I can’t believe Melinda Doolittle was voted off last night. She’s not only the most talented singer of this season, but she may be the most talented singer in the show’s history. This sucks. I doubt I’ll be watching the final.

For the most part, Seraphs was even more enjoyable than the first. The pace is fast, expecting readers to have the first book fresh in their mind, and not slowing down much to let you catch up. Almost immediately, Thorn is brought before the town elders to face a series of charges which could leave her branded, imprisoned, killed or worse. After reading the first book, I was still left wondering why everyone hated mages so much. After all, there are far scarier and more powerful creatures out there- what’s so wrong with the mages? Luckily, in Seraphs, mage history is explained in more detail, from the mage and non-mage point of view.

Thorn and the people of Mineral City are faced with the constant threat from creatures of Darkness: Succubae, Inccubi, dragonets, fallen seraphs, demon spawn, daywalkers, and more. What I find so interesting about the world Ms. Hunter has created is the full cast of vastly different characters. From the hateful, Orthodox mage hater to the four headed cherub and her Wheels (which I couldn’t really even begin to describe), there are many many different characters in this book and each is richly drawn, unique and often, strangely fascinating.

The Seraphs are, unsurprisingly, one of the best aspects of this book. As a reader, we get a sense of the same sort of curiosity and awe that the average person in this book feels for the mysterious Seraphs. Like Bloodring, the Seraphs are occasionally mentioned, but don’t really make much of an appearance until the end. Thorn’s favorite(and mine), Raziel, makes his entrance at the very end, and it’s pretty exciting. But his part in the book was also a little disappointing too- it was too short.

Seraphs was non-stop action, and a very quick read. The only real problem I had was the ending. The entire book was building toward Thorn’s return to the mountains, but by the time she decided to go back, there was only sixty pages left. And by the time she actually made it into the mountains, there was approximately only forty pages remaining. There was so much action, and so many battles, and deaths and near deaths, and revelations in these last few pages, and it could easily have used twice the page time. As I kept getting closer to the end, I constantly worried that Ms. Hunter was going to cut off the book in the middle of the fight, leaving us with a cliffhanger.

The rushed ending also made it a little difficult to keep up with the action. Several times, I had to go back and re-read a passage because I was having a difficult time imagining the characters or visualizing what was happening. But even the rushed ending and occasional difficulty picturing something couldn’t stop me from breathlessly turning each page and losing sleep to stay up late to find out how Thorn was going to survive the end of the book. Seraphs is intriguing, entertaining and an exciting follow up to to Bloodring, and I definitely recommend it.

* WARNING: SPOILERS*

If you’re like me, you’ve read all of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, buying them the day they come out and staying up all night to finish, and then afterwards regretting that you read them so fast because it’ll be a year or more until the next one is published. There’s only so often I can re-read each one before going back to waiting again, so I’ve gotten really excited about True Blood, the HBO series based on Charlaine Harris’s popular books and everybody’s favorite telepathic waitress. The only problem? Sookie IS the series. She is the most important part about the entire show. Therefore the actress playing her is going to have to carry the show. She is going to have to BE Sookie. She’s also going to have a difficult time with fans of the books who have a clear idea in their head of what Sookie should look and act like. In my opinion, they should have chosen either: 1) a slightly well known actor (with a few credits, but nothing too high profile like . . . XMEN) who is so incredibly talented that she has no problem totally absorbing herself into the role OR 2) get a very talented unknown actor who hasn’t done anything much and therefore will not be associated with any other role. As I see it, the most important decision that needed to be made is the casting. Apparently, Anna Paquin is the best they could get. This worries me for so many reasons. First, she’s not a good actress. Have you seen Xmen? Have you seen Buffalo Soldiers? Yeah, not good. Sure she may have won an Oscar when she was like ten or eleven, but what has she done well since then? Secondly, she is NOT Sookie. She doesn’t look like her, doesn’t act like her (because she pretty much acts the same in every movie), and certainly doesn’t do well with the accents.

