Coyote Dreams by C. E. Murphy

Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy
My rating: ★★★★

You know how sometimes you take a test, and it's a breeze, and other times, you feel like you are slogging through it? When the results come back, both are A's, but for the first grade, you sailed effortlessly to it, while you had to work like mad for the second A? Well, this book is like the second paper - it had to work like mad for the four star rating.

I am very pleasantly surprised by this book. I've complained that in the previous books, Joanne's attitude was off-putting and she acted like a dimwit (been using that word quite often lately :/).

All of that changed in this book. This time around, we get Joanne the person - a hurt, broken person trying to finally acknowledge her mistakes, and her gift that has been thrust upon her, so that she can right some of the wrongs she has created, and actually use her gifts for the purpose for which they were meant.

The real Joanne, not the smart-alecky, annoying one we've been seeing the past books, is such a fun person to hang around. Her thoughts are interesting, and as I reader, I want to know more about her and the way she sees the world. I am interested and invested in her relationships, her life, her work. I want her to heal; I want her to be okay. (I wanted to smack the other Joanne). It was such a pleasure meeting the proper Joan in this book. Having our heroine be a better person made this book so much more of a joy to read than the previous two.

But I said this book had to work for it's four star rating...because there were still remnants of the dimwit Joanne, and I felt that didn't fit into the grand scheme of things. For example: Joanne has decided to stop putting her head in the sand. HOW then does she fail to notice that weird things are happening as soon as two new people enter her life? This wouldn't be too much of an issue if the previous disaster hadn't begun with weird things happening right after a new bunch of people were trying to enter her life. How can you miss the resemblance/significance? I noticed this right away and had drawn my conclusions. It took reading about 40% more of the book for Joanne to make this conclusion. I don't understand how this is possible, especially for someone who is actively trying to notice and connect the dots she'd refused to connect before? It was staring her right in the face. Of course if she had, we would have lost a lot of the story, but it might have made the book that much tighter.

Anyway - they say third time strikes the charm, and in the case of this series, they were so right, hehe! I am going to continue this series with much more enthusiasm about the characters and the incidents now :D

View all my reviews

In Bed With a Highlander by Maya Banks

McCabe Trilogy #1
In Bed with a Highlander by Maya Banks
★★★

I hope this doesn't come across as too ranty, but I am a slightly more than a a bit disgruntled.

See, the highlander historical romance genre is over-saturated. The landscape is choking with stories and heroes and heroines, some trite, some cliche, most of them entirely TSTL, and very few truly original and enjoyable treasures hidden among the dross.

Um... I did feel that this book ended up being part of the dross, even though so many loved it. It was not a bad book, but like I said, in an over-saturated field, an 'ok' book really isn't what you want. I also had so many problems with the characterization.

Mairin, the heroine of the story, comes in when the soon of Ewan, the hero, gets lost for being stupid. Now...this is the Scottish highlands at a time when clans were warring, and it was dangerous to be caught out. I would expect that people guarded their children close, especially clans that didn't have the money to pay for a ransom, if a person was caught. And I fail to understand how I'm expected to believe children can be so stupid. Children are smart, especially in dangerous times. They know what is going too far. So I failed to understand how any not-dimwitted child would have done what Crispen did, and consequently, brought our hero and heroine together. Strike one.

Mairin was also a dimwit, IMO. I mean, it was a common occurrence in those days to hang up bloodstained sheets to prove a bedding, no? And when a group of warriors intent upon kidnapping you and forcing you to marry another man is bearing down on the wedding, it is beyond obvious to me that the damn bedding had better be done in haste. No? But it seems Mairin thought that people bearing down notwithstanding, she deserved hours and hours of lovemaking. Go figure. Strike two. Another strike against her was that stupid habit of blurting any and everything and not realizing it. You would think one would notice the first two times you said something awkward and realized everyone heard you.

