Blurb: Dr. Cary Drewel is a dentist in trouble. The loan shark who financed his equipment is threatening to break both his arms if he doesn’t make a payment. Hoping to attract the orthodontia-ready Twilight crowd, Cary distributes a flyer advertising his new practice: Vampires Our Speciality!
Then sexy Pierce Sharpe walks into the clinic holding one of the flyers. Pierce is starving, unable to eat due to his impacted teeth. But even pale and shaky, Pierce makes Cary’s pulse race and his smock tent. Imagine Cary’s surprise when he asks the man to, “Open, please,” and discovers Pierce just might be the real thing!
My thoughts: Vampires with tooth problem: that alone is already hinting at a not too serious sort of story, and this very short one is no exception. A fun read. Cary excels at corny puns and when I thought I’d read enough of those I couldn’t believe that even Pierce, the cool vampire, comes up with a name like “Vlad, the Inhaler”, 
. The problems of Cary were swiftly dealt with and both guys can go home looking forward to a fun night. Quick and entertaining.
Available at Torquere Books
A lot of people will be pleased to hear that a Twilight novella will be coming out in June. “The short second life of Bree Tanner” will be released in hardcover for 13.99$ on June 5. However, her dedicated fans can read an online edition for free at http://www.breetanner.com/ between June 7 and July 5. They say you won’t be able to print it from there.
The story is about Bree Tanner, a vampire in Victoria’s newly raised vampire army against the Cullens. I can’t say I remember the character, but I’m sure hardcore Twilight fans will know all there is to know about her so far.
Here you can find Stephenie Meyer’s press release.
German readers can find some info at Spiegel online. The German version will be released on the same date as the original version, its title will be "Bis(s) zum ersten Sonnenstrahl – Das kurze zweite Leben der Bree Tanner".
The war is at a fever pitch with both sides stretched to the limit, when the dark wizards score a shocking victory and capture Orlando St. Clair. Haggard with worry and grief at the separation from his lover, Alain fears that even if they find Orlando, the vampire’s heart and mind may be far too broken to save.
Knowing the Alliance teeters on the brink, Christophe Lombard, the oldest, most powerful vampire in Paris leaves his self-imposed seclusion to join the fight. Alain’s lost friend Eric Simonet, who betrayed him to join the dark wizards, is faced with a choice between revenge and redemption. And Jean, enraged by Orlando’s capture, faces the most agonizing decision in his unlife as the final battle looms: Will their actions lead to the shattering of the Alliance or the salvation of the world?
Finally I read the long awaited last instalment of the Partnership in Blood series by Ariel Tachna, “Reparation in blood”.
It is quite some time ago that I read “Conflict in blood” and even longer that I read the two previous books (I reviewed Conflict in blood in May 09). I know now that I should have re-read it before reading this. Some situations that were mentioned I had totally forgotten and they left me wondering what people were talking about. I strongly recommend that you re-read at least the third book in the series before you start with this one. Not because you won’t be able to enjoy Reparation in blood but simply in order to get the most out of it.
I’m not going to go into how much I like the series or Ariel’s writing. I already said enough about that in my previous reviews. I’d rather comment on some things that happened in the book instead.
Right on the first page it is clear that Alain is beside himself. Like in the last book I found the difference in how Alain and Orlando kept themselves up astonishing. I would have thought it would be just the other way around. As it happened Alain was a complete wreck, snarking at people, using language I’d never have expected from him and generally acting irrationally and unreasonably (even if all this was understandable). Orlando, however, was strong, withstood Serrier and kept cool and calm.
The main pairings again play important roles and develop their relationships into something more or, like in the case of the love/hate couple Jude and Adele, into a strictly business partnership. Those two might have found their match, but how that match will ever turn out positively I don’t know.
David and Angelique finally overcome their misgivings and find each other. This was done in such a sweet way that those two quickly became one of my favourites of this book.
Monique and Antonio didn’t play a big part in this book at all. Monique was mentioned a few times, but only by people on the other side as the prime example of a successful defector, and a bit later on when we hear about her sentence after she was tried.
What I liked was the fact that the war was not dragged out ad infinitum, but ended somewhere in the second half of the book. A lot of time was spent on describing how things were wrapped up and how people dealt with loose ends. In fact I found that the war ended rather abruptly. I didn’t mind that, but I would have expected a longer battle. Once the milice finally found Serrier’s hiding hole, however, they made short work of him (with some help admittedly).
