Stephy Reading Challenge - Book 4

 

Deep Kiss of Winter

featuring "Untouchable" by Kresley Cole and "Tempt Me Eternally" by Gena Showalter

Sooo... I might have climbed a stack of books to reach the top shelf of one of my bookcases so I could read this one so I didn't have to leave the Immortals After Dark universe quite yet. No regrets.

Untouchable is about Murdoch Wroth and Daniela. Murdoch is a vampire, Daniela is a Valkyrie that is part ice fey. Murdoch was a... Well... he was a manwhore back in his mortal days. Daniela cannot have skin-to-skin contact due to her ice fey heritage. So... Match made in heaven? 

There is a lot of conflict in their relationship, but in the end it all works out. 

The story takes place in the background of some of the other books in the series, so there is quite a lot of mentions of what happens in those books. Which just made me want to read the series more.

Highly recommend the entire series, and highly recommend this short story. But, if you're particular about spoilers, read this where it belongs in the series. 

Tempt Me Eternally is about Aleaha Love and Breean Nu. Aleaha can change her appearance after she has skin-to-skin contact with someone. Breean is an alien. 

I've read some other books that go with this series and enjoyed them. I enjoyed this story. Though, there were a couple non-consensual bits that made me cringe a bit. Other than that, solid story and characters. Made me want to read the books I've read before again. 

Stephy Reading Challenge - Book 3

 

Dark Needs at Night's Edge by Kresley Cole

Another re-read.

I'm pretty sure this was the first book I read in the Immortals After Dark series. I am a pro at picking up books in the middle of a series, becoming obsessed with series, and having to find all the other books in the series. 

Okay. So. The book.

Néomi Laress is a ghost. She was a famous ballerina in the 1920s, but in this book, she's a ghost. A ghost stuck in her house. A house in which three vampires drag their half-mad vampire brother to and lock him up. They have a good reason. I promise. 

Conrad Wroth is the half-mad vampire. He is tormented by hallucinations because he drank a shitload of people to death. So, he thinks Néomi is another hallucination. And is kind of cranky about it cause, damnit, she's pretty.

Of course, they fall in love by the end of the book. It's a romance book. That's how it works. And I have no issues with it. The love story is cute. Has a solid conflict that you know they'll work through but you have that small bit of "what if they don't?" feeling as you read. 

Okay. I'm gonna just ramble about random bits I liked.

Conrad is a virgin. Look, a lot of straight romance novels I've read have had the female lead being a virgin. It's a trope. I don't hate it, but sometimes it can get a little boring to read that once again, the female lead is "untouched by man" or some shit. Not this time. Conrad, big bad sexy vampire, is a virgin. I liked that change-up. 

Like I said, this is a book from the middle of the Immortals After Dark series. It's book... Four? I think? And while things that happened in the previous books are mentioned, it's not enough to distract from the plot of this book. And there is a handy-dandy cheat sheet in the front of the book that gives some details about the various races of The Lore. A lot of the characters make appearances in all the books which is nice. All the races have their own strengths and weaknesses. And they are described fantastically. As are the settings. 

Nix.

I cannot talk about any of these books without mentioning the greatness that is Nix the Proto-Valkyrie and Soothsayer Without Equal. Nix became my favorite character rather quickly and I do a little cheer every time she pops into any of these books. She is a little crazy. Scheming as all hell. And just oh so fun.

All the characters are great. Each character has a solid personality. Every time someone new was introduced, you got a feel for who they were as a person. Which was outstanding since there is such a big cast of characters. 

Okay. I think that's all I have to say. Aside from repeating "Soooooo gooooooood" over and over. Highly recommend this entire series. And I really need to get on reading the entire series. There are a few of the later ones I haven't read yet. 

Stephy Reading Challenge - Book 2

 

Bite

Featuring "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death" by Laurell K. Hamilton, "One Word Answer" by Charlaine Harris, "Biting in Plain Sight" by MaryJanice Davidson, "Galahad" by Angela Knight, and "Blood Lust" by Vickie Taylor

I've read this one a couple times before and fully enjoy it each time. Each story is great and I love them all. 

I'm pretty sure I bought this book for the Laurell K. Hamilton story. Which is part of the Anita Blake universe and I'm a big fan of that. This story was great and had an adorable ending.

I think this was my introduction to the Sookie Stackhouse books/stories. Which would explain why I was never a fan of the Sookie and Bill relationship. I had prior knowledge of how that turned out so I never got attached.

Queen Betsy is fantastic and I really need to get on the ball and read more books with her. 

Loved the Galahad story. Love the whole universe Angela Knight built and need to read more of it. 

Blood Lust was superb, even if I saw the Sue Ellen plot twist coming. That's a me problem, not a story problem. 

All in all, great and pleasurable read. Highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys paranormal romance. 

Stephy Reading Challenge - Book 1

 

Bound by Blood

by

Amanda Ashley

This is apparently the second book of a series and someone on GoodReads said you would need to read the first one to understand what was going on in this one. 

Nah.

I understand what was going on.

It was just sort of shit.

I feel like I should state that I have read quite a bit of romance novels in my time, so don't come at me when I complain about the typical romance novel shit in this book. My issues weren't because of a lack of knowledge of the genre. This book just did it badly.

Let me lay it out for y'all:

This book is about Zack and Katelyn. Katelyn is a half-vampire, half-human from a clan or whatever of Born Vampires. Zack is an Other, which just means he was turned into a vampire. And of course, the born vampires hate the ones that were turned. This means of course Zack and Katelyn fall in love.

Now, if the book just focused on that plotline, it would have been good... ish... But it didn't. So it wasn't.

Also that plotline had no real conflict. Katelyn spent about 12 hours being all "we can't be together!" before giving that up and being all in love. And then her father (who, *gasp* would never approve!) spent about two days being all "He is the enemy" before apparently just shrugging it off.

Characters were equal parts annoying and boring. Zack had moments where I was slightly amused by him, but not enough for me to actually give a shit about him. 

It took 42 pages to get a physical description of Zack. And then after that, almost every new character got an info dump of physical descriptions. I can't even remember what Katelyn was supposed to look like, but I remember her car was baby blue. 

So much head-hopping. So much. 

The entire book takes place over a few weeks. I think. And we went from Katelyn and Zack meeting to getting married. Within a few weeks. Now, I am aware that characters in romance novels move pretty quickly, but damn, guys. Paranormal romance books sometimes explain away the fast-paced romance by introducing things like lifemates and such. That ONE person you can be with for hand-wavy fiction reasons. But this book did not have that. 

And the good parts...

Uh... 

I liked that Katelyn's father, Drake, apparently turned into a cat. That was nifty.

I enjoyed the sometimes banter between Zack and Drake. 

That's all I got, really.