Category: Book Log

Since I haven’t actually been buying books for any of this month, you’d think I’d get caught up faster on my reading and reviewing, right? Not so much. See my previous posts about all the shenanigans involved with our shiny Great Big Sea contest entry!

That said? I did want to do a quick summary of everything I’ve read lately. Full reviews will be coming, but this is to let you know what’s on the way! And now, recent Book Log entries, the short form:

#47 – Brains: A Zombie Memoir, by Robin Becker. As you might guess from the title, we’re talkin’ zombies here, folks. Short, quick, and hilarious. Four stars.

#48 – The Stepsister Scheme, by (Jim C. Hines). First of Hines’ Princess novels, introducing his versions of Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Think Disney Princesses meet Charlie’s Angels and you’ll get a very good feel for what this series is about. Highly entertaining! This one sets up what happens to this version of Cinderella after she gets her prince–and her stepsisters refuse to take this lying down. Four stars.

#49 – The Mermaid’s Madness, by . Second of his Princess novels. This one is the series’ take on the Little Mermaid. Darker of tone and overall, IMO, more cohesive than the first. Four stars.

#50 – Dark and Disorderly, by Bernita Harris. This is the first book I’ve read from Carina Press, and I gotta say I enjoyed it quite a bit. Nice urban fantasy, with the romance angle handed with a light touch–exactly how I like it. This particular UF heroine dispatches ghosts, and she knows she’s in trouble when the corpse of her dead husband attacks her in her own bathroom. Four stars.

#51 – On Her Trail, by Marcelle Dubé. This was also from Carina Press, although I actually won it as part of their launch promotion, which was pretty nifty. ^_^ This one is romantic suspense with just a touch of paranormal involved, and while it didn’t pack as much punch as I might have liked, I nonetheless found it a good read. Three stars.

#52 – Fatal Affair, by Marie Force. Another Carina, this one also romantic suspense, although with a political angle to it rather than a paranormal. A young Senator has been murdered, and the detective who has to work the case turns out to be the ex of the Senator’s assistant. Three stars.

#53 – Red Hood’s Revenge, by . Third of the Princess novels, just out a few weeks back. I LOVE his take on Red Riding Hood–who in this universe is a dread assassin who goes by the moniker Lady of the Red Hood, and whose red cape is magical and can give her wolf-shape. Also, great backstory here for Talia, the Sleeping Beauty character. Four stars.

#54 – Carnal Innocence, by Nora Roberts. One of her standalone romantic suspense novels, and yet another one with the formula of “outsider settles in a small town she’s got family ties to and is soon embroiled in MURDER ohnoez”. Nothing hugely unusual for Roberts but as usual, nicely executed. Three stars.

#55 – Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld. YA. This of course is the first of Westerfeld’s acclaimed dystopian YA series, and I’d gotten a free PDF of it a while back as part of his promotion of another recent book, Leviathan. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Found it more simplistic than I would have liked, but hey, it’s a YA novel–and his worldbuilding was fun. I’ll probably be buying an actual copy of this eventually. Three stars.

#56 – Matters of the Blood, by (Maria Lima). First of her UF series set in Texas, with a heroine who comes from a supernatural family and who’s just starting to come of age–and into her powers. Yet another UF series with a vampire love interest, although I do totally give Lima props for her colorful Texas setting, and I found the overall plot engaging. Four stars.

#57 – Blood, Smoke and Mirrors, by Robyn Bachar. This one was reviewed very well by the ladies over at Smart Bitches, so I had to check it out on general principle. Straddles the line between UF and paranormal romance, but for me slides more towards the latter since there’s heavy emphasis on the heroine’s relationship with her ex–as well as with the obligatory Mysterious Vampire. I found the heroine a bit too mouthy for the sake of being mouthy, but on the other hand, also liked that aside from being magically gifted, she was pretty much a regular girl. Three stars.

#58 – Crocodile on the Sandbank, by Elizabeth Peters. This is me beginning my Great Amelia Peabody Re-Read! :D I do of course have a long history of loving these books, and this one in particular, in which our heroine Amelia Peabody meets the irascible archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson–and in between arguing like crazy with him, must solve the mystery of a mummy’s appearances around their archaeological dig. Five stars. Because I love it so.

