UPDATE! Jennifer Ashley's SHIFTERS UNBOUND SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated a previous post for Jennifer Ashley with a review of the latest additions to her SHIFTERS UNBOUND SERIES: the novella, "Lone Wolf," and the novel, Tiger Magic. 

 

Click on either the author's name or the series title above to go directly to the updated review.

Erin McCarthy & Kathy Love: FANGOVER

Authors:  Erin McCarthy and Kathy Love
Series:  FANGOVER
Plot Type:  Romantic Vampire Fantasy
Ratings:  V3; S4; H4  
Publisher and Titles:  Berkley Sensation
          The Fangover (11/2012)
           Fangs for Nothing (7/2013)

            WORLD-BUILDING           
     This books in this series have absurd, light-as-a feather plots, so they should make great summer beach reads. The series is set in New Orleans, where members of The Impalers, a vampire rock band, become involved in adventures that mimic the general plot of the movie, The Hangover. The band members are as follows:

    > Stella Malone, manager

    > Johnny Malone, lead singer

    > Wyatt, bass* 

    > Berto Cortex ("Cort"), unspecified instrument
    > Saxon, keyboards

    > Drake Hanover, unspecified instrument

     *Although Wyatt is supposed to be the bass player, in one scene in The Fangover his instrument shifts from a bass to a guitar and back to a bass, which is probably a case of poor continuity editing.

            BOOK 1:  The Fangover           

     The story begins when the band members awake to find themselves sprawled around an apartment—all with giant hangovers and with absolutely no memory of the night before. Drake (like Stu/Ed Helms in the movie) is dismayed to find that he is missing one of his teeth—actually, one of his fangs. Cort is shocked to find a wedding ring on his finger. Then, Katie, their hysterical human friend, rushes in and announces that someone changed her over into a vampire. Coincidentally, she also has a brand new wedding ring. As they get ready to leave the apartment, they find an unconscious priest in the bathroom (instead of the movie's tiger). Oh, don't let me forget the alcoholic parrot, who shows up out of nowhere and spouts a lot of nonsense. At this point, the group is determined to replay the previous 48 hours so that they can figure out what's going on.

     Chronologically, the action actually begins when Wyatt finds his vampire roommate's ashes on the floor of their very sunny living room. Johnny has left a silly suicide note, but the fact remains that he is definitely gone. When Johnny's sister, Stella, realizes what has happened, she goes crazy with grief. Oddly, her way of dealing with that grief is to jump Johnny's bones, which is fine with Johnny since he has always loved Stella from afar. After their moment of passion, Stella goes off on her own for awhile, and Wyatt spends much of the book in a desperate search for her.

     Meanwhile, Cort has to figure out if he's really married to Katie and, if so, does he (and does she) want to stay together or get it annulled. This involves tracking down the voodoo priestess who apparently performed the ceremony. 

     The over-the-top plot follows the band members—primarily Wyatt and Cort—as they retrace their steps, figure out the mystery, and fall completely in love with their new girlfriends. The search involves a lot of guy-to-guy trash talk and a number of sexy love scenes for the two couples. As the authors explain in the introduction to the book, McCarthy wrote Wyatt and Stella's story, and Love wrote Cort and Katie's story.

     The ending is anti-climactic and kind of lame, especially the explanation for the group's memory loss. In a final tribute to the move, a pregnant woman (rather than a baby) shows up at the end and turns out to be the key to most of the mysterious goings-on.

            BOOK 2:  Fangs for Nothing          

     The second book is as fluffy as the first as Johnny and Drake celebrate Saxon's wedding and wind up in a dominatrix's dungeon along with two cute chicks. There's an action plot that involves the villainous Vampire Alliance, but it doesn't interfere too much with the romances.

UPDATE! M. L. N. Hanover's BLACK SUN'S DAUGHTER

UPDATE!

I have just updated a previous post for M. L. N. Hanover with a review of the fifth novel in his BLACK SUN'S DAUGHTER SERIES: Graveyard Child.

Click on either the author's name or the book title above to go directly to the updated review.

"Unbound" Anthology

Authors:  Angela Knight, Jennifer Ashley, Jean Johnson, Hanna Martine   
Title:  Unbound
Plot Type:  SMR     
Publisher:  Berkley

     This anthology is sub-titled, "Four all-new stories of paranormal passion," and that works as a good general description of its content. All four novellas are parts of ongoing series, and that, unfortunately, is the book's biggest problem. Each author tries hard to make her novella a stand-alone, but the success rate is low. If you are familiar with a given series, you'll enjoy the related novella much more than if you approach the stories without context. 

