Detecting is a Dirty Job

Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another great Harry Dresden adventure. I listened to the audiobook read by James Marsters (the actor who is famous for playing Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. He is a excellent voice actor as well as screen actor. I really like how he voices Harry and other characters, including Karrin Murphy, Harry's friend and oftimes client who leads the SI Unit of the Chicago Police Department. I listened to Death Masks and Side Jobs on audiobook and I think I'm now hooked on listening to the audiobooks, although this series is also great for reading.

The story reveals more about Harry's complicated life and sheds more light on his extremely complicated family background. I won't say more than that because it's a huge spoiler, if you are one of the folks like myself who is still working their way through the earlier books in this long-running series. Let's just say that Harry has more family than he even expected. Harry as a character is evolving, and yet he still has some character quirks that make him feel authentic in that if he was a real guy, you'd find yourself being annoyed with him even though you would also love him as a person. He is kind of a chauvinist, to be honest. That's why I think his relationship with Murphy is so good for him. She slaps him down and gets his mind right.

In this book, we learn more about the White Court, which are vampires who live on energy, sort of what we would think of as succubi and incubi (but not overtly demonic). There are also some nasty black magic practitioners in this book. Additionally, high tension moments in which Harry and Karrin and a couple of other pivotal characters have to infiltrate a vampire nest. That was a really intense scene, but there are several others as well. Harry is always in situations that puts his physical being in jeopardy. I think he gets injured the most out of almost all the urban fantasy novel series I follow.

I liked that the undercurrent romantic feelings between Harry and Murphy is apparent in this novel, and well it should be, as this book is about the spectrum between desire and love and the many ways those emotions intertwine with the heavy plotline about white court vampires. I do ship them together, quite frankly. I think they are good for each other.

The story is nicely plotted and I didn't find anything predictable, nor was the mystery easily solved. It functions as a very good mystery novel with some great supernatural elements. The ending was nicely climactic and it sets up future books in the series while ending in a satisfying manner.

I have the next book ready to listen to on Audible. :)



View all my reviews

Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan

Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

An interesting new series for Christine Feehan readers. With everything going on, it took me a long time to finish it. I read most of it on the way home from Illinois when we got back from my grandmother's funeral. I was really sucked in at that point. This one is about a family of people whose shadows are alive and they can manipulate and move the through the shadows/ dark spots around them. Cool idea. I'd give the idea definitely over a four star. The story overall is more like a three and a half. I think it's me. I am not into the mafia vibe. There was a pervasive mafia feel to this book I didn't enjoy. The lead character, Stefano seems like a mafia don, a man of infinite power and who is infinitely adored. But he's in a violent world and capable of extreme violence. I think if there was no paranormal elements, this simply would have been a crime romance about made men in Chicago. It was creepy who everyone bowed down to Stefano and his family and was constantly telling Francesca how lucky she was to be the apple of his eye. I think I would want to get the heck out of there. It could be what's going on right now in the country that has me sensitive to a lot of Kool-aid drinking, but that was a turnoff for me.

The other thing that bothered me was so controlling and rough Stefano was with Francesca. Now I can't say he was abusive. But he was very clearly always the one in control and expected Francesca to go along with this. I'm not into that whole aspect in which the hero is uber dominant and the heroine is submissive to him in every aspect of their relationship. Francesca did have a backbone and she was her own person, but I found her too compliant for my tastes.

I was kind of meh about Stefano. He was hot looking, with the black hair and dark blue eyes (which I really like). I dug how the Ferraros always wore three piece suits and looks damned good in them. But being rich and hot isn't everything. I mean, he's a good guy and takes care of the family and the folks in his neighborhood. And he doesn't take crap. He puts his enemies down hard. He really lost me when he kept going on about how he needed sex and lots of it, but the women didn't mean anything to him. I can't stand when the hero's sexual past in rubbed in the heroine's face. Francesca kept running into Stefano's vindictive hookups and many excuses were made about how it was a nature of the Shadow Riders, but she was special to him and he adored her. Then the dude has the nerve to think about hunting down Francesca's first and only lover other than him and killing him. What. The. Frell? Nope. Yes, I like a possessive hero, but not when he's been there done that and gets irritated because the he isn't the first for the heroine. Double Standard Alarm going off.