#59 – The Curse of the Pharoahs, by Elizabeth Peters. Book 2 of the Amelia Peabodies, mostly notable for me by the initial introduction of Amelia and Emerson’s son Ramses–who at this point has only a brief appearance to lay the groundwork for his later catastrophic precociousness. ;) Four stars.

#60 – The Mummy Case, by Elizabeth Peters. Book 3 of the Amelia Peabodies, in which Ramses for the first time actually accompanies his parents to Egypt, and general chaos ensues, surrounding a stolen mummy case as well as Emerson’s fury at being stuck with a dig site not worth any time or trouble. Muaha. Ramses is a bit too twee at this point of the series with his constant mispronunciations of “th”, but on the other hand, I love to death that he’s as eager to excavate as his parents are. Four stars.

#61 – Disturbed by Her Song, by Tanith Lee, Esther Garber, and Judas Garbah. This is an anthology that came out via Lethe Press, and which Outer Alliance members were invited to review. The latter two names are actually characters of Tanith Lee’s, and she’s using a conceit of “channeling” them, making all of the stories in the anthology theirs. While I found the conceit not to my taste, I very much admire that the stories by “Esther” have a much different feel to them than the ones by “Judas”. Both characters are queer, and so their stories all generally focus on same-sex love and desire. None of it is overtly erotic–but there’s some truly seductive language in here, and that’s almost eroticism enough. Will definitely be posting a fuller review later. Thanks to Craig Gidney for letting me review it!

‘s third Jig the Goblin book, Goblin War rounds out the trilogy quite nicely. In this final installment, we’ve got a strong callback to book one as Princess Genevieve, the sister of the princes who’d hunted the Rod of Creation, has been ordered by her father to recover that artifact herself. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Brilla the Bloody, an orc general, has organized the orcs and goblins of the realm to go up against the human armies–and she’s doing a damn fine job of it. Since Jig’s home lair is been invaded by the humans and he and several of his people are captured by Genevieve’s troops, he’s ready and raring to escape and join Brilla’s forces…

Until he learns from his god, Tymalous Shadowstar, that Brilla’s got a divine connection of her own. And that divine connection is none other than the winter goddess who used to be Shadowstar’s own wife.

And, yeah. There’s a great deal of fun with the backstory here on Shadowstar and how he became one of the Forgotten Gods, as well as more of the same wry humor that made the first two books of this trilogy so much fun. The bit with the horse was especially snickerworthy, and I’ll say no more because of spoilers. I will say though that I was especially charmed that this time around, we even got a hint of something like a romance as one of Jig’s devoted new followers, the goblin Relka, was partial to him to a degree poor Jig didn’t really get for the longest time. Even goblins need love!

All in all, a delightful conclusion to the trilogy and not to be missed. Four stars.

The second Jig the Goblin book by does what any good second book of a fantasy trilogy ought to do: it shows you what’s happened to your protagonist as a result of Book 1’s events, and upped the stakes this time around to get him in even more trouble. In this particular installment’s case, it does an excellent job as well of taking traditional fantasy tropes and subverting them.

Now that Jig’s become “Jig Dragonslayer”, if anything, he’s almost more miserable than he was before. It is nifty that he’s gotten the ability to heal his fellow goblins of their injuries, but oi, the singing they’re doing about him! Not to mention how he’s coming perilously close to being chosen as chief. One goblin, though, is convinced that Jig’s not all he’s cracked up to be: Veka, who’s adamant that SHE is far better hero material, and who is bound and determined to win the acclaim that ought to be hers. Jig would quite cheerfully let her do her thing–only their lair is threatened by a pixie invasion, and it becomes the job of Jig Dragonslayer to go do something about it. Even if he’d much rather run the other way.

