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

Gah. Everfree, Nick Sagan’s closer to his Black Ep. trilogy, introduced some neat-o characters, but subsided to an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion. Remember the plot? Major plague, well-to-do humans go into cryogenics, everyone else dies? After inventing post-humans, genetically engineered kiddies smart enough to save the planet? Only then one went insane and killed like half of his compatriots? ‘Member that? Kay. At this novel’s start, we find out that the post-humans have begun reanimating the world’s old movers-and-shakers, and forcing … READ MORE

Righto. Let’s begin with Michael Reaves’ sequel to The Shattered World. In THE BURNING REALM, Reaves takes up with his kooky cast a year later; Amber (symbolic love interest #1) has acquired the rank of Conjuress, Pandrogas has desperately researched a way to prevent the decay of the shattered world’s orbit, and Mirren’s started training as an assassin. Thankfully, Amber, Mirren, and the other female characters emerge as more complete characters. At times, Reaves use of the physical as a … READ MORE

Okay, so Pat Murphy is rapidly becoming my secret author lover. <3* In Nadya, Pat Murphy revitalizes the history of American West through the eyes of young Nadya, a young werewolf woman crossing the Plains with Elizabeth, a proper young woman separated from those she was traveling with, and Jenny, the lone survivor of an Indian attack on her family’s caravan’s.* Murphy uses Nadya to reflect on gender. Because Nadya is a white woman in a world where both of … READ MORE

Under the pseudonym Kate Brennan, a real woman tells her true story of being stalked for thirteen years. In His Sights starts just before Kate meets her stalker, continued through the story of their relationship – a romance that lasted a couple of years, and ends today – at which point we know from the first chapter she is still being stalked.

Her stalker is unusually tenacious. He’s wealthy, so he can afford to hound her as long as he wants … READ MORE

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is another visual masterpiece from Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola, but like its predecessor it falls down when in comes to its female characters.

In the first film, Liz Sherman’s role as a dangerous, unstable pyrokinetic was overshadowed by her role as Hellboy’s love interest (an element not found in the original comics). In the sequel, she has clearly gained much more confidence and control in her powers, but instead of addressing this character … READ MORE

You know, it says something troubling about a book when its most memorable female character is a chimpanzee… who then turns into a boy.

Plot plot plot. The Last Oracle is the latest entry in Rollins’ popular Sigma Force series, a seres of technothrillers based around the adventures of ingenious military folk. They’re in it for the moral good, y’all. Anyways, at our novel’s beginning, we’re (re)introduced to Gray Pierce, who’s still reeling over the disappearance of Monk, his BFF. Monk … READ MORE

This was a great read til the last five minutes. Basically, what’s going on is that our narrator, Ariella, is realizing that her dad’s a vampire. Also, she’s realizing that SHE might be a vampire as well. Little things like her (human) mother’s disappearance, the fact that her dad won’t let her leave the house, and that he doesn’t appear to age all point to vampirism running in the family. Amidst her own burgeoning sexuality and the mysteries surrounding a … READ MORE

Ultimately, Lisey’s Story is an unmemorable foray into King’s trademark prose. While it’s certainly compelling, it doesn’t really stand up to some of his classic works like The Stand or to some of his more recent works like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I mostly read it because I’m a pretty rabid King fan, and have a thing about reading everything by certain beloved authors.

Really, it’s this love that got me through. King takes some of his more awesome … READ MORE

Sometimes? LKH makes me really really angry. Why? Because she takes these pretty standard tropes re: the angsty mulatta, tosses in some vampires/angry faeries, and voila! People love it.

I’m gonna do a close read of The Laughing Corpse, one of the first books in the Anita Blake series. After this, I’ll probably do a follow up with Obsidian Butterfly, to talk about what almost-getting-it-right looks like.

Rightio then. We begin the story with a monster; it dashes in, kills a family, … READ MORE