Review: BLAZE OF MEMORY

Blaze Of Memory by Nalini Singh
Book 7 of the PsyChangeling series

Genre: adult urban fantasy

About Blaze Of Memory:

Nalini Singh returns to the Psy/Changeling world and its “breathtaking blend of passion, adventure, and the paranormal”* as a woman without a past becomes the pawn of a man who controls her future…

Dev Santos discovers her unconscious and battered, with no memory of who she is. All she knows is that she’s dangerous. Charged with protecting his people’s most vulnerable secrets, Dev is duty-bound to eliminate all threats. It’s a task he’s never hesitated to complete…until he finds himself drawn to a woman who might yet prove the enemy’s most insidious weapon.

Stripped of her memories by a shadowy oppressor, and programmed to carry out cold-blooded murder, Katya Haas is fighting desperately for her sanity itself. Her only hope is Dev. But how can she expect to gain the trust of a man who could very well be her next target? For in this game, one must die…

Source: Info in the About Blaze Of Memory was taken from the author's website at http://www.nalinisingh.com/blaze.php on 05/06/2011.

My Thoughts:

Blaze Of Memory has the same masterful author's voice that I know of from Nalini Singh. However this book did not read as good as the previous books. For some reason this book felt like Ms. Singh was not in her usual top form when she wrote it. It was still a wonderful read, don't get me wrong, it just didn't read as good as the other books in the series to me. It was also a slow start but I persevered because I thought that I had to read it anyway to have a better appreciation and understanding of subsequent books in the series which I fully intend to read, me being a long-time PsyChangeling series fan. So I trudged on. And I was glad I perservered because it did pick up about three quarters into the book until the end. It was a heart-wrenching read! But I am not going to say anymore about the end because otherwise I'd be giving out major spoilers which could potentially ruin the book for you, so that's that. I also have a couple of minor issues with this book regarding the male protagonist which did not quite make sense, but I choose to ignore it for now. Overall, I enjoyed this book though it wasn't the best book in the series.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story Telling Quality = 4
World Building = 5
Character Development = 3.5
Writing Style = 3.5
Plot = 4
Pace = 3
Story Itself = 4
Ending = 3

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Psy-Changeling Series:
Click on the cover image for more info.

Review: CLUB DEAD

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Read by Johanna Parker
Book 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse series
Format: audiobook

Genre: adult urban fantasy

About Club Dead:

Things between cocktail waitress Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill seem to be going excellently (apart from the small matter of him being undead) until he leaves town for a while. A long while. Bill's sinister boss Eric has an idea of where to find him, whisking her off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. When she finally catches up with the errant vampire, he is in big trouble and caught in an act of serious betrayal. This raises serious doubts as to whether she should save him or start sharpening a few stakes of her own ...

Source: Info in the About Club Dead was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140082.Club_Dead on 12/09/2011.

My Thoughts:

I listened to this audiobook after I watched True Blood Season 3. As opposed to me reading the books before I watched Seasons 1 & 2. I can tell you that Season 3 has deviated a lot from the book. I also started getting confused between scenes from the show and scenes from the book! But one thing remains the same, the Stackhouses, they are still as stupid as ever. For some reason I could tolerate their stupidity a bit better with the show than with the book... Or it could be that their TSTL (too stupid to live) schtik is not as glaringly obvious in the show as oppose to the books...

The world building is marvellous as per usual, but I did not like the ending too much. It ended the main plot in the story but left too much hanging. I know, I know, marketing ploy... but I find it just a little annoying with this book. However, this is also the book which introduced us to Alcide Herveaux! Though Alcide in the book is not as hot as Joe Manganiello. So that's a score in favour of the show! On top of that, we see a little bit more Sookie-Eric interaction which shows us an Eric who is an anti-hero we could love. This notches up the intrigue of the love triangle between Sookie, Eric, and Bill which I believe will keep fans hooked.

Overall, this book is not too bad, however I am just not very tolerant of Sookie's TSTL act so I'd give this book a 3 out of 5.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story Telling Quality = 4
World Building = 5
Character Development = 3
Plot = 3.5
Pace = N/A
Story Itself = 4
Ending = 3
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries


Books In This Series:

WW28: HUNT THE MOON

WW28
A chance to showcase your favourite!

