Today we bring you the latest installment in our feature, “What She Said…” in which we both review books that the other has already read and reviewed. The idea arose because of the dilemma that if one of us reads and reviews a book, the other can’t really post again about it, right? WRONG! Hence, “What She Said…” was born. For those books that we REALLY want to read after the other has reviewed – and gushed – about it.

For today’s post, we take on Hero by Perry Moore, and Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves.

Hero by Perry Moore
Disney, August 2007, Paperback, 432 pages

Original Review: May 2010
Original Rating GASP! Thea gave it a 10!

What Thea Said:

I am in love. I am in love with Hero

Hero is, in this reader’s opinion, a perfect book in every way. Rousing, heartening and inspiring, Thom’s journey is one that is applicable to everyone. I cannot recommend this book enough – and it’s easily at the top of my list of favorite books read in 2010.

What Ana Says I HAD to read this book. Not only because of Thea’s awesome review but also because of her emails to me when she was reading it. I don’t think I ever received emails from her before with such an emotional response to a book – at least just not like that. It is a running joke in our headquarters that I am the emotional smuggler and it is a fairly regular event to have me emailing her with me being extremely enthusiastic about a book to the point of dramatic TEARS!DESPAIR!JOY! I often envy Thea for being able to be very enthusiastic about a book without the added drama like yours truly; but when she DOES, then I know she has found something special. She is like that when reading Juliet Marillier for example and that was what prompted me to pick her books up and guess what, she was totally right. So, going back to the start: I HAD to read this book.

And yes, Thea was right and I too, am in love with Thom and Hal Creed and their difficult relationship. THAT is what made the book to me. More than the world-building (which I think is fine, but wasn’t particularly impressed by it), more than the fighting sequences and all the action (which were cool), it was the relationships, between Thom and his father, between Thom and his absent mother, between Thom and his friends (especially Scarlett and Goran).

Thom is the teen narrator and his father Hal used to be a hero but without superpowers and it’s been a while since a law has banned non-powered superheroes from the league. Hal is a bitter yet proud man dealing with both very public failures and very personal ones. Thom both admires and fears his dad and that fear comes from being a budding superhero with real superpowers and from being gay.

And here is what I think is the genius of this coming of age novel: that inasmuch as Thom has a very real uphill struggle with the public side of being gay (his father is homophobic, his friends in school are bullies), he is actually very much secure about who he is. There is no discovery or realisation because the book starts with Thom being well aware of being gay and being fine, about it on a personal level. I love how he dreams of finding someone to love and how he has this mad crush on one of the big league super-heroes. He is much more insecure about being a superhero for example, how to use his powers, how to address his peers, etc which I think is a fine, brilliant way of addressing his story.

There are moments of despair (and I so despaired with Thom) and there are moments of utter joy and I fist pumped all alone in my living room in triumphant, compassionate happiness every time Thom got over one of the obstacles in his way. And OMG the romance is awesome!

Although I don’t think I loved every single aspect of it as Thea did, I did love Hero very much and highly recommend it.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Simon Pulse, January 2010, Hardcover, 464 pages

Original Review: January 2010
Original Rating: 10 – Perfect!

What Ana Said:

Bleeding Violet is one of the best Young Adult novels I have ever read. The writing is lovely, the story is hands down amazing and the characters are everything I could have hoped for. Every time I open a book, I wish for the sort of all-encompassing experience that this book provided me.

and also:

I think it is testament to this writer’s ability (and perhaps fondness for her characters) that in spite of all the aforementioned violence and darkness, Bleeding Violent ends on a definite, unmistakable and believable high note. And as of now, this book has a secure spot on my top reads of 2010.

What Thea Says: Well, how could I resist an endorsement like THAT? Yes, Ana tends to be a little more…exuberant and generous with her affections for books (when it comes down to top 10 of the year time, there’s something like 50 books on her list! How awesome is that?!), and I am in awe of the emotional rollercoaster she goes on every time she reads. More often than not, Ana finds a new author/book/character to passionately love/despise/etc – I have the emails to back it up. I kind of feel like this month’s “What She Said” is bizarre – because Hero seems like much more of an Ana book, and Bleeding Violet more of a Thea book, and yet we had them flipflopped the first time around. But I digress. Because of Ana’s emphatic endorsement, because of the irresistible blurb (and that gorgeous cover may have had something to do with it, too), I eagerly scooped up this book. Hell yes.

And you know what?

Bleeding Violet is pretty G.D. awesome.

It features a truly messed up cast of characters – bipolar, hallucination-embracing, affection-starved Hanna; the coldly beautiful Rosalee; the irritating (if intriguingly different and handsome) Wyatt. From the get-go I fell in love with Ms. Reeves’ prose and characterizations – Hanna, in particular is delightfully manic. Her surreal brand of psychosis (when we first meet her she is speaking to her dead father, mentally) may be a bit strange or hard to get into for some readers, but for me? I loved the dream-like quality her perspective-filtered, unreliable narrative provided. I also loved that she is biracial and comes across as genuine (as a biracial mutt myself, I am all to familiar with the ubiquitous “What ARE you?” question), her emotional issues and psychosis are also well-handled and ring as true. Her desperation for her beautiful mother’s attention and love is also particularly moving. Of course, the other characters are similarly textured and believable – Rosalee in her fragile frigidity, wanting nothing to do with the daughter she had the mistake of having, Wyatt in his tangled emotions and obligations. I loved them all – and Ana is absolutely right in her review, because stripped of the glamour and bizarreness of the plot, this is at its heart a character-centric novel.

That’s not to say that the plot is deficient – because it’s not. Portero is a town full of worldly portals and bizarre monsters – creatures that live in glass, that lurk, tentacled and monstrous in the shadows. And you know what? I LOVED IT ALL. Ms. Reeves’ writing style is beautiful, freeflowing and irresistible.

I have to chalk this one up to a truly successful What She Said – I am one happy camper! While I don’t think Bleeding Violet is perfect, I do think it’s damn awesome and one of my favorite reads for the year, absolutely.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Title: Sisters Red

Author: Jackson Pearce

Genre: YA/UF

Publisher: Hodder Children’s Book/ Little, Brown
Publication Date: June 2010
Hardcover: 352 pages

The story of Scarlett and Rosie March, two highly-skilled sisters who have been hunting Fenris (werewolves) – who prey on teen girls – since Scarlett lost her eye years ago while defending Rosie in an attack. Scarlett lives to destroy the Fenris, and she and Rosie lure them in with red cloaks (a colour the wolves can’t resist), though Rosie hunts more out of debt to her sister than drive.

But things seem to be changing. The wolves are getting stronger and harder to fight, and there has been a rash of news reports about countless teenage girls being brutally murdered in the city. Scarlett and Rosie soon discover the truth: wolves are banding together in search of a Potential Fenris – a man tainted by the pack but not yet fully changed. Desperate to find the Potential to use him as bait for a massive werewolf extermination, the sisters move to the city with Silas, a young woodsman and long time family friend who is deadly with an axe. Meanwhile, Rosie finds herself drawn to Silas and the bond they share not only drives the sisters apart, but could destroy all they’ve worked for.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in the Sisters Red series.

How did we get this book: We got ARCs from Little, Brown.

Why did we read this book: We have been waiting to read this book for ages – the cover is striking and the we are always up for a fairytale retelling.

Ana’s take:

Listen.

I could tell you that for the first pages of this book I was completely engrossed in the story. How could I not? I mean, a dark, violent even, retelling of Red Riding Hood in which two sisters are the hunters who kill the wolves? I am in. It helps that the first pages were very gripping: back in the past when the kids lived with their grandmother and were attacked by a passing werewolf and Scarlett, the oldest sister, protects the younger Rosie almost to her own death losing an eye in the fight and becoming scarred for life. Then, as teenagers they fall in the roles that they have taken for themselves that day: Scarlett, the protector, Rosie the protégée – both equally fierce Hunters but with a striking difference. Scarlett sees nothing but the hunt, Rosie wants something else for her life.

I could tell you that I like the prose. But also that the tale and the alternating chapters between the two sisters get repetitive very soon. I could tell you that when the next door neighbour, a woodsman-hunter named Silas comes back to town that I knew Rosie would fall for him and that their story was actually quite sweet.

I could definitely tell you that part of what makes me like the book to begin with is the fact that making the two girls the ones who go after the werewolves to kill them is rather an empowering take on the original tale.

I could tell you all that.

But what I really want to tell you is: when I hit page 108 (of the ARC) I went nuts. You see, it is part of this retelling that the werewolves are predators who are after young, pretty girls. As part of their hunting routine, Rosie will dress up, put on make-up and perfume (because she usually doesn’t do that as she is a “natural beauty”). Obviously, Scarlett, being the ugly, scarred sister, just sits back to attack when Rosie has played the role of prey. So, page 108. Scarlett is outside a nightclub observing the girls in the queue to get in:

They’re adorned in glittery green rhinestones, shimmery turquoise and aquamarine powders streaked across their eyelids. Dragonfly girls. Their hair is all the same, long and streaked, spiralling down their backs to where the tiny strings holding their tops on are knotted tightly. Their skin glows under the neon lights – amber, ebony, cream – like shined metal, flawless and smooth. I press harder against the crumbly brick wall behind me, tugging my crimson cloak closer to my body. The scars on my shoulders show through fabric when I pull the cloak tight. Bumpy red hills in perfectly spaced lines.

