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Review: After the Storm (KGI Series) by Maya Banks

13 Jan

After the Storm MB

Okay, the title of this entry may also have to be disappointed fan girl as I wasn’t particularly enamored with this book. Aaack! That almost feels like I’m blaspheming as I love this author! That being said, Maya Banks is still an autobuy author for me and the KGI series in particular is a series that I love and pre-order. If you haven’t read this series yet, I highly recommend it… just don’t start with this book.

KGI stands for Kelly Group International and it was started by a group of brothers whose family name is, yup you guessed it, Kelly. There are 6 brothers who have all served in the armed forces in some form or another before joining the family company. KGI is made up of male and female badasses who go on righteous (their words not mine) missions such as rescuing kidnap victims, hostage extractions etc all over the world. This is book 8 in the series, with the previous books telling the stories of 4 of the other Kelly brothers and the other members of the team.

Although each book is a stand alone I really recommend that you read this series in order. This is because one, I am slightly obsessive compulsive about reading series in order (there was a reason they were written that way dammit), and two it is nice to see how the relationships between family and team members grow and develop as the series progresses.

The books are romantic suspense done well with a lot of exciting parts without the romantic elements getting lost in the mix or added as an afterthought. Action aside though, my favourite thing about these books are the relationships between the brothers. The dialogue between them is often funny and done very realistically with them teasing and joking each other in between moving heaven and earth to keep one another safe.

Donovan is the third eldest brother who features largely in all the previous books and is portrayed as the one with a soft spot for women and children. Hmmm, hot former Navy guy with a soft spot for kids and a brain like a computer? Excuse me for a moment while I check that my knickers haven’t spontaneously combusted… Could you tell that I was really looking forward to Donovan’s book?

I liked the premise of the book- Eve and her siblings are running away from her evil step father. Her half brother ends up working in the Kelly’s hardware store and through this connection, Donovan or Van ends up meeting Eve and her sibs and falling taut ass over head in love with all of them.

While the dialogue and relationship bits of the book do not disappoint there were several plot tropes that were used in this book that I don’t particularly like, and while I feel that this may fall under the heading of personal taste, I do think that they have to be discussed. First of all, this was the least action packed book in the series. The other books had kidnappings, drug lords, high powered weapons and bombs. This book was positively tame in comparison.

The next thing that I had a problem with is how quickly Van falls in love with both Eve and her siblings. While I know that romance novels are fiction, I still have a hard time with the love at first sight/over the span of hours trope- especially when this love extends to young children. Protectiveness towards and overwhelming attraction to I can understand but truly in love over a span of 3 days beggars belief. This was also an issue for me because the fact that Van loved women and children was stressed several times in the book and it did lead me to wonder whether or not he really loved them or the IDEA of them. MB gets around this problem by having one of the Kelly bros confronting Van about this specific issue but because everything happens so quickly there is that little niggle of doubt that remains- at least there was in my mind.

My biggest frustration though is the whole misunderstanding leading to awful things trope. This one drives me absolutely mad. I did at one point end up screaming at my IPAD “Just ASK him about it for GOD’S SAKE!”. This very strong dislike of painful experiences that could have been avoided if characters in a book would just TALK to each other is one of the reasons a lot Shakespeare’s plays drive me batty. I can’t really talk about it more without including some major spoilers so I’ll leave it there but let me just add a few more exclamation marks to convey my frustration one last time !!!!!

That being said, I cannot repeat how much I love this author and this series in particular. My expectations were very high for this book and I have to say even though I was a bit disappointed it’s still a better quality book than a lot of others out there.

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December 2013 Reviews and Recommendations: Ilona Andrews, Kristen Ashley, Kristan Higgins, Suzanne Johnson and Anne Bishop

