Books 28-30: The Morganville Vampires

Books 28-30 were the first three books in Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire series. The basic plot is that 16 year old Claire moves to Morganville, Texas to attend college. When she is terrorized in the dorm, she rents a room with some locals, and then discovers that the town is run by vampires. The first three books were very engrossing, as Claire gets into one bad situation after another with the town's vampires and falls in love with roommate Shane. Eventually, Claire becomes something of a pet to the town's founding vampire, and is working to discover a cure to whatever illness is slowly killing the vampire population.

I was so engrossed that I had to make myself stop and read other things so that I could get some distance. I went a head and started the fourth book, which was pretty much necessary. Caine ends all of these books on a cliffhanger, so its near impossible to not pick up the next book and see what happens. I'll probably whine a lot when I finish the 5th and have to wait for the 6th to be released.

Books 26 & 27

Book 25 was Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris, the fifth book in the Southern Vampire series. I liked the plot of this one in which a sniper is stalking the shapeshifters around Bon Temps and Sookie is being hunted as well. However, I swear Sookie had six men panting after her and the whole romance part was just too much. It just takes it too far that this many men are obsessed with this one small town waitress. I hope the next few books stick to a love triangle or at least a quadrangle.

Book 26 was Hunted by PC and Kristin Cast, the fifth book in the Marked series. Like Dead as a Doornail, the plot of this book was really good. Zoey and her crew have escaped the House of Night following the rise of Kalona, and they're now in the tunnels under Tulsa deciding what to do about him and his children, the Raven Mockers. Again, like Doornail, the romance aspect was a bit too much for me to believe. Zoey has three guys, four if you count Kalona, pursuing her. I know its a series and they have to draw out the drama to leave the reader guessing, but the same guys constantly fighting over the same girl with the same arguments is getting old. Still, that was the only downside to this book, other than its lack of an ending. It really seems to be the setup for the next few books, where I presume there will be a showdown with Kalona and Neferet.

Books 24 & 25

Book 24 was Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris, the fourth book in her Southern Vampire series. I started this book last year, but put it down when I couldn't really get into it. I picked it back up last week and started over since I couldn't remember anything that had happened. It was like pulling teeth to get me to pick it up and read the first half of the book. Unlike a lot of fans of the series, I'm not a fan of the character of Eric. After book 3, I'm not a huge fan of Bill either, but I still like him better than Eric and Bill was only in this book for 2 scenes.

The second half of the book was much better, once all the action started and Alcide came into the plot, which is basically that some evil witches have come to town, stolen Eric's memory and are trying to take over the area. The action at the end was good, and I really got caught up in the story then. I'm excited to start book 5, since the cover art looks like Bill and Sookie, which gives me hope that Bill is in this one a lot more.

Book 25 was Lover Eternal, the second Black Dagger Brotherhood book by JR Ward. Again, Ward is an interesting author, hitting the reader over the head with how badass and cool her characters are, but Rhage and Mary's story is really sweet and it remains probably my second favorite book in the series behind the third book, Lover Awakened.

Books 20 - 23

I'm re-reading JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series in preparation for the newest in the series, Love Avenged, to come out at the end of April, so Book 20 was the first BDB book, Dark Lover. This is one of my favorites in the series, and I enjoyed re-reading it, although I've read it enough times to skim over the boring parts with the bad guys. I'm hoping Ward cuts out some of the time she spends in each book focusing on the bad guys. I kind of like to be surprised by what the baddies are planning, and Ward lets the reader in on their plans a little too much to suit me.

Books 21 - 23 were the 3 stories in LJ Smith's Night World 2 anthology: Dark Angel, The Chosen, and Soulmate. Dark Angel was fairly boring, and I never really felt connected to the heroine, Gillian, or her soulmate David. I wish the back of the book hadn't given away that Gillian's so-called "guardian angel" wasn't what he seemed and let the reader figure that out on their own.

The Chosen was better, since I was excited to see human-hating Quinn again after his appearance in a couple earlier Night World books. He's another one of Smith's ambiguous heroes, who's done bad things but in the end decides on a new path of good. Smith does this with lots of her guys (Damon, Ash, etc), and it might get old after a while, but I still liked Quinn a lot.

My fave in this anthology was Soulmate, the story of the oldest "made" vampire and his soulmate Hannah. I believe this story begins the setup for the apocolypse that seemed to be going on in the short story on Smith's website that carries on the plot of Ash Redfern and his mate, Mary-Lynette from Night World 1. I'm guessing all hell breaks loose in Night World 3! Nobody writes crazyness like LJ Smith.