Another thing is how raunchy and rough the love scenes have gotten to be in Feehan's books. Very much over the line into erotic. I am not against sex scenes, I just get to the point where it's too much for me. Especially when it's about the hero making all the demands the heroine submitting to him sexually. It doesn't do a thing for me.

I guess there was a good love story. I didn't really connect to that aspect of the book. I was more intrigued with the shadow rider concept and the suspense storyline. Feehan knows how to write a good action and suspense story. I loved the climax. It was on point. When I was about to check out because of all the sex scenes that went on too long, the storyline twisted back to focus on the action and suspense, and I was hooked as before.

This was almost a four star, but the things I complained about above kept it in the 3.5 star range. I really wish Feehan would chill down some of the raunchy love scenes and the must have control in the bedroom aspect. That's getting old. I love a tender lover personally in my romances. If he gets a little wild every now and then, that's cool. But rough 24/7, no thanks. I love the family element and I grew fond of the Ferraro siblings. I'm looking forward to the sister's story with the guy who's in the rival family. My luck, it will probably be the last book in the series. Since it's Feehan and she's like my personal brand of crack, I will read them all.

View all my reviews

The Dresden Files: Fool Moon, Volume 1 by Jim Butcher (Author), Mark Powers, Chase Conley (Illustrator)

The Dresden Files: Fool Moon, Volume 1 by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the graphic novel version of the second book in the Dresden Files series. I loved the book and the graphic novel does a satisfying job of representing the prose version. Of course, the story is paired down, but the artwork makes up for it. It's interesting the way Dresden is represented in the graphic novel. It's not quite how I see him. He's more macho and superheroic-looking in this incarnation. One notable aspect of book is the action scenes. Right on par with the written narrative. The colors are vivid and active. In conclusion, these graphic novels don't take the place of the prose books, but they are a nice adjunct to them.

View all my reviews

Bride by Design by Leigh Michaels

Bride By Design  (Contract Brides) by Leigh Michaels

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I was hoping for a good, older Harlequin goodie when I picked this up, but I didn't get my fix that I wanted.  Reading this was like swimming through molasses. I don't know if it was my mood or if the story just didn't do it for me. I suspect it was a bit of both.  Now I am not the girl who thinks every book she reads needs to have descriptive sex, so that wasn't my problem with this book. It was that I didn't feel the love between David and Eve.  Eve was fighting tooth and nail not to feel anything, I do get.  She was recovering from a damaging relationship with a man who turned out to be married, which I can respect. However, the execution on that was poor. I never felt that Eve had an ethical dilemma with the adultery so much as that he was thinking of leaving his wife for her, and specifically his kids.  Yes, taking a man away from his children is bad, but it's also bad to participate in an adulterous relationship and contributing to a man betraying his wife is equally bad.  I didn't expect Eve to wear a scarlet letter 'A', but she didn't seem to have any angst about the actual act of cheating.  The author threw in a casual 'he said he was separated', which means nothing to me. He's still married.  So, yes, that was an issue with this book.

The other issue is just that it felt mediocre.  No passions were stirred in the slightest.  I didn't care about the love story.  David was mildly appealing. He was a nice guy, he was attractive, but he was bland to me. I liked him, and that was as deep as it got.  Eve was bland as well, when she wasn't abrasive.  I didn't care about her that much. I normally like when the heroine is slow to fall for the hero and he has to work to woo her, when it's done well, but in the case of this book, it didn't work for me. As far as Eve, I didn't feel any sympathy for her and I don't think David did that much wooing.

End verdict:  This was disappointing for a book of my favorite theme: marriage of convenience.  I guess my needs for a good and quick romance were too great for this book to satisfy. I give it three stars because it wasn't a bad book, but it was just okay.  Lukewarm is a good word for it.  One thing I did like was the fact that David was a jewelry designer, and his creations sounded beautiful! Oh, and it was set in Chicago, a much beloved city to me.  There was even a scene where David had ordered pizza.  Chicago style pizza---sigh!



View all my reviews