I’m worried that if the producers or casting directors or whoever have decided that Anna Paquin is the best Sookie, then what other mistakes are they making? They’ve clearly shown how little they know or understand the books or the character with their casting so how well do they know or understand the rest of it? This casting decision has me so upset that I’m at the point where I’m 99% sure I will NOT be watching the show. Sure, I’ll give it a try once, but just like all the other films that Anna Pacquin has been in, I’ll see it once and then get too annoyed to watch it again. I’m hoping to be proven wrong, I really am . . . but I don’t see it happening.

Ok, back to the book . . .

In All Together Dead, Harris’s focus is on the vampires rather than the shapeshifters, Werewolves or any of the other supernaturals. Sookie has been hired by Sophie-Anne, The vamp Queen of Louisiana, to act as an extra set of ears during a vampire conference where the Kings and Queens of every state are gathering for many reasons, one of which is to witness Sophie-Anne’s trial for the murder of her late husband, the former King of Arkansas. When Sookie arrives in Rhodes for the summit, she quickly reacquaints herself with the only other telepath that she’s met, Barry the Bellboy. Barry, who now works for the King of Texas, has done quite a bit of growing up since his last appearance, and his is quite a sizeable role as he assists Sookie in everything from trying to listen in on plots against their respective employers to tracking down a vampire assassin to saving the lives of a hotel full of vampires and humans.

Upon her arrival in Rhodes, Sookie notices strange behavior: hotel employees are acting weird, extra suitcases appear that nobody claims, the sycophantic hotel owner is around too often, supernatural bodyguards have been hired to protect the King of Kentucky, the key accuser in Sophie-Anne’s trial is murdered, and the violent and vamp hating group The Fellowship of the Sun is plotting something big. The resilient Sookie, constantly proves that she has more than earned her keep as one of Sophie-Anne’s employees with her telepathic abilities, mystery solving skills and quick thinking.

An upset to Sookie’s role in the vamp politics leaves Sookie in a bigger man quandary than she was before. Should she be with Quinn? Does she love Eric, should she choose him? As always, just enough is given to advance Sookie’s emotional journey, without sidetracking from the larger story line. Eric, and Pam and all the other vamps are great, as always. Quinn, who annoyed me with his rather stereotypical California surfer talk in the last book, is much more interesting and far less less annoying this time around. Sookie is as quirky, witty, and loveable as always. Part of why I love these books so much is because Sookie seems like just an ordinary person (with telepathic abilties, of course) who’s put in these extraordinary situations that seem way beyond anything she can manage. But, she always rises to this challenge, outwitting the bad guys (woohoo! *victory dance*) and saves the day. All Together Dead is fun, exciting, humorous, and a great installment to the series.

Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn is the first book in one of my all time favorite fantasy series. I believe it was originally published in 1987 for children or young adults, but it can certainly be read and enjoyed by adults as well. The fourth and most recent book, The Keeping Place was published in Australia in 1999 and as far as I know, has not yet been published in the United States. After I finished Obernewtyn and The Farseekers and Ashling, I could barely stand to wait until I could get my hands on the next book because . . . it was like reading about . . .  friends. At least the kind of friends that you can get when an author has created that exceptional work which captures your imagination and leaves you eagerly flipping each page, and yet hoping you’ll never finish.  Maybe that’s my inner geek talking, but a few of my favorite books are the ones which I love to read because I simply love reading about the characters and not necessarily what happens to them. Luckily, in the Obernewtyn Chronicles, A LOT happens, and the characters that are so enjoyable to read about rarely have a dull moment.

From the back cover:

Elspeth Gordie is a Misfit. Raised in orphanages for most of her life, desperate to receive her certificate of normalcy, her only chance at survival is secrecy, and she vows never to use her mental powers. But her abilities seem to have an imperative of their own, and soon she comes to the attention of the fanatically religious Council, which condemns people of Elspeth’s talents.

Unaware of the extent of her powers, the Council sends Elspeth to the remote mountain estate of Obernewtyn, where escape is impossible. Once there, Elspeth must come to terms with her abilities and throw off her safe cloak of concealment- for there are not only friends but enemies at Obernewtyn, evil people who intend to use the Misfits’ mental abilities to resurrect the terrible forces of the apocalypse known as the Great White.

Only then will Elspeth learn what she is, and the destiny she must survive to fulfill . . .