Books 17 - 19

My latest reads for the 52 Book Challenge were quick, but fun books.

Book 17 was Dream Warrior by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Its technically one of her Dream Hunter novels, but its events are part of the ongoing plot of her Dream Hunter series. This book was probably the best of Kenyon's Dream Hunter books, mainly because the characters were in the real world through most of the book and not in the dream realm. It was fast-paced and mythology heavy, acting as a set up book, along with the last Dark Hunter book, One Silent Night, for the next story arc of Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. I liked the two main characters alot, the Titan Cratus and the Dream Hunter Delphine, but it was also nice to see some old favorites like Acheron, Tori, and Zarek. Overall, a fun book that left me excited to see what Kenyon has in store next.

Book 18 was Untamed, the fourth book in PC and Kristin Cast's House of Night series. I enjoyed this one much better than the last book, Chosen, mostly because I didn't spend most of the book pissed at the main character. Zoey got into lots of scrapes in the last book because of her own bad choices, and I was happy to see that she seems to have learned a few lessons because of it in this book. She is able to reunite with her friends, and though all hell breaks loose otherwise, I feel much better about the ending of this book as opposed to the last one. The newest book Hunted, comes out on March 10th, and I'm uber excited to see what happens.

Book 19 was Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris. I picked this book out a pile of books that my friend V was giving away at Christmas, mainly because the book (the first in a series) takes place in a fictional little town in Arkansas. It's a straightforward mystery, which hasn't really interested me in the past, but I found it entertaining nonetheless. The heroine, Lily Bard, is a woman just trying to get by, cleaning houses in small town, when she witnesses someone dumping a body. The plot unfolds as Lily tries to figure out who the culprit is. This one piqued my interest enough for me to probably pick up the next in the series to see what happens in Shakespeare next.

Book 16: The VD Craziness Continues

*Spoilers Ahead!*
The latest book in LJ Smith's Vampire Diaries series is Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall. Yes, that's actually the full title. Smith has decided to continue the series with a new trilogy which picks up 7 days after the older books left off, with Elena back from the dead.

This book was pure, undiluted batshit insanity. Really.

The book is confusing right off the bat for anyone who read the old series. When Elena returned from the dead at the end of Dark Reunion, she was human and seemingly had all her faculties. At the beginning of the new book, Elena is mute and childlike, having woke up that way the day after she came back from the dead. This is never explained, just that she was fine when she came back, but woke up a "spirit child" the next day.

Elena is doing the vampire version of getting it on with Stefan, despite the fact that she seems to be lacking some mental faculties, which is not very honorable of St. Stefan. She also floats around, glowing like a life-size lightning bug. Really, she even bumps into windows while she floats around. And she has powerful magical powers. And she has trouble remembering people so she gives them a big kiss (yes, girls too) to get to know them.

Suddenly, all the characters are using all this technology. They all have internet capable, video cell phones, and they know all about computers. This would make sense in the context of the current time period, but it throws the reader off since none of this technology existed in the other books, but suddenly it appears here.

The plot of the book starts when Damon is approached by a mystical fox thingymajig, who offers to get Stefan out of the way so that Damon can pursue Elena, but the fox has ulterior motives. Fox thingy gets his minions, the malach, to possess Damon. Stefan is kidnapped, with possessed Damon's help. Elena finally snaps out of her mute "spirit child" ways (but not before Stefan tows her behind his car with a clothesline). It becomes clear that something is possessing the young women of Fell's church. Much hijinx ensues while Elena tries to figure out what is wrong with Damon, and the fox and his sister (also a fox) try to destroy the town with their malach (bug like creatures who possess people). Really, there's more than that, but its all very nonsensical.

Elena and her friends, with Damon's help, eventually drive the foxes away from Fell's Church, but the foxes refuse to give them the keys to free Stefan, only giving Elena some cryptic clues about where to find the keys. The book ends with Damon, Elena, and Matt as fugitives (a pregnant Caroline has accused Matt of raping her to cover up her out of wedlock conception with the crazed werewolf Tyler from the original books) determined to figure out how to free Stefan, despite Damon still pursuing Elena to be his princess of Darkness. Really. That's how it ends.

