Synopsis: For some time a conflict has been brewing in Paris. Dark wizards are trying to upset the natural order of things and take over. The milice wizards see a chance to gain a decisive advantage by persuading the vampires to join their forces.
In order to start negotiations Jean, the leader of the wizards sends his captain Alain to meet with an emissary of the vampires. As soon as Alain meets Orlando there is an instant attraction between the two.
It turns out that wizards and vampires can form a mutual bond that enables the vampires to face the sun, which makes them even more powerful allies than the wizards thought they would be. The bond depends on a certain chemistry, not every wizard is right for every vampire and vice versa. Thus there are some who struggle with their forced choice of partner, others are a perfect fit.
One of those latter couples are Alain and Orlando. They click from the first moment and decide to not only be partners in the alliance but much more than that.
Meanwhile the war with the dark wizards is raging on…

Review: Ariel Tachna says she has never read a vampire story in her life (haven’t I heard that before?), so I was expecting something  in the line of Twilight as far as the vampire culture was concerned. Was I wrong! She did a great job building a complex world with a lot of characters to keep track of. All the characters are fleshed out and have a distinct personality. Just the thought of all those wizards and vampires walking around in beautiful Paris is so exciting. From what I understand the whole story of the war was written as one book and then later divided into four parts. This first part has no conclusion and at the end I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on the second part.

The idea of wizards and vampires forming some blood bond is fascinating and really kept my interest up. Since Alain and Orlando are the first two to pair up (and not because they had to, but because they chose each other), this part mainly deals with them. However, a lot of  other characters are being introduced in a way that was neither forced nor seemed rushed in any way.

Now,  Alain and Orlando: wow, what a couple! I have hardly ever read a romance with such an (instant) attraction and such devotion to each other. From the word go they hit it off and don’t waste any time on beating around the bush. Some people might complain about this being totally unrealistic, and so on, but so what? Yeah, this might not reflect reality, but after reading this you wish it would. This is a true love story. The way Alain wants to help Orlando overcome his insecurities and the way they interact is just beautiful. Of course, there are a few love scenes, but this story also offers scenes in which the love and tenderness between Alain and Orlando shows without all the plain sex. I have read my share of vampire stories by now, but I have never read a scene describing a vampire bite as sensual and erotic as in this book. There are no idiotic misunderstandings, problems are being dealt with immediately. Those two guys are the epitome of a couple truly loving each other.

What a fantastic read! I’m now halfway into book two and know I’ll have to wait until May for the third part to be released. Bummer!

Available at Dreamspinner Press

[rating: 5]

I’ve had this book sitting on my TBR pile for a long time without even knowing what it was about. No idea how I even got it, I probably swapped it sometime. I found out that “Fantasy Fix” which was classified as book 1 of the Fixed series has now turned into a new and revised book called “One Bite with a stranger”, the 6th book of the Others series. OK, according to the author the books are like stand alones anyway, still it strikes me as odd that a book 1 of one series can turn into a book 6 of another one.

Synopsis: Friends fix you up with blind dates. Real friends fix you up with your fantasies…

Regina just ended an awful relationship. The last thing she needs is her friends’ help in finding a new one. When they pressure her into sharing her fantasies, she makes up one she thinks could never come true. After all, vampires don’t even exist. Right?

Wrong. And Dmitri Vidâme is the proof. He sees Regina’s thoughts and knows her darkest fantasies. What Regina needs is someone who bring handcuffs as well as roses and who sees the possibilities offered by her sensual and giving nature.

With all the electricity sparking between them, and some sneaky mental eavesdropping, Dmitri knows she wants him, too. He just doesn’t know if she’ll feel the same once she finds out about his nocturnal habits and his liquid diet…

Review: I don’t get Regina at all. She seems to be a down to earth character with her own ideas and opinions, but at the same time she lets herself get bullied into an idiotic fix idea by her extremely annoying, meddlesome friends. Then it turns out she’s a sexually submissive who doesn’t mind at all to act out her fantasies with a complete stranger. She has never seen the guy in her life, still she takes him home and he rules. Strange! On and off she acts like the tough woman, but never for long. I don’t know what to make of her. To top it all off when she learns Dimitri is a vampire she not only accepts that very easily (I could live with that) but she asks him to turn her RIGHT AWAY. I mean right away like in the same night. No thinking about it, no going and straightening a few things out, no ordering a delicious pizza or going out for a ten-course-meal for the last time of her life.

