Typical recent Anita Blake fare—exciting, erotic paranormal romantic adventure—that gets the job done for its intended...
The status quo of paranormal society is destabilized, and Anita Blake must vanquish the enemies while managing her complicated love life and overcoming her own growing internal demons.
When a teenage girl is abducted by vampires, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to save her. But she and her team find something disconcerting in the rescue—a group of recently turned vampires who are either very young or very old, who are violently against any sort of master and who are willing to die for their cause. Everyone knows that a martyr is a problematic enemy, but martyr vampires are even worse, since they can cause a significant amount of damage when they have little left to lose. As Anita Blake tracks down angry, violent adversaries with her own preternatural abilities, she must also fight long-lived insecurities as a cop, vampire hunter and human, while dealing with the relationship stresses in her household that are due to her myriad lovers and their complicated emotional and supernatural bonds. Fans will find much of the same from Hamilton in this, the 21st installment of the popular Anita Blake series, the erotic paranormal books that put vampires on the map before Twilight had them going viral. But while there’s not much new, there’s also plenty of action, excitement, hot sex and emotional turmoil that will keep most fans of the series satisfied until the next book. A dizzying cast of characters may keep newbies at bay, but Hamilton does a good job explaining relationships and past and present frictions without it being too burdensome on the current story. Nonetheless, it’s likely that this book will be more enjoyable to the legions of existing fans than for new ones, who will probably want to start a little earlier. People who’ve been turned off by Blake’s growing stable of sexual partners and increasing preternatural powers will want to avoid it, but then, they’ve probably already done so a few books back.
Typical recent Anita Blake fare—exciting, erotic paranormal romantic adventure—that gets the job done for its intended audience.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-425-24754-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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