This book was completely insane to the point that I couldn't read more than a few chapters at a time. I rationed out the Crazy over about a week. It was confusing and outrageous, but in the end that's kind of the point of reading LJ Smith. Its all about the insanity. And the mocking. Definitely the mocking.

Books 12 - 15: Vampire Diaries I-IV

I re-read all four books in LJ Smith's Vampire Diaries series in preparation for reading the new addition to the series, Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall. Does that title have enough colons for you?

Anyway, the series was just as wonderful and ridiculous as ever. Smith tells an interesting story with engaging characters, but her writing has some huge flaws. I think my biggest pet peeve is that plot points are picked up then abandoned too quickly. Elena wakes up as a vampire, but she thinks that Damon is her soulmate. Then a few pages later, instead of really delving into the implications of that, Elena suddenly remembers that she loves Stefan. Then there's something suspicious about Aunt Judith's fiance, but then he's fine and its never mentioned again.

Still, the story is engrossing, although sometimes its simply because you want to see what insane plot point Smith will introduce next. I've started reading the new one already, and its craziness, y'all, pure craziness.

Book 11: The Host

The latest book in my quest to read 52 books this year is The Host by Stephenie Meyer. Its Meyer's only non-Twilight Saga novel, an adult science fiction tale of Earth occupied by an alien race.

I first bought this book when it hit the shelves last year, but could not get into it after reading 4 or 5 chapters. I put it down and made a note to pick it up again, and this challenge seemed like a good reason. Always better for the checkbook to read something I already own.

I'm not sure what the problem was last time, perhaps I was so into the Twilightverse that I could not get into anything that was not that, but this time I had no trouble getting into the story. The basic plot is that a race of peaceful aliens has invaded Earth, implanting themselves into human bodies and supressing their "host" beings. However, a strong human who has been on the run from the aliens, Melanie Styder, refuses to be completely surpressed by the alien being in her body, Wanderer. Hijinks ensues as Wanderer gets to know and love Melanie and sets off to find those that Melanie cares about.

From a writing standpoint, The Host is a much stronger book than any of the Twilight series, with the possible exception of Breaking Dawn. The characters are all wonderfully written, with their own voices and eccentricities. The plot is more intricate and better paced, with plenty of action thrown in to temper the romance. Overall, a fun read that makes me want more. Meyer has hinted that this may turn into a trilogy, which would be wonderful.

Book 10: Chosen

Book 10 in the challenge was the third book in the House of Night series, Chosen by PC and Kristin Cast. In my experience, in a series that is supposed to be fairly lengthy, you have to have a couple of books where everything goes all to hell to keep the story going.

This was one of those 'it all went to hell' books.

Zoey continues to navigate her path as an extraordinarily powerful fledgling, dealing with the undead, an enemy that everyone believes is a good guy, and not one, but three boyfriends.

I was pretty horrified at some of the choices that Zoey makes in this one, but I also have to remember that Zoey is 17 and isn't always going to make what seems like the obvious right choice to the reader.

I was a little squicked out by the fact that an adult man sleeps with a student in this book. I'm not sure if any book with that in it should be placed in the YA section of the bookstore. The book doesn't necessarily glorify the act, and there are grave consequences, but I'm still iffy on it.

Looking forward to reading book four in the series, Untamed, before the new one, Hunted, comes out in March.

Book 9: Vampire Academy

This book was the first one I've ever listened to completely on audiobook (I've read the actual book before), and I really enjoyed the experience. The reader had a nice voice, even if her voices for a couple characters were slightly annoying.

I found myself really engrossed in the story while listening, especially near the end. I credit some of this to the narrator, but mostly to Mead's great storytelling ability. The vampire mythology of the VA series is very well developed, and Mead writes great characters. I fell in love all over again with my favorite character in this series, Christian. He's got black hair, blue eyes, biting sarcasm, and creates fire in his hands (yeah, I had a thing for Pyro too).

Anyway, it was a great way to enjoy a book I've read before. I'm not sure how well I'll follow the story for a book I haven't read on audio, but we'll find out as I plan to start Outlander on audio next!

Book 8: I <3 Vane Kattalakis

Book 8 in my book challenge was Night Play by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Its a re-read, one of my favorites in her Dark Hunter series. This book actually features a Were-hunter, and I think her Were-hunters are the most awesome. Her other full length Were-hunter book, Unleash the Night, is another one I can read over and over again. Maybe I like the idea of a mate who is also a pet.