After the war we hear more about the aveu de sang together with Thierry who learns something about it he doesn’t like too much. All the time I was hoping along with him, only to see my hopes crushed in one sentence.
Lots of things get wrapped up nicely. Eric’s friendship with Alain and Thierry gets, well, re-established might be too strong a word, but at least they get over the animosities and maybe will find back to how it used to be.
The extorris Couthon is dealt with swiftly, something, I’m sure, every reader wanted to see. One of the most interesting points was a short flashback into Orlando’s past that told us more about his first days as a free vampire after Thurloe was executed.
Vincent’s trial takes place as well, so we see a glimpse of what the future will bring to him and Eric.
There is an epilogue which I liked a lot. It finishes Alain’s and Orlando’s story off, so we won’t have to deal with them again. I loved the couple from page one, but in the second half of “Reparation in blood” they became too sweet for me. I didn’t think that was possible, but, yes, it was.
Ariel is writing a sequel about one of the couples, set about a year after the war, she said. So what couple could that possibly be? As far as I am concerned I’d like to know more about either David and Angelique, but even those two seem to be in sync now and don’t need any further exploration. So I’d settle for the couple I love to hate, Jude and Adele. Their situation is not clear at all, we have no idea what their future as a couple (if they ARE a couple at all) will be like and there is enough tension and potential for conflict to keep the story going.
So, as the last book in a series, it brought everything to a satisfying end, but leaves enough room for more. I’m looking forward to it.
If you are interested to read my thoughts about the first three books in the series, you can find them below:
Alliance in Blood
Covenant in Blood
Conflict in Blood
Available at Dreamspinner Press
We all know that Twilight fans can get a bit rabid when they see their favourite author or one of their heroes threatened. Now another one, a certain Kayla Patterson has come forward to give Universal a piece of her mind, explaining what she thinks about plagiarism.
Latino review has received the following letter from Kayla, addressed to Universal studios concerning their recent release “The Wolf Man”:
To whom this may concern:
This movie was a complete waste and I feel that it offends ALL Twilight Fans around the world, that including myself. For one, it was a COMPLETE remaking of the Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga: New Moon. It gives the werewolves a bad name and makes them look like some deformed mutation of a rabid dog. I actually started to like werewolves after seeing Jacob Black and all his awesomeness on the big screen at the movies. That was until I saw your crappy remake of what you call to be a "were wolf". I don’t see how you live with yourself for making it the way you did. If I made this movie, I would be ashamed to even admit that I owned it. How can a werewolf be killed with a silver bullet? Better yet, have you saw the transformation of the man that is "supposed" to be the wolf? He sits in some chair and his entire body turns in to some mutated freak. If you would watch the transformation of Jacob Black, (Taylor Lautner) he doesn’t come close to looking as fake, cheap and or mutated as the wolf man. You tell me, who looks to be the better werewolf. Your stupid Wolf Movie didn’t even make the top Movie for the charts; Valentines Day WITH TAYLOR Lautner! Get that this is MY oppinion and I felt I wanted to express it because I saw that your email was on your site. I wanted to let you know this is what i thought of the wolf man that sucks.
FREAKIN LAUTNER DID!
The letter is accompanied by a couple of pictures that show very clearly what is obviously a ridiculous copy and misinterpretation of a werewolf and what the real thing is supposed to look like.
Isn’t this just brilliant? Poor Kayla! She has given Twilight fans an even worse reputation than they already had. But wait – we’re not done yet. If you look a bit further below you will find a comment by a Poly Cruz that is just as good as the original article. She says:
Even though I am a huge twilight / Taylor Lautner fan I have to say that they didn’t completely rip off twilight. As you all know (If you read the twilight books) that at the end of Breaking Dawn, Edward said that Jacob’s pack were shape shifters, not werewolves. So they are not technically ripping off Twilight.
I wonder if Edward fans go equally nuts over Dracula. Anyway, this whole discussion made my day. Everybody knows that the first appearance of a werewolf in film or literature was Seth Green as Oz in Buffy, which technically makes Joss Whedon the inventor of werewolves. Just kidding!