Dimitri might have been annoying in his arrogance and somewhat high-handed behaviour, but at least that’s what you would expect from his kind. So no surprises here, really.

The most aggravating thing in the whole book are Regina’s so-called friends. With friends like this you don’t need enemies, that’s for certain. Not only do they come up with that fix idea (who wants to play out their fantasies with someone your friends have found for you for that specific purpose?), they also insist on her going along with the idea, even though she doesn’t want to. What terrible busybodies! So, when she agrees to meet this friend of her friend for her fantasy fix and ends up with someone else instead they are are offended and feel insulted because she actually took off with another man and not her assigned date. Really, what sort of friends are they? For the rest of the story they spy on Dimitri to find out what’s wrong with the guy, harass Regina and Dimitri when they meet them together and barge in whenever they can. People like this can totally spoil a story for me. And they did here.

“Fur factory” in which a werewolf friend of Dimitri’s is pairing up with one of Regina’s friends is also sitting here waiting to be read. Graham seems to be a nice guy. God knows what trials and tribulations Christine Warren has in store for him.

[rating:2]

I have read a lot of things about this guide. It is the best companion ever, tons of vital information, great short story, it stinks, nothing new, is all on the board anyway and so on.

Basically I like the idea of an insider’s guide or companion. Especially for series like the Dark Hunters you probably even need one in order to remember what happened when and to whom and who is who. For the BDB this might be not quite as crucial, since there are only 6 books out so far, but a lot of stuff has happened, so maybe it is a good idea after all.

What does the guide contain?

A short story about Zsadist, Bella and Nalla.
The story is a nice story about the new little family and Zsadist’s problems to adapt to fatherhood. Not surprising, nothing comes easy to that poor guy. A treat for BDB fans – especially to Zsadist girls, and there are a lot of them out there.

Next: Insider info on each brother and the according book. First a questionnaire, then an interview of the brother, conducted by J. R. Ward, a (very short) summary of the book with a list of characters and “craft comments” on the book by J. R. Ward including quotes from it.
Well, a lot of people think this is wonderful, but I don’t. I don’t like the idea of the author interviewing the characters as if they were people in their own right. Yeah, they keep saying that if you’re writing the characters take on a life of their own, yadda, yadda, the fact remains that they are an invention by the author. So why conduct an interview? I don’t get that.

All that said, I do have a favourite brother and if he gets neglected I’m getting well pissed off. I absolutely adore V. Unfortunately J. R. Ward doesn’t seem to appreciate him the way I do, because his part in this section is sadly lacking. Let’s take the character lists. His name is missing on four lists, even though he is in each of the books. His name only appears on the lists of Butch’s book (well, you can’t leave him out of that one, can you) and his own (I was extremely grateful for him to feature in his own book). How come? Even Darius, who is getting blown up on about page 5 of book 1 is on the list.
Then the interviews. The interview with Wrath is 6.5 pages long. OK, he’s the king and all. The one with Rhage is 5 pages long (surprisingly enough. The guy is as bland as anything, albeit good looking). The one with Zsadist is 5 pages long (another surprise. I am always wondering what he and Bella talk about when they are not having sex), the one with Butch is 7 pages, the one with Phury is 5.5 pages and how long is V’s? Not even 3. WTF? As a V supporter I’m taking this personally. He is the most intelligent, most literate, most interesting, smartest one of the whole bunch and he’s getting not even 3 pages.

Next: A section for writers. I don’t want to be a writer, so not interesting for me.

Next: The original BDB proposal. An ok part, but not great.

Next: Some deleted scenes. That was interesting. Especially the good bye scene between Z and Bella that was rewritten later, not actually deleted. I liked the scene in the book, but this one was much better.