Anyway, a lot of Kenyon fans like this book because the heroine is a real woman. She's a size 18, she owns a small business, and she freaks out about the supernatural (which is kind of refreshing in this series where most of the women seem almost superhuman in their ability to learn all this freakish stuff and take it in stride).

I like this book because Vane Kattalakis is a complete badass. He's a sorcerer whose powers probably are trumped only by the gods and he's just hawt. He can teleport himself wherever, create clothes out of thin air and time travel. I wants one!

The plot and writing style is typical Kenyon, but that's not a knock. Her talent is obvious and she's got me completely hooked!

Book 7: More House of Night

Betrayed is the second book in the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast. This book picks up right where Marked left off, with Zoey taking her place as the head of the Dark Daughters and struggling to figure out her confusing love life. I continued to enjoy the writers' narrative style as much as I did in the first. I think there's some concern that all the pop culture references could date the books, but at the same time, I feel like a book from a teen's perspective is being untrue to the teen lifestyle if they leave out pop culture references.

This book also really emphasized what I love and hate about series books. On one hand, reading a series is great in that you keep getting more stories about characters you love. When one book ends, you know you might get some satisfaction for that need to know what happened next. However, reading series often makes me try not to get too attached to the characters. Yes, the main character usually survives til at least the last book, but everyone else is up for grabs. They could turn out to be evil in book 7, after you've had 6 books of liking them. I felt that way in Betrayed, when a character I loved from Marked started turning out to not be the person you thought they were.

All around though, it was an enjoyable read. I'm taking a little time to read some other books, but I will definitely keep reading this series. I've already bought the rest that are published at the moment, so look for reviews of Chosen and Untamed.

Book 6: Yet Another Vampire Book

The latest book in my book challenge was Marked, the first book in the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast. According to their bios, P.C. is an accomplished author and Kristin is her teen daughter, which I thought gave the books an interesting dynamic and storytelling style. I thought the book was very well written, on top of being interesting. The writers have an almost stream of consciousness writing style. Its more organized than true stream of consciousness, but you can tell the authors are familiar with the minds of teenagers and the tangents they sometimes go on.

The mythology of the series is very interesting. The only other vampire myth I can compare it to is from Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. Vampires are out in society in the House of Night series. Everyone knows they exist, but of course, there are groups of people, particularly conservative religious ones, who think they are the spawn of Satan. The premise of the book is that Zoey, a fairly normal teenage girl, is Marked as a vampire and then leaves home to go live at a school for other fledgling vamps, where, of course, hijinks ensue.

Overall, I thought it was excellent, and I look forward to checking out the next book in the series. Lucky for me, I still have a gift card from Christmas.

Book 5: Wow, there's no Blood Whore in this one

Book 5 was the last in LJ Smith's Night World No. 1 volume, Spellbinder. Its the story of two witch cousins, Thea and Blaise, who briefly appeared in Secret Vampire and are cousins to the vampire siblings in Daughters of Darkness.

It was probably my least favorite of the books in the series so far. The main character Thea was interesting, but her love interest, Eric, felt one-dimensional to me. Also, the Thea-Eric-Blaise love triangle was never that believable since Smith emphasized the soulmate bond between Thea and Eric. I was always certain that Eric would resist Blaise, which made the book a little less exciting.

The character of Blaise is an interesting one. She's pretty much a female version of Damon from the Vampire Diaries. She uses her powers however she feels, even when it hurts people, and looks at humans as "vermin." I very much struggled to like her at all after seeing how uncaring she seemed to be that she literally made a boy go crazy from not having her. However, I think Smith wants us to hang in there and believe that there might be something good under Blaise's surface. I'm not sure if she will appear in future books, so I guess we'll see if Smith expands any more on this character.

Book 4: Another Blood Whore...No Really

The second book in Night World No. 1 is Daughters of Darkness. This is sort of a continuation of Secret Vampire as the character of Ash who appeared in that book fulfills Poppy's prediction that someday he'd meet someone he cared about and it would hurt.

Ash's three sisters move to a little town in Oregon to live with their Aunt Opal to escape the repression of the all vampire island they grew up on. However, they arrive in town only to find their aunt dead, as well as a human girl, Mary-Lynette and her brother Mark, who find out too much, and hijinks ensue. Of course, Mary-Lynette (really, she couldn't have picked a better name?) and Ash are soulmates, but after they solve the mystery of the menace that killed Aunt Opal and stalked them, Mary-Lynette decides that she doesn't want to become a vampire, and the story basically ends with Ash going off to placate his family so the sisters don't have to go back and he and Mary-Lynette pretty much have no idea how they'll figure out their relationship. To say the least, the ending was unsatisfactory. I'm holding out hope that one of the other books will deal with them again so I can find out what happens.

