100 Book Challenge - Book 37 - Through the Killing Glass

Book 37 / 100

Book: Through The Killing Glass (Alice in Deadland #2)

Author: Mainak Dhar

ASIN: B007M4I6NA

Pages: 183 (I’m averaging this with book one that I previously reviewed so together they total 413 pages)

It’s been more than two years since Alice’s adventures began, over two years since she first followed a Biter with rabbit ears down a hole. With the help of the biters and the humans living in the Deadland she’s fought the Chinese Red Guard to a standstill and the survivors have begun to rebuild a society, beginning in a place they call Wonderland.

But sometimes people mistake quietness for safety and peace. When Alice is ousted from the government of Wonderland and the guard patrols reduced, it can mean only one thing. The Chinese Central Committee are beginning a new, much more insidious, campaign to take control of the Deadland.

A campaign that utilizes a new breed of Biters and Alice’s most formidable opponent yet, someone just like her, a biter/human hybrid known as The Red Queen!

Rating: 5 out of 5 Shotguns. This was a really fun journey, after the twist ending of book one, I just had to see how things ended. If you’ve read Alice in Deadland then you have to read this book. It’s an interesting take on things, and offers the reader a glimpse at how humans react and how they, more than likely, stab each other in the back at the first opportunity.

100 Book Challenge - Book 26 - Beautiful Redemption

Book 26 / 100

Book: Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles #4)

Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

ASIN: B00936ROW4

Pages: 465

Ethan Wate is dead. But that, as they say, was just the beginning of his adventure.

Having given his life to restore The Order, Ethan finds himself in the Otherworld. With the help of his mother, Aunt Prue, a Dark Caster and a hideous bat/human monster he begins a journey to find his way back to the Mortal World and the love of his life Lena Duchannes.

Lena has to continue on, not giving up hope that Ethan would find his way back to her, so when Ethan finds a way to communicate with her from the Otherworld, things begin to fall into place that would lead to the final showdown with the evil Abraham Ravenwood for possession of The Book of Moons, a key piece in Ethan’s quest.

As Ethan continues his quest, he learns the truth about his fate, and the dark heart of the Far Keep and how one Mortal man’s quest for power lead to things that were never meant to be. Can Ethan face the evilest of Keepers, Angelus, and win his freedom to return to the mortal world?

 Rating... 5 out of 5 spells. This folks, this is the final chapter in what I would almost call an epic story of love, loss and magic. And while it does drag in a couple of places, it almost feels as if that was intentional to make you feel what Ethan is feeling. I highly recommend this book series, you can’t just read one, you gotta do them all.

100 Book Challenge - Book 25 - Beautiful Chaos

Book 25 / 100

Book: Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles #3)

Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

ASIN: B005JZD382

Pages: 529

The Order is broken. It’s the End of Days.

With Lena’s choice to be herself and claimed by neither and both light and dark, chaos is reigning on Earth. The signs of the apocalypse are descending on the small town of Gatlin. The casters and supernatural folk are finding that their powers are off, the mortals are cowering in fear. Meanwhile Abraham Ravenwood is searching for the hybrid Incubus John Breed, with urgency as the Eighteenth Moon approaches.

There is one way to save the world, Gatlin, Lena, Link and all Ethan’s loved ones. A sacrifice that must be made in order to bring about The New Order. The One Who Is Two. But just who is this person, and can they find them before the Eighteenth Moon?

Rating... 5 out of 5 spells. Okay, so it should be clear to anyone reading all my reviews that I am loving this series... Although I must caution you, if you’re anything like me you will need a box of tissues around for the end of this book, trust me on this.

100 Book Challenge - Book 23 - Beautiful Creatures

Book 23 / 100

Book: Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1)

Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

ASIN: B00371V710

Pages: 563

Nothing ever happens in Gatlin, and Ethan Wate knew that all too well, that’s why he was counting down the days until he could leave. At least he had been, until the new girl arrived in town. Old Man Ravenwood’s niece was like nothing the town had seen, and that was just the start.

Lena Duchannes is a Caster, as in Spell Caster, and she’s struggling to contain her powers and dealing with a curse that has sealed the fate of her family for generations. On the 16^th moon of their 16^th year all the Casters in her family are Claimed by either light or dark. And it’s Lena’s 16^th birthday soon.

Inexplicably, Ethan is drawn to Lena, and vice versa. A connection that means that in a town where nothing ever happens, something big is about to happen.

Rating: 4 out of 5 spells. Okay, so I went into this book knowing that several friends had told me it was slow and hard to get into, but I found that it was a captivating story, by a few pages into it I was hooked. I’d recommend it to anyone who has a liking of paranormal romance and magic.

100 Book Challenge - Book 20 - Moon Child + Bonus

Book 20/ 100

 

Book: Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) ASIN: B005CQ80R2 - ISBN: 978-1105798894

Book: Christmas Moon (Vampire for Hire Novella) - ASIN: B006HHDYPS

Book: Vampire Dreams (Vampire for Hire Short Story) - ASIN: B009D5IZAK

Author: J.R. Rain

Read as part of Samantha Moon by J.R. Rain (ISBN: 978-193785617-5)

** Moon Child **

Picking up exactly where the last book left off, we find Samantha Moon rushing to save her dying son the only way she can… By turning him into a vampire. And hoping the legend about a cure is real.