• First you grab our Wicked Wednesday pic.
• Then you grab a book. Turn to page 28. Take the first sentence. And then you post it in your site with a link back to WW28.
• Come back to Cherry Mischievous - WW28 and give us the url of your post (in a comment at a WW28 post) so that other WW28 readers can find your WW28 offering.

WW28 book offering: Hunt The Moon by Karen Chance

"I tried swiveling my head around, because glaring at someone upside down doesn't work."

This line is not on page 28, it's on page 2, but this line is my favourite. It gives us a glimpse of the kind of sass our protagonist dishes out.

About Hunt The Moon:

Cassandra Palmer recently defeated a god, which you'd think would buy a girl a little time off. But it doesn't work that way when your new job description is Pythia — the world's chief clairvoyant. Cassie is busier than ever, trying to learn about her power, preparing for her upcoming coronation, and figuring out her relationship with the enigmatic sexy master vampire, Mircea.

But someone doesn't want Cassie to become Pythia, and is willing to go to any lengths to make sure the coronation ceremony never happens—including attacking her mother before Cassie is even born.

Source: Info in the About Hunt The Moon was taken from the author's website at http://www.karenchance.com/books_htm.html on 14/02/2011.

Review: BREATH AND BONE

Breath And Bone by Carol Berg
Book 2 of the Lighthouse Duet

Genre: epic fantasy

About Breath And Bone:

Osriel the Bastard wagged his finger, choking off my response as if a noose tightened about my neck. "But you, Magnus Valentia de Cartamandua-Celestine...what does Sila Diaglou want with you?"

Not just the murderous Harrower priestess, but everyone in Navronne seems to be after Valen. There is the Bastard Prince himself, who steals dead men's eyes. And the Pureblood Registry, determined to keep every pureblood sorcerer in thrall. Even beings out of myth, the Danae guardians, whose dancing nurtures the earth and whose attention could prove the most costly of all.

As Navronne sinks deeper into civil war and perilous winter, Valen finds himself a bargaining chip in a deadly standoff. Doomed to madness by his addiction to the doulon, and bound by oaths he refuses to abandon, the young sorcerer risks body and soul to rescue one child, seek justice for another, and bring the ailing land its righteous king. Yet no one is who they seem, and Valen's search for healing grace leads him from Harrower dungeons to the very heart of the world. In the twilight of a legend, he at last discovers the hard truth of the coming dark age and the glorious, terrible price of the land's redemption...and his own.

Source: Info in the About Breath And Bone was taken from the author's website at http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/lighthouse.html on 26/03/2011.

Review:

Carol Berg is one of those talented story spinners whose author's voice is so wonderful that the story just flows. Berg makes the emotions of Valen so tangible and the tangy smell of the sea so real I could almost taste it! I really like this author's voice! The masterful author's voice was the only reason I didn't rate book 1, Flesh And Spirit, a less than 3. Which it automatically would have scored, given how I hate cliffhanger endings. However, (good for me) I borrowed both books of the Lighthouse Duet at the same time so I was able to continue reading book 2 as soon as I hit the cliffhanger in book 1. Disaster averted. This book also started out slow but the pace gets quicker and quicker and it builds to a wonderful crescendo at the end with a satisfying climax! The plot is twistier than a texan twister which kept springing surprises at me. What a pleasure to read! There are minor points which can be quibbled as not quite believable which could bring the suspension of disbelief half a notch down, but on the whole I can forgive all those nitpicking for the wonderful reading experience I get at the end of it! Highly recommended! Though you have to trudge through book 1 first.

My greatest complaint now is that there are no more books in this series. And I'm kinda hoping to hear more about Thokki and Kol. I think they would make a nice pair! Here is an image which reminds me of Thokki and Kol... although we can't have them walking around naked other than their gard markings, so elf-like clothes will do.

Emperical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 5
Ending = 6
World building = 5
Cover art = 4
Pace = 4.5

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 cherries


FTC Disclosure: This book was borrowed from the library.

The Other Book In The Lighthouse Duet:

Flesh & Spirit at GetGlue
My review of FLESH & SPIRIT is here.