31 Dec

The Christmas season was crazy busy this year what with my other half being out of the country and with me being alone with my two toddlers. You would think I would be too busy to read and in a way I probably didn’t read as many books as I would have if hubby had been here as I had to do all the housework and Christmas shopping etc on my own. However, because I really felt the need to decompress at the end of the day, I found that no matter how tired I was I couldn’t NOT read. Television just didn’t cut it for me. The only thing that got my brain to slow down and take a breath was to read. Good, bad or ugly it didn’t matter, I had to get in a solid half hour of reading at night in order to fall asleep. That being said, the bad books probably were more helpful in the falling asleep part as the good ones would keep me awake all night because I just had to finish!
After a totally kick ass November in terms of new releases I found not as many books to get excited about in December. I re-read all my Ilona Andrew’s Kate Daniel books and fell in love with them all over again. This is a great urban fantasy series, with great dialogue, a seriously kick ass heroine and fascinating world building. I love the romance between Kate and Curran although I find the series more of an urban fantasy with a little romance thrown in rather than the other way around.
I also read the latest Kristen Ashley Fantasyland book, Broken Dove. I love this author and am constantly entertained by her books. This wasn’t one of my favourites of hers and I have to damn it with faint praise and say it was okay. I really loved the first three books though so I would still recommend the series. In direct contrast to the Ilona Andrews books, I find this series to be more of a romance with a fantasy element.
I started Suzanne Johnson’s Sentinels of New Orleans series with the first book, Royal Street. I was attracted to this book as it wasn’t about shapeshifters or vampires although they do make appearances in the books- this series is about wizards. The first book didn’t have much romance in it although to be fair there is a little triangle shaping up quite nicely. The world building and the premise were very interesting. It was good enough to have me buying the 2nd and 3rd books in the series so I can see how things turn out.
In terms of contemporary romances I also read a lot of Kristan Higgins’s back list. Although I found her older books to be borderline chick lit I find that I really enjoy the voice of this author. Her writing is consistently good and her characters likeable, self-deprecating and funny. I would recommend her to fans of Susan Mallery and Jill Shalvis.
My favourite book of the month has to be Anne Bishop’s Written in Red. Anne Bishop is best known for her Black Jewel books which are firmly in the fantasy romance category. Written in Red is an urban fantasy romance. She writes about the Terra Indigene or Others who are children of the earth or earth natives. This term refers to a whole raft of supernaturals such as the sanguinati, the shapechangers and the elementals (these are basically your vampires, shape changers and weather controllers but slightly different as all authors like to put their own spin on things). These Others are the superior race of the world and it is only because they allow humans to co-exist with them that humans are living on their land at all. The main character of the book is Meg, who is a human who is running away from other humans and ended up with the Others. I was a little uncomfortable in the beginning with how clear it was that the Others consider humans to be MEAT. Again, other authors touch on this but Anne Bishop really made it clear that humans are food to these Others down to human meat being sold at the local butcher! This book was one I could NOT put down and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series.

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Review: Archangel’s Legion by Nalini Singh