The Dragonflies laugh, sweet, and bubbly, and I groan in exasperation. They toss their hair, stretch their legs, sway their hips, bat their eyes at the club’s bouncer, everything about them luring the Fenris. Inviting danger like some baby animal bleating its fool head off. Look at me, see how I dance, did you notice my hair, look again, desire me, I am perfect. Stupid, stupid Dragonflies. Here I am, saving your lives, bitten and scarred and wounded for you, and you don’t even know it. I should let the Fenris have one of you.

No, I didn’t mean that. I sigh and walk to the other side of the brick wall, letting my fingers tangle in the thick ivy. It’s dark on this side, shadowed from the neon lights of the street. I breathe slowly, watching the tree limbs sway, backlit by the lights of skyscrapers. Of course I didn’t mean it. Ignorance is no reason to die. They can’t help what they are, still happily unaware inside a cave of fake shadows. They exist in a world that’s beautiful normal, where people have jobs and dreams that don’t involve a hatcher. My world is parallel universe to their – the same sights, same people, same city, yet the Fenris lurk, the evil creeps, the knowledge undeniably exists. If I hadn’t been thrown into this world, I could just as easily have been a Dragonfly.

I felt extremely uncomfortable with this passage, but as much as this is some serious twisted thinking, I can understand Scarlett feeling this way. She is an angry character, full of regret, jealousy – and being scarred and ugly does get to her (seeing as how she keeps going on and on about it). So, the text above is in keeping with this character.

BUT

Two lines down and Silas joins her as she observes him:

His eyes narrow in something between disgust and intrigue, as though he’s not certain if he likes looking at them or not. I want to comment, but I stay quiet. Somehow it feels important to wait for his reaction. Silas finally turns to look at me in the shadows.

“It’s like they’re trying to be eaten, isn’t it? he asks pointedly.

“Can I tell you how glad I am that and Rosie aren’t like them?”

“No kidding.” I grin, relieved. “Rosie could be if she wanted, though. She’s beautiful like they are.”

“Beauty has nothing to do with it. Rosie could never be one of them. Do you really think they’d dress and act like that if they knew it was drawing wolves toward them?”

No. NO. NO. NO. NO. JUST NO.

By then, I was beyond uncomfortable, I was downright angry. The meta is thus: the girls should know better. If they knew better, they would change their behaviour and would not be attacked. This is what I read. But this is not what I should be reading.

NEVER, EVER blame the victims. The blame always, always lies with the criminal (or predator).

And just like that I am done with the book. Because I can’t respect the characters who think like this, because I lost respect for their motivation for being hunters (it’s not about REALLY about protecting the girls is it? It is almost about proving a point) and if I can’t relate with their plight then the book is nothing to me. Because the bottom line is this: the book empowers women yes, but ONLY certain types of girls, not all of them. And I am sick and tired of books that associate girls that are self-confident and beautiful with being shallow and superficial and deserving of bad things happening to them. SICK AND TIRED.

That is not ok. And I suggest you read the article in this link to see why exactly I think it is not ok.

I did read till the bitter end in the hopes that another character would come in and say: “yo, stewpid, GET A GRIP” but alas, no such thing has happened. I can’t even be bothered to rate this book. I will only say:

Verdict:

Thea’s Take:

Clearly, Ana feels VERY strongly about this book, especially about the excerpt above. Now, I’ll admit that when I first read this passage, I didn’t immediately see what Ana picked up on. I tend to get annoyed with flitty girls in general, and Scarlett’s anger at the “dragonflies” seems well-founded and in line with her character, regardless of whether I liked her character or not. As a scarred, bitter young woman dedicated to destroying all Fenris at any cost, this sort of thought process makes perfect sense for someone like Scarlett.

But then, after Ana pointed out the next section, it made me think about the overall message…and I stand firmly with Ana. Enraged.

Just because a girl is pretty, and likes to look pretty; just because a girl goes out to the club in revealing clothes; just because a girl likes the attention that comes with being young and attractive, this DOES NOT MEAN she is stupid, or a whore, or fucking “asking for it” (pardon my French, but this is a disgusting mindset and pisses me off to no end). It is frustrating – no, infuriating – beyond belief that the women in Sisters Red are so stereotyped and marginalized. Don’t get me wrong – I love warrior women/strong women/badass fighter women, as much as the next person. But this gross generalization that girls that go out to have fun and be noticed are somehow billions of times inferior to their too-tough-to-look-pretty (but OF COURSE are effortlessly gorgeous *eyes rolling*) counterparts?

Nu-uh. Not cool.

Now, you might be telling yourself, ‘well, these two seem to be taking a single passage a bit far’ or something to that end. Well, folks, unfortunately Sisters Red has a whole lot of other problems too.

1: The characters are mind-numbingly repetitive and boring.

Initially, I found a lot to like with Sisters Red. The opening scene with Grandma valiantly holding off the big bad wolf to save the children, and then Scarlett’s desperate last stand to save Rosie, is EPIC. I loved that Scarlett is abrasive and tough, that she’s missing an eye and is both terrified of the wolves, yet completely in love with the hunt. I love that Rosie is a different person – that she cannot remember the past too clearly, and that she clearly loves Lett, but needs to grow to be her own person.

BUT. All of this? All this promising characterization is exhausted in the first thirty or so pages of the book. From then on it is more of. the. same. Scarlett gets mad at Rosie for being careless. Scarlett goes hunting for Fenris. Scarlett gets mad again and wallows in her pit of eternal self-suffering. Meanwhile, Rosie wants to be taken seriously (and thinks Silas is freaking HAWT). But she wants to be taken seriously. She tries to make peace with Scarlett (and Silas is HAWT). And so on and so forth.

Things get pretty dull, pretty quickly. These characters never felt real to me – more like your standard cardboard stand-ins. (Just because characters are “troubled” doesn’t immediately mean they are well-developed. SHOW me. Don’t keep TELLING me.)

2: The “Romance” is the same predictable uninspired tripe.

From the second Rosie sees Silas, and vice versa, it’s all “he looks different, his jaw is so angular and manly!” and “she looks different, all ‘grown up’ and beautiful!” (I’m paraphrasing of course). To be honest, I’m sick of it. Could this book just have been about the sisters without one of them needing the catalyst of falling in love with the studly boy next door? ARGH.

Of course, this could just be me and how burned out I am with YA paranormal romance. Lots of people love this stuff. I, unfortunately, am at the end of my rope.

3: The hunting element of the story is STUPID.

*Caps lock engaged* WHY THE HELL WOULD THESE SISTERS BE HUNTING WITH HATCHETS AS OPPOSED TO…I don’t know…GUNS?!??? If Scarlett’s true ambition is to take out every single “Fenris” on the planet, wouldn’t it make sense to take out a bunch of them with a semi-automatic weapon, as opposed to the good ol’ woodsman hatchet technique? And while scampering around in a blood red cloak is awesome and all, this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The story takes place in MODERN DAY. The red riding hood cloaks, while they go great with the idea of the story, aren’t exactly…congruous with the time period. (Not to mention, you’d think the stupid wolves would remember two chicks – one with an eyepatch – hunting around not-so-incognito in bright red cloaks)

Also, in my opinion the term “Fenris” is stupid. Is it plural? Singular? Yeah, yeah, I get that it derives from Fenrir – but “Fenris” just looks stupid and forced to me. If you’re going with Norse mythology, stick with the root name. (That is, if you’re not going with the more familiar “werewolf” terminology, which doesn’t make sense in the first place given how much more prevalent “werewolf” is in modern vernacular!)

These were my issues with Sisters Red – which arose long before the club scene – and they were enough to make me put down the book.

Verdict: DNF – Life is too short to force myself to finish books that don’t work for me.

You want a good Red Riding Hood retelling? Stick with Bill Willingham’s Fables series. Now THAT has solid characterizations, a plot that won’t quit, and empowered characters – both male and female.

Reading next: A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott

Title: Early to Death, Early to Rise

Author: Kim Harrison

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date: May 2010
Hardcover: 240 Pages

Seventeen, dead, and in charge of heaven’s dark angels—all itching to kill someone.

Madison Avery’s dreams of ever fitting in at her new school died when she did. Especially since she was able to maintain the illusion of a body, deal with a pesky guardian angel, and oh yeah, bring the reaper who killed her to his untimely end. Not exactly in-crowd material. It’s amazing that her crush, Josh, doesn’t think she’s totally nuts.

Now Madison has learned that she’s the dark timekeeper, in charge of angels who follow the murky guidelines of fate. Never one to abide by the rules, she decides it’s time for a major change to the system. With the help of some unlikely allies, Madison forms a rogue group of reapers who definitely don’t adhere to the rules of the heavens.

But as she grapples with the terrifying new skills that come with being a timekeeper, Madison realizes she may not be prepared for what lies ahead—unless she gets some seriously divine intervention.

Stand alone or series: Book 2 in the ongoing Madison Avery series

How did I get this book: Review copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: Are you kidding me? I *love* Kim Harrison. Her ridiculously fast-paced and action-crammed books are insanely addictive – it’s for that reason that the Rachel Morgan/Hollows series is among favorite UF series’. And, I am ecstatic to report that her YA books, following a dark time keeper named Madison Avery, fits the same mold. I loved Once Dead, Twice Shy, and could not wait for this second book.

Review:

Seventeen year-old Madison Avery has the job of a lifetime – well, several lifetimes. Tricked into a state of dead limbo with her human body nowhere to be found, Madison has inherited the role of Dark Timekeeper – that is, she is one of two diametrically opposed humans with the power to discern the fabric of time. As Dark Timekeeper, Madison technically works on the side of “Fate”; her job is to identify “marks” and to scythe their souls before they commit whatever heinous evil deeds they are destined to commit. At every step of the way, the Light Timekeeper will try to thwart her efforts, as they believe in the power of human choice (even if those choices lead to mass murders or other atrocities).

