Awaken the Highland Warrior by Anita Cleeney Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca (May 3, 2011) Category – Adult Paranormal Romance Available Now from Sourcebooks I loved this book from the very first page. The writing was evocative, had a lovely touch of humour and lots of sensitivity. The story had plenty of action, romance and mystery, and I so much wanted to spend more time with the Warrior, Faelan that I re read the book as soon as I finished it. The Blurb He's had centuries to dream of her... Mis-adventurous historian Bree Kirkland discovers a 19th century Scottish warrior buried in a crypt behind her house. But Faelan, the warrior, isn’t dead. When this chauvinistic Scottish Warrior awakes, he has no choice but accept the help of this modern-day woman who’s rescued him, but she’s more fearsome than the demon trying to kill him. If he’s not careful, she’ll uncover every secret his clan has bled and died to protect. This book had me giggling in some parts, gripping my seat … [Read more...]
Review – Misfit by Jon Skovron
Title: Misfit Author: Jon Skovron Publisher: ABRAMS Imprint: Amulet Books Pub Date: 08/01/2011 Category: Young Adult Fantasy Misfit is awesome. Don’t miss this it. It has everything I want in a book, great characters, an interesting well written imaginative story, action, mystery, a touch of love and, most fabulous, thought provoking. Jael has always felt like a freak. She's never kissed a boy, she never knew her mom, and her dad's always been superstrict-but that's probably because her mom was a demon, which makes Jael half demon and most definitely not a normal sophomore girl. On her sixteenth birthday, a mysterious present unlocks her family's dangerous history and Jael's untapped potential. What was merely an embarrassing secret before becomes a terrifying reality. Jael must learn to master her demon side in order to take on a vindictive Duke of Hell while also dealing with a twisted priest, best-friend drama, and a spacey blond skater boy who may have hidden depths. Jael is … [Read more...]
Review – Ashes of Angels by Michele Hauf
Title: Ashes of Angels SubTitle: Of Angels and Demons Author: Michele Hauf Publisher: Harlequin Imprint: Harlequin Nocturne Pub Date: 07/26/2011 Category: ADULT: Romance: Fantasy Ashes of Angels is another great book by Michele Hauf with her usual blend of action, fantasy, rich characters, romance and, in this book, a touch of humour. Hauf’s Fallen Angels are a particularly nasty kind. When summoned to earth by one who knows their name and sigil, they have the compulsion to mate with their very own muse, a woman marked with their sigil from birth and the one woman who can give them pleasure. Their one desire is to impregnate their muse so she will produce a nephilim, which in this story are evil monsters supposedly out to destroy the earth, not the sexy demon slayers of other stories. If the Fallen can’t seduce their muse, they’ll take her by force. Rape by a divine being is still rape and giving birth to a monster that will likely kill you during the birthing process is … [Read more...]
Review – Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo
Title: Picking Up the Ghost Author: Tone Milazzo Publisher: ChiZine Publications Pub Date: 08/31/2011 Category: ADULT/YOUNG ADULT Ghost & Horror Picking up the Ghost is an unusual and fascinating story about the search for identity and inner strength cleverly written in a way that is entertaining and accessible for teens. Living in St. Jude, a 110-year-old dying city on the edge of the Mississippi, is tough. But when a letter informs fourteen-year-old Cinque Williams of the passing of the father he never met, he is faced with an incomplete past and an uncertain future. A curse meant for his father condemns Cinque to a slow death even as it opens his eyes to the strange otherworld around him. With help from the ghost Willy T, an enigmatic White Woman named Iku, an African Loa, and a devious shape-shifter, Cinque gathers the tools to confront the ghost of his dead father. But he will learn that sometimes too much knowledge can be dangerous—and the people he trusts most are … [Read more...]
Review – Dragon’s Pupils, The Sword Guest, by Martin Chushui
Imagine an Australian Kung Fu movie in a book and you have Dragon’s Pupils - The Sword Guest, a unique and highly imaginative story full of strange creatures, awe-inspiring magic and non-stop action set primarily in Western Australia. I really enjoyed seeing a story where magical aspects of Chinese culture come to life in an Australian context. Given the long history of Chinese immigrants here, (almost as long as the Europeans), I’m surprised it has taken so long for something like this to appear. The writer obviously knows about Tai Chi and his inclusion of Taoist wisdom in the story gave the book a depth that I admire. Blurb Half-Chinese, half-Australian, Liz is not interested in her father’s ancient Tao wisdom, or his cryptic tales. She is more concerned with environmental issues—particularly the plan to mine one of Australia’s great landmarks, Wave Rock. Her father’s latest gift, a Chinese calligraphy pen, seems set to take its place in her bottom drawer forever. Then Wave Rock … [Read more...]