Now, legend has it that a special medallion has the power to reverse vampirism, a special medallion that had been around the neck of the vampire who had turned Sam, a medallion that had been sent to Sam by a vampire hunter who had killed that vampire. But how does one use the medallion?

With the help of Fang, Kingsley, Detective Hanner, a creepy mystic and an ancient book that was published today, Sam begins a quest to find the answer. But along the way she’ll encounter heartache and pain. But the medallion she holds is a highly sought after artifact, and there’s one who’ll stop at nothing to get it.

Rating… 5 out of 5 fangs. I think we’ve established by now that I love this series and highly recommend it. So I won’t go saying it again. *grin*HanHH

** Christmas Moon **

It’s Christmas time, and Samantha Moon has a client. A man has had a safe stolen. A safe that was passed down to him from his father, and grandfather before him, a safe that hadn’t been opened in all that time.

At the same time Sam has to contend with the amorous advances of her Guardian Angel (or Watcher as he calls himself). In usual Sam Moon style, she gets right to the bottom of things, and even busts up a small drug ring in the process.

Rating… 5 out of 5 fangs. A great wee novella and a little bit of fun to read.

** Vampire Dreams **

A dream, something Sam Moon just doesn’t do these days, leads her to a young waitress who is about to have a very bad evening…

Rating… 5 out of 5 fangs… An interesting little tale of Sam and her heroic streak.

100 Book Challenge - Book 19 - American Vampire

Book 19/ 100
Book: American Vampire (Vampire for Hire #3)
Author: J.R. Rain
ASIN: B004UHLW1K
ISBN: 978-1105089237
Pages: 306

Read as part of Samantha Moon by J.R. Rain (ISBN: 978-193785617-5)

Vampires, PIs, sick kids and kidnapped children, oh no!

Continuing on from the previous story in the series, we find Sam meeting her online confidant, Fang, and finding he’s a notorious convicted criminal, convicted of drinking a girl’s blood! But Fang is human, a vampire wannabe. A human who wants to become a vampire for real.

As Sam struggles to deal with that request, she finds her son becoming deathly sick, and the doctors have a hard time treating him. Sam’s developing psi abilities allow her to see the auras that surround people, and around her son she sees nothing but death.

While trying to determine if she should turn her son into a vampire to save him, Sam receives a phonecall from a frightened young girl, a young girl who tells Sam that her mom was killed by a bad man who is keeping her prisoner and hurting her.

Calling in some extra manpower, Sam works with the police, and three other PIs (all characters of the author), Jim Knighthorse, Aaron King (aka Elvis Presley) and Spinoza, to find the young girl.

Rating… 5 out of 5 fangs. I love this series, and the fact that it can crossover with the author’s other series, well, that’s just icing. It has the elements of supernatural, vampires, werewolves etc, but it’s obviously grounded in reality with the case of the little girl’s kidnapping and the sick son. Definitely worth giving the series a read if you can.

100 Book Challenge - Book 18 - Vampire Moon

Book 18/ 100
Book: Vampire Moon (Vampire for Hire #2)
Author: J.R. Rain
ASIN: B0046A9PC4
ISBN: 978-1257381067
Pages: 314

Read as part of Samantha Moon by J.R. Rain (ISBN: 978-193785617-5)

Vampires, werewolves, crime bosses and cheating sleazebag husbands, oh dear!

Samantha Moon (call her Sam) is a Private Investigator, a mom and a currently separated wife. She’s also a vampire. And she’s still coming to terms with all that means.

So we join Sam as she picks up the pieces after being kicked out of her home by her husband, who is disgusted with what she is. At the same time she is faced with two new cases to investigate.

A grieving widower whose wife died in a plane crash along with 11 other federal witnesses for a crime boss’s trial, a crash he believes was engineered by the crime boss himself. And it’s up to Sam to arrange the fitting justice for the criminal.

And then there’s the abused divorcee whose ex-husband has already tried to kill her twice, and succeeded in killing her father and crippling her mother. A woman who’s like a shell of a person, and in desperate need of comfort and friendship. And it's up to Sam to protect her from her ex and the hired assassins he's sending.

Along the way we find Sam beginning to accept who she is and even learn more about her condition, and find out more about her husband. We also learn more about her Instant Message confidant Fang and her werewolf squeeze Kingsley Fulcrum.

Rating… 5 out of 5 fangs. Much as with Moon Dance, this was an awesome read, and what’s more, it’s a book I wholeheartedly recommend. Now, I read this in the omnibus edition called “Samantha Moon” but seriously, if you like PI tales and vampires, get this book in any way you can. :)

100 Book Challenge - Book 17 - Ruby Red

Book 17/ 100
Book: Ruby Red
Author: Kerstin Gier
ISBN: 978-0-312-55151-3
Pages: 324

All her life Gwen has been raised with the knowledge that her cousin Charlotte was destined to be a time traveller, one born with the gene that allows them to move through time. Charlotte had been raised and trained for it since birth. So when Gwen suddenly finds herself back in time she’s forced to wonder who got their sums wrong and who had lied to her.

