Heart Search 2 - Found, by Carlie M.A.Cullen

This week we taking a little trip off the beaten path and this time we are stepping into the world of paranormal romance Heart Search 2 - Found, by indie author Carlie M.A. Cullen.

The Blurb:

One bite started it all . . .

Another mysterious disappearance sparks a frightening chain of events for Remy and her family. Events foretold come to pass, and more strange and alarming occurrences assail her life. Where can she turn?

Coven politics continue to threaten Joshua’s existence, but an even bigger menace looms.

And Remy’s life hangs in the balance – can Joshua save her?

Fate still toys with mortals and immortals alike, as hearts torn apart by darkness confront perils which could lead to their doom.

My Review:

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, and was not disappointed in this book. The story picks up where it left off in Heart Search 1- Lost, but you don’t have to have read the first book to follow the plot.

As in the first book of this series, Carlie M.A. Cullen takes you into the minds and the eyes of her characters. Her descriptions are thick with visuals and layered with emotion. Joshua is sexy and compelling and is most definitely not a two-dimensional vampire, as the male leads in many paranormal romances can be.

Samir, Joshua's maker is loving and cares for his ‘children’ and they in turn adore him – but he has an agenda of his own and a side he carefully hides from the others, and this definitely emerges in this book. As individuals the vampires are inherently selfish and uncaring of anyone but their own society, and Cullen portrays this just as well in this book as she did in the first book. There is a great deal of turmoil in the coven, and there is intense jealousy lurking just under the surface.

Remy is deep and intense, and her best friend Jakki balances her well. Remy relies heavily on her for emotional support. All of the supporting characters have clearly defined personalities, making them interesting in their own right. The environments surrounding them are vivid and clearly drawn, and the two parallel stories intertwine well, making a good contrast.

The mood of this tale is dark and foreboding, yet there is occasional lightness as Remy strives for some sense of normalcy in the face of terrifying events that occur almost daily in her very unusual family.

The ending is satisfying, and while it leaves the door open for a third book, many threads are brought together, so I felt it ended well.

Moon Dance, J.R. Rain (Vampire for Hire series)

 

 

In ‘MoonDance’, book one of the ‘Vampire for Hire’ series, northwest author J. R. Rain has created an urban world visually parallel to ours which rocks, in my humble opinion.  This is complex a murder mystery with a paranormal twist.  In this tale, Vampires, were-wolves--they are not only possible, they affect the course of Samantha Moon's life.

Six years ago federal agent Samantha Moon was the perfect wife and mother, your typical soccer mom with the minivan and suburban home. Then the unthinkable happens, an attack which changes her life forever. And forever is a very long time for a vampire.

Now the world at large thinks Samantha has developed a rare skin disease, a disease which forces her to quit her day job and stay out of the light of the sun. Her husband, Danny Moon, can no longer deal with the emotional baggage that being married to a dead-woman who just can’t die brings up. He has become a stranger to her. She is in danger of losing her children to his disaffection, so vehemently against her has he become.

 

She can go out in the light of day as long as she takes appropriate measures, but it is difficult and dangerous for her to do so. Still, she does whatever she has to, to be there for her children and the husband who no longer wants her. Heart broken, and frustrated by her inability to change what happened to her through no fault of her own, she struggles to make lemonade from the lemons she’s been given.

Working the night shift as a private investigator, Samantha is hired by Kingsley Fulcrum to investigate the murder attempt on his life, a horrific scene captured on TV and seen around the country. As the case unfolds, Samantha discovers a deep attraction to Kingsley, who isn't exactly what he appears to be either. After all, there is a reason why he survived five shots to the head!

I love Samantha Moon!  She is not a weak, whining poor-me sort of a woman. Samantha is passionate and strong, and is determined to survive whatever life (or death) throws at her. Kingsley is dangerous, sexy and a bad-boy—just what I like in a mysterious client and possible lover.  Her husband, Danny Moon is a consummate jackass and has always been that, but when Samantha was still human he’d hidden it well. Now she is a creature of the night his true colors are showing, but she is still making excuses for him and trying desperately to make their marriage work, despite her attraction to Kingsley.

Samantha finds both allies and enemies everywhere. Some of her allies are surprising; a policeman who suspects her true nature but respects her as a detective and an honorable person; her former partner. Her enemies are more subtle—the arrival of a package with a medallion bearing the same symbol as that worn by her original attacker shocks her. She’d thought the attack was random but now, six years later she knows it was not.