25 Nov

Archangel's Legion

I’ve been on a good book roll these last couple of weeks and that has made me a VERY happy little fan girl. A lot of my favourite authors have released books this month but of all the books that I have read in November, the best one so far is Archangel’s Legion by Nalini Singh. I have made no secret of how much I love this author and her books but I have to say this book may be one of my favourites of hers.
This book is the 6th in NS’s Guild Hunter series. I strongly suggest to anyone who hasn’t read the previous books to please go back and do so as I think it would be difficult to pick up some elements of the story if you start on this book. Besides, the first book ROCKS and you really, really have to read it.
Here’s a quick background anyway for those not familiar with the series: The main characters in most of the books of the series are Raphael and Elena. Raphael is the archangel of New York and one of the biggest, baddest, scariest mo-fos out there by reputation. He has to be as the world they live in is kind of like ours except there are vampires and werewolves and angels (oh my!) walking the streets and each region is ruled by an archangel who has to have the scary control factor thing going or the supernaturals would just go around killing each other and poor hapless humans.
In this very interesting world, vampires are created by the angels. HOW and WHY this is done is one of the more interesting revelations in book 1. Once these vampires are created they have to go into the service of the angel who created them and are only considered free once that contract has expired. If vampires run out on their contracts or do something very naughty they are hunted by members of the Guild. Elena is a Guild Hunter. Not only is she trained by the Guild (I keep picturing a supernatural sort of police academy here. Helloooo Steve Guttenburg) she is a born hunter which means she can track vampires through scent. Anyway, Raphael and Elena meet when Raphael hires a very reluctant Elena to track a rogue archangel for him. In the way of these books, blood, gore, mayhem and near death experiences ensue and by the end of Angel’s Blood, which is book 1 in the series, Elena and Raphael are deeply and life changingly in love. Oh, and Elena becomes an angel. I’m telling you READ ANGEL’S BLOOD. It’s a totally kick ass, tres amaze book.
(Note: it was at this point where I got SO enthused about the first book that I went back and read it AGAIN for the 6th or so time! Then of course I had to keep going all the way again to book 6 so it’s basically taken me over a week just to write this review.)
Fast forward to book 6 and Raphael and Elena have gone through a really tumultuous period of unrest in the world. Elena in particular has grown a lot in terms of being a baby angel and in terms of being a consort to one of the most powerful beings in the world. There is a period of great change called the Cascade and it is signified by all things going wonky such as seas changing colour and unexplained storms etc. Through most of the book Raphael and Elena are dealing with the Cascade, changes with Raphael’s power and a coming war with another archangel/s.
I don’t want to give too much of the plot away but I do have to tell you that there IS a war in the book and it is EPIC. The battle scenes were so exciting and fast paced, and the story was told so descriptively, I could close my eyes and imagine it in my head. The images that were described were so beautiful such as skies full of wings or angels flying in formation that it was almost like having a reel of a really high budget fantasy movie playing in my head as I was reading.
What I really loved about the book though is that in spite of all the action and intrigue and plots, the love story between Raphael and Elena never got lost in the mix. Being really invested in these characters, I loved seeing how their relationship is continuing to evolve from the first book. One of the things that I feel NS is particularly good at is showing what a powerful, beautiful and intimidating creature Raphael is.
He laughed, her dangerous lover who wore his strength as a second skin and had a face of such violent masculine beauty that she was stunned anew each time she realized he belonged to her. Hair of darkest midnight and eyes of a painful blue found nowhere else on this earth, Raphael was a man blooded with power- no one would ever mistake him for anything but what he was: an archangel who had the capacity to snuff out a life as easily as she might crush an ant.
And again further along in the book:
It was a bone-jarring shock to be bluntly reminded that the man who was her lover was that man only for her. To the rest of the world he was-must be- the lethal, dangerous and sometimes cruel Archangel of New York.
And yet, NS saves him from being a cold, completely intimidating character by showing us the core of warmth and good in him through his people’s absolute loyalty to him and through all the wonderful interactions he has with Elena. I loved all the action and imagery of this book, but I adored the interplay between these two characters, especially their conversations mind to mind:
I’ll enter first. I’m the Hunter, Elena reminded him.
Of course you may go first. When I’m dead.
Scowling at that statement delivered in an eminently reasonable tone that fooled her into thinking he was going to agree, she pulled out her crossbow.
Go. We’ll argue about your autocratic tendencies later.
I look forward to it.
There was also a scene where another archangel and his consort were visiting that had to do with skimpy dresses and underwear that made me laugh out loud, and this little conversation about concubines:
Raphael, in case you’re getting ideas- I won’t be this civilized if you decide you need a concubine. In fact, it’s a good bet I’ll turn homicidal.
He didn’t look up from his conversation with Astaad as he said, A pity, in that cool “Archangel” tone of his. I will now have to ask the pilot to empty the hold of my chosen females.
We’re going to have to talk about this new sense of humor of yours.
The contrast between the powerful archangel and the tough as nails hunter and how sweet (because really that is the word for it) they are with each other is simply sigh inducing and is for me, one of the absolute best things about these books. The tender moments in between the action sequences were lovely:
“Eternity would mean nothing without you, For no power on Earth would I trade my Elena.”
Heart splintering at the tenderness of his words, she touched trembling fingers to his lips and hoped this choice wouldn’t doom him, this man whom she loved until she couldn’t breathe.

Just reading that made me sigh again. It’s an A ++ for me all around. I can’t wait for the next instalment in the series.

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My Week in Books…

5 Nov

This week seems to be a week of new releases. I finished Nora Roberts’s Dark Witch and Nalini Singh’s Archangel’s Legion over the weekend. Two of my autobuy authors, one weekend- yay me! I also re-read Danielle Monsch’s Stone Guardian and am currently reading Shannon Stacey’s Snowbound with the CEO.

Of all the above books I have to really, really recommend Archangel’s Legion. It was EPIC. I’m still trying to get my thoughts together so I can write a proper review because really I’m still feeling all gushy and ridiculously in love with the book- it was that good. Unfortunately, writing SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE over and over again does not a good review make so that review is forthcoming once I have come back down to Earth.

Dark Witch by Nora Roberts and Danielle Monsch’s Stone Guardian were good books, but not great ones. I’ll write about them and Shannon Stacey’s Snowbound this week. After Archangel’s Legion I’m looking for a really good paranormal romance I can get into. Recommendations anyone?

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Rock Chick Daze

2 Nov

I am in a complete Rock Chick daze. I have lost weeks (WEEKS!) of my life and I blame it all on Kristen Ashley. There are 8 books in the series and as with all series there are some books that I enjoyed a little bit more than the others but overall I loved all the books so much and am recommending the entire series as a whole instead of individual books.
The Rock Chick books are laugh out loud funny, romantic and hot- as in HAWT. I enjoyed the heck out of them and couldn’t put them down in spite of several writing idiosyncrasies that KA has that would usually drive me up the wall. I’ll get the stuff that I didn’t like about her books out of the way first so that I can continue to gush embarrassingly for the rest of this entry.

