Teaser Tuesday: Deadly Curiosities

Teaser Tuesday post for 31 March 2015
from Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin

We all flinched.  I lunged forward before anything else could happen, and grabbed the statue's head with both hands.

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Teaser Tuesday: On the Edge

Teaser Tuesday post for 24 March 2015
from On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

Georgie's lips shaped one quiet word. "Bye."

A faint sound emanated from the semicircle as if the undead who couldn't breathe exhaled in unison.

—————————————————————————————–
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Review: Hunting Ground

Title: Hunting Ground (Alpha and Omega, book 2)
Author: Patricia Briggs
Published: August 2009
Author’s Website: http://www.patriciabriggs.com/
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Review: Bran, the Marrok, is planning to bring werewolves out of hiding and into the open.  As leader of the North American werewolves, he doesn’t need anyone’s permission, but invites the leaders of foreign werewolf regions to a conference to hear their misgivings about the plan and make assurances that he will do what he can to minimize the impact on their organizations.  Bran sends Charles, his son and “enforcer”, to the conference in his stead.  Charles, of course, brings Anna, his mate and the pack’s omega werewolf, which proves to have interesting effects on the conference.  Of course, when you have so many dominant alpha werewolves in one place, there’s bound to be trouble, so it also make perfect sense to hire a powerful fae as the mediator, to enforce the rules.

But, who invited the vampires?

Bottom Line:  Anna continues to be fleshed out as a character, while she continues to learn about being an omega.  Any number of events in this story are predictable, some unavoidable, but it flows along at a nice pace and doesn’t stretch believability too far.  I’m still not really getting any emotion from these characters, but it’s not for a lack of Ms. Briggs trying.  I’m just not feeling it.  That said, if you’re a fan of the genre or Briggs’ work, this is a decent book.  Not great, but not bad.

Review: Cry Wolf

Title: Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega, book 1)
Author: Patricia Briggs
Published: July 2008
Author’s Website:  http://www.patriciabriggs.com/
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Review:  After being rescued from her former pack, Anna is swept out of Chicago by her new mate, Charles, and his father, the Marrok, leader of all werewolves in North America.   While Charles is recovering from wounds he received during the rescue and Anna’s getting used to being desired and cared for by her alpha mate, they are sent out on a mission to discover who’s been attacking humans out in the forest near their pack lands.  Anna and Charles are also both still learning the extent of Anna’s omega abilities, which come in handy when they discover a recently turned werewolf and then have to confront the powerful witch who has come looking for one of their pack.

Bottom Line:  The characters of Anna and Charles aren’t as compelling or deep as Mercy Thompson and Adam, but this is an interesting story…and Anna is still developing.  A decent read, but not for folks who aren’t already fans of the genre.

Review: On The Prowl

Title: On The Prowl
Author: Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks, Karen , Sunny
Published: August 2007
Author’s Websites:

• http://www.patriciabriggs.com/
• http://eileenwilks.com/
• http://karenchance.com/
• http://www.sunnyauthor.com/

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Review: This book consists of four stories by four authors.  The main themes uniting these stories are shapeshifting, fae, and romance…all to varying degrees.

“Alpha and Omega” by Patricia Briggs introduces us to Anna and Charles.  Anna is a relatively new werewolf who is being abused by her pack.  When she finally calls the Marrok, the leader of all werewolves in the United States, he sends his son, Charles, out to investigate.  Anna and Charles instantly bond when she picks him up at the airport where Charles also notices that Anna is a rare omega werewolf, one who can ease emotions while also disregarding commands by Alphas.  We see a bit of them bonding while Charles goes about the business of investigating and stopping the abuse and violation of the Marrok’s laws.

“Inhuman” by Eileen Wilks is about Kai, an empath who’s not just an empath, and Nathan, her not-quite-a-stranger, not-quite-a-friend neighbor, who’s not quite human.  These two find themselves evading police while baiting a killer before being ripped into a different realm to face down a Sidhe queen.

“Buying Trouble” by Karen Chance has a mage named Claire working guard duty for an auction house full of monstrous patrons.  When the part is crashed, an elf whisks Claire away to his realm where they have to dodge and fight through rival elf clans until Claire’s true nature manifests itself.

“Mona Lisa Betwining” by Sunny is just a horribly written, difficult to follow story that throws a few fantasy words about in order to qualify as fantasy romance.  An utter waste of time.

Bottom Line:  None of the stories really wowed me.  Not my favorite story by Briggs, but easily the best in this book,  On the Prowl was a decent intro to her Alpha and Omega series. The (second story) at least piqued my interest enough that I wondered what was going to happen to the protagonist.  The the other two stories were complete wastes of my time, the fourth being nearly unreadable.  Skip this book, unless you’re really needing the beginning to Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series, in which case you should probably hit a library for an hour or so and read it there.  Don’t waste money on it, though.

Review: Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, Book 1)

Title:  Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, Book 1)
Author:  Jeaniene Frost
Published:  October 30, 2007
Author’s Website:  http://jeanienefrost.com/
Genre:  Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Note: explicit sex

Review:  If Blade had been a female, and you swapped all his cool gadgets and black leather for black silk and sex and romance, you’d have Cat, the Night Huntress.  Cat thinks all vampires are evil and is bent on eliminating them all.  How does a young gal find and slay them?  By hanging out at bars until one picks her up and then staking them when they make their move, of course.  Then her world gets turned upside down when she’s nabbed by a blood-sucker who turns out to be a good guy?  Well, good enough, anyway, and he offers her a great deal:  get trained by and work with him to kill vamps (which she likes to do anyway) or die.  The choice is pretty obvious and, unsurprisingly, a romance is born as they work together.

Ms. Frost has introduced (to me anyway) and interesting new source of vampires, dating way back to the Old Testament of the Bible.  Like most authors today, she’s also decided to break away from traditional vampire lore with regards to what can affect them.

Bottom Line:  It’s not the best vampire book I’ve read, but the fight scenes are decent and the sex scenes are stimulating.  A great fit for fans of the Paranormal Romance.  Vampire junkies who prefer horror should skip this series.