There is a crisp rawness to Rain’s delivery.  Samantha is a keen detective and once she accepts a case, she follows it to the end, no matter what comes of it. Kingsley’s case is not simply the assassination attempt gone awry it appears to be on the surface; it is far-reaching and drags Samantha into even more danger than she is already in.  All the seemingly disparate threads of Kingsley and Samantha’s relationship, both business and personal, weave a tapestry that sizzles with sexual tension and urgent possibility, but it is not the central piece of this tale. 

I liked this novel so much, I bought the 6 book boxed set from Barnes&Noble for Nook for the highly affordable price of $9.99! The series gets better with each book, and I am completely hooked.


Not only that, but I can't wait to get my teeth into his Jim Knighthorse series!

 

The Last Guardian, Joan Hazel

The Last Guardian by Joan Hazel

I admit that I rarely read Paranormal Fantasy, what with my personal addiction to elves and dragons, but I enjoyed THE HECK out of reading this book!  The heroes are sexy, funny and full of mischief. The plot is not the usual good vs evil plot that I am used to, but is more subtle. Yes, good does battle evil, but some of evil's companions have redeeming qualities that are not fully explored in this book. This does set it up nicely for a sequel.

The guardians were created by the Norse Goddess Freya to care for her children, who (in this tale) are shapeshifters. Norse Mythology figures quite strongly in this tale, as does the lore of the Lakota People, a unique melding of the two.

Starting off immediately in a state of suspense and action, the "pack" is introduced with all the bravado of a special op. attack force. Hazel quickly plunges her reader into the personalities and relationships of the four pack members: Fergus, Saint, Mika, and Ghost. In the opening sequence a member of the pack is injured and the rest rush to save him.  His injuries are so serious that his abilities are compromised.  As the story progresses, the complicated relationships between the pack members drive the storyline, and the action keeps you on the edge of your seat.

These strong male characters are complemented by the protagonist CJ Carson. Charlie Jean, or CJ, is about to be thrown into a world she does not understand, and yet holds the answers to questions that have nagged at her all her life. Unbeknownst to her, she was born into a family whose sole occupation for generations has been to be the Guardians who keep the secrets of the shapeshifters and protect them. 

Unfortunately there are traitors within the shapeshifting community and they plot to free themselves of the guardians. They murder the man who was actually CJ’s father, and when they discover her existence, her life is then in danger.

The pack must bring CJ safely into their community, but the antagonists will stop at nothing to prevent that.  The final battle in this book is heart-stopping adventure and is one of the best parts in a book that is filled with great moments.

The pack is comprised of sexy, ooh-la-la men, and they are witty as well as easy on the eyes.  CJ and her friends are well drawn and compelling characters.

The plot is well paced and keeps the reader interested.  This is quite a romantic book even though it never drops into 'romance-novel' territory. The chemistry between Mika and CJ is good. I whiled away a rainy Sunday reading this book, and highly recommend it!

Servant of the Gods, Valerie Douglas

Servant of the Gods -Valerie Douglas

Chapter one of Servant of the Gods by indie author Valerie Douglas begins this tale with one of the most moving and dramatic beginnings that I have ever read. I couldn’t wait to begin reading the story of how the Egyptian Priestess Irisi came to such a moment her story.

Chapter two takes up with her memories, beginning with events which happened when she was a child of eleven years of age, and was a shepherd girl named  Eres.  Her village has been attacked.  Now she is orphaned, and taken in by the druids who raise her to be a warrior. She becomes a mercenary soldier.  Her travels as a mercenary lead her to participating in a battle against Egypt, where she ends up on the losing side. This leads to her meeting the love of her life, Khai, in battle.  He captures her, but sees beauty in her as both a warrior and a woman.

To spare her being harshly used by others, he temporarily takes her as his servant.  Despite Khai’s wishes to the contrary she is sold at an auction to the court magician, an evil man named Kamenwati.  He chooses to use her as a gladiator, but eventually he plans to make her his sexual servant and use her in an arcane and evil ceremony.  He orders her to kill in cold blood, something she is loathe to do.  She will fight an opponent in honorable battle but only to first blood or disarmament.   To kill in cold blood is murder and is punishable by death, moreover she does not want to do such a thing. It would place her in Kamenwati’s power even more firmly than she is. 

To avoid having to commit murder in Kamenwati’s service, Eres offers her swords to the gods, in the hope that they will find her acceptable.  She is accepted as a priestess by Isis, and given the name Irisi which means ‘fashioned by the gods’.  Needless to say, her master Kamenwati is livid that she has escaped the fate he had planned for her, and he vows that he will reclaim ‘his property’ one way or another.

