Review: DESTINED FOR AN EARLY GRAVE

Destined For An Early Grave by Jeaniene Frost
Narrated by Tavia Gilbert
Book 4 of the Night Huntress Novel series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback, audiobook

About Destined For An Early Grave:

Hopes for a perfect Paris holiday are dashed when half-vampire Cat Crawfield begins having visions of a vampire named Gregor who's more powerful than Cat's undead lover, Bones, and has ties to her past that even Cat herself doesn't know about. Original.

Source: Info in the About Destined For An Early Grave was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5604848-destined-for-an-early-grave on 04/03/2012.

Review:

That's it!! I swear this would be the last book in this series I would ever read or listen to.... until I get over my major annoyance at Cat's stupidity... however there is a big probability that I might get tempted to read/listen to the next book though given that I already got the rest of the books in this series... Cat is just over the top, ridiculously, unforgivably too stupid to live (TSTL) in this book. It's super annoying!! On top of that, for someone who survived battles aplenty, this particular heroine has a stunted survival instinct. Enemy passed by giving her a headache and she chose to ignore it... WTF!! *sigh*

The narrator... I like the french, english, southern creole and other various accents that Tavia Gilbert gave the French, the English, the Creole, etc. characters. A major plus! The plot however, is dependent on the heroine's TSTL to give the story the conflict necessary to have something to resolve in the ending. Plus it's holey to boot! Though I have to admit that the world building is superb and the story arc for the series is intriguing! For that alone I cannot give this book a less than 3.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 3
Story itself = 2.5
Ending = 3
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = N/A (9.5 hours/8 CDs)
Plot = 2
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries


Book Trailer:

In The Mail: CLOAKED IN MALICE

This is what Mr. Mailman brought me this week!

Cloaked In Malice by Annette Blair
Book 5 of A Vintage Magic Mystery series
Genre: urban fantasy

About Cloaked In Malice:

There's nothing Maddie loves more than fabulous vintage clothes, but the visions she gets while touching them are starting to wear her down. Even so, when a beautifully dressed girl comes to Vintage Magic in search of her past, Maddie isn't about to turn her away, especially since she bears a striking resemblance to her good friend Dolly Sweet.

When Maddie touches Paisley Skye's exquisitely crafted child's cloak, the vision she receives is of the ugliest sort: a decades-old case of kidnapping and murder. To give herself more time to investigate, Maddie enlists the help of her FBI Agent boyfriend Nick and takes Paisley into her home. But when Dolly suddenly skips town, Maddie realizes that uncovering the folds of Paisley's past will reveal more than one vintage crime...

Source: Info in the About Cloaked In Malice was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13099763-cloaked-in-malice on 30/08/2012.

THANK YOU to the Qwillery for hosting a giveaway which made it possible for me to win a copy of Cloaked In Malice by Annette Blair received!!

SHADOW OF NIGHT Party Tickets Winner!

The SHADOW OF NIGHT Launch Party Tickets Giveaway winner is:

Lucy B.

Congratulations to our winner!!!

Review: SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
Read by Rupert Degas
Book 1 of Skulduggery Pleasant series
Genre: middlegrade urban fantasy
Format: paperback, audiobook

About Skulduggery Pleasant:

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant. Sure, he may lose his head now and again (in fact, he won his current skull in a poker match), but he is much more than he appears to be—which is good, considering that he is, basically, a skeleton. Skulduggery may be long dead, but he is also a mage who dodged the grave so that he could save the world from an ancient evil. But to defeat it, he'll need the help of a new partner: a not so innocent twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie. That's right, they're the heroes.

Stephanie and Skulduggery are quickly caught up in a battle to stop evil forces from acquiring her recently deceased uncle's most prized possession—the Sceptre of the Ancients. The Ancients were the good guys, an extinct race of uber-magicians from the early days of the earth, and the scepter is their most dangerous weapon, one capable of killing anyone and destroying anything. Back in the day, they used it to banish the bad guys, the evil Faceless Ones. Unfortunately, in the way of bad guys everywhere, the Faceless Ones are staging a comeback and no one besides our two heroes believes in the Faceless Ones, or even that the Sceptre is real.

So Stephanie and Skulduggery set off to find the Sceptre, fend off the minions of the bad guys, beat down vampires and the undead, prove the existence of the Ancients and the Faceless Ones, all while trading snappy, snippy banter worthy of the best screwball comedies.

Source: Info in the About Skulduggery Pleasant was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/284440.Skulduggery_Pleasant on 18/08/12.


Review:

I like the way Rupert Degas screeched Beryl's lines! I liked the way he reads and his interpretation of the story. He sounds very professional and it made the listening experience very good indeed! I would listen again to another audiobook by him. But I think the Morticia Addams music though was just a tad overdone.