But here’s the rub – Madison might be working on the side of Fate, but she believes in the power of choice, too. Dedicated to make a difference and to find a balance between the two opposed ideals, Madison will try to find a different way to deal with “marks” (that don’t involve giving them a ‘get-out-of-death-free’ card in the form of an infallible guardian angel like the Light Timekeeper would do, or preemptively scything – killing – the mark’s soul). Madison’s first official mark as Dark Timekeeper is the biggest test of her young (un)life. Not only does she have to find her target before ruthless Light Timekeeper Chronos does, she also has to convince the mark to change his mind about committing his crime AND she’s got to do it working with two angels that just can’t get along, Barnabus (a “fallen” light angel for his trust and belief in Madison’s desire to change the way things are done) and Nakita (a dark angel that has become something…more, because Madison allowed her to experience true, mortal fear).

This second full-length Madison Avery book is, in a word, fantastic. Kim Harrison is at her best with this engaging and surprisingly thought-provoking series. While Madison’s personal life (and death) was much of the fun, lighter impetus behind the first short story and the first novel, in Early to Death, Early to Rise, things take a more serious, thematic-centric turn. One thing I love about Kim Harrison’s books (both her fantasy novels and in her Hollows series) is how she builds upon prior storylines and expands her universes with each additional novel in the series – and Early to Death, Early to Rise continues in this tradition. In Once Dead, Twice Shy, we learn that there is an ancient game, a realm of angelic interference beyond our human perception, run by two opposing sides – Light and Dark (not to be confused with “Good” and “Evil” or “God” and “The Devil” or anything nearly so simplistic). In Early to Death, Early to Rise, this division is examined more closely, and the lines and roles of the Light and Dark timekeepers become wonderfully blurred. At this novel’s heart is the age-old dilemma: Free Will or Fate? (In the huge gaping maw that the absence of LOST has left in my life, I have an even larger appreciation for books that try to tackle this dichotomy) Ms. Harrison handles the question effortlessly, avoiding some simplistic black or white answer for a combination of the two in shades of gray where destiny and choice mingle and coexist. In addition to the thematic depth, there’s also an expansion on Madison’s story – just how she became Dark Timekeeper (Chronos’ intervention) and what her limitations are since she’s not exactly alive anymore. There are some interesting developments, and underlying the larger, central storyline, there are Madison’s doubts about being able to actually do this job, and the slow-simmering plot seed of her need to find her human body and become fully alive again.

Madison’s character goes through a lot here in this second book, developing and growing as a heroine. She struggles to find balance in a world set on polarized opposites, and she learns that while something sounds great in theory, putting compromise into practice is a much harder thing to do. There are also smaller, quieter moments in this book that won me over – there are moments of lightheartedness intermingled with sadness, lending a genuine quality to Madison as a narrator and a real person. Her inability to eat, for example, is wistful and funny – but it also means that Madison has to continue lying to her father (she can’t exactly out and tell him her body is a corporeal one, and as such she cannot eat food). Little things like that.

As for the other characters, they too grow and change – which is a big deal for immortal, supposedly immutable characters. Barnabus has undergone the most dramatic shift, falling from Chronos’ right hand man to join Madison’s quest (and seriously, who doesn’t love Barnabus?!), but Nikita makes an awesome sidekick here. My only minor criticism of the characters are how familiar a few of them are. Nikita is SO Ivy and Grace reminiscent of Jenks (for those of you that have read the Rachel Morgan books), but does it matter when I love Nikita’s dark, tortured edge or Grace’s awful limericks? I’m willing to overlook those similarities because, well, these characters are so damn compelling anyways. Even the singleminded Chronos (ahem, Trent Kalamack?) works wonderfully because of how convinced he is that his way is the ONLY way. In fact,the only character that took a backseat here was that of Madison’s would-be boyfriend, Josh. But…that’s ok, because not everything has to be a love story (at least, in my mind, it was perfectly cool).

Overall? Early to Death, Early to Rise is yet another winner from Kim Harrison – even better than Once Dead, Twice Shy, and with tantalizing implications for the future. I cannot wait for the next book! Absolutely recommended.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Thanks to Harper Teen’s Browse Inside feature, you can read the first 70 pages of Early to Death, Early to Rise for free! Check it out:

Additional Thoughts: I am a sucker for extras, so check out the trailer:

Also, this year Harper Teen returns to its “Supernatural Summer” event – including book tours, giveaways, and a TON of awesome extras. I highly recommend you check it out, along with some of their other exciting YA titles.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: Passing Strange by Daniel Waters

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

We have TWO copies of Early to Death, Early to Rise up for grabs! The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada ONLY, and will run until Saturday July 31 at 11:59 PM (PST). To enter, simply leave a comment here letting us know where you fall on the spectrum – Light Timekeeper (choice?) or Dark Timekeeper (fate). ONLY ONE ENTRY PER PERSON – multiple entries from the same IP address will be disqualified. Good luck!

Title: Kraken

Author: China Mieville

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: Del Rey (US) / Macmillan (UK)
Publication Date: June 2010
Hardcover: 528 pages

With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.

There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.

All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel (one hopes…)

How did I get this book: Bought ebook

Why did I read this book: Because I’ve heard nothing but praise for China Mieville; because he just won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for the third time; because tentacled monsters of the deep ROCK; because I love H.P. Lovecraft and anything even remotely Lovecraftian; because I got a sweet deal on the ebook.

Review:

Well, let’s start out by being blunt, shall we? Kraken really, really was not my cup of tea. Convoluted plotting, glacial pacing, plus hollow characters – no matter how intelligent or geek-tastic the writing – does not an engrossing read make. Suffice to say, my first exposure to the esteemed China Mieville did not go well.

With that off my chest, let’s backtrack.

Kraken is the story of Billy – middling-level curator at the at the Natural History Museum in London. In addition to preserving cephalopods (a job Billy has remarkable skill at), Billy’s other primary responsibility is to guide the daily tours of the museum. It is on one such tour that Billy leads his group to the department’s pièce de résistance – an honest to goodness, six meter-long preserved Giant Squid – when he makes an impossible discovery. The giant squid has somehow disappeared.

With the squid’s disappearance, Billy’s life is turned upside-down. Everyone seems to think Billy knows something about the missing squid. First a bizarre secret police unit called the FSRC (a sort of BPRD-esque/Torchwood-y government shadow organization for the occult) tries to recruit him. Then, Billy is abducted by a strange, dangerous duo and shoved into a magical London, as he’s hounded for his suspected knowledge of the missing Kraken. And even more bizarrely, Billy is saved by a former museum employee and Teuthist, forced to drink some crazytrippy squid ink, and hallowed as a prophet by the Teuthy-kraken worshipers.

And all that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. Billy learns that there are other parallel realities, where the Newtonian physics don’t apply – complete with space-folding origami masters, evil overlord talking tattoos, demonic henchmen, over-zealous cultists, chain-smoking psychic policewomen, and all kinds of familiars and magic-wielders. Everybody wants a piece of Billy, but the mystery remains – what happened to the giant squid? And is the apocalypse truly nigh?

So. All of this, even writing a brief plot synopsis, sounds pretty ace in theory. Giant Squid? Awesome. New Weird meets Urban Fantasy? Awesome. Pop-geekery injected in every imaginitive subplot? Um, hell yeah, AWESOME.

So what happened? What, exactly, got lost in translation from theory to practice?

How can I describe my first impression of China Mieville, via Kraken. It’s kind of like…if someone took the awesome imaginative scope of Neil Gaiman, but replaced his characters with hollow analogues and then destroyed the beauty of Gaiman’s prose by way of forced, dare I say pretentious, erudition. Tack on a few utterly pointless sideplots whilst burying any remaining spark of story in unnecessary length (effectively sucking out any existing Lovecraftian/pop-culturian fun) and…well, then you have Kraken.

Perhaps the best way to describe this bizarre tangle of a story is with a single word: OVERKILL.

There are fabulous ideas in the novel, and wondrous strange possibilities. A possessed Captain Kirk doll. A kraken-lackin’ apocalypse (terrible pun, I apologize). An awesome new urban fantasy-style take on London Town. And yet…all of these ideas together was too much. The superfluous – but cool – details took over to the detriment of the story (e.g. after a hundred plus pages of Wati in Kirk-form, the “oh cool!” factor wears off and simply becomes tiresome). What begins as a quirky bizarre trip into psychedelic squid ink and a whole new side of London very quickly becomes a quagmire of randomness. The actual main plot-line of the novel – the mystery of the disappearing squid and Billy’s role in it all – is overshadowed, lost in so much nonsensical bric-a-brac. And that’s to say nothing of the characters! Billy, our protagonist (I guess) is oddly soulless, lacking any true personality or voice. Collingsworth is a caricature of sexy-hardass police officer, looking cool while smoking her ciggies and effortlessly wearing her costume-like uniform. The cultists are predictable minions, the supernatural creatures of London not really that original or memorable (even Goss and Subby feel reminiscent of Gaiman, but lacking the necessary wit or charisma). Don’t even get me started on the utterly superfluous character, Marge (ironically, her full name is Marginalia, although her facetime in the story is anything but marginal).

In other words, Kraken is fun-quirky-randomness gone amok in a really unsatisfying way. Overkill.