Review – Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson
Title: Ultraviolet Author: R. J. Anderson Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group Imprint: Carolrhoda Lab Pub Date: 09/01/2011 Category: YOUNG ADULT Science Fiction I enjoyed this engaging, sensitive, and thought provoking book immensely. I’ve labeled it science fiction because of the strange event that sets off the story and the events of the last quarter of the book, but before that, the world and Alison’s situation is very realistic, as is the synesthesia that explains her sensory abilities. The story was particularly interesting to me because of its focus on perception, one of my favorite topics. Blurb "Once upon a time there was a girl who was special. This is not her story. Unless you count the part where I killed her." Sixteen-year-old Alison wakes up in a mental institution. As she pieces her memory back together, she realizes she’s confessed to murdering Tori Beaugrand, the most perfect girl at school. But the case is a mystery. Tori's body has not been found, and Alison … [Read more...]
Review – Liberator by Richard Harland
Here's the last in this series of Steampunk reviews. More Steampunk reviews here Title - Liberator Author - Richard Harland Published in Australia by Allen & Unwin, by Helium in Frnce, Templar in the UK and Jacoby & Stuart in Germany. It'll come out from Simon & Schuster in the US, but the release date there hasn't arrived yet. ISBN13: 9782358510578) This is a good book and well worth a read, but read the sequel, 'Worldshaker' first. In it you'll meet the juggernauts, huge machines on rollers or tracks that travel the world on steampower and use masses of coal. The jugernauts are basically cities on wheels and have a similar social strata as the real Victorian period. The world Richard has created is quite amazing and well thought through. The machinery that runs these juggernauts are well described so that you get a sense of their enormous scale and complexity. The events in Le liberator take place post revolution and the problems now are inner power struggles and … [Read more...]
Review – Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine
Title: Mechanique Author: Genevieve Valentine Publisher: Prime Books Category: ADULT: Romance: Fantasy If you like strange and different and are fascinated by the idea of a steampunk circus, then you might like Mechanique. It’s unlike anything I have read before. I didn’t dislike it, but I couldn’t say that I really liked it either. The idea is great, the story good but the way it’s written made it hard for me to get into. The blurb. Come inside and take a seat; the show is about to begin... Outside any city still standing, the Mechanical Circus Tresaulti sets up its tents. Crowds pack the benches to gawk at the brass-and-copper troupe and their impossible feats: Ayar the Strong Man, the acrobatic Grimaldi Brothers, fearless Elena and her aerialists who perform on living trapezes. War is everywhere, but while the Circus is performing, the world is magic. That magic is no accident: Boss builds her circus from the bones out, molding a mechanical company that will survive the … [Read more...]
Review – Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris
Title: Phoenix Rising SubTitle: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel Author: Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris Publisher: HarperCollins Imprint: Voyager Pub Date: 05/01/2011 Category: ADULT: Steampunk Fantasy. Phoenix Rising is a great read, a tightly written, fascinating novel with colourful characters, plenty of action, wonderful inventions and an intiguing puzzle to solve. The blurb These are dark days indeed in Victoria's England. Londoners are vanishing, then reappearing, washing up as corpses on the banks of the Thames, drained of blood and bone. Yet the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences-- the Crown's clandestine organization whose bailiwick is the strange and unsettling -- will not allow its agents to investigate. Fearless and exceedingly lovely Eliza D. Braun, however, with her bulletproof corset and a disturbing fondness for dynamite, refuses to let the matter rest. . .and she's prepared to drag her timorous new partner, Wellington Books, along with her into the … [Read more...]
Review – Apocalypse Rising by Maria Zannini
Title: Apocalypse Rising Author: Maria Zannini, Publisher: Carina Press Pub Date: 05/09/2011 Category: ADULT: Romance. Fantasy . Carina Press is publishing a steady diet of interesting fantasy titles like this one, and I’m really glad to see them in print. What I like about these books is that they don’t rely heavily on their romantic element to succeed. They have good plots and plenty of action to hold the novels together so the romance/sex isn’t too in-your-face, thus they can appeal to readers not usually into the romance genre. Blurb The only place left to hide was in the past. Fire Elemental Leda and her plainfolk companion, Grey, are running from a demented time traveler, a man obsessed with creating a creature who can read thoughts. Convinced that Leda can produce this unnatural child, he has threatened to hunt her down to the ends of the earth-and he has kept his word. Their only escape is a one-way trip through the time portal. With death on their heels, … [Read more...]