Next: Tons of quotes from the books. Nice to have, but not a real added value.

Next: A large section with excerpts from the message board. Every registered member can see that on the board, and probably has seen it before the book came out. No added value, unless you have never been to J. R. Ward’s site and never will.  Besides that I think the same about the brothers on the board as I think about brothers being interviewed.

Next: Slices of Life. 4 very short stories with the brothers that have been available to everybody on J. R. Wards site long before the book came out. No added value, unless you have never been to J. R. Ward’s site and never will.

Next: Questions from the boards and a yahoo group asked specifically to be put into this guide. So I suppose the answers haven’t been made public before.

Next: Timeline of the brotherhood on 2 pages.

Next: Abbreviations used in the books and the boards. Yeah, you need the BDB companion to find out what BTW means.

Next: The Old Language. One page with an image of some old parchment with scribbles that vaguely look like a mixture of runes and two fonts called Alchemy and Agathodaimon.

Next: An interview of J. R. Ward conducted by the brothers. I’m not saying anything.

Next: The last interview of Tohr and Wellsie together.

Next and last: An excerpt from Lover Avenged.

All in all there were a few interesting bits in the guide, but most of it was redundant.

I was expecting detailed info on the characters and their part in the story. Not info like what’s their favourite underwear and favourite soft drink, but rather what role did someone play in a certain plot, what did he do that caused another thing. The sort of info you need when you come upon someone in the book and ask yourself, wait a sec. Who is that again? Nothing like that in there.

If you are a enthusiastic fan of the BDB, you will already have this book or you should get it by all means. If you like the series and are a big fan of Z, get the book. If you are just a casual reader, don’t bother. Nothing of interest here for you. If you are a big fan of V, don’t bother. The book will disappoint and piss you off.

[rating:2]

Synopsis: Cassie Chapman has just met the perfect man in the mysterious Laith Moreland. But there’s a catch: he’s a ghost. Not only that, he claims Cassie is the reincarnation of his one true love who died hundreds of years ago! As she begins to have visions of her past life, Cassie is flung into Laith’s world and realizes only she has the power to break his curse and make him mortal once again.

Lord Laith Moreland, the Third Duke of Crichton, is a ghost. He’s been searching for his true love, his shelmir, for centuries. Finally he has found her, born again in Cassie Chapman. They cannot deny the strong bond that is mysteriously between them.

But Laith isn’t the only one who’s found Cassie, and now they must stay one step ahead of Laith’s murderous twin brother, Jareth, who willingly cursed himself ages ago to find her reincarnated once again.

Review: The blurb on Samhain sounded promising, so I gave this novella a go. It is the first book in a series of two called Cursed Hearts. Soul mates, he searched for her for centuries, instant attraction and bond – it was all there, the basics were good.

I liked the way the story went medias in res without faffing about for page after page. The characters were likeable, the love scenes sensual, the villain evil, all would have been great if there hadn’t been some points that totally spoiled it.

Cassie often speaks "with a small voice" or alternatively "wails pathetically". Excuse me, I don’t want a heroine who wails pathetically. She might start crying at some point, but never, ever do I want her to wail pathetically. And a small voice isn’t anything desirable either.

S P O I L E R S ahead

Jareth, the villain and the hero’s twin brother, is thick as anything. He actually believes that Cassie gave up Laith because she suddenly loves Jareth, even though she was Laith’s soul mate. How gullible can you be, for heaven’s sake? Not at all like him, he is basically a mistrustful, revengeful guy, who would never fall for that.

A nice touch on the other hand was that finally somebody commented on the obsolete speech of the hero. When Laith informs him that Cassie is his betrothed, Peter replies: "Betrothed? No one gets betrothed any more!" Usually those heroes just walk around, look like a modern hunk, talk like a few hundred years ago and nobody even bats an eyelid.