The same applies to the writing style. Now it’s no secret that Mr. Mieville is a very intelligent person (holding a B.A. in Social Anthropology from Cambridge, and a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics in addition to his other academic and literary accolades), and this extends to his writing. The man has an extensive vocabulary and isn’t afraid to use it, an admirable trait to be sure. But…there’s a point where Kraken crosses the line from oddly entertaining delight to forced, awkward tedium. For example:

There was a many-dimensional grid of geography, economy, obligation and punishment. Crime overlapped with faith — “Neadsen’s run by the Dharma Bastards,” Dane said — though many guerrilla entrepreneurs were secular, agnostic, atheist or philistine ecumenical. But faith contoured the landscape.

(At times, the writing put me in the mind of that episode of Friends when Joey discovers the Thesaurus.) (I’m not saying that Mr. Mieville needs a thesaurus – doubtless, he is a depository of a formidable amount knowledge, a veritable vocabularean Hercules – but it’s the kind of writing that feels forced instead of effortless; and unintentionally comical at times with how roundabout each sentence could be.)

Obviously, this review is just my personal opinion, as Mr. Mieville has won many distinguished awards and enjoys immense success at the top of the British new weird SFF genre. This particular book – the particular writing style – simply left me cold. It’s not my cup of tea. Bowl of kraken-juice. Plate o’ calamari. Take your pick.

In parting from this sadly underwhelmed review, there is a particular passage from Kraken that I think sums up my feelings towards the novel perfectly:

The Teuthex recited the service, his words drifting in and out of English, into Latin or Pig Latin, into what sounded like Greek, into strange slippery syllables that were perhaps dreams of sunken languages or the invented muttering of squidherds, Atlantean, Hyperborean, the pretend tongue of R’lyeh. Billy had expected ecstasy, the febrile devotions of the desperate speaking in tongues or tentacles, but this fervour — and fervour it was, he could see the tears and gripping hands of the devout — was controlled. The flavour of the sect was vicarly, noncharismatic, an Anglo-Catholicism of mollusc-worship.

Vicarly, noncharismatic mollusc-worship, indeed.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the prologue:

The sea is full of saints. You know that? You know that: you’re a big boy.

The sea’s full of saints and it’s been full of saints for years. Since longer than anything. Saints were there before there were even gods. They were waiting for them, and they’re still there now.

Saints eat fish and shellfish. Some of them catch jellyfish and some of them eat rubbish. Some saints eat anything they can find. They hide under rocks; they turn themselves inside out; they spit up spirals. There’s nothing saints don’t do.

Make this shape with your hands. Like that. Move your fingers. There, you made a saint. Look out, here comes another one! Now they’re fighting! Yours won.

There aren’t any big corkscrew saints any more, but there are still ones like sacks and ones like coils, and ones like robes with flapping sleeves. What’s your favourite saint? I’ll tell you mine. But wait a minute, first, do you know what it is makes them all saints? They’re all a holy family, they’re all cousins. Of each other, and of . . . you know what else they’re cousins of?

That’s right. Of gods.

Alright now. Who was it made you? You know what to say.

Who made you?

Additional Thoughts: Apparently (and fittingly), China Mieville is a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan. I, too, happen to be a Lovecraft fan, and yet, beyond a Cthulhu namedrop, there’s very little actual Lovecraft in Kraken. One story I kept thinking about whilst reading Kraken was “Dagon” – one of my personal favorites, and a short story that clearly Mr. Mieville pays homage to (in spirit if not truly in form, considering the heft and density of Kraken).

Then suddenly I saw it. With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. I think I went mad then.

~ “Dagon” by H.P. Lovecraft

You can read the full story online for free, HERE.

Rating: 5 – Meh; I want to give Kraken a 6 because it’s not a BAD book, but for me and my personal reading tastes? I have to go with my gut and stick with the underwhelmed 5. I *will* give China Mieville’s other works a try in the future, however. Starting with another ocean-centric novel, The Scar.

Reading Next: Peter and Max by Bill Willingham

Title:Demon Blood

Author: Meljean Brook

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: July 6th 2010
Paperback: 448 pages

Long before she was transformed into a Guardian and trained to fight demons, Rosalia knew darkness all too well. Raised by a demon, Rosalia learned to guard her heart—and her soul—until she found a man worthy of her love. Once, she thought that man would be the powerful vampire, Deacon…until he betrayed the Guardians.

After losing everything to the lies of a demon, Deacon lives only for revenge—and is taken aback when Rosalia offers to help. A vampire who has nothing—who is nothing—isn’t worthy of her attention. But Rosalia wants to do more than just look, and the explosive need between them can’t be held in check. And when Deacon’s vengeful quest creates a dangerous alliance of their enemies, she will be his only hope…

Stand alone or series: Tenth story in the Guardian series, and the sixth full-length book. If you are starting here (although you are SO missing out if you are), you can read the author’s excellent primer here.

How did I get this book: An ARC from the author

Why did I read this book: Because I will read ANYTHING Meljean Brook writes.

Review:

WARNING: Since Demon Blood is the 7th book on an ongoing series, this review contains necessary spoilers for previous books, especially Demon Forged. If you haven’t read Demon Forged and plan to, STEP AWAY NOW. Reading this review will completely SPOIL it for you and that book should not be spoiled. You have been warned!

I am going to skip the usual intro in which I say how much Meljean Brook’s writing and I have crazy chemistry and go really well together ( like rice and beans – if you are Brazilian, you will understand this comparison – or fish and chips) and how Demon Blood is another example of how incredibly smart her writing is.

Instead, I will jump straight into business. In Demon Forged, shit hit the fan. BIG TIME. Loads of people died, including several vampires and a Guardian, there is one crazy Gregori on the loose, the Nephilim are coming to get everybody, Belial may or may not be about to take over Hell. Above all, The Doyen, Michael, also sort of died and is currently trapped in Hell and the new Doyen, Taylor, is a newbie Guardian. Things could not be worse in the Guardian universe.

And you can blame it all on one man: Deacon. A vampire leader who, in order to protect his own community and the ones he loved was led by a demon to betray the Guardians causing the aforementioned to happen and in the end, the demon repaid him by slaughtering his community and his two companions anyway. He was left for dead – a death he welcomed due to his failure – but eventually saved by a Guardian named Rosalia only to walk way as soon as he was able to.

Six months later, all that keeps Deacon alive is his need for revenge as he travels around Europe killing demons. This serves Rosalia really well: she has a master plan and Deacon is instrumental to it, if only she can convince him that she needs his help and his alone.

Demon Blood is probably the most emotionally raw, the most dramatic of the books in the series so far when it comes to its central pairing. If Demon Forged was essentially a Big Picture book without losing sight of the romance, Demon Blood is a Romance book who never loses sight of the Big Picture. And it is all down to the fact that the protagonists are broken: truly, deeply so. How many times have I read books in which the big bad hero doesn’t think he is good enough for the heroine? Or a heroine who has never been loved and wants that more than anything? Many times, and it always bugs me to no end when the reasoning for those are so lame. Not here.

In Deacon’s case he REALLY IS NOT good enough for her. He is totally screwed up inside, so full of self-loathing that he acts the part of the bastard he believes himself to be for the entire novel. Rosalia on the other hand, compensates her lack of being loved by managing and manipulating everybody, I would even go as far as to say that her past actions with regards to Deacon – for she has known him for nearly 90 years – were downright stalkery. The two characters are stripped naked to each other and to the reader and it takes great writing skills to turn these two around in a way that is believable. Kudos to Meljean for, instead of making me want to cut Deacon’s balls off or to tell Rosalia to dry her tears, she actually made me care – and deeply – for them. Rosalia believes in Deacon and sometimes that is all that takes to fix a broken man. Deacon believes that Rosalia is worthy of love so much so that he thinks he is beneath her, that’s how grand he thinks she is.

I am not sure I can say that Deacon and Rosalia are likeable characters though and I struggled with writing my thoughts on them. Worried that readers might be put off by this statement when this is by not, by any means a negative statement, not in this case. Yes, Deacon is not as easily likeable as say, Drifter or Jake. Rosalia is not immediately strong as Irena or Lilith. But it does not matter – what Brook does here is a masterful character study and it presents a more complicated, difficult yet very rewarding read. Picture this: Deacon is essential to Rosalia’s her plan because he is broken, persona non grata everywhere. But her plan is twofold because she plans to bring him back from the abyss as well: she needs to use what is the worst thing about him to bring out his best.

The point I am trying to make became very clear to me yesterday when by sheer luck I came across this article about Unlikeable Female Protagonists by Courtney Summers. Sometimes it is not about connecting or liking a character for ourselves; sometimes is about character development, and story and enjoying them for what they are to the point where,

“how much someone is given–regardless of how nice they are or aren’t–in terms of love and support isn’t up to us, unless we’re the ones doing the giving.”

Or to also quote Louis CK:

“Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people ’cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different. It’s like I understand this person, and I never know quite what they’re going to do and I’m really interested in what they might do next and they feel real to me. That’s, I think, way more valuable than likable. Likable just thins you out…”

I love these two quotes and I think they are perfect for the matter at hand. They also tell me how much Meljean Brook has grown as an author and how many risks she will take to remain faithful to her story and to her characters.

And this is not the only risk she takes here. Rosalia’s plan, as genius and impressive as it is in its simplicity (and I love that it is HER plan, ie the female character’s) results in the most anticlimactic outcome for one of the most important things in this world. I won’t spoil but I will admit that I did a double take. However, in taking this risk, Brook has cleared the field and opened up the board for a major showdown and one that WILL mean something. If this was a chess game, I would say: the pawns are all out, only the major players remain and you know what? This is a good thing. She also takes on the loaded issue of motherhood and how /why Guardians cannot (and should not) have children and addresses it beautifully to the point of bringing me to tears.