While at an audience with the Pharaoh she once again meets Khai, and thwarts an assassination attempt, engineered by the evil vizier Kamenwati who intends to be the next Pharaoh.

Kamenwati is secretly the servant of the God Set, who is the god of evil, chaos and war. He has also made a bargain with a Djinn, a very powerful demon.  An army of Djinn is poised to conquer Egypt, and Set will be the only God.

For several years, Irisi and Khai do not act on their mutual attraction, as Kamenwati would certainly punish them, and he is too strong for Irisi to defeat.

The Djinn that Kamenwati has called attack Egypt and Khai and Irisi are brought together, often enough that others begin to notice how they look at each other.  Eventually, they do become lovers, but they are very discrete, keeping their relationship a secret from Kamenwati.

This is high adventure. Khai is a romantic and sexy hero, and Irisi is a strong woman who never forgets that she is a woman.  She never competes in battle with men by trying to be a man. She is a female warrior, and proud to be so.  There are some very graphic scenes, both of violence and of sex, and frankly there is quite a bit of both. Still, I would recommend this as an adult book because the story is so compelling. 

I am looking forward to reading more works by Valerie Douglas in the future.

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

 A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens is one of the first modern paranormal fantasies.  First published by Chapman & Hall on December 17, 1847, this tale has remained as one of the great classics and has never been out of print.

Dickens divides ‘A Christmas Carol’ into five chapters, which he calls ‘staves’, or in old English terms, ‘song stanzas’, in reference to the title of the book. The book is short, in modern terms it is a novella.  However, this tale is a showcase of Charles Dickens’ amazing ability to completely draw the mood of a scene and the set of qualities that make a character unique in only a few sentences.   1840s London IS grim; Bob Cratchit IS a good and noble man, and despite his cold heart Ebenezer Scrooge IS worth saving.

The tale begins on Christmas Eve in the 1840's, exactly seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established within the first stave as a greedy and stingy businessman who has no place in his life for kindness, compassion, charity or benevolence.  His shabby treatment of Bob Cratchit and his rudeness to his nephew Fred are examined in the opening paragraphs. That night, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost and warned that he must change his ways in order to avoid coming to a miserable end like him. Scrooge is visited by three additional ghosts, each in its turn and each visit detailed in a separate stave, who go with him to various scenes with the hope of achieving his personal transformation and redemption.

The first of the spirits is the Ghost of Christmas Past.  This ghost takes Scrooge to scenes of his boyhood and youth, which stir the old miser's gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. We see the school where he had spent his youth, and meet his sister Fan, whom he dearly loved. We are also introduced to the root cause of his cold, miserly behavior:  the events which had caused him the most pain had always occurred around Christmas, and his own father had never forgiven him for the death of his mother, although we are not told the reason for that.  Now Ebenezer holds a grudge against his own nephew, Fred, for the death of Fan in childbirth. 

Dickens also shows us that Scrooge’s own fear of poverty and a subconscious desire to gain his father’s approval has caused him to care more about money than about people. One of the reasons for his miserly ways is the pain he feels for losing his love, Belle. Engaged to be married to her, he keeps pushing back the wedding until his finances are as healthy as he would like them to be; something that, given his insatiable lust for money, he will never happen. Realizing this, Belle calls off the engagement and eventually marries someone else, giving Scrooge more reason to further withdraw from society and relationships.

The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several radically differing scenes (a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the family feast of Scrooge's near-impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, is an amazing window into 19^th century London.  Tiny Tim is a sweet boy, filled with innocence and love despite his illness and his poverty. Scrooge finds himself quite drawn to him.  A miner's cottage  is visited, and also a lighthouse, among other sites in order to instill in Scrooge a sense of responsibility for his fellow man.   Finally, this ghost warns him of the evils of Ignorance and Want. As the spirit's robe is drawn back Scrooge is shocked to see these two aspects of the human condition suddenly made real before him as hateful, terrifying little children who are more animal than human in appearance.

The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, makes his case to Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed. Tiny Tim has died, and there is so much sorrow surrounding his passing. In another scene ‘a man has died’, one whose passing has brought only joy, profit and relief to everyone who knew him. Finally Scrooge's own neglected and untended grave is revealed, prompting him to swear that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these "shadows of what may be."

I read this tale every year.  I watch every movie version of this story, and love and appreciate each and every version that is made for the unique qualities that they bring to the story.  I know that I am not the only person whose life has been touched by this story; touched by the annual affirmation that charity begins at home and spreads to the world.  I am comforted in the knowledge that I am not the only person who ‘binges’ on Dickens in December!