"Enforcer," by Angela Knight    V5; S4; H2 
FIRST LINE:  "The dark, narrow stairway stank of murder."

     At nearly 200 pages, this is by far the longest of the four novellas, and it is part of Knight's TIME HUNTERS SERIES, which I have not read. In her introduction, Knight says, "If you're not familiar with my work, I have attempted to write 'Enforcer' in such a way that new readers won't be lost," She has done a fairly good job filling in the blanks on the mythology and pertinent past events, so I was able to understand most of what was going on. The world-building is quite complex, however, and some references were difficult to interpret. The series is set around a time-traveling mythos in which people can travel back in time from the 24th century to observe events in earlier centuries, but they can't change history in any way.

     At its heart, this is the love story of Alerio Dyami and Dona Astryr, who have been lusting after one another from afar for two years. Alerio has had the hots for Dona for so long that he has trouble being in the same room with her. Alerio is the Warlord who heads the North American Outpost of the Temporal Enforcement (at least that what I could figure out from the novella), and Dona is one of his Enforcers. Due to an unhappy childhood and adolescence, Dona has extremely low self-esteem. In a previous book, she was in a relationship with an abusive Enforcer who defected to the enemy, causing the other Enforcers, including Alerio, to believe that she may have been helping him. 

     The action part of the plot revolves around Ivar Terje, Dona's turncoat ex-lover, who is mutilating and murdering time-traveling tourists who pay tour guides to go back in time to observe various events, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for example. Alerio and his team must stop Ivar and his master, the Victor, once and for all.

     Although the futuristic details of the mythology were a bit difficult to fully understand without having read the previous books, the story is a fairly effective stand-alone. Alerio and Dona are fine as the angst-filled lovers, and Ivar is a teeth-gnashingly evil villain.

"Perfect Mate," by Jennifer Ashley    V3; S4; H3 
FIRST LINE: "Nell stifled a groan as a rhythmic banging dragged her out of profound slumber, the kind she found only in the depths of wintertime."

     This is a SHIFTERS UNBOUND story that follows one of the recurring characters as she meets her soul-mate and falls in love. Nell is the top bear in Shiftertown, so she is unpleasantly surprised when Eric, Shiftertown's leader, does not consult her before he assigns Cormac, a bear who has just immigrated from Wisconsin, to live in her house along with her and her two grown sons. Both Eric and Cormac are clear about why Cormac has come to Shiftertown: He is looking for a mate, and Nell is his chosen one.

     The action part of the plot involves a a villain from a previous book who pays a bounty hunter to capture and kill Shane, one of Nell's sons. When Shane goes missing, Cormac and Nell begin to bond as they search for Shane and his abductor. The falling-in-love part of the story happens super quickly, but you kind of get accustomed to that in paranormal romances and this is, after all, a novella, not a full-length novel—so I'll give that a pass.

     This is the easiest novella to read as a stand-alone. Although there are some references to the series mythology and to past events, the story line is pretty much a straightforward paranormal romance. Click HERE to go to my review of the SHIFTERS UNBOUND series for an overview of the series world-building.

"The Hunter's Cabin," by Jean Johnson    V0; S4; H2 
     This novella is part of Johnson's VULLAND CHRONICLES, which I have not read. Although there are a number of cryptic references to the complex mythology and to past events, the story is primarily one long session of sex and more sex, beginning with the requisite virginal, first-time scene. The only characters are the courier, Vielle ("Vee") and the banished prince, Kiereseth ("Kiers"). They hole up in a snowbound mountain cabin to lose their pursuers, and nature takes its course. There is no action plot—only references to the fact that the couple is being pursued by his sister's soldiers.

     If read this as a stand-alone, what you get is the love story, along with paragraphs like this one: "We know that the aetherometer can be powered by thonite because it converts the crystallized gas back into an Air-attuned format, converting sound waves into invisible aether rays and back again. But the Vull is solid, like a...shield. It must attune itself to the Earth element somehow. Or perhaps somewhere between Earth and Water..." I'm sure that a series reader would know exactly what that paragraph means, but since I have not read the series, I have absolutely no clue. And there are more paragraphs similar to that one. Here's another one: "In order to make the hexisle float, you'd have to pump the gas back into the hexisle at great pressure to force it through the matrix and cause the enhanced lofting effects." 

