Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

This first novel by Lish McBride:




was the first book club pick for my Goodreads Group.

Plot Summary:

Samhain Corvus LeCroix lives in Seattle, where he works for Plumpy's, a fast food restaurant. He is a young, male, underachiever who dropped out of college, and who lives with his best friend, Ramon. He likes to hang out with his Plumpy's coworkers, Brooke and Frank. His life is fairly uneventful until a fierce bout of potato hockey ends up breaking the taillight of a very powerful, very evil, necromancer named Douglas. Necromancer: one who controls death.

Douglas realizes that Sam is also a necromancer, albeit a very weak one. The rest of the book is a dramatic and slyly humorous romp, with Douglas-the-evil engaging in all sorts of evil-doing related to Sam. There is also a subplot related to a werewolf named Bridin, the next in line as the alpha of the local were pack.

Review:

This book is the first in a new series. There were a number of things about it that were different -- that I really liked. First, the main character is a male, which is sort of unique in YA. Generally, books that are written in the first person have a female MC. It flipped back and forth between the first person perspective of Samhain Corvus LaCroix, to a third person perspective of some of the other characters. The transitions between perspective were well done, and not confusing.

I also really liked the fact that there was no YA love triangle. Yes, the author did avoid that particular trope. There is a bit of romance, of course, but it doesn't overwhelm the story. This book is not a romance -- it is, first and foremost, a story of friendship.

I live in Portland, and the book is set in one of my favorite cities, Seattle. I also really loved this. Seattle is a great setting for paranormal -- something about all of that drizzle, verdant greenery and grayness sets a very compelling scene.

However, if I had to choose one attribute that I enjoyed above all others, it has to be the humorous bent of the book. There were several opportunities to laugh-at-loud at Sam and his friends. This book is not full of teen angst. These characters are clever, and they all have their tongues firmly in their cheeks. I enjoyed the lighthearted aspect of the book.

Finally, I was genuinely surprised by the ending. I didn't see it coming. I had expected an entirely different progression for the story into book 2 of the series.

I'd give it 3 1/2 stars here. For amazon, I'll round up to 4 stars.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

I flippin' loved this book!




Spoiler-free plot summary of the awesomeness:

It is hard to do a plot summary of such awesomeness, because it will not do justice to McGuire's voice and cleverness. Essentially, the heroine, Verity Price, is a ballroom dancer slash cryptozoologist in modern New York City. The Price family is notorious amongst cryptozoologists (McGuire speak for monster hunter) because they abandoned The Covenant of St. George generations earlier, leaving behind their monster killing roots in favor of a more, shall we say, nuanced approach. The Price family doesn't kill on sight. They wait until the cryptid demonstrates that it is actively dangerous to humans before they exercise extreme prejudice in dealing with the threat.

Verity is living in New York City, under cover, in an effort to further her secret career in ballroom dancing. At the same time that a member of The Covenant, Dominic de Luca, appears in "her" city, and seems bent upon extinguishing as much sentient cryptid life as possible, female cryptids begin disappearing. And no one knows why. This central mystery requires Verity and Dominick to set aside their historic animosity to piece it all together.

Review:

I loved this book. I give very few five-star reviews -- the last one was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green -- but dang it, I loved this book. It is lighter than a lot of urban fantasy, and has certain qualities that feel almost manga-esque. When it comes out as a graphic novel, I will buy it. Please, Daw, release it as a graphic novel. Please.

The characters are great. Verity is smart, sassy and well-armed. She also has fantastic one liners, like:

"My name is Verity Price. I'm a cryptozoologist. And this is why I never get a goddamn date on a Saturday night."

and

"[m]y mother raised me never to contradict anyone who regularly carries grenades."

The voice is breezy, articulate and fun. There are lots of fun allusions to work out, and little pop culture references, like wikipedia and The Land of the Lost, that are a delight. It is well-written and well-edited. I laughed out loud reading this book, and cannot wait, absolutely cannot wait for the next book featuring Verity. This is the urban fantasy version of the Gilmore Girls. To me, that is high praise. I read a lot, and I am seldom this enthusiastic about a book. There was nothing I didn't love.

P.S.: I want to mack on Dominic. Seriously. He's hot.

Review: Playing for Keeps by R.L. Mathewson

Review for:



This book has been getting a whole lotta love on Amazonlandia in the romance forum. Since it clocks in at a mere 99 cents, I had to give it a try. It wasn't really my cup of tea.

So, Plot Summary:

Haley lives next door to the neighbor from hell, Jason, a hot, hunky slice of manflesh who has utterly terrible manners. He urinates outside. His drunk friends try to sneak over their fence so they can swim in her pool. He is a teacher at the same high school where she teaches, and he occasionally breaks into her classroom to steal, erm, borrow, teaching aids. Haley can't stand him, but she is a doormat, so she never does anything about it, until the day that he tries to pull up her grandmother's tulips. She freaks out and tackles him to get him to stop, they are nearly attacked by a horde of angry bees, and end up fleeing, together, into her house until an exterminator can be called to take care of the yellow jacket nest that he has disturbed.