I can’t finish my review without mentioning the SHEER AWESOMENESS of the Taylor/Michael situation, as it is gripping, suspenseful and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN OH MY GOD PLEASE LET IT BE ALRIGHT. Did I ever say that Brook is a clever writer? Scrap that – she is brilliant: Michael may be in hell but it does not mean that he is not around. In fact, I might have learnt more about him here than I ever did.

And it is from Taylor the best quote from this book:

that’s not going to happen, because there’s going to be a whole lotta motherfucking Guardians standing in the way

I can’t wait to see what happens next. Two more books to go.

Notable Quotes/Parts: The aformentioned quote happens in the final pages and that scene was all kinds of awesome. Also: CERBERUS!

Verdict: I have lost the count on the amount of times I have said that this series is consistently good, incredibly awesome and extremely well-written with great characters and this brilliant overarching plot. It should come as no surprise then that Demon Blood is another strong entry in the series. For all the reasons aforementioned.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: Bonds of Justice by Nalini Singh

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

We have TWO copies of Demon Blood to giveaway to two lucky winners. To enter, leave a comment here telling us which is your favorite book in the series so far. The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada, and will run until tomorrow, Saturday July 3rd at 11:59pm (pacific). One comment per person, please! Multiple entries will be disqualified. Good luck!

Title: The Rise of Renegade X

Author: Chelsea M. Campbell

Genre: YA/ UF (Superheroes)

Publisher: Egmont USA
Publication Date: May 11 2010
Hardcover: 352 pages

Stand alone or series: As far as I know, stand alone but please, please let it be the first in a series!

Sixteen-year-old Damien Locke has a plan: major in messing with people at the local supervillain university and become a professional evil genius, just like his supervillain mom. But when he discovers the shameful secret she’s been hiding all these years, that the one-night stand that spawned him was actually with a superhero, everything gets messed up. His father’s too moral for his own good, so when he finds out Damien exists, he actually wants him to come live with him and his goody-goody superhero family. Damien gets shipped off to stay with them in their suburban hellhole, and he has only six weeks to prove he’s not a hero in any way, or else he’s stuck living with them for the rest of his life, or until he turns eighteen, whichever comes first.

To get out of this mess, Damien has to survive his dad’s “flying lessons” that involve throwing him off the tallest building in the city–despite his nearly debilitating fear of heights–thwarting the eccentric teen scientist who insists she’s his sidekick, and keeping his supervillain girlfriend from finding out the truth. But when Damien uncovers a dastardly plot to turn all the superheroes into mindless zombie slaves, a plan hatched by his own mom, he discovers he cares about his new family more than he thought. Now he has to choose: go back to his life of villainy and let his family become zombies, or stand up to his mom and become a real hero.

Why did I read this book: Dudes, look at the cover and title and the blurb: it has “Ana” spelt all over it.

How did I get this book: Review copy from the publisher

Review:

I have been dying to read The Rise of Renegade X ever since I first hear about it, months ago. I am a sucker for superheroes stories and “Renegade X” has a deliciously camp-sounding name that just appeals to me. On the other hand, the premise did have the potential to be problematic, depending on the execution. I braced myself and the result is: minor hiccups aside, I really enjoyed the book and I absolutely LOVED the protagonist.

Damien Locke is about to turn 16. This is a very important day for those who live in Golden City – where Supervillains and Superheroes coexist with each other and with regular folks – because on their 16th birthday, those who have the “Super” gene, get their thumbprints : a “v” for villain or a “h” for hero. Damien is the son of a Supervilainess and as such he expects to get his “v” and join Vilmore, the college for aspiring villains where he fully anticipates becoming a legend in the arts of villainy. But on the night of his birthday, as his friends and mother watch, his thumbprint forms….an “X”. Everybody talks about the infamous, rare “X” thumbprint but hardly anybody has actually seen one because the “X” signifies the unthinkable. For Damien, it means that his father can only be..GASP…a Superhero!

What could possibly bring his mother to stoop so slow and how and when? Determined to find out, Damien reads his mother’s diary (hey, he IS a villain wanna-be) and finds out that his parents had a one night-stand in a bathroom whilst fighting each other and that’s it. Using the date of the diary, Damien to identify three possible dads and to his utter disdain, his father turns out to be the Crimson Flash, one of the best, most wholesome superheroes out there, who even stars his own TV show for kids. Upon discovering that he has a son, the Crimson Flash convinces Damien’s mother to let him stay with him and his family (wife, three kids) for six weeks for a taste of the good side of the force and Damien is horrified at how easily his mother let him go (but you see, she is working on a evil plan right now). The point is, having an “X” means that Damien has a choice and his actions will determine whether he becomes a superhero or a supervilain in the end; and the funny thing is, no matter how much he wants to be a supervillain, his actions always end up being good, heroic actions, almost against his will.

Speaking of “will” or “actions”, this is ultimately the centre theme of the novel – how much do your actions count when it comes to being a supervilain or a superhero? I have to say, I am pretty happy with the way this was handled, not in a heavy way, not with a “in your face” message. Yes, good prevails in the end (despite me sort of wanting Damien to chose to be a villain but that is only because I am demented) but that does not mean that the world is black and white here. Because it isn’t. I like how for example, one of the reasons that Damien was determined to be a villain was due to his perception of fairness – from his point of view, villains are better at judging people on their own merits rather than making an assumption based on an “H” or a “V”. There is one particular sequence where this is very clear where he talks with his father about this hero who was arrested for beating up his own wife – said hero had the power of healing so he would heal his wife after each beating and so no one knew for a long time what was going on behind the scenes until he was finally arrested but even then, even with witnesses and proof, the public still had a hard time accepting and believing it because of the “H” in the guy’s thumb. Damien is very vocal about how having a “H” does not mean that you are inherently good and or having a “V” does not mean that you are evil. Unfortunately, I felt that this was somewhat downplayed by the author, I would have loved to see for example someone with a “V” who was a superhero or vice-versa because then it really meant that a person has a choice because if you REALLY think about, why only the people with an “X” have the choice? That does not make a lot of sense from where I stand. Maybe this can be further explored in the next book.

Since we are on the subject I am not too sure about the specifics of the genetic mark-ups and inheritance of power, etc. BUT, in all honestly, as fuzzy as the details of the world building are, and yes, some contrivance in the plotting did show its ugly face, in the end, I did not mind. Because I loved the main character, his voice and his arc SO very much.

The book is filled with humour and sarcasm all dished out by its protagonist and narrator. There are some really funny monologues here, like when Damien muses about which super power he will get. Like, what if he has the lame power to communicate with worms? What will he do with THAT?

(An aside: in this world, the kids’ powers start showing right before their 16th birthday. Damien is a little bit late – which reminded me quite a lot of the movie Sky High).

When he finds out that his father can fly he completely freaks out for two reasons. 1) he is afraid of heights and 2) flying is exclusively a super-hero power and if he inherits it, no way, no how, will he ever be respected amongst the villains.

But it is in dealing with his world, friends, family and being a typical teenager (with two potential love interests, getting hard-ons when in close contact with them) with atypical problems that Damien’s voice shine, baby shine. Damien is a very self-aware and attuned character who teases, pull at people’s strings and rile them up often by playing with their own preconceptions, prejudices and actions like in this quote when talking to his father:

“As I was saying before the interruption, I like villainy, and I like things how they were before you dragged me here. I want to be accepted by other supervillains. I want to go to Vilmore. I want a supervillain girlfriend. You know what they say: supervillains have more fun.” I lean in close and stage whisper, “It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve had both–you can tell me.”

As a villain wanna-be he pulls pranks and execute revenge on those who bully him but he is never cruel or entirely corrupted. Quite the contrary – his actions are very frequently less hurtful than those around him be them superheroes or supervillains. Like his father, who plays by the rules even when these rules mean being unfair. His narrative serves as a mirror to the world around him and sometimes it is an ugly world, even painful, and in this one scene when he collapses and cries, I cried too. I LOVED Damien, he is cunning, crass, sarcastic and yes, even if he doesn’t really want to, heroic (but never losing his edge).

I had loads of fun reading The Rise of Renegade X and Damien is now a favourite YA character. Here is hoping for a sequel (or two).

Notable Quotes/Parts: I love, LOVE the sequence when Sarah, Damien’s sidekick shows him his Renegade X costume. Awesome. OR when his dad takes him flying for the first time even though they don’t even KNOW if that is his power. Or the ending.

You can also read the first chapter here.

Additional Thoughts: check out the fun book trailer, made by the author:

Verdict: The Rise of Renegade X is a great superhero book. Fun, funny, full of action sequences, with a loveable protagonist with an edge. The details of the world building are slightly fuzzy but they never marred the overall enjoyment I had with this novel. More, please!

Rating: 7 Very Good, leaning towards a 8.

Reading Next: A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler

Title: Spider’s Bite

Author: Jennifer Estep

Genre: UF

Publisher: Pocket
Publication Date: January 2010
MMP: 432 pages

Stand alone or series: First in the Elemental Assassin series

My name is Gin Blanco. They call me the Spider — the most feared assassin in the South (and a part-time cook at the Pork Pit BBQ joint.) As a Stone elemental, I can hear the whispers of the gravel beneath my feet and feel the vibrations of the soaring mountains above me, though I don’t use my powers on the job unless I absolutely have to. Call it professional pride.

After a ruthless Air elemental double-crossed me and killed my handler, I’m out for revenge. And I’ll exterminate anyone who gets in my way. I may look hot in a miniskirt, but I’m still one of the bad guys. Which is why I’m in trouble when irresistibly rugged Detective Donovan Caine agrees to help. The last thing a coldhearted killer needs when she’s battling a magic more powerful than her own is a sexy distraction … especially when he wants her dead just as much as the enemy.

How did I get this book: Review copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: Because of the rave reviews it has received everywhere.

Review:

“My name is Gin, and I kill people.”

Thus begins Spider’s Bite and it’s a good beginning too: from within Ash¬land Asy¬lum, where our heroine, Gin has been purposely admitted to, in order to kill her next target. For Gin, AKA the Spider, is an assassin for hire and the very best in the business. As soon as she finishes her stint at the Asylum she meets with her handler Fletcher who passes on her new assignment. When that goes awfully wrong and she is double crossed and the death of Fletcher is the outcome, Gin has no choice but to side with detective Donovan Caine in order to investigate what went wrong and why and avenge the death of the man who was like a father to her. The already tense situation is amped up by the fact that Caine has sworn to kill Gin for the murder of his partner and being on the run whilst trying to solve the mystery.

Set in the city of Ashland where corruption and crime run amok and people don’t who is ally or foe, the story is a basic murder mystery which I thought it was well executed. The greatest strength of the novel decidedly lies in its unapologetic, morally ambiguous protagonist though. She presents a great opportunity for a character study, even reminding me of Dexter, one of my favourite TV protagonists. They both had their families tragically killed when they were young, and they both kill criminals only – although Dexter is a proper sociopath – and they share the need to have a “code” to follow. For Dexter, the code is what prevents him from being engulfed by his sociopathy , for Gin, it is the line she won’t cross and what makes her a heroine of sorts and not a downright villain (and perhaps more palatable for the readers). She will not kill innocent people (nor will she kill kids or pets) but she will kill anything that moves when they come in her way of solving this mystery and very effectively so, no holds barred. Plus, she prefers not to use the magic skills she has – and this is another aspect of the book that proved to be interesting to me, although admittedly these aspects were not as fleshed out as they could have been. In this world, some people can wield magic based on four elements. Gin for example is a Stone Elemental (with some Ice in the mix) and can for example harden her body to avoid being injured or get a feel for a house or building.

Since I liked the mystery and I liked Gin for most part, I could have quite comfortably breezed through the novel except, I had major issues with the technical aspects of the writing and they ultimately marred my enjoying of the novel.

For starters, there is simply too much exposition and repetitiveness. I don’t like info dump at best of times but understand that it might be necessary for a story. However, this needs to be done really well in order not be too obvious or to not to bring down the pacing of the story. AND, it is an even more difficult task when the narrative is in first person. The first few chapters of Spider’s Bite are pure exposition – about the city, about the magic system, about Gin and her past. The main problem with this, on this occasion was that SHE was narrating her story, so she should already know everything she is telling US. It was a way too obvious way of info dumping. One particular instance is when she is about to enter an action sequence and then she looks at the scars in her hands and muses about them – why would anyone do that at that moment in time, when the scars have been there for 17 years if not for the reader’s benefit, therefore rendering the sequence completely artificial

Another problem I had was the repetitiveness. For example, every time Gin sees Donovan she will enter a state of lusting and will add a “Mmm” at the end of her thoughts:

“Despite the seriousness of the situation, I thought about those lips against mine. His heavy tongue stroking my own, then moving down my body one sweet, slow inch at a time, before plunging into the curls at the junction of my thighs. Mmm”

“But Donovan Caine smelled so good I wanted to bury my face against his neck and just breathe in his scent. Mmm”

“If the detective looked that good merely smiling, how would he look after a night of slow, sweaty sex? Mmm”

“Donovan Caine naked, water droplet sliding down his lean body, his muscles clenching and relaxing as he washes himself. Mmm.”

I counted at least another four instances of “mmm” dropping. This was very…..let’s say, distracting and completely took me off the story. Not to say that most of these occurs at crucial times in the story when Gin is obviously in danger which is one of my greatest pet peeves: the Lusting at the inappropriate of Great and Terrible Danger.

Other examples of repetition are how it was always “Gold on gray” when her eyes met Donovan’s “hazel eyes” . Or how enemies were always “Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy” .

The good news is that in a 400 page books these lines end up not amounting that much which is the reason why I was able to carry on till the end (when there is some serious pay off for my patience). I do believe this book could have been better edited – there is simply no reason for the amount of repetitions and for these examples in particular to be even there. Overall this could have been a much better book than it actually is, but I have hopes for the second novel. I did like this one enough to go back for seconds.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the first chapter:

“My name is Gin, and I kill people.”

Nor­mally, my con­fes­sion would have elicited gasps of sur­prise. Pale faces. Ner­vous sweat. Sti­fled screams. An over­turned chair or two as peo­ple scram­bled to get away before I buried a knife in their heart—or back. A suck­ing wound was a suck­ing wound. I wasn’t picky about where I caused it.

“Hi, Gin,” four peo­ple cho­rused back to me in per­fect, dull, monot­one unison.

But not in this place. Within the walled con­fines of Ash­land Asy­lum, my con­fes­sion, true though it might be, didn’t even merit a raised eye­brow, much less shock and fright­ened awe. I was rel­a­tively nor­mal com­pared to the freaks of nature and magic who pop­u­lated the grounds. Like Jack­son, the seven-foot-tall albino giant seated to my left who drooled worse than a mas­tiff and gur­gled like a three-month-old child.

A long string of clear, glis­ten­ing spit­tle dripped out of his over­size lips, but Jack­son was too busy coo­ing non­sense to the crude daisy tat­tooed on the back of his hand to pay atten­tion. Or do some­thing sane and hygienic, like wipe his mouth. I shifted away from him so I wouldn’t come in con­tact with the ooz­ing mucus.

Dis­gust­ing. But Jack­son was typ­i­cal of the sorts of folks in the asy­lum. Asy­lum. The word always made me smile. Such a pretty name for a hellhole.

It was bad enough I’d been stuck here for almost a week. But what really set me on edge was the noise—and hav­ing to lis­ten to the build­ing around me. The screams of the damned and deranged had long ago sunk into the gran­ite walls and floors of the asy­lum, the way all emo­tions and actions do over time. Being a Stone ele­men­tal, I could feel the vibra­tions in the rock and hear the con­stant, insane chat­ter even through the indus­trial car­pet and my white, cot­ton socks.

When I’d first got­ten here, I’d tried to reach out to the stone, to use my own magic to bring it a bit of com­fort. Or at least quiet the screams so I could get some sleep at night. But it had been no use. The stones were too far gone to lis­ten or respond to my magic. Just like the poor souls who shuf­fled along on top of them.

Now, I just blocked out the damn noise—the way I did so many other things.

A woman at the head of the cir­cle of plas­tic chairs leaned for­ward. She was directly across from me, so it was easy for her light eyes to find mine. “Now, Gin, you’ve made this claim before. We’ve dis­cussed this. You only think you’re an assas­sin. You are most cer­tainly not one.”

Eve­lyn Edwards. The shrink who was sup­posed to cure all the cra­zies in this mag­i­cal nut­house. She radi­ated pro­fes­sional cool and con­fi­dence in her tight black pantsuit, ivory blouse, and kit­ten heels. Square black glasses hung on the end of her pointed nose, high­light­ing her green­ish eyes, and her sandy hair was cropped into a short, tou­sled bob. Eve­lyn was pretty enough, but a hun­gry look pinched her pasty face—a look I rec­og­nized. The hard gaze of a sly predator.

The rea­son I was here today.

You can read the rest of the excerpt here.

Additional Thoughts: If you would like to know more the inspirations behind writing the series, you can check the Inspirations and Influences post by the author posted last Friday. We are also giving away 10 signed copies of both Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies. Check it out.

Verdict: Spider’s Bite has a great (truly) tough-as-nails protagonist and a well-executed mystery but certain aspects of the writing did not appeal to me. The series has a lot of potential though, hopefully the next one will have less repetitions.

Rating: 6 – Recommended with Reservations

Reading Next: Ten Things I Love About You

“Inspirations and Influences” is a series of articles in which we invite authors to write guest posts talking about their…well, Inspirations and Influences. The cool thing is that the writers are given free reign so they can go wild and write about anything they want. It can be about their new book, series or about their career as a whole.

Today’s guest is Urban Fantasist & Romance author Jennifer Estep. Jennifer is the author of paranormal romance series Bigtime (Karma Girl, Hot Mama, & Jinx), but this year she has thrown her hat into the Urban Fantasy ring with her Elemental Assassin series. The first book in this new series, Spider’s Bite follows Gin Blanco, known better by her assassin moniker, Spider – she’s the best at her job in all of Ashland, and has the ability to work magic in the elements of stone and ice. The second book in the Elemental Assassin series, Web of Lies his stores next week on May 25th!

To celebrate the upcoming release, we have invited Ms. Estep to talk about her writing, influences and inspirations for her Elemental Assassins series. (Plus, we also have a giveaway)

Please give a warm welcome to Jennifer Estep!

Greetings and salutations! First of all, I want to say thanks to the Book Smugglers for inviting me to guest blog today. Thanks so much!

As some of you may know, I’m the author of the Bigtime superhero paranormal romance series – Karma Girl (2007), Hot Mama (2007), and Jinx (2008). I also write the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series and have three books coming out in that series this year – Spider’s Bite (which came out in February), Web of Lies (which debuts on May 25), and Venom (October).

The Smugglers asked me to talk a little bit about my writing inspirations and influences today, and one of the topics that they suggested was what got me interested in writing urban fantasy since I had previously written paranormal romances. So why did I switch to urban fantasy?

Well, the short answer is because I like kick-butt heroines.

I’ve always loved books, movies, and TV shows where the heroine is just as strong – if not stronger – than the guys around her. Buffy Summers, Sydney Bristow, Wonder Woman – these are the kinds of female characters that I admire, girls who are just as comfortable dressing up to go to a party as they are diffusing a nuclear bomb or saving the world from vampires, aliens, and other creepy crawlies.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the heroines in my Bigtime paranormal romance books are pretty kick-butt themselves, especially Fiona Fine, the star of Hot Mama. But I had been wanting to write something darker and grittier with an even tougher heroine for a while. I’ve also always liked reading about assassin characters in fantasy literature, and I figured that urban fantasy was a genre that would let me combine all these things at once. Plus, there are so many great heroines in urban fantasy, folks like Rachel Morgan and Karen Murphy, and I wanted to add my own character to the mix.

So I came up with my toughest heroine yet – Gin Blanco, an assassin known as the Spider. Gin makes no bones about the fact that she kills people for money, something that she’s very, very good at. I figured that if I was going to write an assassin character, I might as well go big or go home. There’s nothing worse than a whiny assassin.

As much as I like shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, it seems like vampires are everywhere these days, and I knew when I started writing Spider’s Bite that I wanted to have some different kinds of magic/creatures in my books as well. So I decided on vampires, giants, dwarves, and elementals, or folks who can control one of the four elements – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.

For the record, Gin happens to be a Stone and Ice elemental, meaning that she can control both of those elements. But she’s just as happy to introduce you to the sharp end of the five silverstone knives that she carries with her at all times as she is to blast you with her magic. Like Gin says, there are dozens of ways to help people quit breathing, and she doesn’t need her magic to help her with that.

I’ll admit that it’s been a bit of a challenge to write such an unapologetic assassin character like Gin and make her likable at the same time. Gin isn’t your typical hero – she’s not inherently good like a Sydney Bristow or Buffy Summers is. But you know what? Bad girls always have more fun anyway. I think Faith on Buffy is a prime example of that.

So there you have it. Some of my inspirations for my girl Gin Blanco and the Elemental Assassin series. Writing Gin’s adventures has been a blast so far, and I hope that folks have as much fun reading the books as I do writing them.

What about you guys? Who are some of your favorite heroines, urban fantasy or otherwise? Share in the comments.

About Jennifer:

Jennifer’s books have been fea­tured in Cos­mopoli­tan, Enter­tain­ment Weekly, South­ern Liv­ing, and a vari­ety of other publications.

You can read more about Jennifer on her website, or catch her on her blog.

Giveaway Details:

We are giving away TEN AUTOGRAPHED copies of Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies to ten lucky winners! The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada only and will run until May 29 at 11:59 PM (PST). To enter, leave a comment here answering Jennifer’s question – who are some of your favorite heroines, fantasy or otherwise? Only one entry per person please! Good luck!

Title: The Demon’s Covenant

Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Genre: YA/UF

Mae Crawford always thought she was in control. Now she’s learned that her little brother Jamie is a magician and Nick, the boy she’d set her heart on, has an even darker secret. Mae’s whole world has spun out of control, and it’s only going to get worse. When she realises that Jamie has been meeting secretly with the new leader of the Obsidian Circle and that Gerald wants him to join the magicians, she’s not sure how to stop Jamie doing just that. Calling in Nick and Alan as reinforcements only leads to a more desperate conflict because Gerald has a plan to bring Nick down – by using Alan to spring a deadly trap. With those around her torn between divided loyalties and Mae herself torn between her feelings for two very different boys, she sees a chance to save them all – but it means approaching the mysterious and dangerous Goblin Market alone…

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry (US)/ Simon & Schuster Children’s (UK)
Publication Date: May 18 2010/ May 27 2010
Hardcover: 448 pages/ Paperback: 448 pages

Stand alone or series: Second in a trilogy, which started with The Demon’s Lexicon

Why did I read this book: The Demon’s Lexicon was on my top 10 last year and this sequel was one of my most anticipated reads of 2010.

Review:

Warning: this review contains spoilers for the FIRST BOOK because I can’t review the second without spoiling the first one. The spoiler completely ruins the experience of reading the first book and if you haven’t yet but still plan to read The Demon’s Lexicon I urge you to avert your eyes NOW. You have been warned!

It was only a few days ago that I talked about how 2010 has been a great reading year for me. The Demon’s Covenant is another addition to an already incredible line up. It feels like it was only yesterday that I discovered The Demon’s Lexicon a book that inconspicuously crept into my top 10 last year after its world and its characters became so alive to me, I was able to remember the smallest details after months of reading it. The Demon’s Covenant has been on my Most Wanted list since then and I was both anxious and terrified of reading it. Would it, could it, be as great as its predecessor? The answer is a resounding YES, a million times YES, and not only that: I find that it is even better.

I hereby declare Sarah Rees Brennan to be a freaking genius. For writing characters that become so alive that I feel like I know them, that make me care so much for their future as though they are real people, for making it possible to establish such an emotional connection with fictional people, I hereby declare that this writer has just joined the list of Ana’s Great Ones. Her name is now set in stone which means, I will read anything she ever writes because we (her writing and I) have crazy chemistry. It is possible that I am behaving like a fan-girl. It is possible that I am not in total control of my thoughts and actions because they have turned to mush after finishing this book. It is possible that I am wearing my heart in my sleeve. It is possible that you think I am exaggerating and it is very possible that I am. But this is what Good Books do to me and I wouldn’t trade this feeling, this experience, for anything in this world. I want to nurture it and above all I want to be able to spread it. So here it goes.

The Demon’s Covenant is very much a second book in a trilogy – by expanding on the first book’s storylines and setting the stage for the final act. It picks up a few weeks after the events at the end of The Demon’s Lexicon and the characters are still suffering the aftermath of what happened then. They are still struggling with the discovery that Jamie is a magician (and if you remember, most Magicians in this world are not Good) , with Mae’s feelings after she has killed someone to protect her brother and with the Twisterific revelation that Nick is in fact, a demon (and if you remember, the one thing that could be worse than being a magician, is definitely being a demon).

The story opens with Mae trying to go back to a normal life when she discovers that her brother is meeting with one of the magicians from Obsidian Circle, Gerald. Terrified that she might lose him, she contacts the brothers Nick and Alan to ask for their help once more and then all attempts at normalcy go down the drain; she is dragged back into the midst of a fight between Circles, a fight between brothers, and into the magical world of the Goblin Market – a world she would do anything to forget but which she is reluctantly fascinated by and attracted to.

The first thing of note in The Demon’s Covenant is the change in narrator . Nick is no longer the voice or the eyes from which this story is narrated making the sequel completely different from its predecessor and yet still fundamentally similar. The difference comes from of course, the narrative voice as instead of Nick’s cold, detached point of view, we get Mae’s deeply emotional one. I thought the choice of picking Mae as the narrator (as opposed to say, Nick again, or Alan) was extremely interesting and at first I wondered why. Then it hit me, even though they are miles apart in terms of humanity (or lack of) , Nick and Alan actually share something. They are both outsiders looking in. Nick, as the non-human, puzzled by emotional conundrums which he doesn’t have and Mae as the only one who does not possess magic, or fighting skills. Her narrative is poignant because of considerations such as what can she possibly offer to the group?

As Nick’s observations of others spoke loudly of how they felt, the same can be said about Mae. Her eyes observe everything and relate to the reader: the strange tension between the brothers, Jamie’s loneliness, the allure of the Goblin Market. Sometimes her observations are not as keen as she would like to believe but that might as well come from being deceived by others but also because of self-denial. She battles with her own heart for most of the book, trying to find normalcy she can’t possibly have after all that has happened and love in the arms of people which she doesn’t truly love. If you read the first book, you know that Alan has a crush on Mae and that Mae has a crush on Nick. At one point in the book, Nick tells her that she would be crazy not to pick Alan but the heart wants what the heart wants, folks. In some sense, Mae is as an unreliable narrator as Nick was but for completely different reasons. That to me, was awesome. As awesome was her strength, her resilience and her gift for action and plotting and above all, her capacity for understanding and connecting. Her understanding of Seb, a guy who could be scorned off as a bully but who is embraced by her or her friendship with another fantastic secondary female character, Sin of the Goblin Market (who is to be the narrator of the final book) . And even though, she is understanding and accommodating that does not make her feeble. I absolutely LOVED how her reactions to discoveries she made about people (I am being cryptic on purpose!) throughout the book were very firm and yet still well-balanced.

As fascinating as the narrative voice was, and how the world-building is incredibly compelling with added dynamics and politics within the Goblin Market and across the Magicians Circles nothing surpasses characterisation. What strikes me the most though in the world created by the author, is the complexity and the greyness of her characters. These are complex human beings making morally questionable decisions all the time. They all know for example, that Magicians are bad and kill humans to use their body to bring demons into the world in order to control their powers and yet, both Mae and Jamie are attracted to the use of magic.

Alan, who is my favourite character by far, is someone who would do anything, and I mean, anything for his brother Nick. He kills, maims lies, manipulates, and goes behind people’s backs to get what he wants. He unleashed a demon in the world. Yes, it is all for love and devotion but…does that make it right though? Probably not, but reading his father’s diary and how Alan has loved and cared for Nick from day one, just about broke my heart. Everything he does is for Nick but he also seems to have an unlimited amount of love to give to anybody who would accept. His actions in the end of the book (another twist, although not as mind blowing as the first one, but still, a good one) shows us that. I found myself consumed with love for Alan and the ONE thing I want the most is for someone to truly, deeply LOVE him.

Breaking my heart is something that I need to get used to though when it comes to this series. With every single scene of sibling affection between Nick and Alan or Mae and Jamie; with the ardent need that both Mae and Alan have for Nick to show some sign of humanity; with Nick’s obvious urgency for trying so hard to appease Alan even though it goes against his own nature and for his vulnerability; for Jamie’s hopeless crush; and so on and so forth, I got continuous heart twinges.

What is it that makes us human, I asked myself reading this book over and again. It is the emotions we feel? The capacity for connection? To make mistakes and err and fall and get back on our feet again? Nick might not feel the right emotions – but he is devoted, protective of the ones we considers “his”, does that not make him slightly human? Alan is human and is so clearly emotional and yet he can be as cool and detached as Nick if necessary – does that make him less human?

I don’t know the answers; I am terrified that the answers to those questions will come in the final book and it will break my heart into tiny little pieces. All I know is that I want the best for these characters . The Demon’s Covenant is definitely not a book about plot – in fact, when push comes to shove, little happens in the way of moving the story forward and all that was necessary to set the third act, is contained in the last few chapters. The majority of The Demon’s Covenant is about the characters’ and their motivations, and about love. Loving who you shouldn’t love, people being worthy of being loved even when they don’t think they are or the seemly endless capacity for sibling love that both Mae and Alan have. As such it is a feast for the readers who like me, are inclined towards character-driven stories.

I was a huge, giant MESS when the book ended and still I could have begged for more. I am consumed with love for these characters, flaws and all (or even because of that), terrified for their future because their world is bleak and the prospect of happiness is not that great, and yet, still hopeful for all of them, but above all for Alan. On Ana’s corner of the Smuggliverse there is one thing that I say to the books I love and cherish above all and which I consider to be the greatest compliment I could ever give: THIS IS WHY I READ. This book goes straight into my top 10, without a shadow of a doubt.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Angie, in her AWESOME review, quoted a scene that I too, loved so I am copying it here, because it shows that the book is not only dark and bleak but also oh, so funny in parts:

Mae grabbed Nick’s arm and he whirled on her, then caught himself and stood looking down at her with his pulse thudding against her palm and the knife still in his hand.

She lifted her chin. “Oh, put that away.”

Nick put it away. “Just making a point.”

“Yes, I took your point,” Jamie muttered. “Right up against my throat.”

Mae looked away from Nick and walked quickly toward the wall, scrambling over it and trying so hard to make the climb look easy that she skinned her elbow as she did so. She pretended it didn’t sting.

Nick did not try to help Alan over the wall this time around. He stood with his hands clenched into fists in his pockets as they all waited for Alan to get over on his own.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he told Jamie suddenly.

Mae reached out and touched Nick’s shoulder. Her hand brushed muscle, braced and tense under her palm, for a moment. Then he shied away from her and glared.

She smiled as if this reaction was perfectly normal. “Sometimes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you’re going to hurt them, and then they’re completely terrified. Crazy, I know!”

“Okay,” said Nick. He turned to Jamie and popped his left wrist sheath again. “Look.”

Jamie backed up. “Which part of ‘completely terrified’ did you translate as ’show us your knives, Nick’? Don’t show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “This is a quillon dagger. That’s a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing.”

“Why do you say these things?” Jamie inquired piteously. “Is it to make me sad?”

“I didn’t have you cornered,” Nick went on. “You could’ve run. And this dagger doesn’t have an even weight distribution; it’s absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I’d have used a knife I could throw.”

Jamie blinked. “I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won’t be able to.”

Verdict: The Demon’s Covenant is an amazing sequel to The Demon’s Lexicon, everything I could have hoped for, with characters that feel alive and real, catapulting this series and its author to the top of my favourites’ list. Definitely on my top 10 of 2010.

Rating: 9 Damn Near Perfection

Reading next: Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn

Title: Claire de Lune

Author: Christine Johnson

Genre: YA/UF

Torn between two destinies?

Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she’s the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she’s a werewolf.

As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire’s new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever?

Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster Children’s
Publication Date: May 18 2010/ July 1 2010
Hardcover: 256 pages/Paperback:352 pages

Stand alone or series: First in a new series

Why did I read the book: What made me want to read this book? The cover and the title (which I think is a great play with Clair de Lune). Yes, I can be shallow.

How did I get this book: I received an ARC from Simon Pulse

Review:

I will go straight to the point and summarise the book’s proposition: Claire de Lune is a book about a girl who finds out that she is a werewolf (in a world that despises and fears werewolves) and who struggles between being human and being a werewolf. I find that, as conflicts go, this one could potentially be interesting depending on how one executes it. But Claire de Lune bugged me to no end because it is a book whose main conflict stems from a very flawed, counterintuitive, inorganic premise. But I am way ahead of myself.

On her 16th birthday, Claire finds out that she is a werewolf.

Hold on. I think that sentence lacks a certain flair. Let me rephrase this:

On her 16th birthday, Claire develops a rash.

It covers her hands and ears and it itches and it itches and….no one does anything about it. Claire goes around for a few hours, scratching, hiding her hands and covering her ears and never once considers going to a doctor. She is then informed point blank by her mother, that she is a werewolf. That she belongs to a local pack.That werewolves are female only, who don’t consider themselves human – at all – whose identities MUST at all cost be kept a secret, hence why girls are only told they are werewolves a few days before their first transformation. And then they have to just deal with it. With the fact that they are not humans; that they are, what most people consider, killing machines; that they are not supposed to have lasting relationships with any humans, because they can never know they are werewolves; who in order to reproduce, must find a human partner but should not fall in love or remain too close.

Let’s take a step back for a moment and examine this premise. It just….doesn’t make ANY sense to me. It sounds, as I said before, very counterintuitive: from a biological point of view and from a cultural point of view.

With regards to the former, one of the most important biological imperatives of any species is reproduction. Correct me if I am wrong, but a female-only species does not sound like the way to go especially if you consider minor things like you know, GENES. Wouldn’t having babies ONLY with male humans be the perfect way to weaken the lycanthrope genetic signature? Granted that all I have here to guide me is my High School Biology and my love for David Attenborough. I may be wrong but this was sufficient to pull me out of the story. And don’t think I don’t appreciate the attempt at making a “girl-power” story with strong female characters who are in charge, because I do. But there’s gotta be a reasonable explanation for this.

Then there is the cultural significance. According to this specific lore, packs have existed forever, created by a Goddess and they find that the best way to be safe is to keep it all a secret. Again, correct me if I am wrong: I think the chances of someone freaking out and letting out the secret to the world are FAR greater when you are told out of the blue, that you are a creature of nightmares, that all your life to that point has been a lie, that you must break away from your friends, that you can’t have a boyfriend (unless you want to reproduce), that you must lie to everybody you know, that you can’t say “oh my God” anymore and instead you MUST say “oh my Goddess”. Wouldn’t it be simpler, safer, to grow up knowing who you are and being prepared for the transformation with more than a few weeks’ notice? But then again, if any different, there would be no cause for this book.

Because of these issues, because the resulting conflict sounds very artificial, it was extremely hard for me to carry on reading, yet I did finish the book and that is saying something. Part of what made it reasonably readable was the fact that Claire did react to these changes in an appropriate manner: railing against her mother, freaking out, considering different aspects of her new reality. I also liked her romantic relationship with a nice, wholesome boy named Matthew. It is definitely refreshing to have a paranormal romance minus the whole “falling for a dark, brooding boy who might just kill me” thing.

Unfortunately that is as positive as I can be. Even if I had no issues with the premise and world-building, the rest of the book, the characters and the plot were unremarkable.Even though Claire was sort of likable when dealing with her mother and werewolf issues, her constant whinny “why do you like me, I am not popular” mantra was tiresome. Matthew’s reply to this, is that he considers her the most interesting person he knows and yet not a single scene between them has in-depth dialogue that could actually SHOW instead of TELLING me why he thought so.

There is also a storyline in which a rogue werewolf is killing humans and public opinion is that werewolves are BAD and EVIL (led by Matthew’s father by the way, who is almost a psycho villain). Again, I ask: if the werewolves were not as secretive – I mean, the entire world already knows they exist, so what is the point? – and came out to say ”hey, we are not all evil, you know”, possibly these problems would not exist. Furthermore, the revelation of who the culprit is, doesn’t ring true, considering the heightened senses that the werewolves supposedly have. Surely one of them would have SMELLED this person since they all knew her.

Even with the overall blandness what really prevented me from enjoying the novel was its lack of intrinsic logic. I am fully aware that this might not deter other people from enjoying it but I would still say: proceed with caution. On my side, I prefer my fiction with a bit more of salt, pepper and a better rationale on the side, thank you very much.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I read the book three days ago and I can’t remember a scene I truly liked.

Verdict: Bland, uninspired YA novel based on I what consider to be a flawed premise. Regardless, this will probably appeal for those looking for “more of the same” rather than something new and unique.

Rating:4 – Bad but not without some merit

Reading Next: The Demon’s Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan