Dream Warrior: Sherrilyn Kenyon-Book Seventeen

It's here!!! Well, it's been here for a few days now. I
loyally hopped on over to my local bookstore and
picked up Dream Warrior on it's official release
date. Sort of. The official Dark-Hunter site said it
was due out February 2nd. My bookstore didn't
shelve it until the 3rd. Ummm, you don't care and I
totally understand that. So, what do I have to say
about the latest Dream-Hunter installment?

Charming. Simply charming.

Kenyon comes at us with a fine romp through the
realms. She brings us Cratus and Delphine, Titan
and Oneroi alike. Of course, this is a love story but
like all good paranormals it's a spine tingling romp
as our heroes save the world and the whole gods
damned universe from utter and I do mean utter,
annihilation.

Cool huh?

So who's this Cratus dude?

He's a god, a Titan, a once Sentinel of Zeus. He's
born of Warcraft and Hate. He's a venomous
bad-ass who was cursed by Zeus for his defiance
against the father god. Mr. Meany-Hand-of-Zeus
dared to spare the life of an innocent, baby to be
exact. Cratus, now known as Jericho, has spent
thousands of years stripped of his god powers,
living amongst the humans and dying a nightly
brutal death only to wake again to his horrible
existence.

Really, that's enough to make anyone pissy.

Meet Delphine, an Oneroi sent to persuade Jericho
to save the very gods who turned his back on him.
She has to, the fate of the world hinges on it. Does
she get to Jericho in time?

Maybe. Maybe not. Evil is afoot and sometimes it
wins out. But no worries, right? Love will find a
way? The Gods will find a way?

Hey come on, Ash is in this one. Of course
someone, somewhere will find a way. Question is,
what kind of gods awful price has to be paid. You
know someone's gotta give up something. We can
only hope that it doesn't suck total ass.

But wait!!!!! There's more!!!! There are sooo many
seeds planted in this book that there is no doubt
that all this phase two spew is true. Kenyon has a
new cycle of story line that is turning the world on
its head. And really page 314 of our straight to
paper back is a doozy. Don't peak though, let it
tease you, let it caress you 'til you want to cry.
But don't wait on this book. Get it now. I know you
won't regret it.

One Silent Night: Sherrilyn Kenyon-Book Sixteen

Kenyon: One Silent Night



One silent night for sure. I started reading One Silent Night early Saturday afternoon. I was done with it by the next early afternoon. It was a really short book, but surprisingly cool, quick and hot. I guess it was traditional Kenyon in many ways. Traditional except for the fact we are focusing on the bad guys.

The “bad guys”? Who is to say who is bad and who is good? Is justice nothing more than balance or…..this isn’t really a philosophy class but hey who says romance novels can’t have a little intellect wrapped in the hot sweaty sex?

No one important…

So, who is this “bad guy” I speak of? I speak of Strykerius. Mr. Son-of-Apollo-turned Daimon-King-Himself.

At first glance I was “eh”. I can take him or leave him. I have to say that that really hasn’t changed much for me. He’s got the noble asshole thing going and I really love that, but the character himself doesn’t spin my goggles. I see nothing, but another relatively hot demigod who is just okay in the pantheon of hot Kenyon dudes. You know who got my fires going though?

Zephyra.

Normally the female version of “ you burned me and I’m bitter routine” comes off kind of too bitchy to me. A lot of writers go a little too far with it and the female gets annoying. Phyra isn’t in this category and her rage comes across as passion. Her anger is justified and when she sees the light she gives in without truly backing down. I think for the first time in a long while, Kenyon delivers a partnership of true equals and really that’s what makes One Silent Night one of the hotter books in the series.

So what’s the deal with the plot?

Here’s where I have to tread carefully. I want to tell you everything, but I also want you to have that bit of surprise. So, I will be brief. Stryker and Zephyra were once an item. He left her because Daddy threatened to kill her. The rest is full of miscommunication, hurt, anger and even lies. In the end, all is good. Well, what does “good” mean when we’re talking “bad guys”?

