Review of Working for the Devil
Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Loved this book, with a capital L. In fact, I wish I had more stars today. I found this gem via the Dark Urban Fantasy Blog: http://www.darkurbanfantasy.com/
So much good here, I barely know where to begin. Dante Valentine is a great heroine, maybe one of my favorites of all time. She’s foul-mouthed, sassy, and doesn’t take crap from anyone. That occasionally makes her a little hard-nosed, but the way her character is built up makes that fitting. Her relationships are frequently hostile and always amusing. Japhrimel is another great character. His growth throughout the book made me smile.
Dante is “persuaded” to take on a job by none other than Lucifer himself–find a demon and return an item he stole to hell. Danny is reluctant until Lucifer explains that the demon is a serial killer she’s been after for some time.
Plenty of action and some cool bits of magic make this an exciting and interesting read. Probably not the best choice for die-hard paranormal romance fans, but a must read for lovers of urban fantasy.
Review for Ill Wind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ill Wind is the kind of book I love to read: sassy main character, interesting fantasy aspects, a sprinkling of romance. Unsurprisingly, I inhaled the book, and really enjoyed it.
In general I thought Caine’s characterizations were brilliant. Jo is fun and independent, just enough girl power but not over the line into ridiculous. I adored David. There are a bunch of great side characters, Lewis, Star, Paul, and Bad Bob.
The world building was just right for me. Enough detail to make things clear, but not so much that I feel like I’m wading through info-dumps through the first half of the book. There’s a lot I really like about this world and I can’t wait to read more.
I was a little irritated about why all the Djinn were so circumspect when they didn’t have to be. The cop out answer, of course, was that’s just how they are, but I didn’t really buy that. Why not just tell her what she needs to know? Arg!
Review for Slave to Sensation
Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The setting of Slave to Sensation a not too distant future, with a slightly altered history. Human evolution has branched out into two distinct species, the Changeling and the Psy. This might sound like the set up to a Sci-Fi story, but really it’s much more firmly placed in the Fantasy realm than anything remotely scientific. Overall, I quite liked the book. I enjoy Singh’s writing style. She has quick pace with not an undue amount of description. There were a few places where the navel-gazing got a bit much, but that’s not unusual in this genre.
The formatting of the Kindle version is quite a mess, but not unreadable for me. There are multiple carriage returns between paragraphs and the indentation is inconsistent. If you’re a format stickler, it might make you a little crazy.
There are abrupt PoV shifts within scenes, as is pretty prevalent in the paranormal romance genre. I found the head-hopping in this book much less annoying than most, but I don’t know if that’s because it was better handled or I’m just getting used to it.
I wasn’t sold on Sascha at the start, but I found her more compelling as the book went on. She wasn’t the usual plucky heroine, but she brought something interesting to the story as she learned how to deal with her emotions. In a way this was almost a coming of age story. Lucas is an alpha male with a haunted past. His character is pretty stereotypical, but since that’s one of my favorite kinds, I liked him.
In summary, if you’re a Paranormal Romance fan I think you’ll like this one. I also think it’s a nice introductory book to PNR because the sex isn’t quite as overblown as some others in the genre.
Review for River Marked
River Marked by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
River Marked was different from the other Mercy books, and I’m undecided on which version I prefer.
I liked that we got a lot of Mercy’s background that we’d been missing. I also enjoyed the reduced angst because the relationship issues between her and Adam finally got resolved.
What I liked less was that beginning seemed slow, I think that’s because a lot of the Native American backstory had to be fit in and that made for less action early on. We do get a good amount Mercy butt-kicking goodness, but it’s left until relatively late. I also thought that Mercy and Adam as a couple deserved more screen time.
One big plus I will give in counterpoint is that I love how Adam is willing to let Mercy be herself. There’s always the temptation with dominant characters to run over everyone in the course of getting their way, but it’s nicely handled in this book. Though it’s all in Mercy’s PoV, we get to know a lot of what goes on in Adam’s head.
Overall, I felt like this deviated too much from the previous books for me to be entirely thrilled with it, but at the same time I understand that Mercy has to evolve or else there’s little point to continuing on with her story. Still, I love me some coyote-girl and that goes a long way.
Review of Come Unto These Yellow Sands
Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is the reason I don’t give out five stars often. Wonderful and amazing are the first two words that come to mind, but that just sounds like empty praise, so let me dial that back and tell you what this book is without all the hyperbole.
It’s a contemporary murder mystery, but also so much more than that. The themes of love, loyalty and addiction that occur throughout are powerful. Swift is a beautiful character that will win your heart. He’s so lovely and complicated that once I started reading I really couldn’t stop.
The Choose Your Own Adventure introductions to every chapter were clever and compelling–loved that little touch. The poetry references were perfect and not overboard as can sometimes happen with stories about poets.
Overall, just a stunning and remarkable book that I heartily recommend. I wish I could remember where I heard about this one, because I’d run back there right now and see what other gems I could find. As it is, I know I’ll be reading more Josh Lanyon very soon.
Review of Amelie
So, instead of doing the last of my edits tonight, I watched Amélie with Ryan. I’m not sure if we’re the last two people on earth to see this movie, but I’m left wondering what took us so long. Actually, it’s kind of a funny story so I’ll relate it here real quick. Back in, geez I think 2002 or so, we started a Netflix account and had our movies delivered to us in those little red envelopes. I’m not sure why we had such a hard time with the whole experience, but we sometimes had movies that we just never watched and were too excited about other movies coming out and had to return unwatched. Amélie was one of those we had for some time, but never saw.
I was recently perusing a thread about the best movies ever and I saw it mentioned a few times. I’d always been bummed that we didn’t get a chance to watch it, so I took a chance and ordered it. Once again, the movie sat around my house for weeks, ignored. I think we were both skeptical because we usually don’t like French movies. A little too quirky and strange for us, I think.
Anyway, enough about that, let’s talk about the movie. It’s phenomenal, in every way I can think of. Amélie is a young woman who’s had a pretty unremarkable life until she finds a young boy’s keepsake box from the 1950’s in her apartment. She sets off to find the man the box belonged to, and in the process she discovers that she enjoys helping others from behind the scenes. Overall, the movie is an adventure, because you never really know what’s going to happen next.
While she’s helping these folks out, she of course learns about herself, and that’s really the thrust of the story. The movie plays with some complex themes about individuality and just leaves you feeling good. The acting is all exceptional, and Amélie is beyond charming. Nice sets and music all the way through. There’s also a really cute love story between Amélie and a man she sees at a photobooth.
Five very enthusiastic stars for this one and a recommendation that everyone should see it if they haven’t.
Photo found at Wikipedia.
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