All in all this was a lovely followup to Book 1. I very much liked the character of Veka, her almost-a-romance with the hobgoblin nicknamed “Slash”, her struggle to master magic–and ultimately, even though she’s not about to admit it, to live up to Jig’s example and become a true hero. She gets significant point-of-view time, making her plotline as important as Jig’s all throughout the book, and her character arc does not disappoint.

Other high points of the book are Jig’s developing relationship with his god Tymalous Shadowstar, and the “duh OF COURSE” giggle-worthy way Jig finally wins the day. Four stars.

If you’re tired of the common tropes of the traditional fantasy genre, you can’t do much better than turning to Jim Hines’ books about Jig the Goblin. This has been hands down one of the more entertaining fantasy trilogies I’ve read in some time.

Jig is the smallest, scrawniest, runtiest goblin in the entire goblin lair–and he’s nearsighted to boot. He’s constantly harassed by the bigger and stronger goblins, and made to do all the worst chores. So it just goes to figure that he’s the one who winds up getting captured by a party of adventurers, two human princes, a dwarf cleric, and a young elven thief, all of whom are looking for the fabled Rod of Creation. Jig’s fast-thinking claim that he could guide them deeper into the caverns keeps him from getting killed on the spot by the arrogant prince leading the party, and he has to spend the rest of the book frantically trying to find a way to keep from getting killed by not only the adventurers, but everything else they encounter and fight along the way. He’s even desperate enough to commit to following one of the Forgotten Gods, if that’ll keep him alive. And to his surprise, that Forgotten God is in fact listening.

This is pretty much a D&D adventure from the goblin’s point of view, and it’s quite charming. I especially liked Jig’s forming a tentative… if not friendship, really, than at least less hostile alliance… with the young thief who’s just as much a captive of the adventurers as he is. His partnership with the Forgotten God Tymalous Shadowstar’s also a highlight, since Shadowstar’s so desperate for worshippers that he’ll even take on a goblin, the lowliest of the low. And overall, the goblin society is just hysterical, refreshingly straightforward in all its backstabbing, cowardly chaos. Four stars.

ETA: Correcting the first sentence, since I’d said “can’t do much worse” when what I really meant was “can’t do much better”. PhrasingFail! Thanks to for the catch.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this novella, Doranna Durgin’s shortest installment in her Sentinels paranormal romance series. The description of the story makes it sound like it’s erotica, since the main character, Tayla Garrett, must be initiated by another Sentinel before she can gain full command of her abilities. And by “initiated”, I mean “she needs to have sex with another Sentinel”.

In this case, that other Sentinel is Mark Burton, after whom she’s been pining for ages. Burton is pretty much ordered point-blank to initiate Tayla by none other than Nick Carter, the male lead from Wolf Hunt. Cue the obligatory “wait you’re only having sex with me because you were ordered to” angst on Tayla’s part.

However, the story is more than just that, happily. Yes, these bits are there–but as is the case with all of Durgin’s writing, it’s nicely low-key. And there’s a larger plot in play as well, one which relies upon Tayla’s specific abilities as well as on the fact that Mark is a rare Sentinel who does not in fact change shape. (Something I liked about him, in fact; he was described a lot with leonine imagery, despite the fact that he’s not a shifter at all.)

Plus, the short length of the story, a mere four chapters, meant that what angst there is here just doesn’t have time to get too drawn out and therefore overbearing. Instead, it blows over very quickly, letting the story get on with it. Very much appreciated, that. Three stars.

Aw yeah, now we’re talkin’. Doranna Durgin’s Sentinels series, in Books 1 and 2, was only mildly entertaining me–but with Book 3, I jumped up to actively enjoying it. This time around, we have the story featuring one of the characters only passingly mentioned in the first two books, Nick Carter, who leads the Sentinels of his part of the country. He’s a wolf-shifter–and the Atrum Core want to take him down. They do it by sending in Jet, over whom they have a strong and urgent hold, and giving her orders to immobilize Nick with an amulet that will poison him.