Finally “Reparation in blood”, the fourth and last part of Ariel Tachna’s “Partnership in blood” series will be released on Friday, Oct. 30 at Dreamspinner Press. Even though I can’t wait to read how the whole story will be wrapped up and who is going to survive the war I’m extremely sorry to see the series come to an end. Ariel promises us discussions, contests and other goodies, as well as exceprts from Reparation in blood and from her upcoming releases.
Come and visit her blog on Friday from 8am Pacific time on Friday.
Blurb: Luke is desperate to save his people. A lifetime of sneaking in to human houses and watching movies has convinced him that if he can make a great movie about monsters, humanity will change its opinion of them. With his friends at his side, all in shiny new human bodies, Luke heads for Tinsel Town.
A rising Hollywood producer, all-business Lena knows a good story when she sees it. Luke? He’s just another amateur who wants to get famous. But Luke’s too gorgeous to pass up. And there’s something vulnerable about him that leads her to throw caution to the wind and invite him to dinner.
One night of incredible sex later, Lena wakes up next to the surprise of her life. She’s sleeping next to a monster. Literally. Appearances aside, she finds herself wanting to help Luke save his people. But they’ve got more to worry about than just human prejudice.Some of the monsters would rather stay in the closet—and to make them all stay there, they’re willing to kill.
My thoughts: This the first hetero romance I’ve read for ages. I have noticed the series “Monsters in Hollywood” some time ago and thought it sounded quite interesting, but then totally lost interest when I switched to m/m stories. Yesterday I read a review over at Literary Nymphs of the third book in the series (“Gone with the monster” – I love the title) which won me over so I went and bought the first one right away.
Lila Dubois cuts to the chase here. I don’t like long prologues and eternal back story on the first 100 pages, but, wow, Luke and Lena had sex so quickly, even I thought that was a bit premature. But then, they clicked from the start, so I could live with it. For a man/monster who never had sex with a human woman and who was quite insecure about how to do it, he was impressive, to say the least. It seems there’s more to monsters than meets the eye indeed. But as Luke’s fellow monster Henry tells him:
…I’ve never had sex with a human either, though she shouldn’t be that different from a succubus, they’re all cut from the same cloth.
Well, thank you!
By the way, the plural of succubus is succubi and not succubae, as referred to a few times in the course of the book.
After a night of the hottest sex of her life Lila wakes up next to a monster. Ok, her initial reaction was to kill the thing, since she thought it had eaten poor Luke, but once she realizes the monster IS Luke she’s ok with it. Astonishingly she accepts the fact hat monsters exist without batting an eyelid. That is explained by the fact that in LA all people are storytellers and believe in the unbelievable. I don’t know whether I can believe that. Just because I’m a storyteller doesn’t necessarily mean I believe in the supernatural per se. On the other hand I can’t blame her. If a gorgeous sex god needed my help and revealed to me that he was a monster I’d probably accept it pretty quickly as well as a given.
Even Lena’s friends were quite cool about it and they didn’t have the benefit of the night before to help them. I’ve got to totally revise my opinion about the US film industry.
In the course of the book there were the inevitable misunderstandings between Luke and Lena, but to my surprise they were resolved rather quickly, i.e. immediately. They talked about the issues RIGHT AWAY and cleared things up. Unheard of in hetero romance, as far as my experience goes. Plus, Lena had some very sensible friends who actually helped them to overcome some misgivings instead of being a destructive force. Another thing that I haven’t encountered very often in that genre.
The conflict that is hinted at in the blurb is a minor one. When I read the blurb I thought that maybe those opposing monsters and the resulting fight against them would distract from the main couple, but this is not so. The plot focuses on Luke and Lena and all the other characters are simply a nice finishing touch.
Available at Samhain Publishing
Blurb: The power of heart and soul holds the key to the survival of the last of the ancient vampires. Kristair is running out of time. His race has faded away, prey to delusion and deterioration, and his only chance to live long enough to find a cure is to bind his psyche to a human vessel in a long forgotten ritual.
Kristair’s chosen vessel is Jacob Corvin, a man of passionate stubbornness and fierce loyalty; he has captured Kristair’s fantasies so completely that he is both the vampire’s greatest strength and most crippling weakness. Drawing upon Jacob’s spirit and Kristair’s resolve, they each bind a portion of their souls to one other. For as long as Jacob carries Kristair’s heart within him, the vampire can continue his quest.