Oh, Stryker unleashes some major deadly shit to go after Acheron. The kind of deadly shit that the Gods really, really don’t want the stink of to the point that they are actually scared. And then there is Nick G.

Yeah, he’s back and well, I have to say with a vengeance.

You gotta read it now. I know you do. I can feel you aching for it. Believe me you, it’s entirely worth it and the only bad thing about finishing One Silent Night is now you have to wait for Kenyon to finish writing the next one.

© 2009

Acheron: Sherrilyn Kenyon-Book Fifteen

Redeemed!!!!!!!

Yeah I know you are thinking I mean Acheron and partly that’s right, but this is personal.

Ack-uh-rhan. Turn to page 542 kiddies and look it up. That is the CORRECT pronunciation of Acheron. It’s like Cicero isn’t sis-uh-ro . It’s Kick-a- ro. That’s the way the old fucks did it and when I walked into a shop looking for Acheron under it’s correct pronunciation I got tsked, scoffed and treated like a total newb.

Okay, I was a newb. I hadn’t seen Acheron called “Ash” yet and I admit I like the sound of ASHERON better, but I am an anthro freak and all that historical shit means a lot to me, including pronunciations. So, like I said REDEEMED by the great one herself.

You gonna argue with me now, Miss Store Clerk?

Fuck no, you’re not.

Umm…I guess we can start the review now.

In my hopping around many a book store I often heard that the first half of the way long Acheron was just too harsh and “Kenyon goes on and on. Okay, we get it. His life sucked.” This sentiment and others like it worried me. What the hell was coming up?

Well, I’ve now read the entire book, out takes and all and you know, the first half is harsh. It is brutal. It did make me cry and at times it made me shudder. There were moments I connected to Acheron’s pain in ways I didn’t want to. And it took me four days to read the book because I couldn’t stomach a constant intake of such sorrow. That said, I think Kenyon did Acheron justice by telling his WHOLE story.

But if you have rape issues, molestation issues, or any kind of abuse issues and you are not ready to confront your own demons, skip the first half of the book and go straight to part two that takes place in present time. You won’t lose much by not knowing the gory details of Ash’s life. You will by now, assuming you’ve read the entire series, gotten the gist of everything.

I think it brave of Kenyon to put it out there though. I have stories that I have set aside because I thought the world wasn’t ready for them. I’m reading this stuff thinking that world is ready for such darkness and I will be able to plate up my own tales.

Anyway, let’s get back to Acheron.

The second half of the book brings us back to the “normal” feel of a Kenyon DH book. It’s lighthearted, humorous, romantic and dark all at the same time. We get to see parts of Ash that we already knew were there and we get to see him find his own way, wrestle with his own demons and find a happiness he deserves. Of course…..

Things are never easy and things often have a price. I don’t think, even in this, even in Acheron’s tale that he got out of it unscathed. Do any of our Dark-Hunters?

No, not really. They do find redemption though even if the purity of happiness is forged in fire. Acheron is no different and quite frankly, I don’t think he wants to be, not entirely anyway.

So who is the super chick? (She hates the word chick, by the way.) She is Soteria Kafieri. Hmmmm, sound familiar? It should. Megeara ala Arik is her cousin and we might have spent some time in Tory, Soteria’s, part of the world.

If I have my memory straight, I didn’t care much about Tory when I first met her. I didn’t hate her or like her. She was just there. In this latest piece by Kenyon though, I do like her and what seems like an unlikely match becomes very likely. And I have to say this:

Tory is not stupid. She didn’t let a lot of things slide like her cousin did in her tale. Tory thought things through, questioned and had a balance of curiosity and logic. I guess I’m saying Tory is a believable character.

And I guess I’m saying I like the book. I do, very, very much. ALL of it, too. So nab it if you haven’t. I think it’s still in hardback, but if you get it through Rhapsody Romance the book is a tad lighter than the one you might get at Borders or a place like that.

So what’s next? One Silent Night. I can’t wait. Well, yeah I can. I think I’m going to revel in the idea of Acheron before I move on. It was a long time coming, so I’m going to savor it.

© 2008

Dream Chaser : Sherrilyn Kenyon (Book Fourteen)

What can I say?

It’s about fucking time!!

I mean that in two ways.

One, it’s about time I actually started and finished Dream Chaser. It feels like months have passed since this book was at the front of the queue. Well, the Holidays do take months two get through. Starting with Halloween my time is…oh, this is a book review.

Two, it’s about time I adored a Dream-Hunter novel. This is book three in that little part of the Dark-Hunter ‘Verse and I have to say I love this one. Xypher is just the right mix of gothic angst and demon/god bad ass. And the best part? I love the chick in this one, but before I go on let’s talk plot.

Xypher who we met in the little Dimme incident is back, with a vengeance for vengeance. He’s pretty pissed at Satara and when you find out why you’ll be pissed at her as well.

So, Xypher is freed from hell for one month for revenge. In his search he happens upon Simone, a medical examiner who collects oddities, oddities that happen to be ghosts, squires and the like. Simone is a great woman. She’s smart, funny, playful and has her own demons to contend with. (After you read the book that sentence is funny.) Dream Chaser takes us on a romp through New Orleans, love, death, betrayal and the coming together of two people.

All in all it’s fab. This Dream-Hunter novel takes on more of the feel of the Dark-Hunter ones. I’m glad Kenyon found her groove in the story lines. I don’t exactly want her to do a DH repeat, but I do want believability. I like logical reaction to circumstance and she comes back to that in this installment. Seriously, she needed to or I was going to bail on the whole Dream-Hunter thing. Now I won’t and now I will suggest the other two D-C novels as should reads, still not must reads, but you should if you want complete knowledge of that side of the world. You certainly should read this one and meet Jaden an apparently upcoming focus.

Yanno I could go on, but I don’t want to. Acheron is next and I have several hundreds of yummy pages to get through. Mmmmmm,Ash….

(c) 2009

Twilight, The Movie

I had this long, no short debate on whether to read the book first or not. It only seemed long because I had two or three five minutes bouts of this since the movie came out.

However I kind of did both. Let me explain because how do you read the book before it’s movie and vice versa at the same time.

Simple. I didn’t finish the book.

I read Twilight up to the point Edward is all grinchy and wants out of his biology class. Then I set the book aside and read Sunshine even though I’m supposed to be reading the last couple available books in the Dark-Hunter Series. Truth be told, I’m holding off on them only because I don’t want the world to end, my interaction with the DH world anyway.

Let me get on with it.

So, as you read this review do remember that I haven’t completely read Stephanie Meyers book completely, but I did read enough of it to get the feel for the two main characters and the town.

I liked Bella. I think she was cast very well and well just about everyone was cast with a visual success right down to Bella’s beat up truck. The feel of the upper mid-west was captured effectively from the rainy, overcast, leisurely feel to the enormous consumption of vitamin R, Mount Rainier beer. (There is a pun in there….)

The movie also seemed to follow the book rather well, as far as I read anyway. But…

I have to say the sorest point for me is the soundtrack. I hated 90% of the insipid music that was trying very, very hard to create a 70’s romance but instead made what could have been wonderfully romantic scenes into big yawners and the need for the movie to “just get on with it”.

Not to mention that the vamp make-up sucked ass. Everyone was too pretty, too perfect and it looked too fake. (And all the vampires seemed like they had constipation issues.)The golden skin thing was cool, but they were waaaay too pale for believability and well, I was absolutely reminded that Twilight is for young adults and though the reading of it may transcend age, the movie didn’t. (Strange how Harry Potter movies do and this doesn't.)