I’m rather glad I didn’t start reading this series when it was first published because the fifth and, at that time, final book in the series, The Sending, had been pushed back year after year. It’s been incredibly difficult waiting all this time to see how the series concludes . . . I’ve actually lost track- Four years? Five? Regardless, I really sympathize with those fans out there who’ve waited close to twenty years to finish out this series. Up until recently, it was my understanding that Penguin books didn’t even have any idea when The Sending would be published, if ever. Luckily, that seems to have changed.

I occasionally lurk over at Carmody Online, home of some of the most dedicated Isobelle Carmody fans out there. While stopping by recently, I discovered that Penguin may actually publish the fifth book, now called The Stone Key, sometime after September, but before the end of December 2007. The sixth and now final book (Carmody apparently had too much to finish up in one book so made it into two), The Sending, will hopefully be published in 2008. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed, but the fact that they have a cover, or at least an initial cover of the book, seems promising. Doesn’t it look great?

*WARNING: SPOILERS*

As excited as I was about reading Demon Moon, I was a little worried too. I didn’t particularly like either Savitri or Colin in Demon Angel. Savi came across as rather childish and Colin . . . well, I’ve never liked my heroes too vain or too pretty. It didn’t take me long, however, to change my mind. I quickly discovered that Savitri was not the child that I had thought, rather, she merely seemed that way because we had seen her from Hugh’s point of view. Through Savi’s and Colin’s point of view, we discover that she’s not the too perfect, rather annoying, younger sister character at all. Instead, she is entirely grown up, and has been since she witnessed her parents’ and brother’s senseless murders when she was young. Savi learned to forgive her family’s murderer as a means of coping with what happened. She found that it was better to forgive and get on with her life then to dwell on the terrible things in her past.

Colin’s self absorption is actually rather endearing . . . and sad. He was stricken with a curse many years ago, a curse which anchored him to the nightmarish realm of Chaos. He hides from mirrors because Chaos, rather than his own reflection, will be staring back, haunting him. His blood lust sends him to partner after partner, and none of them remember him as anything more than a vague dream. Colin lives a lonely existence, questioning his own reality and needing reassurances from the few he does allow to get close.

From the very first, Colin is afraid of the depth of his feelings for Savi. He tries to teach her a lesson while they are in Caelum, by terrorizing her with a glimpse of Chaos. At first, he tries to keep her at arms length by alternating between a careless charm and callous behavior, but Savi sees through his deception and his impossible beauty, and falls in love with him. Colin becomes captivated by Savi- by her wit, her brilliant mind, her curiosity, her perfect memory, her strength, and her great capacity to love and forgive. But their growing love for each other is overshadowed by the fact that they have no future together. Colin’s tainted blood prevents him from either making her a vampire, or being able to sustain her own blood thirst if she were to become one. They give themselves a month to be together, despairing in the knowledge that a month of happiness is all they could ever have. While their relationship develops, they realize that Savi’s pychic scent unwittingly opens up a portal of sorts that brings the evil nosferatu and wyrmwolves attacking. Not only are the nosferatu and wyrmwolves after them, but so too is a demon, a demon who is bent on making himself a kingdom of his own even if he has to kill everyone in his way to do so.

Colin and Savi’s romance is skillfully orchestrated. Their journey from attraction to lust to affection to love is captivating. What I enjoyed so much about Demon Moon was not just the emotional tension and angst between these two characters who seemingly have no future together, but also the romantic and sexual tension between them as well. I wouldn’t have expected it after reading Demon Angel, but Savi and Colin have fantastic chemistry. Take Colin and Savitri’s romance, added together with their quests to stop the Demon Dalkiel and to close the portal to Chaos and you’ve got a perfectly blended action and character driven book.

My only quibble is that because the book and its character development and dialogue is so dense: it was a little difficult for me to follow at times. That’s not to say that I think the book should be written differently, not at all. Even while reading the parts that were a little hard to follow, it was basically my assumption that it was more my shortcomings as a reader that prevented me from taking the entire story in at one time rather than it being any problem with the book itself. In fact, I’ve already begun re-reading parts of it with a much clearer understanding the second time around. Regardless, Demon Moon is definitely a book you can enjoy reading several times, each time discovering more about the world and the characters that Ms. Brook has so skillfully created.