It’s not much of a spoiler at all to say that Jet, unlike every other shifter character we’ve met so far, is not human–she is in fact a wolf forced into sentient human shape by Atrum Core magic. This comes out very quickly early on in the story, and it’s a trope Durgin’s done before with great effect in her fantasy trilogy about Dun Lady’s Jess. I found her refreshingly blunt and straightforward, lacking a lot of baggage that someone who’s been human from day one would have; in short, I totally bought her as a wolf forced into bipedal, thinking shape. Moreover, I also very much liked her chemistry with Nick, and how she immediately realizes that the Core have pulled a fast one on her, by trying to convince her that the amulet wouldn’t “harm” Nick.

Most of the story is therefore about the two of them having to deal with the aftermath of her initial, failed assault, and how they can turn this to their advantage to take down the Core. At the same time, there’s a nifty little subplot involving traitors in the Sentinels’ midst, one who’s having deep second thoughts about what she’s being asked to do, and one with no repentance whatsoever! I liked the repentant one, and seriously would expect her to be the next in line to have a story starring her, if Durgin does more.

All in all this was good fun, and I do hope there will indeed be more on the way. Four stars.

I liked Lion Heart, Doranna Durgin’s second paranormal romance featuring her Sentinels shapeshifters, a bit more than the first book–possibly just because I found the scenario that brought the lead characters together more fun this time around.

Joe Ryan is a Sentinel in exile, believed to have been involved with the death of his former partner. But troubling fluctations of power are happening on the mountain where he’s living, and so Lyn Maines is sent in to investigate them along with Joe. It doesn’t take her instincts long to decide that Joe is innocent, although her more rational brain must be dragged kicking and screaming to that conclusion, along with admitting her attraction to him. Of course, then they have to actually convince the other Sentinels, so that they can all band together to face the actual threat on the mountain.

Overall I found the insistence on Joe’s guilt, not only from Lyn but from the Sentinel power structure, kind of thin; there was a lot of “guilty until proven innocent” going on here, and what glimpses we got of the actual backstory involved didn’t let me come away with any real impression that Joe had bothered to do anything at all in his own defense. That however was my only real beef with the book.

Lyn winds up having decent reasons to be a bit more obsessive than other Sentinels might have been in her investigation of Joe, and I particularly liked that her animal form is an ocelot. That struck me as nicely unusual for a shifter-based story, and the descriptions of her interactions with Joe in his mountain lion form were nicely detailed; I was totally able to envision their distinctly differently-sized feline forms. There’s good continuity here with the events of Book 1 as well, with some followup to the actions of that story’s antagonist.

Overall I’d actually call this a bit more than three, but not quite up to four, stars.

The first of her Sentinels series of paranormal romances, Jaguar Night is basically Doranna Durgin Does Shapeshifters. The worldbuilding is a bit thin for my tastes: you’ve got the Sentinels vs. the Atrum Core, who are two warring factions theoretically descended from a pair of half-brothers in ancient Britain, one a Druid and the other from a Roman father. The Druid descendants are the Sentinels who can shapeshift and do your basic grab bag of other magical abilities, while the Atrum Core are the bad guys, who are essentially out to grab the power that the Sentinels have. And that’s really about all the setup you get. Fortunately Durgin’s writing remains sound, and even if the worldbuilding is less detailed than I’ve seen her do in her fantasy novels, the characters in this series are appealing.

In this installment we’ve got a young woman, Meghan, who’s the daughter of a coyote Sentinel who died to hide a magical manuscript. The Sentinels have deemed Meghan, who isn’t a shifter herself, beneath their notice–which of course means that she gets to step up to the plate when rogue Sentinel Dolan Treviño comes looking for her, and the Atrum Core comes looking for the manuscript.

I give this story points for a Hispanic hero, for the heroine not actually being a shifter herself even if she’s of Sentinel blood (which is a theme that gets bounced around with other characters later), and for Meghan’s civilian friends who help her work the ranch being brought into the paranormal action in reasonable ways. There’s nothing terribly unusual here in how the plot plays out, either from a paranormal romance standpoint or a fantasy one, but it does play out enjoyably. And the resolution with the antagonist is important to note, as it sets up ramifications that show up in further Sentinels books. So I’ll give points for continuity, as well. Three stars.