phedre from the first six books. They have similar characteristics in that they are both to an extent selfless and devoted to loving others, but they feel like very different women. I was a little worried about how well Carey would pull that off, given that many authors settle into one voice and all characters start to feel the same after a while, especially those of the same gender. It’s not so here. The budding love story, while similar in theme given both start off with hatred but protection from the men, also feels different and new, perhaps because this man is no polished warrior like Joscelin. It also doesn’t feel quite as epic, but this is only the first book.
For fans of the series, it’s also interesting to see how the stories in the Kushiel’s Legacy series have trickled down to influence Carey’s world a few generations on. Many of the primary characters here are related in some way to those who populated the first series, excepting the Ch’in, which provides an extra perk to fans of the first series while not leaving behind new readers since all the legends are explained. The book wraps up most of its central storyline, but is completely open for a sequel and I expect there will be one.
I don’t think Naamah’s Kiss is necessarily up to the standards of the Kushiel’s Legacy series yet, but I loved it anyway. Jacqueline Carey is one of my favorite authors and I’ll be recommending all of her work, including this one.
*Worth mentioning, all of these books are quite explicit and include all manner of pairings.
 Tally can’t wait to be a pretty. Her best friend has already turned 16 and had the operation. Against all the rules, Tally sneaks into New Pretty Town and visits him, promising to do nothing to risk remaining an ugly forever. In that short summer, Tally meets Shay, another ugly who shares Tally’s birthday. The two become fast friends, but Shay, disturbingly, does not want to be a pretty. When Shay sneaks away just before their birthday, Tally is forced to go find her or never become a pretty; but after all that she discovers, does she really want to be one?
Uglies was such a fascinating book. I’m very into YA dystopian novels. Actually, I like most of them, but adult versions can get very depressing. This one reminded me in some ways of The Giver, a fantastic book that I’ve read countless times over the years. Both kids learn that their perfect, happy society is not at all what it seems in the end and that maybe they don’t want to conform to their society’s expectations of them.
Since I knew something was “wrong” with pretties, or at least something wasn’t good about them, I do have to confess I found myself frustrated with Tally for being so excited about the transition. I didn’t know what it was, though, and as I was impatient to find out, I found myself racing through the book. It’s a fairly quick read, I got through it in an evening, but the desire to know did not outweigh the pleasure that I found in these pages. Tally becomes a wonderful character, growing and changing and becoming more interesting. I love when this happens and when it’s believable. She makes mistakes and she learns from them. I’m not sure any of the secondary characters enjoyed a similar level of personability or character development, but there isn’t enough space with the dynamic, fast-moving plot.
I loved the little details about Tally’s world and how it has changed and I hope that in the following books, we get to learn more. It’s great when she finds old magazines and finds people who aren’t pretties being defined as beautiful, when she travels through the old rusted city and rides the roller coaster, or the orchid that eradicates all other plant life. Her own world is interesting too, with walls that can produce any movie she’d like, the endless parties in New Pretty Town, and the suburbs where all of the older pretties live. Again, I hope it in the next few, we can explore a little more outside this particular settlement.
Uglies was an interesting, thoughtful, but exciting and at times intense read. I think it can be appreciated by adults and young adults alike. There is enough here to ponder over while still providing a compelling story. I recommend it and I really look forward to the rest of the series, since this one ends in a cliffhanger!
 Even though Honour is not nearly as beautiful as her two older sisters Grace and Hope, she has always been nicknamed Beauty, a contradiction she frequently shrugs off. Beauty loves learning and reading and takes great pride in the books she owns; she can own quite a few due to the wealth of her father. While her sisters meet potential husbands, Beauty reads. All this changes when their father’s fleet is lost at sea. Not only has his wealth vanished but so has Grace’s fiance. The family moves inland, away from the city, to a small town on the outskirts of an enchanted forest. When Beauty’s father inadvertantly meets a beast, he must promise to remain forever unless one of his daughters is willing to take his place. Beauty knows her duty and heads into the forest for the confrontation of her life and the making of her future.