And….well there are some flaws in the plot, some notions that teenagers have such freedom and well…it’s fantasy so we’ll let it go.

Aside from that, I kind of liked the movie. I wasn’t thrilled with it in any way, but the overall story is a nice departure from basic vamp stuff and that in and of itself is cool. Oh and the fight scene was good, predictable, but good. Overall, if you’re a vampire fan go see it just to say you did. (Or rent it, that might be better unless you have teenage girls or are one.)

Hmmm, if I were going to give out stars, five being super way excellent then I’m giving Twilight, the movie, 2 and half stars. I’ll probably be nicer to the book, but not until after I get my DH fix.

Sunshine: Robin McKinley

I know I was supposed to be reading Kenyon’s Dream Chaser, but there are no hard and fast rules. If there were, they’d be mine and I can break them whenever I wish.

So, what have I been reading? That would be sly if the title of this post didn’t blatantly tell you what I’ve been reading. And what do I think of Sunshine by Robin McKinley?

Hmmm, let me tell you what Neil Gaiman thinks “Pretty much perfect.” How about Jayne Ann Krentz…“Fabulous.”

These are the blurbs on the front of the book. They caught my eye. So yeah, blurbage is a great marketing tool.

Okay, so we know that some people think it’s great, some paid people even. Me? I’m not paid. Does that make my opinion more believable? Not necessarily, but it sounds good.

Now, Sunshine is not a new book by any means. It was first copyrighted in 2003. The books been around and it’s been somewhat popular on the scene. I didn’t hear about it until I saw it on the “new releases” section at Barnes and Noble. A new cover, maybe? First time in trade paperback size? (You can pay $14 for the big size or $7.99 for pocket size, new.)

Oh, you probably don’t care about all that.

Anyway, after all this time, you’d expect there to be a sequel for this book by now, but according to the writer’s blog there “probably won’t be.”

That’s kind of tragic because I really like this book and I like the characters a lot. I will agree with Krentz and say the book is fabulous. I’m not going to go so far as to say that the book is “pretty much perfect” because it isn’t.

The story moves along very well, there are a lot of twists and turns, some awesome turns of phrases and some philosophical bits that really get your synapses moving. This book, called a romance by some, is highly intelligent, has a great spin on the paranormal world, takes you to places that you never have been before. The destination is wondrous!!!

But the god-damned road is bumpy at times.

There are moments when McKinely is too indulgent in the exposition. You really get a sense that all kinds of information is being crammed into it just in case you never get to come back to the world again. After just having read that McKinley “doesn’t do re-writes” I can understand the tendency. You do need to paint the world for the reader and if you aren’t coming back to it, you’ve got to do it in limited space.

I would rather have a sequel than that though. It seems like Sunshine would be better served as a seven course meal rather than a single dinner feast after having skipped both breakfast and lunch.

Even with the every so often sense of info cram, the book is highly palatable. It’s a sweet adventure, taking the ordinary Sunshine and making her more than what she knows her self to be or capable of.

Who is Sunshine?

She’s a baker. She’s done nothing but most of her life. She has a grueling, boring life that she seems quite happy with. Her parents are divorced, she comes from a famous magic-handling family that disappeared after the War.

We come across her when she’s having a bad day, decides to forgo a weekly movie ritual with friends and family and goes to a lake, where she recalls memories of her Grandmother who taught her some basics in magic-handling.
After that, the vampires come. The story begins. It’s intense, but it’s not. It’s fast, but it’s not. The whole story is full of contradictions from the way the characters move in and out of the story to the pace of the writer’s style. Some will find this difficult to handle because we are used to the writer taking us on a ride full of anticipation that feels like it wants nothing more than to a rip a scream from your throat.

This book doesn’t.

This book would love the scream, but if all you have to give is bleating whimpers, then that’s fine, too. Here you are in charge of what you see, how you read and how fast you want to go. You might even have to re-read it to grasp the complexities of what is delivered. (Through no fault of your own, like I said, some of this shit is crammed down your cerebral throat.)