"No Surprise More Magical," by Hanna Martine    V3; S4; H3 
FIRST SENTENCE:  "David had returned to the land of the living. Sort of."

     This novella is part of Martine's ELEMENTALS series. I've read all of the books in the series, so I understood the references to past events, but a new reader would probably have trouble reading this as a stand-alone. Click HERE to go to my review of the series for an overview of the ELEMENTALS series world-building.

     This is the culmination of the love story of David Capshaw and Dr. Kelsey Evans, which began in a previous book. That love story is, of course, the primary focus. David and Kelsey were betrothed through the match-making rules of the Ofarian Board, but when the Board was deposed and the old system crumbled three months ago, they broke off their relationship, each believing (wrongly) that the other had been forced into the betrothal. In reality, the two have lusted after one another from afar for many years but have been too tongue-tied to express their emotions.

     The action part of the story centers on David's hunt for Wes Pritchart, the final member of the corrupt Board. As David works on finding Wes, he enlists Kelsey's aid in spying on one of her employees. Eventually, they work as a team to prevent the mass destruction of a crowd of Ofarians attending an important ritual event. They resolve their relationship as they catch the bad guy.

Check Out kindlepost.com

     If you are a Kindle owner—or even if you’re not—you might want to take a look at the Kindle Daily Post. Several times a week, Kindle editors post brief essays and author interviews about various book-related subjects. Click HERE to go directly to the most recent post.

     Science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal fiction are frequent topics. Here are some pertinent examples from the month of June 2013. To go directly to one of the following posts, just click on its pink-link title.

Guest-Blogger Lauren Beukes discusses her new novel, The Shining Girls (which is near the top of my to-read shelf). It's the story of a time-travelling serial killer and the single survivor who devotes her life to tracking him down. The U.S. version is currently available in hardback and e-book. The European paperback version is available new and used on amazon.com, but it's expensive (cheapest copy costs about $17). I'm guessing that a much less expensive U.S. paperback is in the works. Meanwhile, the hardback is available at most libraries. Click HERE to read my review of another of Beukes' novels: Zoo City.

"Vampire, Shifter, or Fairy?" Read descriptions of these three supernatural species and decide which one you’d like to be. This is the question that was posed to the True Blood cast on the live broadcast that preceded this season’s premier.

"Pre-pub Review of Kresley Cole’s MacRieve" (IMMORTALS AFTER DARK SERIES)—due out in hardcover and e-book on 7/2/13. (Click HERE to read my review of the IMMORTALS AFTER DARK SERIES.)

"Fairy-Tale Inspired Romance": A discussion of romance novels that are based on fairy tale tropes.

"Influential Voices of Sci-Fi and Fantasy": A discussion of the forefathers of the genres and some of the modern masters who are carrying on their traditions.

"Authors on Their Favorite Horror Stories": Several horror authors discuss which stories scared them the most.

"Review of Nalini Singh’s Heart of Obsidian" (PSY-CHANGELING SERIES, Book 12)—available now in hardcover and e-book; available 11/26/13 in paperback. (Click HERE to read my review of the PSY-CHANGELING SERIES)

"Q & A with Leigh Bardugo," author of the GRISHA TRILOGY, a fantasy series set in Tsarist Russia during the early nineteenth century. The author describes it as "Tsarpunk."

Also, there's an interesting post from March 2013 entitled "On the Distinction Between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance" I don't agree with everything the author says, but she gets it mostly right. My main problem with her definition is that she intimates that urban fantasy has world-building but that paranormal romance does not. I beg to differ. Take the two paranormal romance series mentioned in this post, for example. Both IMMORTALS AFTER DARK and, especially, PSY-CHANGELING are set in complex alternate worlds. Click HERE to read my own definitions for 21st-century urban fantasy and  for paranormal romance, which I have renamed soul-mate romance (SMR) for reasons explained in the definition.

UPDATE! Laura Wright's MARK OF THE VAMPIRE SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated a previous post for Laura Wright with reviews of the second novella and the fifth novel in her MARK OF THE VAMPIRE SERIES: "Eternal Beauty" and Eternal Demon.