This book was definitely not as good as Secret Vampire. The first half dragged, but got better in the second half. Still pretty good though.

Book 3: LJ Smith really loves blood whores

My third book for the challenge was Secret Vampire, the first book in the Night World No. 1 volume by LJ Smith. I'm counting the volume as 3 books, since Smith intended each one to be a book and each one is about 200 pages long.

I think this story has the good things about Smith's Vampire Diaries series and is missing some of VD's flaws. I love Vampire Diaries and I'm not saying this book was better, but it was definitely better written. In VD, Smith was not as adept at explaining the vampire mythology she was employing. At the end of the fourth book, I was still confused about how one became a vampire and what life as a vampire was like. In Secret Vampire, the reader isn't left wondering any of that. Smith's plot was just as solid as her characters in this one.

Smith's ability to write great characters seems to be her strong point, but her heroes and heroines are a little too similar. Secret Vampire's Poppy is very similar to VD's Elena, right down to being a trampy blood whore (for you, Lew). The hero, James, is mysterious and sexy, just like Stefan. And the paradoxical bad boy Ash reminds me greatly of Damon, VD's resident mystery man. I'm not really complaining, because Smith still makes the characters interesting, but I wonder if it will get old after reading several more Smith books.

Just like VD, this book left me wanting more. Smith has a habit of not giving the reader enough closure at the end. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I'm an adult reading a YA novel. In adult romances, the books usually end with the couple getting married or at least having sex. Since this is a YA book, there was none of that, although perhaps there might be in later books. Anyway, so the couple rides off into the sunset without even a real kiss on the lips, and I am left feeling a little bereft.

But I am looking forward to the next book in the volume, Daughters of Darkness. I'm not sure all the books have overlapping characters, but they are all set in the same universe, so hopefully they'll be equally entertaining.

Book 2: Mythology Gone Wild

Book 2 in the 52 Book Challenge is The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter. Its the second in Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series. The premise of the series is that a group of warriors were angered by the gods' decision to entrust Pandora with the box of demons and opened the box. Pandora was killed and the warriors were cursed to share bodies with the demons that they released.

The second book is about Lucien, the keeper of Death. I find Lucien to be interesting and I thought the mythology of the series is quite engrossing. However, the heroine of the book, Anya, goddess of Anarchy, was pretty unlikeable to me. She was bitchy, mean, and too needy for me to really get invested in whether or not she got a happy ending. That's the kiss of death for a romance novel. The reader must want to see the couple happy.

Another thing that bothers me is Showalters writing style during explicit scenes. Her characters start taking their clothes off and suddenly they become idiots and say crap that real people don't say. It really bugs me for some reason. If it hadn't been for the book challenge, I might not have even finished this one. I'm still deciding if I'll pick up the next book.

Book 1: Vampires and Supes on Parade

The first book I read for this year's 52 book challenge was Dead After Dark, a compilation of short supernatural romance stories. The first story, "Shadow of the Moon", is the latest in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series, so its the reason I picked it up. The story was written in typical Kenyon style, with witty banter and hot sex. I enjoyed it alot, although I've been a fan of the hero, Fury, for a while, and would have liked a full book devoted to his story. The length of the story kind of forced the plot to go from 'I hate you for betraying me' to 'I forgive you, lets get mated for life' too quickly.

The second part, "The Story of Son" by JR Ward, was quite bizarre. I'm a pretty big Ward fan, but this one was a little out there. Again, perhaps I'm just not a huge fan of these short stories simply because it forces the writer to make people fall in love in so short a timespan. Also, I was very confused by the mythology of the vampire in this story, especially since I couldn't tell if he was the same kind of vampires that inhabit Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood books.

The third story, "Seize the Night" by Susan Squires, was not bad, but kind of boring. In this one, the characters were given a longer timeline to fall in love, but I didn't find the plot of the vampire hiding out in an old house with the human exciting.

The final story, "Midnight Kiss Goodbye" by Dianna Love, was probably the best story besides Kenyon's. The characters were former lovers, which helped with that whole rushing into love problem. This story seems to be written in a universe that Love might deal with in other books, so I might have to check that out.

Next book: The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter