Mass Market Monday: Moon Sworn by Keri Arthur

MASS MARKET MONDAYS 

Moon Sworn 

by Keri Arthur

9780440245711, Bantam Dell (Random House), $7.99

So, when I said in my first Keri Arthur post that I wanted to read more of this series, apparently what I meant was I'm going to read #1 and #just released and skip all the ones in between. The problem with this is now that I know what happens in the latest book, I don't want to go back and read the heartbreak that happens in the previous ones! Moon Sworn is such a great plot, and Riley Jenson is in such a good place at the end of the novel that I don't want to go back and read about a time when she wasn't doing this well. That said, if you're new to the series and haven't already read the latest, I highly recommend reading them all in order because though you can understand it even if you skip around, the stories do build upon one another.

I really enjoy the depth of Keri Arthur's characters. The action scenes are well-written, the dialogue is funny, the sex is hot, but most importantly, the complexity of her characters doesn't read as banal drama but real human (or not-so-human, as the case may be) interest. She's not afraid to kill off characters you've come to love, but she also doesn't make her main characters suffer endlessly. There's a happy ending wrapped up in there, and that's something I can get behind.

In this latest novel of the Riley Jenson Guardian series, old foes turn up to get their final revenge. Using nanotechnology, Riley's enemies find a way to strip her of her identity, her shapeshifting, and everyone she loves in this ultimate game of payback. Payback's a bitch, though, and her abductors better watch out, for Riley has too many secrets and too much to live for to let some twisted psychos take her life from her. After a murder occurs that is similar to the case Riley was working on prior to her abduction, Riley begins piecing together her fractured memory, needing to regain everything from her true name and true forms to her true loves. While not giving anything away, let me just say the book finishes very well with both Riley and her tormentors getting exactly what they deserve.

Mass Market Monday: Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian

MASS MARKET MONDAYS

Kiss of Midnight 

by Lara Adrian 

9780553589375, $7.99, Bantam Dell (Random House)

Gabrielle Maxwell is a photographer with a special gift - she is a magnet for supernatural activity. Drawn to random, apparently abandoned locations around town, she photographs stark landscapes and buildings, creating art for a living. Just one problem: she doesn't realize she has this gift and so narrowly escapes with her life again and again, often without knowing it. It isn't until she witnesses a murder outside a club that she is exposed to the realm she has been inadvertently been exploring for years. She is saved from murder herself by Lucan Thorne, a vampire Breed warrior, sworn to protect other vampires and humans from the lawless violence perpetrated by the growing threat of the Rogues. He doesn't want to involve Gabrielle, and he doesn't want to get involved with Gabrielle, but when someone on the Rogues' side recognizes the locations in her photographs, Lucan has to take her into protective custody - his protective custody. They can't deny their attraction to each other, and though both have dark secrets in their pasts, they must learn to trust the knowledge the other person has if they're ever going to avenge their fallen brethren and fight against the Rogues.

This is the first book in the Midnight Breed series and I'm looking forward to reading more.

My favorite part was the unique plot tie-in of Gabrielle's artistic profession. The descriptions of her photographs made me want to go out and take some more photos of abandoned buildings myself.

Book Review: Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur

Full Moon Rising

by Keri Arthur

9780553588453, Bantam Dell (Random House), $7.99

Sizzling! Riley Jenson and Rhoan Jenson are both agents in an organization created to police the supernatural races. Most people don’t know about the organization. Within the organization, most people don’t know Riley & Rhoan are both half-werewolf, half-vampire. And almost noone knows they’re twin brother and sister.

When Rhoan is taken hostage, it’s up to his sister Riley to maintain focus and go in after him, even if the moon lust is particularly hard to ignore this month, and even when a hot, naked vampire shows up on her doorstep. Who can she trust? It’s certainly not her hormones. Can she trust either of her two steady lovers? Can she trust this new vampires? And what if her brother wasn’t the intended target? What if he’s merely bait…for Riley herself?

Kick-ass action sequences, snappy dialogue, hot sex: what’s not to love? I can’t wait to read more of this series.

Book Review: Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Hardcover: 9780385342308, $23, Delacorte Press (Random House)

Paperback: 9780385343497, $15, Bantam (Random House)

Intriguing cover. Interesting premise. Snotty British accents. Child narrator interested in chemistry and the properties of poison. Murder over stamp collecting.

It all sounds like it would lead to a rompy, well-written, literary, murder mystery of a novel doesn't it? And it almost does, with the slight exception that (to me, my own opinion here) it's just pretentious and aware of itself enough that I kept getting pulled out of the story, had to put the book down, go away for a while, and in the end it took me about 2 months to finish! But, for all of those readers out there who enjoy a book about the English countryside, and all manner of things relating to people in the English countryside - nosy neighbors, privileged family with land but no money, boarding school chums, custard pie - this is the perfect read.

Flavia De Luce could easily be the criminal mastermind of post-World War II Britain, despite being only 11 year's old. She's fascinated by all things chemistry, but especially the chemical properties of poisons. When a red-headed midnight visitor to her father is discovered dead in the cucumber patch below her bedroom window, Falvia sets out to solve the mystery of the stranger's death - partially to prove her father's innocence (he's been charged with the murder), and partially because she's fixated on the mysterious death and wants to unearth the chemical properties that might have caused it. Despite of (or with the help of?) the Inspector in charge of the investigation, Flavia manages to make her way around the English countryside with the help of her trusty bicycle Gladys. Searching people's rooms, breaking into the library archives, investigating her father's old boarding school, no place is off-limits to the insatiable curiousity of Flavia. And wouldn't you know it - by the end, murder solved.