Despite my misgivings I was tempted to get the second book "Hearts unbound" until I read the blurb. I have no clue who wrote that blurb, but it must be someone who hasn’t read the first book. It actually says: "Jareth Moreland has waited centuries for his lover to be reincarnated, but his reward isn’t the reunion he expected – it’s murder. He awakes to find his soul has been pulled back centuries into the past, to the very day in 1657 both his lover and his brother died and, in his grief, he became a vampire."

Huh? I must have misunderstood the first story from A-Z. Cassie was not his lover, she was his betrothed (here we go again) because he tricked her father into thinking he was the rightful heir to the title. She was Laith’s lover, Jareth’s older twin brother and the real Duke. Jareth was obsessed with her, but she didn’t give a toss about him.

In 1657 his brother and his lover died because of his machinations. Admittedly he didn’t want Cassie to day, that just happened because Jareth allied with someone he shouldn’t have trusted, but nevertheless he caused their deaths. And as far as his grief was concerned, not so sure about that either. Possibly he grieved for Cassie, but he certainly became a vampire because an evil witch cum vampire wanted him for all eternity to herself. So the whole blurb is false.

I went as far as reading the excerpt, and that gave me the rest. I don’t mind that Laith and Cassie were made soul mates by a witch and they acted accordingly. After all they had been lovers before that spell. But for a couple to get together ONLY because of a spell takes all the fun away. Clearly Jareth is appalled by the thought that he is bound to Jessica, but he still acts like a horny rabbit. Where has the so called love for Cassie gone? Out the window within seconds. Sorry, will have to give that one a pass.

[rating:2]

Synopsis (from amazon): So what if he’s a bit older and usually regards a human female as dinner, not a dinner date? Yes, Roman Draganesti is a vampire, but a vampire who lost one of his fangs sinking his teeth into something he shouldn’t have. Now he has one night to find a dentist before his natural healing abilities close the wound, leaving him a lop–sided eater for all eternity.

Things aren’t going well for Shanna Whelan either…After witnessing a gruesome murder by the Russian mafia, she’s next on their hit list. And her career as a dentist appears to be on a downward spiral because she’s afraid of blood. When Roman rescues her from an assassination attempt, she wonders if she’s found the one man who can keep her alive. Though the attraction between them is immediate and hot, can Shanna conquer her fear of blood to fix Roman’s fang? And if she does, what will prevent Roman from using his fangs on her…

Review: The time has arrived where I am ready to stop reading if a book doesn’t do it for me. I already started that approach with "Darling Jack" in which I skipped most of the book, but with "How to marry a millionaire vampire" I will finally take the plunge and just stop reading altogether. Not that the books isn’t entertaining. Actually some dialogue is quite funny, if you like flippant retorts, that don’t really add to the conversation. That is probably what is wrong with it.

First of all, the title of the book is misleading. It’s probably supposed to be a fluffy title, and it is, but I don’t see any connection between it and the story. Shanna has no idea that Roman is a vampire and has no intention of marrying one either. Roman is trying to hide his true nature from her. This is not surprising considering that the heroine comes over as self-righteous, bossy and set in her ways.

I like my vampires dark, broody and in control, but at the same time I hate them to be constantly complaining about their fate. A vampire master who loses one of his fangs while biting into a sex doll (or the vampire equivalent of it) and on top of that thinks he is an abomination just doesn’t fit into my little world.

The humorous tone of the book doesn’t match the storyline. Roman is dissatisfied with his life in general and has adversaries of his own, whereas Shanna, who is in the witness protection program, is being targeted by the Russian mafia, not really a force to be trifled with. I don’t see anything here that delivers food for merriment.

Then, where have I heard the bleak existence whine before? We all know this specific burden from every "Dark" book we have ever read. Just, in Roman’s case his existence doesn’t seem so bleak to me. He is stinking rich, has a sort of harem, dozens of underlings, he is the master of the largest coven in North America and can enjoy life as nobody else can.