Click on either the author's name or the book title above to go directly to the updated review.

Michael Logan: APOCALYPSE COW SERIES

Author:  Michael Logan
Series Title:  APOCALYPSE COW    
Plot Type:  Comic-Horror Fantasy 
Ratings:  Violence—5; Sensuality—3; Humor—3 
Publisher and titles:  St. Martin's Griffin 
        Apocalypse Cow (5/2013—U.S. printing)
        World War Moo (6/2015—U.S. printing)

             WORLD-BUILDING             

     Here's the inventive world-building strategy that forms the basis for this wild and crazy series: Start with the HIV/AIDS and SARS pandemics. Keep the parts that include the sexual transmission of AIDS and the animal-host origin of SARS, but make Patient Zero a cow instead of a human or a bat and place the action in Glasgow, Scotland, instead of Africa or Asia. Now add the bare bones of a men-in-black thriller. What results is a wild splatterific ride, fueled by black humor and driven by ironic twists. As the publishers' blurb warns: "Forget the cud. They want blood."

     In an online interview, Logan is quoted as saying that he relies on gallows humor to balance life's violence. He goes on to explain that his book deals with "the fragility of human society, and how quickly people can retreat from the cooperative systems we have built to the basic instincts of individual survival in the face of a threat. We are essentially the same animals as thousands of years ago and can, once the rules governing civilized society no longer apply, easily revert." Call it a bovine Lord of the Flies response to survival.

     In 2011, Apocalypse Cow won the inaugural Terry Pratchitt Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now first novel award. The author plans a sequel to this novel entitled Cruel Britannia, publication date TBA. (Note: There is a second book, but with a different title. See the publisher's blurb at the end of this post.)

     Just a nit-picking note: Although both the author and the publisher refer to the diseased cows as “zombies,” the animals aren’t truly zombies in the classic sense because they don’t rise from the dead. I will admit, though, that they fit a more informal zombie definition: “totally lacking in independent judgment; automaton.” Whether they're zombies or not, though, these cows moooove us along on an entertaining literary ride.

                       NOVEL 1: Apocalypse Cow                       

     As the story opens, life in Glasgow is sluggishly normal for a group of  eccentric citizens. Geldorf Peters is a horny teenage boy who moons over his sexy, math-teacher neighbor while his vegan/pacifist/hippie/New-Age mother and his perpetually stoned father make his life a nightmare. Geldorf's mother forces him to wear hemp clothing, to which he is scratchingly allergic: "Non-hemp solutions were unacceptable to Fanny Peters, environmental campaigner and humongous pain in the arse. Leather and suede, by-products of the meat industry, were forbidden in the vegan household. Nylon was out because it was part of 'humankind's relentless march away from Mother Nature' and denim was deemed too mainstream." In an amusing, but stomach-turning scene, Geldorf's very first carnivorous act occurs when he catches ashy flakes from the funeral pyres of diseased cows on his tongue and swallows them down, glancing furtively around to be sure that Fanny doesn't catch him in this rebellious anti-vegan act. Meanwhile, the math teacher's boorish, meat-loving husband is glued to TV sports, and her two thuggish teenage twins fight rough sibling battles in their upstairs bedroom when they're not bullying Geldorf. 

     At the Glasgow Tribune, Leslie McBrian is an inept female reporter with a famous, war-correspondent father. She spends her time stumbling through a series of TSTL moments all the while bemoaning the fact that she has yet to write a front-page story, while her rival—an arrogant, misogynistic bully—seems to be on the verge of cracking the story of the century. Meanwhile at the local slaughterhouse (aka abattoir), Terry Borders ruminates about his non-existent love life, believing his problem to be the stench of meaty death that clings to his skin no matter how hard he works to scrub it off.

     The catalyst that sets the story in motion is the fiery destruction of that very slaughterhouse, just after the cattle turn violently against their killers. Oddly, the animals hump their prey before disemboweling them (remember...sexual transmission). Early in the story, we learn that the cause of the cows' violence is a government-developed virus developed by a scientific team that was tasked to come up with a bio-weapon that would kill animals—the food chain—but not humans. Gradually, the virus jumps to other animals, and the infection quickly spreads out across Britain. Chaos reigns as Britain is completely cut off from the rest of the world. Survivors are forcibly evacuated into primitive camps; soldiers with itchy trigger fingers roam the countryside with automatic weapons; and rampaging hordes of animals—from cows to rats—wreak havoc on the population.