The final strike against this book were scenes that were very, very, reminiscent of some scenes in a Julie Garwood book I'd read - I think it was The Bride. I don't mind derivative works, but like others have said, it seemed like a blatant rip-off, :(. Strike three.


The book was a not-badly-written book, but I am pretty sure I won't continue with the remaining two. But dammit, I have had those books for so long in the waiting queue at my library!

View all my reviews

Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder

Study #3
Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder
★★★

This has been a disappointing end to what had the potential to be an awesome series. Perhaps Poison Study should have wrapped up neatly and been a stand-alone novel. After reading Magic Study and Fire Study, I feel as if they were superfluous, and actually don't add much to Yelena's character.

I was a bit tired of this long-distance 'love' between Yelena and Valek, since they almost never saw each other.

I was also not enamored of the plot, especially of this book. It felt fillerish and caused Yelena and other characters to do very stupid things you wouldn't see anyone with a modicum of intelligence doing, just so the story could be moved along.

I mean, for those who have read the books - how stupid does one have to be, to not kill Cahil after his constant foolishness which ends up putting people in mortal danger? How stupid does Cahil himself have to be, to go about every single time,hanging out with fools and murderers and doing horrible things (beating Yelena) and then realize the error of his ways and come asking for forgiveness? How stupid do you have to be not to know that the people you are hanging with are not good when they're capturing people and killing them for blood rituals, when even children are included among their captives? Just petty stupidities like that - from Yelena, Lord Marrok...just about everyone except Valek.

I felt this diluted the quality of the characters, after all, they can't be so great if they're so stupid, can they? And I do think somewhat less of Yelena now. Valek, and perhaps, Ari and Janco, are the only characters whom I felt maintained their integrity.

If Maria Snyder had stopped at book one, or come up with completely different plots for books two and three, she might have had a proper winner on her hand.

I read somewhere that someone read somewhere that Ms. Snyder had originally intended Poison study to be a stand-alone novel, and wrote it accordingly. But the publisher had wanted more than one book (prolly to make more money) and so she'd changed the ending to an open-ended one and come up with this trilogy. If that is the case (and I can certainly see how that could have been the case), then it's a major fail on Ms. Snyder's part and the part of her publishers.

View all my reviews

A Lot Like Love by Julie James

A Lot Like Love by Julie James
★★★★★

I don't have too much to say, except that I enjoyed this novel enormously. The humor, the characters, the plot...everything blended perfectly, just like good wine, I guess. Teehee.

View all my reviews

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
★★★

I gave this book 3 stars, but I a not comfortable with that; but I also didn't feel comfortable with giving it four stars because I feel like I enjoyed the books I've rated 4 stars more than I did this one. So, mebbe 3.5 stars

It was a fairly good story, and rather enjoyable. Unlike many reviews I've read, I didn't mind the beginning. I was able to get straight into the flow of things. By mid-story, though, I was floundering. The same cycle kept repeating itself: "Oh noes! People from the village have came around! Oh noes, we found a dead body on our property, hide it quick ! Oh noes, a mutt kills someone! Oh noes, we killed some mutt! Oh noes, another mutt has come into town! Oh noes, Clay is throwing a temper tantrum! Oh noes, Jeremy is unruffled! Oh noes, Elena is yelling at Clay for something that happened a lifetime ago! Oh noes, Elena is mouthing off to Jeremy! Oh noes, Elena is going off on her own when she shouldn't, bad things are going to happen! Oh noes, Elena forgot to call Philip."

A good 50-60% of the story is what I've just described up above, I think.

So um yeah. I liked the story. I didn't like that it repeated itself so often.

I will definitely be checking out more of Ms. Armstrong's work.

View all my reviews

For Duty's Sake by Lucy Monroe

For Duty's Sake by Lucy Monroe
★★★


This HP is made up of and Idiot Female Lead (I refuse to call such people heroines) who is the way she is because of her sorry excuse for parents.
- Her dad is the idiot "prince" who thinks with not-his-head, and thinks that his wife's refusal to bear another child is reason enough for him to go whoring with half the opposites sex on the face of this Earth. It is interesting that this dude never once caught an STD.