I’m very excited about fairy tale retellings these days and I have informally decided that Robin McKinley is the queen of that special feel which only fairy tales have. She hasn’t let me down yet, and she certainly didn’t in this one. When I was a little girl, Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorite movies. I love it now because it’s a love story which does not, for once, revolve around beautiful people, but rather personalities. Beauty must be strong enough to face the Beast and tame him, but he must have an extraordinary personality for her to see past his hideous appearance and love him. I love this dynamic, sucker as I am for romance, and McKinley does it SO. WELL.
I’m assuming everyone knows how the story goes, so I’m not going to try and avoid spoilers, especially because my absolute favorite part was the ending. As we all know, when Beauty admits that she loves the Beast and wants to marry him, he becomes human again. Her shock at his newly attractive appearance – and insistence that she couldn’t marry him, he wasn’t her Beast – was a splendid and moving scene. I could completely believe in this love story and I adored the ethereal feel which Robin McKinley is so, so good at. Yes, I’m in love with this book, and I’m not really ashamed to admit it!
A couple of little things also swept me away in the telling of this story. I loved that the Beast’s library was full of books from the future. It fit in with the magical setting and allowed Beauty plenty of distraction. I think this is meant to be a medieval or early modern world, so books in print would be quite rare at that time. Secondly, I love that Beauty became beautiful as she fell in love and the story went on. She seems young in the beginning, but as time goes on she grows up and grows into her body, which I think is a wonderful physical representation for the growth of her feelings and love towards the Beast.
Anyway, I will now stop my endless rambling and just tell you that you really ought to read Robin McKinley if you haven’t before. I missed her as a child and I regret this so much! I’m loving my discovery of her books and I hope that you would, too. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who loves fantasy or fairy tales.
Available via IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
 Mercy Thompson is an auto mechanic. She’s also a shape shifter and lives next door to a sexy werewolf, Adam, in a world where supernatural creatures are being forced out of hiding due to advancing science. When a new, teenage werewolf who isn’t affiliated with Adam’s pack shows up in Mercy’s shop, she finds herself in the middle of both a werewolf war and a love triangle as she goes back into her own past for some answers.
I very much enjoyed this book. I liked this version of AU America; every urban fantasy has a slightly different twist on it and this one is great. It makes perfect sense to me that werewolves, vampires, and the like are about to be outed via modern science. If we can cure diseases, surely we can investigate other physical phenomena. Since most urban fantasy gathers werewolves into packs like this one, it was a wonderful move to set Mercy slightly outside the pack. She turns into a coyote but shares few of the advantages that werewolves have; she is not necessarily more human than they are but she is one step outside of their society while still being in it enough to be a part of the action.
Mercy herself is a great character. She is brave, a bit stubborn, and clearly a tomboy, but still has a romantic heart and is very easy to relate to. I had a soft spot for her the minute I learned she’d majored in history. She’s determined to get to the truth of the mystery she’s unearthed and she doesn’t back down when threats emerge. I think her struggles with the men in her life only enrich her character more; we learn about her history and simultaneously can witness for ourselves just how much she’s grown and changed.
The plot rockets along in this short book, which comes in under 300 pages; there were a couple of times when I felt that Mercy was explaining a little too much but as something of a set-up for the world, I’m used to it in the first book of a series. I’ve been reading a lot of these lately. By the time I hit the middle, I needed to know what happened, and by the end, I didn’t want to give it up.
I can’t wait to read Blood Bound. I immediately went and ordered it online and now I’m just waiting impatiently for it to arrive. I really, really enjoyed this book. I can’t wait for the relationships between the characters to deepen, for another story to start, or to learn more about the world. If you like urban fantasy, I highly recommend giving this series a shot.
Buy it from Amazon, Amazon UK, Powell’s, or IndieBound.
 The orphan Moth has grown up in Calio, a city so high up on the mountains that it’s nearly in the clouds, watching Skyknights and dreaming of flying in a dragonfly of his own. As a peasant orphan, though, all Moth can do is work at the aerodrome and dream while he lives with his elderly friend Leroux and Leroux’s pet kestrel Lady Esme. Leroux often tells tales about the land beyond the Reach, an sea of fog nearby that never seems to end, which only grow more fantastical as the old man gets sicker. Moth’s friend Fiona is also an orphan but lives with her rich grandfather, the Governor of Calio. Neither are content with their lives, but are soon to find that the tales Leroux told are much closer to the truth than either of them would have imagined.