Most of KA’s books are written in first person. I usually don’t like first person point of view writing as I like getting into the other characters’ heads. In her books KA gets around only getting the main character’s thoughts by breaking all the “rules” and jumping points of views. This is not something I enjoy usually but she placed spaces and sub headings in between the changes in point of view so you’re not taken by surprise. I didn’t like it but it didn’t really bug me too much either. What DID bug the heck out of me was when she would write things like “I was walking out of the room and therefore did not see… (insert action here such as main characters exchanging meaningful looks)”. These lines always left me exasperated. If you didn’t see it then you DIDN’T SEE IT. Period. I don’t get how you can NOT see something and still write about it.

I have read other reviews of her books where the reviewers complained about the amount of detail that KA goes into when describing the clothes that her characters are wearing. I didn’t mind this at all and while I agree that there were times that I would skim over some of the lengthier descriptive paragraphs, I found that I actually liked knowing what my favourite (which was whoever I was reading about at that moment) rock chick was wearing. In fact, what they were wearing was an important part of who they are such as Dolly Parton look alike Daisy or high maintenance Roxie. The Rock Chicks as a group are strong, quirky, attractive women and I believe that their choice of clothing added to their individual quirks/personalities.
The Rock Chick books I believe were originally self-published so there are a few typos here and there but nothing like some of the other self-published train wrecks that you can get via electronic publishing.

These Rock Chick books are my favourite kind of contemporary romance because they are FUNNY. Like laugh out loud, scream and cover your face FUNNY. The humour is similar Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series in that the girls get up to all sorts of mischief by accident and by design. The things that come out of their mouth are both cringe worthy and hilarious. Some of the funniest moments come from conversations between the girls and their hot guys especially in the beginning when they are still fighting being together. Jet and Eddie’s whole racist episode down to the ex-boyfriend showing up will live forever in my mind. Ava’s time by herself in the afternoon that necessitated the cameras being turned off is another scene that made me scream out loud then burst out laughing.

The funny, light-hearted bits were a good balance to the more serious life and death/abuse situations that the chicks found themselves in a lot of the time. KA touched on some pretty serious issues in a couple of her books but managed to keep the books from becoming too heavy or depressing. I liked the fact that while the Rock Chicks all had their own physical life or death issues that they had to work out, they also had to spend a lot of time working out their internal issues and insecurities. Themes of not feeling special, not being good enough or not being worthy are all issues that I would think would resonate quite strongly with women as a whole regardless of background.

Following the whole internal work theme, I have to mention that probably my favourite thing about these books was the very strong theme of family/friends that run through the series. While reading it and certainly at the end of the book you WANT to be part of the Rock Chick family or something similar. You WANT these people to be your friends. Seriously. They always had each other’s backs, both the guys and the girls. The shared camaraderie and history really came through in the books and were very nicely backed up by the epilogues. I love me a good epilogue, especially in books where I get so attached to the characters that I want to know more about their happily ever after. KA does this really well. Nope, no short two page cryptic/ cliff hanger epilogue for the Rock Chicks, KA goes all out with a full chapter long visit to the couple and the group. Stella and Mace’s epilogue and Ava and Luke’s stood out for me especially as giving readers the reassurance that yes, they really WILL live happily ever after.

We cannot talk about the Rock Chick series without talking about their men, the Hot Bunch. Going back to the comparison with the Stephanie Plum series, imagine a whole bunch of Rangers and Morellis and… yup… sigh. The difference of course being that the Rock Chick novels are truly romance novels and while in some of the books there is another guy showing interest just to make things interesting, the stories are really about one guy and one girl falling in love with each other. The men in these books are either cops or part of a private investigation agency with the exception of Ren but in the end all the men are bad asses with a soft spot for women and really isn’t that a perfectly drool worthy combination? These alpha guys have their not so perfect moments (I believe that the term speak in Asshole was mentioned in one of the books) but KA always manages to pull them back before I ended up disliking them intensely. This is also something that she is good at- pushing characters to the limits of unlikeable and then pulling them firmly back into the likeable category (at least for this series. I had major problems with Knight which is in her unfinished hero series and to be fair she does warn readers that her heroes in that series are not the usual).

At the end of the day and all analysis aside, I couldn’t put down these books. I have read other more technically proficient books that I was able to put down and forget about. But with this series I was a total addict, even sneaking pages in at stoplights when driving home! This is not the one bite of beluga caviar that you nibble on daintily at a cocktail party. This series is a pint of Ben and Jerry’s or a bag of Cheetos puffs that you just gobble voraciously and keep eating because you can’t stop even though you know it’s not good for you. The books are in no way perfect but they made me laugh, they made me cry, they made me believe in family and love and deep meaningful connections to other people. The Rock Chick series is fun escapism at its very finest which is why this is definitely a series that I would recommend.

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