Just when they have hope, their mission is threatened by The Syndicate, a group of younger vampires who attempt to force Kristair to teach them his secrets before he disappears like the rest of the ancients. Battling both The Syndicate’s attacks and his unexpected need and love for Jacob, Kristair’s strength begins to fade, forcing him to make a decision that will change his and Jacob’s lives forever.
Review: The story is told in alternating first person. One chapter it is Kristair’s, the next it is Jacob’s POV. Even though I’m not a fan of first person, I really liked it like that. Almost always the chapters start exactly where the last one ended. The excerpt should give you a good idea of what to expect.
I used to read a lot of paranormal romance, but usually when it comes to gay romance I prefer contemporary, non-paranormal settings. How come that it seems that my favourite series are paranormal nevertheless? I don’t know, but it’s true. Apart from Ariel Tachna’s “Partnership in blood” series, which is definitely my favourite, this one comes in a close second, even though only one book is out so far. It is the first volume in the Triquetra series.
I’m a total sucker for stories with couples having a mental or emotional connection. Thank God this has nothing of the sappiness that sometimes goes with it. Both men are self-assured, stubborn and don’t budge easily, yet their connection is very strong, they feel a lot for each other and will do anything to make sure the other is alright. I liked how the story developed, the problems they had with Jacob’s friends and the Syndicate. Jacob didn’t give in easily or quickly, but once he did, he was 100% committed.
SPOILER!
I absolutely loved the final confrontation with the syndicate, the fight, even though we only got glimpses of it, since Kristair and Jacob were otherwise engaged. The way Ussier rules his city is pretty impressive, he was a great supporting character. The ending left me totally stumped. I knew already from the blurb of the second book that this is what would happen, still I was speechless. I was very happy to see that Jacob killed Roland so ruthlessly without any qualms and that he was not forgiving towards Tony. I was afraid that he would go and accept what happened without taking some sort of revenge, which, I suppose, would have been the noble thing to do, but no, and thank God for that.
The last paragraph left me hoping for a happy ending some time later on. This was a great way to finish this first volume. Good thing that September is not too far away.
Available at Dreamspinner Press
There is a very long excerpt available that covers the first two chapters.
On salon.com there is an interesting article “Buffy fans: read this” about Urban Fantasy books, that overlap a lot with paranormal romance. Mainly it talks about Sookie Stackhouse, Anita Blake (definitely not romance, this) and other tough chick heroines. If you read PNR, you should go and have a look at it!
Blurb: Heading to his country home after a long week of work, Matthew Janssen meets a young man on the train – a startlingly handsome young man named Albin, who claims he can read Matthew’s mind and show him his most hidden desires. But when he wakes at his stop, he’s alone. Leaving the terminal, Matthew dismisses the incident as an erotic daydream – until he collides with the same young man, who’s just missed the last train. Albin insists he’s never seen Matthew before, but Matthew isn’t about to let him disappear a second time
Review: This is a very short story, but a lot happens. It is not action packed or anything, but a man in his forties changes the course of his life completely.
When Matthew meets the mysterious Albin on the train he has no clue what he has in store for him. The young man makes Matthew realize that his whole life so far has been a façade to cover up what he really wants. Albin fans a hidden fire and evokes dreams that Matthew himself has never acknowledged. Pretty good going for a short train ride. After Matthew meets the “real life” Albin he decides to act according to the newly made discoveries and take the bull by the horns.
I liked the whole set up. I liked Albin, or rather both of them. I liked how Matthew didn’t shilly-shally about, but simply did what he felt like doing without any further qualms. I liked the surreal atmosphere when he met Albin on the train. I liked how Matthew and Albin II interacted later on. They were just good together from start to finish.
If you are looking for a slight paranormal touch and lovable characters, a very short read (only 25 pages) and yet a decent plot, read it!
Available at Dreamspinner Press
This is the sequel to Need. There are a few situations where I thought, right, now the conflict is starting to break out but it never did – not really. Bast and Trick are having sex so often, it’s amazing they have time for anything else at all. Bast’s friends got on my nerves towards the end. The story is wrapped up nicely and comes to a satisfying conclusion.
Available at Torquere Books
