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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.

A Feral Darkness is hands down my favorite of Doranna Durgin’s books. There are a lot of elements to it that might file it into the paranormal romance or urban fantasy genres, though for my money, I would still call it a straightforward fantasy. Romance it’s got, to be sure, but quieter and sweeter than most current paranormal romances do. Neither is it urban; if anything, it’s more like suburban/rural fantasy.

When she was nine years old, Brenna Fallon sacrificed her hair in desperation to the god Mars Noden, hoping to save her dying dog. The dog mysteriously lived for many years after, and Brenna acquired both an uncanny knock with all dogs as well as a head of miraculously long hair. Now, she’s a dog groomer stuck in a shopping center pets store, frustrated to no end with her job, puzzled by the stray Welsh Cardigan Corgi she discovers at the site of her childhood sacrifice, and troubled by the recurring rumors of a feral wolf pack in the area–and recurring impressions she has of voices warning of a strange new mutated rabies virus. Soon enough, she learns that what’s going on has its roots in an assault carried out on the spring where she’d made her prayer, and now she must try to raise Mars Noden’s power again to counteract the darkness that assault has raised.

I like every single thing about this book, pretty much: Brenna’s talent with dogs, the suburban/rural setting, the male lead Gil Masera and his Basque background, and the romance that blooms between him and Brenna. Their chemistry is a lovely, subtle thing, exemplified by a scene where he takes the time to comb out her incredible hair for her, and it never needs to rely on blatant statements of sexuality or graphic love scenes. In other words, exactly how I like it. And, the Celtic influence on the magic at hand is nicely understated, as is the challenge it puts to Brenna, who must figure out how to reconcile it with her Christian upbringing.

The biggest win in the story though is the dog Druid, who walks a balanced line between being insanely cute, believably canine, and an effective participant in the plot. Durgin’s own experience with dogs and horses shines through beautifully in Druid’s characterization, all throughout the book. Make no mistake, Druid is every bit as much a character as Brenna, Gil, and the rest of the humans in the cast.

This is Durgin at her best, a book I have re-read multiple times now. It came out in 2001, though, so it might be hard to find; if you can grab a copy from a used bookstore, though, I highly recommend it. Especially if you’re a dog lover. Five stars.

I’ve always loved Doranna Durgin’s work, although I miss her earlier fantasy novels. Her latest paranormal romance, The Reckoners, hearkens back a bit to those even as it’s squarely targeted at the paranormal romance crowd.

The book starts off a bit shakily, introducing us to Lisa “Garrie” McGarrity and her team of ghost hunters, who call themselves “reckoners”. We learn that Garrie was befriended in her childhood by an actual ghost, Rhonda Rose, whose wisdom is frequently quoted by the team, and we get a general idea of the abilities and personalities of the various team members. What we don’t get, though, is a scenario like unto the blurb that appears on the back of the novel, which would lead you to believe that Garrie and her team are trying to handle a huge upsurge of ghost activity when our hero Trevarr shows up. The scenario that actually happens is that the Reckoners have been quite hard pressed for serious cases as of late–and mysterious Trevarr, with a minimum of explanation and a jaw-dropping amount of cash, shows up and offers to pay their way if they’ll come with him to Winchester House to deal with strange goings-on with the ghosts trapped there.

I found the order of scenes explaining how Quinn (Garrie’s former boyfriend) opts to stay behind a little jerky, and I kept wanting to smack Trevarr for his stubborn insistence on not telling Garrie and the others any serious detail about what they were walking into. Likewise, I periodically wanted to smack Garrie too for only putting forth token insistence on these details until later on in the plot. Some of the worldbuilding I found a bit sparse, too–such as why Garrie and her team call themselves “reckoners” to begin with. Another review I saw said that this felt kind of like it should have been a third or fourth book in a series establishing this characters, and I have to say I concur; I almost feel like I was introduced to these characters too swiftly, without enough to really orient me with them.

But. All that aside, I did find the book fun. Once you get past the roadblock of Trevarr flat refusing to give up details until they’re pried forcibly out of him, the pace picks up considerably. Winchester House, the site Garrie’s team goes to investigate, does actually exist; scenes set there make good use of random tourists as well as the site staff. Glimmers of what I miss about Durgin’s fantasy days come to the fore with the big reveals about what’s going on in Winchester House as well as with Trevarr himself. The last stretch of the novel felt much more like a fantasy novel to me than a paranormal romance, and the few details given about Trevarr’s background are the best worldbuilding in the book, piqueing my interest about what might be written about him and Garrie later.