This book took a few pages to absorb me, but once I was hooked, I was really hooked and the pages flew by. This is certainly a hallmark of YA fiction; kids have limited attention spans, so the story has to be great and fast-moving to compel them to keep reading. Once Moth and Fiona go through the Reach, this is certainly the case with this book. We don’t know much about anyone who is helping them or anyone who is chasing them, so there is a lot of mystery surrounding their journey, especially given that they are hardly sure of what they are going to find.
The characters were also very sweet. Both of them are young teenagers. Fiona is an uncertain girl who, with unconventional red hair, believes that not only is she ugly, but that everyone in her life will leave her. Her parents’ death left her with deep scars. Moth is still a child at heart, which plays a big part in his actions in this book, convinced that everything can work out and even though he knows he isn’t going to be a Skyknight, his head is full of dreams. Both of them are orphans, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have people who love them. I think Fiona’s grandfather turned out to be one of the surprise great supporting characters in this book. Most of the rest are similarly noble, kind, and care for Moth and Fiona, willing to put their lives on the line for these two. Even the evil characters, for the most part, are ambiguous and not purely evil. Moth is particularly talented in bringing out the good in people with his innocence and his soaring ambition.
I thought the world was well done as well. While not terribly different, in that there are regular fantasy beings like dragons, mermaids, and centaurs, Marco adds some clever new ideas into the mix and I never felt like I was reading something that has already been done. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I can’t give too many details away, but I did like the world and I hope that we will see more of it in the rest of the series.
I definitely enjoyed this YA fantasy novel. It was a touching journey for me as well as the two main characters. I would recommend it to both adults who might be in the mood for something fast-paced and exciting as well as for young adults.
Starfinder is available from Amazon, Powell’s, and Amazon UK.
Thanks to TLC book tours and author John Marco for sending me a copy of this book.
 Betsy Taylor, queen of the vampires, has to bring the body of her dead werewolf friend Antonia back to her pack. Unfortunately, the pack resides on Cape Cod, a very dangerous place for a vampire queen, especially when that pack not only believes she got one of their own killed, but is determined to forget that they pushed Antonia out in the first place. With her husband, Sinclair, and adopted baby/half-brother BabyJon in tow, she sets off to confront the werewolves. Meanwhile, her sister, who happens to be the daughter of the devil, has started to go a little crazy. How much can Betsy deal with?
This has got to be one of the fluffiest books I have ever read, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s ridiculous and it knows that it’s ridiculous. Betsy is not only queen of the vampires, but she’s obsessed with shoes! And shopping! Honestly, normally that is not my taste, but the book contains very little mention of those besides other characters teasing Betsy about her obsessions. In fact, I laughed throughout most of this book. Between Betsy’s assistant, who uses ridiculous acronyms in his emails to her, her sister’s crazy devil worshipping followers, and people’s reactions after Betsy rises from the dead (apparently vampire queens can do this), I had so much fun.
This was also an interesting test for me. I hadn’t read any of the other books in the series when I got this one and I didn’t have time or money to buy and read the preceding seven, so I more or less jumped right in. I was curious to see how well I would get on with the story having little to no knowledge of everything that had come before. There was a recap in the beginning of the book which quickly filled me in on the background information. This means I have been a little spoiled for all the preceding books, but perhaps more importantly I now want to read them just because sometimes we all need a laugh. I think having read all of the preceding books may have helped me feel a little more strongly for the characters – I’d just love to read how Betsy and Sinclair fell in love – but it certainly didn’t hinder my enjoyment.
This is what I’d call urban fantasy lite. Don’t read it if you’re looking to think and don’t read it if you can’t deal with supernatural beings. Read it if you’re looking to laugh and have a fun afternoon in a world that has a few more species than our own. This is an ideal airplane read, especially given its short length, although you might get a few funny looks when you start giggling! I’ll certainly happily pick up more of this series and save them for when I need a break.
Undead and Unwelcome is available from Amazon and Amazon UK.
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