- Her mom is the idiotic,vapid model who thinks "but I love him" is reason enough to let her husband
a. continue with his foolishness(seriously! STDs!)
b. stay 'married' to him, but live in a different country so she is not 'shamed' by his behavior.

Now you are not to surprised our IFL is an idiot who is TSTL, nah?

This IFL thinks because she has been betrothed to the IML since she was 13 (now she's 23) and he hasn't announced a formal engagement, she's an old maid. Mebbe if she...say...went to school or did almost anything else with her life, she wouldn't be spouting such drivel.

She also has the nerve to be talking to people about moving their ideas into the 21st century when her parents are medieval train wrecks and she herself is stuck in the regency era (see above for examples).

With a person like this as one of the main characters, are you going to enjoy the story?

View all my reviews

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
★


I feel terrible writing such a review about a Robin McKinley book, but truth be told, this book was abysmal. Goodness, was it awful! Ugh!

This book is supposed to be a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. The original authors, if they were alive, ought to sue for defamation of character, this book is so awful. It started of delightfully enough, with a quirky description a a land filled with magic. That is the first two pages, and the ONLY time this book feels like it will be worth reading. The remaining 427 pages are bogged down with meaningless description. I understand what Ms. McKinley was trying to do, but very few books are able to make superfluous description and unwanted narrative observations work for them - The Princess Bride is one of very few that does this excellently. Excellent, this book was not. It was a spectacular failure is what it was.

The plot of this book is the exact same as the Disney story, with the exception that if Briar Rose and her fairy godmother had been real, you could have shot them and no one would prosecute you, they were so awful. Briar rose especially.

I can't think of a single good thing to say about this book. I endured for about 60% of the 420-odd pages, skimmed some, and then skipped about 4 chapters when i couldn't take it anymore. Would that I had DNFed this after the first few page, it was so torturous.

RUN AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!! - in the other direction, as far and as fast as your legs will carry you

View all my reviews

TGIF @ GReads #2

TGIF is a weekly meme hosted every Friday at GReads.This week's question is:

  

Buy or Borrow: Where do your books that you read come from? The bookstore? The library? Do you prefer to own a book, or have it on loan?

I definitely need my libraries in my life. Due to space and monetary considerations, I can't afford to own every book I read. Hence most of my books come from the library. In 2011, I read at least 186 books . Of those, possibly 125 came from the library. I couldn't have afforded those 125 books on my budget. I am fortunate enough to be a member of several libraries, a couple of which have really good selections of my favorite genres, so that I can find most of the books I want to read there. It also helps that my libraries have an awesome ebook selection.

Another great thing about using the library is that I sometimes stumble upon new authors to try and new books to love in my libraries' selections. I have found many series and authors this way.

There are a few authors, though whose books I usually buy immediately they come out, usu. in ebook format, most notably books by Sharon Shinn, Ilona Andrews, and certain books from Nalini Singh and Rachel Vincent. If there's a book I desperately want that my library doesn't stock, I'll buy it if I have money. 

I am grateful for libraries. Not to diminish anyone's opinions, but you have no idea what a treasure libraries are until you grow up somewhere where there are none. I grew up in Ghana, where the one public library is an insult to libraries and readers everywhere, and where my home library was as well or even better stocked than the few private libraries started by foreigners.

I don't mind having a book on loan. If I read and think it's a keeper I need in my life, I'll buy it when my budget permits. If the waitlist is too long and I can't hold it any longer and my budget permits, I'll buy it.  

I can't afford to buy/own every book I read. And I think I like it that way. Then the only books I get to keep are the ones I truly love, or ones from authors I adore.
 

Blood Bound by Rachel Vincent

Unbound #1
Blood Bound by Rachel Vincent
★★★★

I am giving this one 4 stars, but I might change it to 5 stars. I gotta think about it.