Gwen is completely unprepared for time travel, she’s had none of the training, knows none of the rules. She’s also unprepared to meet Gideon de Villiers, an obnoxious, know it all, who’s her time travelling companion, and quite possibly the love of her life.

Add in a secret society whose members include people like Sir Isaac Newton, a couple of rogue time travellers who don’t want the secret society to complete its mission, and a ghost who haunts Gwen’s school, and it all means Gwen has a lot on her plate.

Rating… Oh, 5 out of 5 stars, this was a great story, I admit it did take a little getting into, but once there you just gotta know what comes next. There’s a scene where Gwen takes an uncontrolled trip back in time and sees a girl who looks a lot like her! And be warned, there’s a twist at the end :)

100 Book Challenge - Book 15 - Moon Dance

Book 15/ 100
Book: Moon Dance (Vampire for Hire #1)
Author: J.R. Rain
ASIN: B002Q0Y27Y
Pages: 256 (Kindle Locations: 4702)

Vampires, Werewolves and Lawyers, oh my!

Samantha Moon is a crack private detective. She also happens to be a vampire and a mother and a wife. As Samantha struggles to keep her marriage afloat and cope with her husband’s growing revulsion at what she has become, she is handed a mysterious case that could end up helping her just as much.

Kingsley Fulcrum, a rather defence attorney, was shot, five times. In the head. And survived. Now he wants Samantha to find the person who did it. As Samantha throws herself into the case she’s hounded by thoughts of her husband and his possible infidelity, her guilt for taking advantage of an accident that killed a gang banger (not her doing) and a vampire hunter who wants to kill all the vampires.

She also finds herself attracted to her client, who, amongst other things, may very well be a werewolf. With the help of her government contacts and a local police detective she begins to piece together the attack on Kingsley and another semi-related death that could lead her to the truth.

Rating… 5 out of 5. This was a great read, I loved this book from early on. J.R. Rain certainly knows how to weave a mystery together, I seriously didn’t see the bad guy coming, although once you know who it is you do a good old facepalm because it’s so obvious. I’d definitely recommend the book, and more than that, I’ve ordered the omnibus edition with the first four books in the series! :)

100 Book Challenge - Book 13 - L.A. Rain

Book 13 / 100

Book: L.A. Rain: Three Novels

Author: J.R. Rain

ASIN: B004O0U2D2

Pages: 371 (Kindle Locations: 7819)

Yes indeedy, a book with three novels in one! The first digital only book in my list, and it’s one I got for free (you gotta love free) Anyway, the book has three stories in it, so this review will have three parts…

Novel 1: Elvis Has Not Left The Building

In 1977 the world believed that Elvis Aaron Presley died suddenly, when what actually happened was he faked his own death and underwent extensive plastic surgery. Now at the age of 75 Aaron King lives in L.A. and works part time as a P.I. Now a new case falls in his lap, and with it he finds new hope, and even a new spur towards his old life. A young starlet, at the beginning of a promising movie career, has vanished, and the police have almost no leads. As Aaron pieces things together he uncovers dark secrets and his own desires and fears.

Overall this was a good story, took a little bit to get into but ended up being very interesting. Keep an eye out for a special cameo at the end as well as some awesome music :)

Novel 2: The Body Departed

James Blakely is dead. But what lays beyond dead is the question, for James, he’s certain he’s headed for Hell, only he’s not sure why. When one dies the memory starts to go, and James has been dead for two years. With the help of a medium, Pauline, he begins to put together the details of his life, his death, the death a young boy, the death of a piano teacher and the thin string of fate that binds them all together.

Another good story in the end, it was a bit tough to get into, but once you start putting things together you have to know how it ends. I tell ya, I had goosebumps when a character made a cameo appearance.

Novel 3: The Vampire with the Dragon Tattoo

Okay, this is a bit more my thing, vampires :)

PI Spinoza is hired by a worried woman to find her adoptive granddaughter, a granddaughter who believes herself to be a vampire slayer, not a hunter mind, but a slayer. The granddaughter, Veronica, had witnessed her parents brutal murder several years earlier at the hands of a so-called vampire with a dragon tattoo. Fortunately for Veronica, Spinoza is very good at his job, and his job is finding missing kids and teens. Spinoza isn’t really prepared for the word of darkness and blood drinking that this particular case will take him to, but since when has that stopped a dogged investigator?

I enjoyed this story, it was a fun romp as we learn about Spinoza and his past, the tragic death of his son and wife, his alcoholism and his determination to help those with lost children.

Overall this book was very fun, three novellas that take us into worlds of mysteries and fantasy, yet all set in the real world of L.A. I’d give this book 4 out of 5 magnifying glasses and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an easy read of some interesting detective style stories.