Category: Reviews

Books, great reads, paranormal romance, Reviews, Romance, scifi, steampunk, Urban Fantasy

The Irin Chronicles by Elizabeth Hunter

debra
  • The Irin Chronicles is a series of three books that are titled (in order):

The Scribe
The Singer
The Secret

I am going to review all three as a set because all three have to be read to get the whole story. Book one is a real cliffhanger!

This story evolves around 2 distinct cultures (or are they distinct?). You learn throughout the story that the cultures involved are the offspring of the Fallen and the Forgiven. Twenty-one angels fell from heaven. Seven died, seven returned (Forgiven) and seven stayed on earth (Fallen). The offspring of the Forgiven are the Irin and the offspring of the Fallen are the Grigori. Both sets of offspring have inherited magic abilities from their angel fathers. The Irin’s stated role on earth is to protect the humans (who are unaware of what is going on) and to hunt/kill the Grigori. The Grigori are vicious hunters and users of the humans (but are all of them this way?). The Irin society’s numbers are decreasing because two centuries ago, the Grigori attacked the Irina (the females) and decimated their numbers. However, all is not what we think it is throughout the story. Actually, what we learn in Books 2 and 3 totally turns the story upside down and nothing is quite what it seems in the early stages of the story. The author does this very well. There were several spots in books 2 and 3 (I was reading these on my Kindle), that I had to stop and put in a note so I would make sure I remembered a few things. Many passages are highlighted. I normally do not do these things—a good indication of how the story evolves over the life of the books.

My thoughts: I loved this trilogy. I found book 1 because it was the monthly selection of an online book club I am in some time ago and I really enjoyed it. I had other reading obligations at the time so I could not get to books 2 and 3 until now. But the story just would not leave my head and others recommended it to me that I knew I had to finish the series. And I am so glad I did. The author has created a rich and complex world and is very good at the world building. Her world is very descriptive in the narrative but not so descriptive that she bogs us down with it. A lot of the world building is also done in the character interaction/dialogue which the author did a great job with. I am very critical when it comes to dialogue. If I don’t feel that the dialogue is believable for the characters to say to each other, the book falls flat for me. Sorry—that’s just the way I roll. It’s a quirk. The main characters in this trilogy are Malachi, a centuries old Irin scribe, and Ava, a current day very special human (or is she?),  and of course, they are going to become fated mates. The secondary characters are wonderful and add so much life to the story. Much of the story takes place in the Istanbul and Vienna areas and these locations also add a lot of life to the story.

We learn in a note to the readers after the story concludes in book 3 that the author is now planning more books in this world for some of the other characters and I for one, am looking forward to reading them also.

 

 

Books, Reviews, Romance

Winter’s Heat by Cristin Harber

debra

This is the first book in the Titan Series and the first book I have read by this author.

The Blurb: After putting her life on the line to protect classified intelligence, military psychologist Mia Kensington is on a cross-country road trip from hell with an intrusive save-the-day hero. Uninterested in his white knight act, she’d rather take her chances without the ruggedly handsome, cold-blooded operative who boasts an alpha complex and too many guns.

Colby Winters, an elite member of The Titan Group, has a single objective on his black ops mission: recover a document important to national security. It was supposed to be an easy in-and-out operation. But now, by any means necessary becomes a survival mantra when he faces off with a stunning woman he can’t leave behind.

When Titan’s safe houses are compromised, Colby stashes Mia at his home, exposing his secret—he’s the adoptive father of an orphaned baby girl. Too soon, danger arrives and Mia lands in the hands of a sadistic cartel king with a taste for torture. As hours bleed into fear-drenched days, Colby races across the globe and through a firestorm of bullets to save the woman he can’t live without.

What worked for me: The action scenes. I thought they were written fairly well. The action scenes were fast-paced and reminded me of what I would expect to see in a special ops story. There were enough in the book to keep me reading.

What didn’t work for me: I felt the book was rushed throughout the story. My first issue involved the whole insta-love thing. Insta-attraction: sure. Insta-love: not so much. The next thing was that if one of my clients told me if they died then I needed to retrieve a package in their place, my response would be “NO”. I would call the police–not go get the package! The other thing that did not work for me was that Colby (because of the whole insta-love thing) wanted to protect Mia (fine), but at the time he had known her not even a full day (even though they had already hooked up after only 4 hours), and he didn’t really know her part fully in the whole special ops escapade that went sour. Yet, he took her to his home to protect her where his infant daughter lived! These three things were too out of the box for me.

I think if perhaps the book had been extended some (only 262 pages), these issues could have been fleshed out more and the book stronger. The story was not bad–it would have been fine–just needed more oomph to it and some additional details, I think.

Happy Reading,

Debra

 

Books, great reads, paranormal romance, Reviews, Romance, scifi, Urban Fantasy

Outtakes from the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

debra

The series for Cat and Bones is over and Ms. Frost has given us a book of outtakes and deleted scenes.  I have always enjoyed reading deleted scenes and outtakes from books that authors choose to share. I like finding out why they were deleted or re-written. I like seeing if things might have been different for our characters in some way. I think it is just fun. Jeanine has shared with us some great deleted scenes and she gave us the context of the story at the time of the scene so we would understand where the characters were at story wise as well as why the scene ended up on the chopping block. If you enjoyed the adventures of Cat and Bones, you will enjoy this collection.

Reviews

My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis

debra

My Kind of Wonderful is the second story in the Cedar Ridge Series by Jill Shalvis.  I enjoy Ms. Shalvis’ work.  She writes contemporary romances and excels in writing stories set in small towns usually inhabited by a great group of characters with some interesting locals thrown in for comic relief and I am a sucker for these types of stories.

First the blurb:

UNEXPECTED AND UNDENIABLE…

Bailey Moore has an agenda: skiing in the Rockies, exploring castles in Europe, ballroom dancing in Argentina. Now that she has a second lease on life, she’s determined not to miss a thing. What she doesn’t realize is that item #1 comes with a six-foot-one ski god hot enough to melt a polar ice cap. She doesn’t want to miss out on him either, but Hudson Kincaid isn’t the type of guy to love and let go. And as gorgeous as Cedar Ridge is, she’s not planning to stick around.

As head of ski patrol at his family’s resort, Hud thinks he’s seen it all. But never has he run into someone like Bailey. She might look delicate, but her attitude is all firecracker. And her infectious joy touches something deep within him that he’s been missing far too long. Now he’ll just have to convince Bailey to take a chance on her biggest adventure yet . . . something rare and all kinds of wonderful.

My review:

I liked both leads in this story.  Bailey is recovering from a terminal illness and has started working on her bucket list.  The first item to tackle is doing a mural.  She has been commissioned (although she is doing it for free) by Hudson’s mother, a delightful character in a nursing home suffering from memory problems.  Hudson wants nothing to do with the mural.  While Bailey is painting the mural, she and Hudson’s relationship develops.  During the course of the book, Bailey finds out why Hudson is so withdrawn from everyone on an emotional level which is really very sad for his character.   How they overcome the obstacles of their relationship is the true story.

Ms. Shalvis writes well and her characters engage me from the beginning.  Not every author can do that.  Another character in this book I enjoyed was the mountains of Cedar Ridge.  Ms. Shalvis’ descriptions of the mountains and the ski lodge and the joys and dangers (with humor thrown in also) is enjoyable.  Of course, as a resident of  the Tahoe area, I sure she understands this aspect of her story very well.