Various Thoughts

Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series (Slave to Sensation, Visions of Heat, Caressed by Ice, Mine to Possess, Hostage to Pleasure, Branded by Fire, & Blaze of Memory) is something of a combination of Larissa Ione’s Demonica series and Eileen Wilks’ World of the Lupi.

All the novels’ relationships play out, essentially, exactly the same and there is very little variety in Singh’s character archetypes. And yet… I find myself liking the series anyway. Perhaps it’s because, even though ‘light’ pretty much always wins where it matters, there is plenty of ‘dark’ laced throughout. The overarching storyline of a society going to hell taking place in the background also serves as an interesting and ever-changing counter point to the predictable male/female dynamic.

I’ll probably continue to follow the series until the (nearly identical) relationship dynamics completely crowd out the insurrectionist backstory. Sort of like how I approached Keri Arthur’s Riley Jenson books.

Shadows On the SoulThe third book in Jenna Black’s Guardians series, and it’s rather similar to the first book. I found myself liking the Gabriel character from the second book, and still liking him earlier in this book, but about halfway through he becomes a near-copy of the Drake character. Jezebel, similarly, starts...

A Rush of WingsShockingly enough, this is a paranormal romance book by a male writer, one Adrian Phoenix . Generally, I shy away from male writers, as they have a nasty tendency of making the female characters in their book either blatant stereotypes, or extremely shallow. This book, unfortunately, is no exception, with...

Nightwalker & Night ChildNightwalker, by Jocelynn Drake, is a somewhat interesting addition to the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance genres. It’s the first in a series whose main character is a six-hundred year old vampire (Mira) who, unlike all other vampires, has both control over and immunity to fire. The story begins with an encounter;  a hunter of mysterious...

Shadowrealm, Plague of Spells, & the Devil’s DueShadowrealm is both the conclusion to Paul S. Kemp‘s Twilight War trilogy and his Ervis Cale saga in general. It reveals interesting things about the relationship between Mask and Shar and neatly wraps up many of the loose threads still floating around. Rivalen and the returned Shadovar, Mephistopheles and Magadon, Riven...

Riley Jenson Guardian SeriesI ended up reading this series, by Keri Arthur, accidentally. I had ordered the seventh book of the series (Deadly Desires) without having realized it was the seventh book, I thought it was the first in a new series. So, once I found out that it wasn’t, I had to go and...

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