All in all, not my favorite Durgin, but pleasant nonetheless. Three stars.

I’m primarily familiar with Mira Grant, a.k.a. , through her filk music and through the folks in the Pacific Northwest who know her. That was enough of a connection, though, to make me quite pleased to hear she was pursuing a writing career, and certainly I was pleased to see that as urban fantasies go, Rosemary and Rue stood out for me as better than normal in an overcrowded genre.

That was before I read Feed.

Now, granted, I’m a sucker for a good zombie novel. But what makes a truly kickass zombie novel is a plot that’s much less about the zombies and much more about the world that a zombie outbreak creates, and Grant does this in spades in this book. I’m not sure what impressed me more, and there’s a lot to impress here: the backstory of the Kellis-Amberlee virus; the various complex social and political changes that happen in America as a result of the Rising; the fact that in this world, George Romero is considered a national hero; or the upsurge of bloggers as a source of organized journalism. Either way, it makes me very much want to up the ante on my own writing efforts. Take note, my fellow writers. This is how worldbuilding is done.

And when you take impressive worldbuilding and throw in highly engaging characters on top of it, the result is riveting. I loved the two protagonists, Georgia and Shaun Mason, as well as the supporting crew surrounding them. I loved Buffy the support tech chick, who quips that she’s blonde and cute and hunts zombies, what else should she name herself? I loved Rick, who signs on with Georgia and Shaun after working for actual newspapers. I even loved Senator Ryman, a halfway decent politician.

Quotes from the various major characters’ individual blogs add a lot of lovely atmosphere to the book. Be sure to read them in depth, too. There’s lots of detail you don’t want to miss, and the blog excerpts are of critical importance in the climactic end of the book.

Watch out for that climax, too, because it’ll totally make you tear up. Or, aheh, so I’ve heard. *^_^*;; Five stars. Because I mean, DAMN.

With so much urban fantasy saturating the market these days, it’s really nice to see that a good ol’ fashioned fantasy novel can still show up on the shelves. Like, say, Benjamin Tate’s Well of Sorrows.

Well of Sorrows tells the story of Colin, a boy who’s come with his parents across the sea to a new country, fleeing war in their homeland–only to discover that the city where they’ve settled has no use whatsoever for the influx of refugees. Violence eventually ensues, and Colin’s father must lead a group of their people out to try to found a new settlement. But there are strange and dangerous things out in the plains, things which have caused previous settlers to never be seen again.

Colin’s family’s group of course finds these dangerous things. And Colin’s life is irretrievably changed.

I could go on from there, but that would be significant spoilerage. I will however say that this is only really the first stretch of the book; the main storyline is what happens long after these events. And I can add that the worldbuilding is the primary thing that appealed to me about Tate’s work. The idea of an overseas colony, complete with strife between it and the motherland, is not new to fantasy to be sure. But it’s handled well here and with a nice balance between a realistic feel and just enough magic to remind you that oh yeah, this is in fact a fantasy novel–not to mention that there are two non-human races that initially will probably strike most readers as thinly disguised elves and dwarves. Tate’s names for them, the Alvritshai and the dwarren, do not exactly dispel that impression. (That said, the dwarren are not miners, which helps a lot.)

Much of the book hinges upon the volatile relations between the humans, the Alvritshai, and the dwarren, and this is really where it shone for me. I was less invested in Colin’s acquisition of magical powers that enabled him to be the prime person to stop the blossoming warfare, mostly because his acquisition of them is primarily off-camera and so I had to adjust hard to jump from “Colin as youth” to “Colin as man with magical ability”. Aeren, one of the lords of the Alvritshai, becomes a more accessible character in the latter stretches of the book.

Lastly, I’ll note that Tate had a bit too much “as you know Bob” type dialogue in various conversations, such as an Alvritshai character using a given term and then immediately following it with the term’s definition–in conversation to another Alvritshai. But that was pretty much the only issue I had with any of the writing at all, and I’ll definitely be coming back for the next book in the series. ‘Cause this ain’t done, not by a long shot. And I do need to know what happens next! Four stars.