Demon Moon is wonderfully written with fantastic characters, an enchanting romance and an enthralling story. Ms. Brook’s second full length novel once again proves how talented a writer she is. I can’t wait to read the next one!

I absolutely love Brenda Joyce. Some of the first romance novels that I ever read were hers and I’ve always considered her one of my top five favorite authors. I’ve never liked her contemporaries, though, and when I heard that Ms. Joyce had decided to take her turn writing paranormals, I was rather worried that they would be just as bad. I really wish it wasn’t true, but Dark Seduction is, if possible, even worse than her contemporaries. Before you read further, however, you should be warned that I have not finished Dark Seduction, not even close. And I probably never will. I disliked it that much. I’m still a fan of Ms. Joyce, but I won’t be spending any more money on her paranormals and I hope she seriously reconsiders writing anymore in this series.

Not long after Dark Seduction begins, we quickly learn that Claire, our heroine, was traumatized by her mother’s murder when she was ten years old. She later found out that her mother was actually a victim of a pleasure crime. Years after that, her cousin, while at college, was murdered the same way, another victim of a pleasure crime. Apparently victims of pleasure crimes have very, uh, pleasurable sex before their hearts stop beating, from exhaustion maybe, and they die. Of course a woman with no marks on her, no drugs, no forcible rape and no signs of a struggle must have been murdered, right? And of course when Claire finds out her hero has sexed someone to death, she’s quick to suggest that it was a weak heart or an accident. The entire pleasure crime murder thing read like a BAD idea, as if Ms. Joyce really really wanted the supernatural aspect of her book to center around sex and the fear of our two main characters having sex, and nothing else, not logic, not common sense, not even her editor, was going to stop her. The other result of this bad idea? It made the heroine, apparently a very intelligent and well read bookseller, come across as really stupid.

Claire was definitely far too annoying and too stupid to live for my tastes. She spends most of her life living in fear of being the victim of a pleasure crime just like her mom and cousin. She does what she can to prevent that from ever happening: runs, lifts weights, learns self defense, target shoots with her beretta, keeps mace AND pepperspray AND a taser handy in case the gun isn’t enough. Despite all this preparation, the moment a threatening person, a woman named Sibylla, breaks into her store late at night, she allows Sibylla to take the gun right out of her hand and knock her unconscious. When Claire wakes, she hears a man in her house, but allows him to sneak up on her as well. And despite her fear of being murdered, inspite of her fear of being a victim, she has sex with our too stupid to live, controlling, annoying hero within twenty PAGES of meeting him. She’s pressed up against him, he’s obviously aroused, and it’s all she can do not to rip his clothes off. But she’s smarter than that, she wouldn’t allow herself to lose control with a strange psychotic man, right? Of course, she wouldn’t. Instead, she waits an entire page or two until he forces her painfully back in to time with him before going at it like there’s no tomorrow.

And what about Malcolm? Could there be a more stereotypical Scottish warrior hero man? Could he be more condescending, controlling, patronizing or sexist? And how many times did Malcolm need to say “Ye” or “Ye be?” What woman wouldn’t fall for (20 pages after meeting): “I be wantin’ ye, lass”? I was tired of him after about five pages.

Malcolm walks into Claire’s life looking for the Page, which he believes she has in her possession. He definitely recognizes her, but is impatient when she doesn’t seem to believe him or understand what he’s talking about. Either he knew who she was and knew that she would’t know him at that point in time or he doesn’t know her, but it just felt like Ms. Joyce hadn’t clearly thought out the timeline. Malcom is the arrogant type, he knows what’s best for Claire- taking her back in time and not returning her despite her desperate pleas and then demands to go home – because of course taking her back in time is more logical than hiding her or keeping her safe in her own time. Again it just seemed like a BAD idea, a too easy solution, to write something Ms. Joyce appeared determined to write about- a historical.

Unfortunately, Dark Seduction was just disappointment after disappointment. Both characters were so annoying that I quickly reached the point where I couldn’t read any more about them. I tried briefly skimming the rest of the book, but it never got any better. None of the usual romantic and sexual build up and tension, usually so well written in Ms. Joyce’s other novels, was present here. It was just forced idea after forced idea and none of it seemed well thought out. I just hope Ms. Joyce reconsiders writing paranormal romances and returns to the historicals that she does so well.