     The early chapters provide the back stories of the main and secondary characters and set up the conflict. Midway through the book, most of these characters are thrown together in the Peters' vegan household. Some die, but others try to escape to France with proof that the British government is at the center of the catastrophe. Their escape is complicated by the fact that Mr. Brown, a sociopathic government operative, will do everything in his power to stop them. Here is Terry's description of Mr. Brown: "Behind wire-rimmed glasses, he had the eyes of a man who would strangle his own mother in order to get his hands on the inheritance early. Had Terry met him under different circumstances, he would have assumed he was a banker." (p. 56) Throughout their harrowing adventures, the characters are a source of black humor as they take turns reflecting on their vastly changed lives. 

     Logan does a great job with characterization, stretching stereotypical characters into absurdly eccentric individuals. In an online interview, the author says, "What I enjoyed the most was taking extreme characters with stereotypical traits—the militant vegan versus the staunch meat-eater—and creating ridiculous situations in which they could butt heads and develop as people." Geldorf is the most fully developed, as we first watch him scratching continuously under his hated hemp clothing, choking down his mother's awful vegetable concoctions, and plugging his ears to keep from hearing his parents' constant love-making. Later in the story, though, he views both parents in a new light after a series of heart-breaking experiences. Geldorf is really the heart of the story, demonstrating all of the coming-of-age angst of a typical teenage boy, but with an intelligent, if cynical, voice that centers the story. 

     If you're looking for a different approach to post-apocalyptic zombie fiction (although these are not truly zombies) and if you don't mind losing a few of the good guys on the way to the climax, this book deserves a place on your summer reading shelf. Click HERE to go to the novel's Amazon.com page where you can click on the cover art to read an excerpt.

     Here's a teaser for the sequel novel: Cruel Britannia. Several months ago, the author held a Facebook contest for people to get their names included in Cruel Britannia. Here, in the author's words, is the list of the winning names, including his who's who list of the characters assigned:

Ruan Peat: One of the four main POV characters, a young female survivor who enjoys shooting sheep and the taste of Pedigree Chum Fish Oil with Chicken. This name just fit the character perfectly, so thanks Ruan!

Scott McDonald, Hannah Campbell, Eva Gilliam, Tom Dixon: Members of the resistance commune practicing combat yoga.

Glen Forbes, Tim Roast: Members of the pretty bloody useless inner council of BRiT (Britons for the Rights of the InfecTed), which is making a hash of ruling the post-infection Britain.

Jack Spencer: A representative of the British government-in-exile, who is involved in long-winded UN discussions on exactly what to do about the UK, particularly which type of large, deadly bomb to drop on it.

Andy, Scholz, Mick Sailor, James Anthony Hilton, Peter Abraham: Mercenaries all. One South African, one Irishman, one posh Englishman who does it for fun, and former SAS guy who needs the money to support his three ex-wives.

     Back in March, Logan wrote on his Facebook page that he was "18,000 words into the first draft of Cruel Britannia and realizing it is going to be significantly sillier than Apocalypse Cow, with a more complicated plot and loads more action." I can't wait! Click HERE to go to the author's Facebook page.

                    NOVEL 2: World War Moo                    

     As it turns out, Logan's second book in this series is not entitled Cruel Britannia after all. It is called World War Moo. Logan did, however, keep his promise to name his characters after the people who won his Facebook contest. This is the final book in the series. Following is the publisher's blurb. 

PUBLISHER'S BLURB: 
     It began with a cow that just wouldn't die. Yep. That's right. They're still un-dead, and now the disease has spread to humans. The epidemic that transformed Britain's bovine population into a blood-thirsty, brain-grazing, zombie horde...err...zombie herd...is threatening to take over the globe in Michael Logan's World War Moo.

     And there's not much time left to stop it. All of Great Britain is infected and hungry. The rest of the world has a tough choice to make. Should they nuke the Brits right off the map―men, women, children, cows and all―in the biggest genocide in history? Or should they risk global infection in a race against time to find a cure? With hungry zombies attempting to cross borders by plains, trains, boats, and any other form of transport available, it's only a matter of time before the virus gets out. And if it does, there's only one answer. This means war.

Click HERE to go to the novel's Amazon.com page where you can click on the cover art to read an excerpt.