What sealed the fate of this book was a kissing scene where Roman withdrew because of his fangs and his qualms about not being good enough for her, because he is a demon (yeah, now the old whine starts again). OK, I get the fang thing, but the reaction from Shanna was the equally old motto "I mustn’t get involved with a client anyway". And if I can’t stand one credo in a romance, this is it. Why ever not? Especially since in this case, Roman wasn’t a client strictly speaking. When he came to her she refused to repair his tooth and minutes later the Russians were on to them, and when she did repair his tooth later she did it under Roman’s compulsive magic and she had no idea what she was doing.

As far as I can tell the book is a good read for people who like their books fluffy and humorous. I, however, had no feelings at all for both main characters, they didn’t interest me in the least even after reading almost half of the book, so I just couldn’t be bothered reading on.

[rating:1]

Want to read more reviews?
This book was also reviewed at Literary Escapism.

I would never have thought that I’d read a book for young adults. I resisted Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series for quite some time, but since the 4th book came out and the discussion started to become lively again, I just had to give it a try. I was told you either hate or love the book(s) and I wanted to find out what it was for me.

Well, obviously times have changed since I was a young adult. Where young girls nowadays are reading Twilight (and go totally nuts about it) I was reading the O’Sullivan Twins by Enid Blyton, LOL. I don’t know whether I’d like my early teen daughter – if I had one – to read Twilight. Even though there is no sex in the book, for reasons other than the couple wouldn’t love to have sex, it is quite a sensual book.

The story is about a new student in Forks, WA, Bella Swan (what a name, can you get more obvious?), who falls in love with a fellow student, Edward. He and his siblings are outsiders in their high school, and Bella is intrigued by him. When Edwards rescues her with superhuman speed and power from an accident she suspects he’s more than meets the eye. You guessed it, he’s a vampire. They fall in love, face some adversary and come out on top – for now. Bella wants Edward to turn her into a vampire, but he refuses and they come to an impasse over this.

I don’t know what to think of Bella. She is a total klutz, Edwards continuously has to rescue her from one accident or other; how she survived her first 17 years is a mystery to me. She has no life whatsoever, apart from Edward. She has no hobbies. Since she is new in Forks, she only made a few friends right at the beginning, but neglects them very soon after she gets entangled with Edward and his vampire "family". Her father, who she lives with now, uses her as a housemaid, she cooks his dinner every night, tidies up, does the laundry…..Excuse me? He has been living alone for a number of years and now that Bella is here he doesn’t lift a finger any more?  I really hope that young girls don’t read this book and think that this is how a girl’s life should be.

I am a sucker for boring books without a lot of external interference and with a lot of internal monologue, so this book was written for me. I enjoyed reading it a lot and got the other three books in the series as well. I loved Edward, even though I could have done with a bit less Bella gushing over him. How often can you say that someone is gorgeous and perfect without being repetitive? I get it.

Oh, and about the glitter part that everybody is so up in arms about. Yeah, ok, Ms. Meyer’s vampire glitter when they go out in direct sun light. So what? Every author makes up their own little vampire world, and if for her, they glitter, what is it to me? Edward and the others have to be able to walk in daylight in order to make the story work. If she’s thrown in a little glitter without explaining why, who the hell cares? After all it is book targeted at GIRLS, and we all love glitter, LOL. I don’t want to read a scientific essay about the reasons for it.

The book is told in first person from Bella’s point of view, which I usually don’t care for. I’d rather see both sides. Stephenie Meyer had planned to write another book about the same story from Edward’s point of view, Midnight Sun, but some thief stole and posted the unfinished manuscript on the net. The book is on hold for now. Ms. Meyer has posted that manuscript now on her own site so interested readers can read the first 250 odd pages.

Want to read more reviews?
This book has also been reviewed at Literary Escapism.