After all that what do I really want to say? Can I sum up the book in a single phrase, all blurby like?

“A fascinating, intelligent, romp that sends you spinning while you do nothing but stand still.” –Lilia DiOrfeo


© 2008

Upon the Midnight Clear: Sherrilyn Kenyon-Book Thirteen

I’m glad I decided not to skip the Dream-Hunter books. This one is very timely for the Holiday season and made me feel all gooey inside about Christmas. And this one was much better than the last Dream-Hunter novel, though it’s short.

I started and finished this book today, not because I’m a super fast reader though I can be. I finished it because out of the 282 pages of this paperback, 250 of it is the actual Dream-Hunter novel, and the rest of it holiday vignettes. Before I get into those though, let’s talk plot.

In Upon the Midnight Clear we come across Aidan O’Conner, an actor. He’s not a dream-hunter, a god or anything like that. He’s simply a human actor. He’s jaded, been betrayed by most every one he’s loved. (His brother, his nephew, his fiancée and others).

When I say jaded I should probably say he’s a bitter, enraged, recluse who has given up on the idea that humanity has any kindness flowing through its masses. He’s very emo, but he has good reason and, he’s really a nice guy. He’s been too giving, overlooked too much and was basically taken advantage of. Not in a wimpy way though.

So who is our love interest? A goddess. Just a goddess? No, not just a goddess but one of the Oneiroi. She’s been in stasis after fighting Dolor, the personification of pain. And man there is history there. There’s this whole kill your daughter while you beg and watch thing going on. Yeah, I know, not very Christmassy. Trust me, the book gets there.

Anyway, betrayal and vengeance is afoot. They collide and outcomes this Kenyon style Christmas carol. It’s brief, but it’s sweet. It’s not full of super hot sex, but it is full of hope and overcoming. That’s enough right? C’mon you can’t celebrate baby Jesus with tons of sex scenes!! One or two mild, loving ones is tastefully enough. Right?

It’s right for me.

And what about the critique? Hmmm, just remember that this is not a Dark-Hunter novel. You are not going to get the same kind of depth here as you would with them. I’m not sure why because the story doesn’t suck ass. It’s a well-rounded, brief little jewel that outshines the first official Dream-Hunter novel.

Perhaps the weakness of the Dream-Hunter series is the lack of connection with the Oneiroi and Skoti themselves. They are cool, but they seem too otherworldly and we, as mere mortals, can’t comprehend them the same way we can those who once walked amongst us.

They have no emotions or have lived ages without them. The curse is weakening yes, but maybe there aren’t enough of us so devoid of emotion that we can understand it. Or rather, maybe the curse is not enough justification for the lack of emotion. We humans like sound justifications for our assholery, right? I know I do.

This is not to say that the Dream-Hunter series is bad. The series is just different and has a hard time being compared to the Dark-Hunter standard. This is often the case with spin-offs. So, I’m giving the Dream-Hunters and Kenyon a lot of slack.

But like I said, I liked it and I’m looking forward to the next installment where Xypher takes center stage in Dream Chaser. And oh yum, after that is Acheron!!!! I’ve already heard some titillating and even worrisome things about that one. I’m itching to get to it, but I like the torture and the tease of making myself wait. (And you quite frankly.) *grins*

Oh before I head off, maybe I should say something about the vignettes…

There be three of them as we take a stroll through Christmas celebrations. We visit the Peltiers, the Hunters and Acheron’s place. In each the Holidays stir some sadness, some happiness and the stories remind us of the challenges our heroes still face. Aimee, Fang….Fury….Nick…and the grand man himself, Acheron have stories left untold.

Wow, we’re on book 13 and there is still so much to go. Good, because I’m addicted to the darkly sweets. In case I don’t see you, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you!!!!

© 2008