Books 1-3: Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, and Club Dead.

Harris certainly knows how to write a fun female protagonist. Sookie Stackhouse is waitress. She’s unschooled, doesn’t have a typical education, but has a lot of people smarts. Why? Sookie is a rare human telepath in a world filled with vampires who’ve come out of the coffin, were-people (who have not) and other supernatural creatures/goddesses, etc.

It’s a world that’s cock-eyed, but what saves it is Sookie’s point of view, … READ MORE

C’mon-admit. Everyone likes a break now and then from those hot-and-heavy, sex-laden, deadly-serious Urban Fantasy books, right?

Here’s your perfect relax on the beach or escape the office series. Erroneously labeled as chick lit when it was marketed, this series features Katie Chandler, a small town Texan transplant to the Big City of New York.

All her life, Katie has noticed odd things happening around her. But, because they could be ignored (more or less) in her small town, she thinks that … READ MORE

Gate of Ivory opens up on the only known world in the galaxy that has magic. Science can’t explain it, and there’s no reason for it.  It Just Is. Super rational anthropology student Theadora from Pyrene is stranded on Ivory, earning money telling fortunes with her deck of cards.

Thea is a gem.  She’s pragmatic. She’ll take stories as payment for work done. She has faults. She is not athletic. She counts money like a miser, totaling paid transactions down to … READ MORE

The Dead Girls’ Dance (Morganville Vampires, Book 2) in the Morganville Vampire series by Rachel Caine…wow. It’s marketed as a young adult book.  Amazon even suggests it for 9-12 year olds! I’ve read some of Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden books so I knew that Caine knows how to deliver the plot-goods. And in this book? Did she ever.

The main heroine is 16 year old genius Claire who has moved into a house in the town of Morganville and out of … READ MORE

Mary Janice Davidson’s mermaid series Sleeping with the Fishes (Fred the Mermaid, Book 1) is fantastic. It’s set in Boston (SQUEE!) and features the New England Aquarium quite prominently.Her delightfully snarky half-human protagonist Fred is a marine biologist utterly resistant to the charms of Thomas, the water fellow at the NEA, and Artur, the mer-prince who’s come to woo her. These delightfully silly three must combine forces to save the Harbor from becoming a poo-filled wasteland. Dude. Most romance novels … READ MORE

Not only Zombie apocalypses, but ye plain olde apocalypses!

Here’s a quick summary of what I’ve been reading:

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan– Ryan’s first novel, classed as YA, takes place in a future in which surviving humans don’t believe the stories they’ve heard of their past, before zombies (the unconsecrated) emerged. One girl does believe the stories handed down to her, and becomes obsessed with finding the ocean. Her chance arrives when a mysterious girl, mistakenly turned … READ MORE

Fire Study was a somewhat unmemorable conclusion to an otherwise strong trilogy. In it, we’re once again trying to negotiate peace between Ixia and Sitia. Yelena is also trying to get comfortable with her role as a Soulfinder, figure out a way to be with Valek, and reconcile a series of dual obligations related to her newly discovered family, her dual citizenship in these two countries, and her growing desire for independence. The text’s flaws included an increasingly de-fanged Valek … READ MORE

I’m still on a big YA kick, and went ahead through the first volume of Smith’s Night World collection. Again, Smith’s prose is gorgeously lucid, and the plots are quite fun. My one hesitation is that Smith’s got an on-going motif re: female archetypes that’s kinda making me twitch. The whole DID YOU NOTICE XXX IS SO WILD MAGIK IT MAKES YOUR TEETH HURT? THIS IS WHY THEY’RE IEXPLICABLY SEXY!!! as a means of characterization is making me a leeeeeeeetle … READ MORE

Just finished the first vol. of the series the Secret Circle. Smith’s an amazing YA writer — her characters are generally distinct from both one another and from other series, which is always fun. While her plots can be a bit rote, she infuses them with fresh life because of her able prose and her quirky details.

On to the plot. Cassie has to move out to Cape Cod because of MYSTERIOUS FAMILY REASONS her mother won’t tell her. After starting  … READ MORE

Okay, here’s a quick run through of what I’ve been reading..

Magic Study is the sequel to Poison Study, once again following the adventures of Yelena as she continues to encounter political power plays and navigates her new-found magical powers. Interestingly, she discovers that she’s not at all a super-powered demi-goddess. She’s got some neato powers, sure, but she can’t start fires, which is a pretty common magic, and her insistent desire to be independent still gets her into trouble. She’s def … READ MORE