If it weren’t for high school English and Harry Potter, I wouldn’t have been able to check off any of these books. Wow, this list is embarrassing. Anyway, the idea is to bold or italicize or underline the books that you’ve read. Apparently, I have a long way to go. Thanks to Bridget for the idea!

Cute dog. You’d think those Jedi tricks would slim him down a bit, though.

Kim Harrison’s latest had everything I’ve come to expect in her Rachel Morgan books, and more. And yet, despite all of that, I wasn’t entirely satisfied. It took me a couple weeks to read it after putting it down several times even during some of the action sequences. I don’t know if that’s because I just lost interest after the last one, but I do know that despite a book that has everything I could expect, and thankfully no Nick, I just wasn’t as interested as I used to be.

In For a Few Demons More, we get not one, not two, but three demons, at least one of whom is psychotic. All the regular cast of characters that I usually enjoy were back: Jenks, Ivy, Trent- always my favorite, Ceri, and David, to name a few. The plot centered around the Focus, a powerful ancient almost sentient artifact which could forever tip the balance in the supernatural community if it got in the wrong hands. The shapeshifters want it, the vampires want it, the Demon Al wants it, Trent wants it, the Demon Newt wants it . . . or so we’re led to believe. And stuck in the middle is Rachel, who’s in way over her head just trying not to get killed. David, her alpha, has quite a sizable role this time around. He has possession of the Focus, and has unwittingly turned unsuspecting human women into werewolves- women who are soon after found murdered thus making David a suspect.

Some of the more enjoyable moments were the scenes with Trent. He and Rachel are once again at odds. He wants her to work as a bodyguard at his wedding and is willing to pay her a large amount of money to do so. When Rachel finds out that Trent has been killing people to get his hands on the Focus, she just want to see him go to jail. There’s a scene in the church on his wedding day that had me laughing hysterically. That scene alone was worth reading the rest of the book. Somewhere in between, Ceri asks Rachel to introduce her to Trent. When they meet, Ceri more than puts him in his place, leaving Trent unsettled and unsure of himself- definitely a first.

The Demon Al also makes several appearances. He has managed to possess his human Familiar, Lee, and walk around in the day time. Al ‘s on the run because the other demons are angry with him for teaching Ceri powers that no human should know. He tries to coerce Rachel into testifying on his behalf, but Rachel knows that if she were to go, she would never return. When she of course refuses, Al starts killing the innocent people of Cincinnati, and Piscary is released from prison to put a stop to the destruction.

Unfortunately, what made Rachel Morgan so enjoyable to read at first has become a little tedious. As the other characters point out, she is drawn to danger and dangerous people despite knowing better, despite how it may place her loved ones at risk. The balance that she is trying to keep with Ivy while dating Kisten was fine at first, but after several books, I’ve just grown tired of Ivy’s jealousy and Rachel’s protestations that she isn’t attracted to Ivy. Either she is or she isn’t, but why does this keep getting dragged out? Just have sex and find a blood balance already so we can go on to a more interesting topic! And when the Demon Minias appears and Rachel can’t help but notice how attractive he is?? I just wanted to shake her and yell: “How many willing sex partners do you need before you’re satisfied?” Like I said, frustrating.

Newt’s appearance in the book was also rather . . . pointless. What was the purpose of dragging that out, thinking Newt wanted the Focus, only to tell us at the last minute that she was after something else entirely, which we may or may not find out about in the next book? I don’t know. Maybe to introduce Minias, Rachel’s future romantic interest? I don’t know, that’s just my theory, but regardless, it’s frustrating.

Despite my frustrations and my complaints, there were several very enjoyable moments- Trent’s wedding, the ending with what Rachel does with the Focus, any scene Al is in- which will keep me reading the series, at least For a Few Books More.

This list just seems to grow and grow- and these are only a few.

Note to self: put down Brenda Joyce’s The Masquerade. You’ve read it three times already, crying like a baby each time. Try something new! J.R. Ward’s other books were great. Elizabeth Hoyt’s first one was awesome. How can you not want to finish the Warprize trilogy? No more excuses!