Shadow City by Diana Pharaoh Francis

Shadow City by Diana Pharaoh Francis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If I ever found myself in need of an army, to confront gods and demigods who wants nothing more than butcher me for parts of my body, in a different dimension, where the rules are different, where there might have creatures that nobody has ever seen or heard about, where everything is a big unknown, I'll know what to do. I'll just bring Max.



"What is a Max?" Ilanion asked.



Max is the toughest chick in UF. EVER!



You might ask, "what about Kate Daniels?"



If Kate had super quick healing abilities, after thirty or something years of continued torture, she might be able to take all the pounding that Max gets and still get up over and over again. But we will never know...



All the injuries and burns that Curran might take on during a whole book, Max is getting it all in a chapter and still kicking ass.



Ghouls, fairies, spiked wolves, powerful mages, gods, demigods... Bring it all you have, Max will kill them all!



I idolize her. And it's totally understandable that everyone else in the book does too.



What I love about this series is the idea of the Shadowblades and Sunspears made by a witch. Forget vampires. Shadowblades have it all! They are night creatures with super strengh, super healing, super speed. Even the sun reflected by the moonlight will burn them. Though Max might walk through the moonlight feeling the pain of the burns on her face and not even flinch. Blood?! Only made by Max's swords and guns. The sunspears are their counterparts, they get poisoned by the night and together they work to protect their witch's coven.



Okay, I might have a girl crush. So what?



Alexander, another Prime (sort of like alpha) Shadowblade like Max, is like the girl of the story. Yes, he's tough. But Max is tougher. He is the one that has a tantrum (when you are a shadowblade, tantrums mostly mean killing sprees) when he thought Max had died. Alexander is the one fainting (of massive burns and injuries, I must add) during battles, while Max will push through the pain and finish what she's started. It's not that I dislike him, but in this series, all the "woos" belong to Max.



The series is told from Max's and Alexander's point of views, and it has worked really well. You get a bit of both, whether they are together or not.



I love this series! I'd recommend to any UF fans.



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Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells

Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I was hoping Sabina was going to be this tough kick-ass chick, and I got halfway and just didn't want to finish it. I'm not usually like that, even if I don't like something, I always get the hope that it will get better by the end.



You know those scenes in movies where you just want to look away cause you can't stand the stupidity? For me Sabina just acts like a teenager trying to win over the love of an unconcerned grandparent. But she's a grown woman (or vampire)!



Really, she stupidly gets in these crazy situations. I was the entire time wanting to scream at her "DON'T DO THAT!".



I suppose that it's always part of a character development, but did she really need to start so dislikable?? If so, I'm not stiking around to find out...



If you like Kate Daniel Series or Chicagoland Vampires, do not read this , it's nothing like it!



EDIT:



Okay. I was running out of choices on what to read or listen to when I found out that Cynthia Holloway reads this book. So I gave it another go.



I have to admit I gave myself a pat on the back for sticking through the whole book. Sabina and I just don't get along. We have all the opposit instincts. Why I want kill someone, she's becoming a victim. While I want to ignore her new frivolous fae housemate, Sabina is calling her a friend. While I expect to have a scary big monster demon for a pet, Sabina makes a clown out of him. We just don't see eye to eye.



Yes, I'm listening the next ones in hope that Sabina won't be an assassin vampire victim for too long.....













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Shadow Kin by M.J. Scott

Shadow Kin by M.J. Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shadow Kin is aussie author M. J. Scott's debut novel. It's written on the first person point of view (POV) but of two different characters. It took me a couple of chapters to realize that the picture of little moon before a chapter meant it was from one character, and the sun picture for the other character. I thought M. J. came up with innovative idea especially for me. Though I love PNR, I often can't connect with characters from a 3rd person POV.

Lily is a slave/assassin wraith, the only one she knows of her kind, to a vampire lord. Lily has the skill of shadowing herself and walkthrough walls at night (moon). She is sent to kill Simon, a sunmage (you get the drill), butt fails when he catches her and calls up sunlight to stop her from shadowing.

M.J. built a world where the peace of all races is depended on a fragile balance of power between the Blood, the beasts and the humans.

I liked Lily. She's not a kickass heroine, but she pretends well. She was mistreated and beaten at the Blood court most of her life, and I couldn't help thinking "why doesn't she just stay shadowed?", the answer would be something like that she would be afraid of what would happen if she did, and for that she lost a lot of points with me.

Simon started off like a very standard martyr. He wanted to save all, and his drive was what lead Lily and Simon together. The only thing that bugged me was that halfway the book he was acting like a total jerk and I just didn't get why.

M.J. came up with a different idea that worked well. It didn't feel like a paranormal romance as the heroe and heroine had more issues than Time magazine.

It's an original fantasy novel that will appeal to Urban Fantasy fans that will leave you wondering what M.J. will come up with on the next installment.










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Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton

Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm beginning to realize the reason I still read this series, is because it's still fun to criticize how a wonderful series and SO BAD.

About 12 books ago, it was a superb series. This time I picked it up keeping in mind I was in for some porn.

I was wrong.

Yes, Anita is still a slut.

Yes, the ardeur (book destroyer) is still around.

But this was more like the old books. A little bit anyway.

In this book there was ONE sex scene. Would you believe it? For Anita Blake? AND it was a very tame one too. Of course if Laurell is writing only one sex scene to go in this book, she wouldn't make it all the same, so she picked a new guy to add to Anita's man collection.

It has more of Edward in it. I think she was aiming for something similar to Obsidian Butterfly but failed miserably.

Edward in this book goes only by reputation. Everyone is scared of him. Though he is present in the whole book, only once he shows up with a kickass weapon. The credit goes to the weapon, not the person using it.

What I didn't like about this book:

* To make Anita sound so smart, other characters get really dumb down. I'm sick of reading lines like: "But that's not what we learned in the lectures."

* Why the f*** doesn't somebody kill Olaf? He is an awful person, and everyone has been told that if he really kills Anita, Edward will kill everyone else. So why wouldn't they all just kill him and save them some a lot of hassle?

* The long conversations between foreplay and the sex. Get on with, for god's sake. You can't even skip the sex scene because Laurell might drop something important in the middle of it.

* The bad guys have a change of heart right when she is captured? I didn't get that.

* And last but not least, Anita has got all these mad powers, and she never develops them. She is a necromancer, and she can control vampires, heals them. But Ash is still scarred. Stops there. She has all the lycanthrope DNA. What does she do with it? She pictures tigers inside her head. What more do you ask? Once in a while it will heal her. Once in while it will give her a sense of smell. But only when the plot calls for it.


Why 3 stars?

I don't know. I guess if you have kept on going with this series this far this book is much better compared to the last books.


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Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's really 2 1/2 stars. That is all for the first half of the book.


I felt cheated by this book. I was so excited when I first started it. It was beautifully written. Calla is this poweful warrior, who holds the loyallty of her pack. She sounded strong. I liked how the author made us wait a few chapters before explaining the worldbuilding to the reader. That was another element that made me have late nights, just so I could find out a bit more.

She's meant to marry Ren. I liked everything about him. Yes, he was (horny) dating other girls. But he's seveteen so I don't blame him. Calla didnt seem to care. She saw as marrying him her duty, and she liked him, but she didn't like him enough to be jealous. She was fine with that until the union, and I was happy she rejected him while she wasn't the only one with him. But once Ren made the decision that he would be with Calla only, even before their union, he stuck to it.

Now, I really don't understand Calla's attraction to Shay. The whole book was cringing worthy, because of Shay. He was pathetic really. He saw she was with another guy, why on earth would humiliate yourself to ask to have a private conversation with someone else's girlfriend?

From there things just went down hill. I hate cheating, so I really started to hate Calla. Especially when she was cheating with Shay. Urgh. For someone who had never kissed before, she was becoming pretty slutty kissing two guys.

She went from a powerful warrior to a cheating bitch.

I'm not such a big feminist, but when someone says "Sit on my lap, woman", a strong warrior would have responded with a right hook, but instead, the powerfull warrior and alpha female, just does what she's told.

It ended with a cliffhanger, and me liking Ren more and more. I would read the next book (only because I devore all books), but I wouldn't recommend it to my friends.

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