Review of: DEADLOCKED by Charlaine Harris

With Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), in town, it’s the worst possible time for a body to show up in Eric Northman’s front yard—especially the body of a woman whose blood he just drank.

Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.

Review of: RIVER MARKED by Patricia Briggs

Car mechanic Mercy Thompson has always known there was something different about her, and not just the way she can make a VW engine sit up and beg. Mercy is a shapeshifter, a talent she inherited from her long-gone father. She’s never known any others of her kind. Until now.

An evil is stirring in the depths of the Columbia River—one that her father’s people may know something about. And to have any hope of surviving, Mercy and her mate, the Alpha werewolf Adam, will need their help.

Review of: Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs

When mechanic and shapeshifter Mercy Thompson attempts to return a powerful Fae book she'd previously borrowed in an act of desperation, she finds the bookstore locked up and closed down. It seems the book contains secret knowledge-and the Fae will do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands. And if that doesn't take enough of Mercy's attention, her friend Samuel is struggling with his wolf side-leaving Mercy to cover for him, lest his own father declare Sam's life forfeit. All in all, Mercy has had better days. And if she isn't careful, she might not have many more to live...

Review of: Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

In a world where "witches, vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters live beside ordinary people" (Booklist), it takes a very unusual woman to call it home. By day, Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic in Eastern Washington. By night, she explores her preternatural side. As a shape-shifter with some unusual talents, Mercy's found herself maintaining a tenuous harmony between the human and the not-so- human on more than one occasion. This time she may get more than she bargained for.

Review of: Dead as a Doornail (sookie Stackhouse, Book 5) by Charlaine Harris

 "Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's pretty and well-mannered and has only a few close friends - which isn't surprising, since not many people can appreciate Sookie's abilities as a mind reader. It's not a quality that has the guys beating down her door - unless they're vampires, werewolves, or other supernatural beings. And now some of them aren't just friendly - they're family." "When Sookie sees her brother Jason's eyes start to change, she knows he's about to turn into a werepanther for the first time - a transformation he embraces more readily than most shapeshifters she's known. But her concern for her brother becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population - and Jason's new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter." Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who's behind the attacks - unless the killer decides to find her first.

Review of: Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 3) by Charlaine Harris

 Things between cocktail waitress Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill seem to be going excellently (apart from the small matter of him being undead) until he leaves town for a while. A long while. Bill's sinister boss Eric has an idea of where to find him, whisking her off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. When she finally catches up with the errant vampire, he is in big trouble and caught in an act of serious betrayal. This raises serious doubts as to whether she should save him or start sharpening a few stakes of her own ...

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1) by Charlaine Harris

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana, but she keeps to herself and doesn't date much because of her "disability" to read minds. When she meets Bill, Sookie can't hear a word he's thinking. He's the type of guy she's waited for all of her life, but he has a disability, too--he's a vampire with a bad reputation. When one of Sookie's coworkers is killed, she fears she's next.

Review of: Marked (House of Night, Book 1)

The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire--that is, if she makes it through the Change. Not all of those who are chosen do. It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

Review of: Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey

Santa Olivia starts out as the story of Carmen Garron. She's a waitress in a dinner in post-apocalyptic US/Mexico border. The story shifts to Carmen's daughter, Loup, when Loup is six.

Carmen's two children have different fathers. Tommy's, who was six when Loup was born, father was a boxer in the military. Loup's father is not. Loup's father is one of the 'Lost Boys'. The Lost Boys were a group of young Hatian boys who were experimented on. As a result of these experiments, the boys developed fast reflexes and other super-human ablilities. They were nicknamed Wolf-Men.

When Loup is ten their mom dies. Tommy is sixteen and moves into an apartment above the gym where he is training to become a boxer (like his father). Loup has to go live in an orphanage. Loup eventually takes on the persona of the town's patron saint, Santa Olivia. Santa Olivia does not put up with injustices!

Besides Santa Olivia, I have only read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. While I did not get as swept away with Santa Olivia I enjoyed it. If there is a sequel, Santa Olivia ends with that possibility, I will definitely read it. I want to know what happens for/to Loup Garron.

Lushly written with rich and vivid characters, SANTA OLIVIA is Jacqueline Carey's take on comic book superheroes and the classic werewolf myth.

Loup Garron was born and raised in Santa Olivia, an isolated, disenfranchised town next to a US military base inside a DMZ buffer zone between Texas and Mexico. A fugitive "Wolf-Man" who had a love affair with a local woman, Loup's father was one of a group of men genetically-manipulated and used by the US government as a weapon. The "Wolf-Men" were engineered to have superhuman strength, speed, sensory capability, stamina, and a total lack of fear, and Loup, named for and sharing her father's wolf-like qualities, is marked as an outsider.

After her mother dies, Loup goes to live among the misfit orphans at the parish church, where they seethe from the injustices visited upon the locals by the soldiers. Eventually, the orphans find an outlet for their frustrations: They form a vigilante group to support Loup Garron who, costumed as their patron saint, Santa Olivia, uses her special abilities to avenge the town.

Aware that she could lose her freedom, and possibly her life, Loup is determined to fight to redress the wrongs her community has suffered. And like the reincarnation of their patron saint, she will bring hope to all of Santa Olivia.

Title: Santa Olivia
Author: Jacqueline Carey
ISBN: 9780446198172
Pages: 341
Published by: Grand Central Publishing (May 29, 2009)
Genre(s): Fiction, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Grade: B+ What does this grade mean?

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Review of: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Author: Carrie Ryan
ISBN: 9780385736817
Pages: 308
Published by: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (March 2009)
Genre(s): Young Adult, Fiction, Fantasy, Series, Zombies
Grade: A

I read The Forest of Hands and Teeth in just a couple of days, which is fast for me; typically a 300 page book will take me 3-4 days to finish given my limited time to read and my reading speed.

I got so swept up in Mary's life. Carrie Ryan did a fantastic job with this young adult novel, soon to have a sequel. I could smell the fetid breath of the Unconsecrated (aka Zombies ), I could hear and feel the rattling of the chain-link fencing. This is another book that I feel I can't give a lengthy review without spoilers. There is so much I want to gush about... but I can't!

Please feel free to e-mail me if you would like to know more, and aren't afraid of spoilers, or if you have already read The Forest of Hands and Teeth and just want to talk about it with another fan.

kylee.journal AT gmail.com

From GoodReads:
In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

Other reviews:
Suey @ It's All About Books

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Review of: Strange Angels

Author: Lili St. Crow
ISBN: 9781595142511
Pages: 304
Published by: Razorbill (May 2009)
Genre(s): Paranormal, Young Adult
Grade: C+
Challenge(s): 100+ Reading Challenge - Read 'n Review '09 -

My first impression of Strange Angels is that it is pretty similar to (one of my favorite shows) Supernatural. In the 1st season of Supernatural we learn that the brothers were raised my their ex-Marine father because their mother was killed when the younger one was just an infant. The boys and their father have gone on to hunt and kill demons, ghosts and other "bump-in-the-night" things. In Strange Angels Dru is an only child and a girl, that was about the extent of the differences.

Over all, I enjoyed the 'meat' of Strange Angels. Given that it is paranormal YA, the plot is believable. There is a second book int the series coming in the Spring of 2010 and I will be on the look out for it; I'm willing to the series and author another shot.

My 'issues' with this book: For a book labeled YA I think there is too much swearing and drinking done. Dru is 16, disdains smoking, but thinks nothing of adding Jim Beam to her Coke? Also certain parts felt formulaic. More than once things 'unreel' before her (stairs and roads).

What follows in my 15yo old daughter's review of Strange Angels. It is all in her own words; I didn't change a thing.

Strange Angels by Lili St Crow was, in my opinion, a thrilling book. It had me hooked until the very last page and left me wanting more. It had a delicate balance of high heart pounding action and a slight taste of teenage romance. The fight scenes were so elaborately described, they appealed to all of my senses. I could feel the burn of the zombie goo and smell the rotting stench of it's body. It leaves a vivid picture in my head even weeks after reading it. ~SVG

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Review of: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

Author: Katherine Howe
ISBN: 9781401340902
Pages: 371
Published by: Hyperion Voice (June 2009)
Genre(s): Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paranormal
Grade: A
Challenge(s): 100+ Reading Challenge - Read 'n Review '09 - Spring Reading Thing 2009 - 2009 Pub Challenge

Please note: All quotes and page numbers come from the ARC and there fore may vary from the completed, finished version. I waited until the last minute to try to verify them with the publisher and was unable to verify them so close to the date I promised my review would be up.

Part love story, part mystery, part historical fiction... I loved (!!!) The Physick book of Deliverance Dane by new author Katherine Howe.

The Physick book of Deliverance Dane follows graduate student Connie Goodwin and her dog Arlo in the 1990's, Deliverance Dane and a few of her descendants. In the 1690's Deliverance is accused of being a witch.

While Connie is attempting to clean out her deceased grandmother's home in Marblehead Massachusetts she finds a key hidden in an old Bible belonging to the family. It isn't just a plain, old key though.

It was a key. Antique, about three inches long, with an ornate handle and hollow shaft, probably designed for a door or a substantial chest. She turned the key over in the soft light from the lamp, wondering why it had been hidden in the Bible. It seemed too bulky for a bookmark. As she warmed the small metal object in her hands, puzzling about what it could mean, she noticed the tiniest shred of paper protruding from the end of the hollow shaft.

After finding the key with the slip of paper inside (a slip of paper containing nothing except the words "Deliverance Dane") Connie begins investigating what her advisor thinks maybe the name of a person. Connie comes across not a few obstacles on her journey, including meeting Sam the architectural preservationist she can't stop thinking about. Sam becomes more help than hindrance though.

I'd like to share with you one bit from The Physick book of Deliverance Dane that really struck a chord with me:

"Yeah, but it speaks to how alienated we all are from history," Connie grumbled, blue eyes darkening. "For generations the witch trials were such an embarrassment that no one would discuss them. A proper history of them wasn't even written until the end of the nineteenth century. Now look at it -- it's a carnival."

Connie looked around at the relaxed people milling about the esplanade, gazing into the windows of costume shops and card readers. She tried to imagine other violent, oppressive periods of history that had similarly been transformed into a source of amusment and tourism but could not think of any. Did Spain have Inquisition wax museums, showing effigies of people broken on the rack?

This one is going on my "Keeper" shelf and I hope to have the money to buy the finished book once it comes out June 9th!


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