Ah, vampire romance novels. The cotton candy of the literary world. Even the more substantial ones are so light and fluffy, you could drop them in the ocean and they’d work as a life preserver. (Lynsay Sands, I’m looking at you. I like your stuff, but you need to invest a little more in plot.)

Luckily, Amie Gibbons’ book Psychic Undercover (with the Undead) is more urban fantasy than vampire romance, so thankfully we have plot, we have character, we have a bit of a police procedural, and we have action.

The FBI’s about to find out ghosts and vampires aren’t the only things that go bump in the night…

Singers are a dime a dozen in Nashville, so despite her mama’s urging, psychic Ariana Ryder’s working her way towards a career in law enforcement at the FBI, one tray of fetched coffee at a time, instead. She’s got an extremely handsome boss, a dancing partner among the lab techs, and a solid year as the team rookie under her belt…

Right until the director gives her a big break, working undercover as a singer at a club to investigate why it’s being targeted by a serial killer. This might have worked better if the club didn’t happen to be a vampire nest.

Now, with the vampires’ investigator, Quil, on the case, the sparks are flying and the jurisdictional battle isn’t the only thing heating up as they race to solve the case before the killer strikes again!

Continue reading →

This one came out, and I have to tell you, it’s about flipping time. I read this book months ago. I probably should have written up the review immediately, but I was more interested in finishing the bloody books that came in around them.So, anyway, this is JD Cowan’s book — Gemini Man.

Continue reading →

Everyone knows the phrase “down the rabbit hole.” It’s an Alice in Wonderland reference, where the main character is in their normal, everyday life one moment, then in someplace utterly insane the next. Reality is utterly, totally, and completely different.

For John C. Wright’s Somewhither, the rabbit hole wasn’t good enough.

No. We needed an inter-dimensional portal that opens up to an invading army, sucking our hero into a realm that makes Wonderland look positively friendly and harmless.

Continue reading →

Welcome to When the Gods Fell, the latest by the Dragon Award finalist Richard Paolinelli (Escaping Infinity)

Mars Is Hiding A Secret

When the first small group of humans arrive on Mars, they expect to retrieve some probes and learn more about Earth’s neighbor. Instead, they find Oracle Veritas, of House Delphi, who has waited 65 million years to brief these children of Olympus about their own origins, their very essence … and the danger that threatens them.

Seas and lakes, deserts and icecaps, forests and mountains once covered this planet then called Olympus. Veritas tells them that it was home to a race of immortals—Zeus, Odin, Yahweh, Lucifer, and others—who guided the fates of other worlds and fought among themselves for supremacy.

Zeus, Odin, Yahweh, and Lucifer, supported by characters from other realms, had battled for control. As civil war loomed, the most powerful of all the gods, Zeus, foresaw chaos and destruction. Left with a single, terrible solution to save all the worlds, Zeus turned to the only person he could trust to carry out his last order … and change all existence forever.

Continue reading →

I almost wish that The War Revealed came out this month.  That way, I could have voted for it for the Dragon Awards this year. I’m going to have to settle for The Lost War (reviewed yesterday).

Newman and Goldenrod survived landing in a monster-infested wilderness. Their group of historical reenactors no longer fears starvation. But can they control the magic powers people are developing? Discover how they were transported there? And stay safe from the orcs and dragons?

As noted in yesterday’s review, this series is amazing.

In the first book, we saw the emergence of magic just beginning to settle in among the folks of the SCA troop transported to a fantasy world where magic is common … and so are orcs. This book goes far deeper into the mechanics of magic. I’m trying to recall when the last time I saw magic being executed this practically. In the previous novel, a lot of time was spent on logistics and how things work. This novel centered around how magic worked. There’s Chekov’s gun, and then there’s Checkov’s SAW. There were even some uses of potential energy that read a little bit like old-school philosophy (IE: Ancient Philosophy). And some of it boils down to “Magic is weird.”

But yeah, there’s a lot of how things get done, only with magic. Call it “hard fantasy” if you must be picky, but it’s interesting and readable for well over 30% of the book.

Continue reading →

What families don’t have their little problems?Paxton Lock is back, and payback can be a mutha.

Enter Come, Seeling Night.

Paxton Locke’s been in some pretty tight spaces before. This one might be the worst.

Drugged and shipped to who-knows-where on an airplane, he’s locked up by men who seem to be Feds. But they haven’t given him his phone call, and Pax isn’t sure if his cell mates are even human.

This is one cell he can’t get out of, but he’s got to find a way to escape. Mother has his girlfriend, and she wants a redo of the night she killed Paxton’s father. But this time she won’t be interrupted. Paxton’s got to find Cassie, and he’s got to stop his mother.

Or the world might end.

Apocalyptic visions from Mother’s grimoire have haunted him for years. Now she’s close to making it happen. And all Paxton can do is wait in his cell for someone to realize he’s not the bad guy.

Can Paxton escape his magical prison and stop Mother? Or will he be too late, and lose Cassie just like he lost his dad?

The third installment of the Paxton Locke series delves deeper into the meaning of love and forgiveness, while providing plenty of action, magic, and Humphreys’ signature subtle horror.

Will Mother bring about a world on fire, or a dead Earth? Can Paxton defeat her? Find out and read Come Seeling Night today!

Once again, this is a brilliantly executed plot. Even the tangential subplot that becomes a thread to be untangled in the rest of the series is nicely place. It effects the plot of this book, sets up for the next book, and we move right along.

In short, there’s nothing like C4 to cut through red tape.

I’m not sure if I can add anything new to my review that isn’t a spoiler. Though I will admit that the historical aspects we have revealed to us over the course of the novel are very interesting.

And if you think I mean a mention here or there, no. There are whole characters who are historical references. I think I have about or or three figured out.

But yeah, a lot of what impressed me about this book was the setup for everything to come. It almost feels like a three-book origin story.

Yeah, I know it almost feels like cheating that I’m saying so little. But everything interesting really is a spoiler… and I read the ARC for this book months ago, and I’m a bit rusty trying to catch up to my book reviews.

And damn does Paxton want to be Harry Dresden when he grows up… if he grows up. Right down to pissing off everybody he meets. And if anything ever happens to Butcher (God forbid), Humphreys can Sanderson in as replacement quite well.

And I like the punchline. Very Terry Goodkind…. except for the speeches. There are no speeches.

But Come, Seeling Night here.