Circus of the Damned is the 3rd book in the series. I have no idea why I’m still reading on, I must be under some sort of spell, I have no other explanation. Anita is starting to seriously get on my nerves. I want to slap her on at least every other page for being the tough girl that she is. What’s wrong with that woman?
Her constant denial of that she feels somewhat attracted to Jean-Claude is extremely annoying once more. She is a professional zombie raiser and necromancer, she continuously stresses her "affinity" towards the dead, yet going out with a "walking corpse" (i.e. vampire) is totally not her cup of tea. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t get that.
In the book two master vampires are fighting for supremacy in the city and she is (once more) getting caught in the middle of it all. The two masters in question are Jean-Claude, whom she knows to be a halfway decent fellow and a certain Mr. Oliver of whom she knows nothing whatsoever. She meets him once and finds he is a nice guy. Based on the one hour meeting – during which he shows remarkable power – she decides that she will betray Jean-Claude and give his identity and location to Mr. Oliver. Bad judgement because Mr. Oliver turns out to be not so nice after all, but then – when the shit hits the fan she does say to Jean-Claude that she is sorry. That must count for something, no? Only through her stout-hearted actions the evil ones are killed and Jean-Claude is rescued, so that makes it all good again. Why Jean-Claude doesn’t give that woman a wide berth after that incident is beyond me.

Apart from all those personality issues I find the idea of having Mr. Oliver dress up like a clown for the final showdown at the circus extremely trite. It just reminds me of Stephen King or maybe Batman. Why do the evil ones always dress up as clowns? Admittedly clowns are pretty frightening, but the idea is so old and hackneyed, it’s time to look for some other fancy dress.

And then Richard….What’s wrong with that guy being attracted to Anita? What on earth are they talking about while they are dating? My reckoning: the conversation centers around whether Anita prefers to carry her gun in a holster under her shoulder or at the small of her back and whether a Browning whatever is preferabe to a Firestar whatever. Then there is the important question to be answered whether to wear a cardigan or a shirt to hide the gun. God, the woman is so boring, it hurts.

BTW, if anybody is wondering about the book titles. They are all various pubs, bars and other locations in the area. Guilty Pleasures is Jean -Claude’s night club, The laughing corpse is a comedy club (owned by Jean-Claude) and the Circus of the Damned is a circus or rather supernatural freak show, managed by – you guessed it – Jean Claude. But hope is near, the Lunatic Café, the next book’s title, is not affiliated with Jean-Claude in any way.

This book started the whole idea of this blog. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked a hero/heroine in a book this much. We’ve had  the whole Anita Blake series for a long time at home. John read them  – he’s all into that vampire stuff -, but stopped reading them when they started to turn into some sort of sex novel around volume no. 9 or 10. When I found out there was the Paranormal Romance genre out there I started reading some books and really liked them. Eventually John told me about LKH and I started to read the Anita Blake series.
"The laughing corpse" is the second Anita Blake book that I have read (after "Guilty pleasures") and I am not impressed with it.
Anita Blake is a self-righteous, supposedly cool, totally unlikeable person. Her attitude is aggravating to say the least. She doesn’t know when to shut her mouth, pisses the wrong people off at the wrong time and still comes out of every confrontation unharmed.

The descriptions of the murder scenes in the book are gross. To describe the scene once is necessary, but to describe the same stuff again and again is redundant. I’m getting the picture after the first time.

The books are called "vampire hunter novels", yet so far Anita hasn’t hunted any vampires. Not that I think that vampires need to be hunted per se, but a bit of vampire interaction would be nice. In the first book the "vampire hunter" actually worked FOR the vampires and in the second one there were hardly any vampires.
Jean-Claude was only put in as a minor supporting actor. The whole book deals with zombies of all kinds – a topic that doesn’t do it for me at all.

*SPOILERS*
What annoyed me most was:
- that Anita found out that raising a dead animator has very bad consequences and that that zombie can’t be ontrolled by the one who raised it. Nevertheless she doesn’t hesitate to – or even think about it – raise a whole graveyard, meaning loads and loads of zombies she doesn’t know anything about. What if there are former animators among them?
- that at first Anita wants to bring down Dominga Salvador with legal means and only in case those would fail she would let John Burke deal with her. That resolution didn’t last for long, because as soon as she realizes that Dominga got out on bail (something which is pretty much inside the legal system, even though she obviously reached that by bribery) she decided it’s time to have her killed by the numeours zombies she just raised. Nice double standard.

Guess this book wasn’t for me. At. All.