I told Mimi this book was "good in a bad way", and this review will be my attempt to explain it. *It might be spoilerish, so if you don't wanna read them...*

I also just saw Kristen's status update for this book, and she is like, "Oh no! This book is an emotional roller coaster already and we haven't gotten anywhere yet!" I know exactly how she feels.

Let me start with the good
1. Whatever else I might say about her, however much I can complain about some aspect of her storytelling, Rachel Vincent has mad world building skills. It is her peculiar strength. She creates these worlds that just stand out from all the worlds in the (urban?) fantasy genre.

This time around, she introduces us to a world divided along the lines of Skilled and UnSkilled people. From what I understand, there are 12 skills, among them Binders, who can seal any oath and make it binding, Trackers, who can track people by name or through blood, Seers (self-explanatory), Travelers, who can travel anywhere through shadows..... and I don't think she mentioned about the other 8. Yes - pure awesomeness. I want to know more about a world like that, don't you?

2. Her other skill is engaging the reader. I am completely focused when I pick up one of her books. I don't skim pages, And I am not impatient to get to the end (sure, I peek sometimes, but I always go back and patiently read from where I was straight through till the end).

Then the bad (or it's still more good, depending on how you look at it).
1. Her characters often make me violent - I want to slap some sense into them half the time. When I don't want to kill them, I'm rooting for them.

Olivia, Anne, Kori, and Noelle were four childhood friends fooling around who managed to bind themselves with an oath to help each other no matter what. Unbeknownst to them, they were all skilled. Anyway, Liv is a very powerful bloodhound - she can track anyone so long as she has a whiff off their blood. Anne invokes the oath when she sends Liv on a mission to track and kill her husband's murderer. Which brings me to the first person I want to smack to high heaven and beyond: Anne. Stupid. Selfish. Despicable. How in the world do you force someone into danger because of revenge for your dead husband? Emphasis on dead. If that thug had been slightly more skilled, Liv would be dead, and there would be no story. Your dead husband is not worth more than your living friend's life or your petty desire for revenge. Simple as that. Endangering Liv to track your missing daughter is understandable, but not this. Never this. Anyway. I never liked Anne, not even when she was doing her 'protective, loving mother' outbursts - it just rang hollow and selfish to me. I don't like her.

Then Liv. A prophecy that she and Cam would be the death of each other prompts her to leave him without a word. No explanation no nothing. WTH? That is not noble, or remotely okay. It is an incredibly selfish thing to do is what it is! Why would you do that to someone you claim you love? Oy.

Then Cam. the girl you loved and was going to ask to marry you ups and leaves without a word, so what do you do? Sleep with Anne, her best friend. No, he couldn't just get stupendously drunk or get into a fight. Caramba. Now you see why I say this book is good in a bad way?

The novel is told from alternating 1st person POV of Cam and Liv, and the world that is revealed through their eyes as they fight to track Anne's daughter is fascinating. It is also raw and gritty. This is a story about desperate people trying to survive in a harsh and unrelenting world. And you come to see and understand them, you understand the choices they make (except that Anne, yuck!) enough to get past their nonsense to root for them and wish for their HEA. In some respects, the ending was rather poignant (just a fancy word for sad :( )

You can bet you I will be preordering book 2 in this series, Shadow Bound. Book 1 comes highly recommended. This world is one you have to experience for yourself.

View all my reviews

Waiting on Wednesday #2

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Jill's blog, and highlights upcoming releases were highly anticipating.








My entry for today is Timeless, the fifth and final book in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series. Amazon has it coming out March 2nd.
                                                 

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?



 This series is the only one that I know of that is  about supernatural creatures and set in the past: 1800's England, to be exact. I mean, how cool is that? It is also humorous and steampunk-y.  Plus, Alexia and Lord Maccon are just adorable.  I am excited.