And so it begins. Since Haley is not Jason's type, he adopts her as his pet slash friend. He decides that no one interested in Haley is good enough to date her, and he chases them off. His jealousy can't be because he is, himself, secretly infatuated with Haley. No way, she's not his type. Or is she?

Review:

Generally, I felt like the book was fairly well-written and probably succeeded in terms of what the author intended to do. I didn't see any major issues with the writing or the formatting. There were some minor issues related to homonyms/proofreading (I specifically remember band instead of banned, although that's the only one I remember right now) but they didn't detract so greatly from my enjoyment that I would give the book a poor review based on that alone. Mathewson has a breezy, casual writing style that is fun to read.

So, why didn't it work for me, especially since I have enjoyed many books enjoyed by some of the other readers who really liked this book? I think it really boils down to the characters. I felt like the author was so caught up in making the situations funny and the characters over-the-top that I just didn't believe in any of it. I was looking for a book about characters that could convince me that their romance was real. I didn't find that here. Basically every single character was completely one-dimensional.

Let me provide an example in Haley's dad. We've got our heroine, who is a high school teacher with a college degree. She is 24. She owns her own home. She is bright, and intelligent and really self-sufficient. And her dad is such a cliche of the emotionally distant wealthy guy that he doesn't have any idea when her birthday is, that he doesn't know how old she is, and he thinks she runs a day care, which is beneath her and beneath her family background. This just didn't work for me. None of Haley's family, save her grandmother, had any redeeming qualities at all. It doesn't ring true. With the possible exception of Bernie Madoff, human beings are not so completely bereft of positive qualities.

More importantly, though, I think that this book was intended to be a romantic comedy. There were parts of it that I found funny, but overall, I really didn't like the relationship between Jason and Haley. I didn't see Jason as a jealous, loving man who is just too emotionally unaware to realize that he has fallen in love. I saw him as an immature, petulant brat who only wanted a toy until he broke it. In real life, he deserves to have someone key his car (not that I'm advocating vandalism). The scene of the book that happened by the pool broke my heart, and nothing that happened after that redeemed it for me. I liked Haley, and I wanted her to find someone who loved her and valued her, since there didn't seem to be a single person in her life who saw her as a competent, loveable person,including her so-called friends. I just didn't think that Jason was that person.

So, ultimately, this book didn't work for me. The over-the-top characterizations and situations left me empty. I can see how the book might work for a different reader, who is looking for something light and frothy, and doesn't take it too seriously. I was expecting something different, & I think I did take it too seriously. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

I gave the book 3 stars on amazon. Here, I'd probably give it 2 1/2. Plus, the cover is lazy.

Review: Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

So, I flippin' love Molly Harper.



Why do I love Molly Harper? Well, because she names her books things like "Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs" and "How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf." And she is funny. Like, sitting in my favorite reading chair and laughing out loud making my husband think I am crazy funny.

I've read two of her books -- this one, and the aforementioned:



I loved them both, although I must say that I loved the werewolf book just a tiny bit more.

So, without providing a plot summary, which anyone can get by taking a look at the product description, besides the fact that I think Molly Harper is hilarious, what is so great about this book?

I love Jane, the good-girl-turned-into-a-vampire. I loved the H, who is her vampire sire, and who is one seriously sexy vamp. I especially loved the secondary characters: Jane's best friend is terrific, and the secondary plot related to his romance is very nice. Jane's family is delightfully awful. Her mother is a monumental pain in the ass, and her sister is even worse.

I did figure out what was going on with Jane substantially before Jane did, so in that sense, I did see the plot twist coming. But it was so much fun getting there, that I didn't really care. Plus, a lighthearted PNR is a refreshing change from all of the angst, darkness and dramatic mate claiming that so often is the point of this type of book. 4 stars.

Playing Catch-Up: Millie's Fling

I don't read a lot of chick lit. I picked this book up for two reasons: first, I found it, among several others by Jill Mansell, on dailycheapreads for an incredible bargain price (1.79 for kindle). Second, I loved the cover.

Like much chick lit, to enjoy this book requires a willingness to engage in a hefty dose of willing suspension of disbelief. Our positively ordinary, everywoman heroine, Millie, somehow finds herself befriended by a best-selling author and a fabulous, famous hearthrob. Every man she comes into contact with is devastatingly handsome.

I really did enjoy this book. It is sort of like eating a palmier cookie -- buttery, decadent, and insubstantial. The one complaint that I have, although it is a bit of a biggie, is that Millie's leading man, her crush, her hero, so to speak, does something to her that is simply awful. It's so terrible that, for me, it cast a pall over the rest of the book. I simply could not see forgiving him. I have seen heroines forgive greater in romance novels, but this is chick lit, set in the modern day. No matter how wonderful he was, I just can't see any self-respecting modern woman with options trusting him after his behavior.

I snagged a boatload of Jill Mansell's books at the bargain price. I genuinely did enjoy this book, in spite of the hero's bad behavior. I am certain that I will read them all, and I hope -- sincerely -- that I find more to love in the subsequent male leads.