The heroine is impulsive and running headlong into danger with no thought about how to fight the bad guys nor how to defend herself. Passionate, yes! Stupid, that too!! And then as if that is not enough, when the good guys are fighting the bad guys our heroine just sits there and watch and wait for the bad guys to slit her throat instead of doing her bit of the fighting. Not somebody I like to identify with. Or it might be that the fight scenes needed a bit of sprucing up to make it realistic... like an input from a combat expert or something...

Another thing that didn't endear this book to me is that for a middlegrade book it is a bit too gross and too graphic... And for the impressionable middle grade age group I would like to impart the good values of friendship and family, not the value that it is okey to sacrifice a life or your friends for some shit noble cause. That is for mature adults. I have more books of this series in my TBR shelves, but I don't think I would be bumping them up the reading queue soon.

At the end of it, it wasn't that bad. But it wasn't that great either. But quite promising for a first book in a series.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 2.5
Character development = 2.5
Story itself = 2
Ending = 3
World building = 3
Cover art = 4
Pace = (7 hrs and 9 mins audiobook)
Plot = 2
Narrator = 5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries

Thank you to Audiobook Sync for the free copy of Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy downloaded on 18/08/12.

FTC Disclaimer:
The audiobook edition of this book was downloaded for free from Audiobook Sync on 18/08/2012. The paperback edition was bought with private money. No monetary compensation received for this review.

Guest Post: Leonardo Ramirez

Steampunk: It’s not just for grown-ups anymore!

Visit Amazon anytime and look up Steampunk and you’ll most likely find books that are geared towards young adults. That’s exactly what I did when my nine-year old daughter came to me with an idea for the upcoming children’s book series, The Jupiter Chronicles. After finishing up Haven of Dante I wanted work on something for the younger crowd when my wife (who is a librarian) suggested I work on something that grades 1-3 would enjoy. After all, it’s at this age that their imagination really takes root right? I was shocked to find that there was no a whole lot to be found on Amazon so I quickly got to work.

Here’s what I came up with:

It is the year 1892 and Ian and Callie Castillo have had to suffer the hardships of a single parent family since their father went missing five years ago. Since then Ian has refused to use the last gift that his father left the wounded boy; a telescope that sits collecting dust in the attic. When Callie decides to peer through its murky lens it activates the device and sends the Castillos to the steam-powered floating cities of Jupiter to rescue their father and save the Jovians before the Martians launch their attack. What follows is the beginning of an era that will forever be known by its strange name…Steampunk.

I was able to address an issue that had affected me as a child of divorce and tell a tale that explains the origins of Steampunk. There’s plenty of action along the way to keep kiddos interested as well as some funny stuff as well like a robot character named Stinky Frank.

The Jupiter Chronicles: The Secret of the Great Red Spot by Leonardo Ramirez
Genre: urban fantasy, YA

About The Jupiter Chronicles: The Secret of the Great Red Spot:

A war has been fought and lost by the Jovians. Now the answer to their freedom lies within the Great Red Spot and it's up to Ian and Callie to uncover its secret.

It is the year 1892 and Ian and Callie Castillo have had to suffer the hardships of a single parent family since their father went missing five years ago. Since then Ian has refused to use the last gift that his father left the wounded boy; a telescope that sits collecting dust in the attic. When Callie decides to peer through its murky lens it activates the device and sends the Castillo’s to the steam-powered floating cities of Jupiter to rescue their father and free the Jovians before the Martians launch their final attack.

What follows is the beginning of an era that will forever be known by its strange name…Steampunk. The Jupiter Chronicles series takes flight with the first book in the series….The Secret of the Great Red Spot.

Source: Info in the About The Jupiter Chronicles: The Secret of the Great Red Spot was from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15711784-the-jupiter-chronicles on 09/08/2012.
Buy Link(s):

About Leonardo Ramirez:

Sci-fi/Fantasy and Children’s Book Author, Leonardo Ramirez (http://leonardoverse.com, http://www.facebook.com/leonardoverse) has been writing for over twenty years. He is a writer whose greatest joy and inspiration comes first and foremost from being a father and husband to his family. He also enjoys meeting and mentoring students with a passion for reading and creativity, as well as training and teaching as a 2nd Degree Black Belt instructor at The American Karate Academy (http://www.americankarateacademy.com/).

Best known as the creator of the graphic novel, “Haven” (http://www.facebook.com/armyofhaven), and the upcoming kids’ steampunk adventure series, “The Jupiter Chronicles” (https://www.facebook.com/jupiterchronicles), his work has made the Gelati’s Scoop Top Ten Best New Releases for 2010 List, in addition to being featured by The Columbia Herald, Playstation Comics, and MegaComics Weekly. He has also appeared at GMX, Nashville Comic Con, Outer Limit Comics, Fairy Tales Bookstore, the Southern Festival of Books, and the Authors Circle at The Williamson County Library. Plus, “Haven” fans will be glad to hear that he is now working on the prose novel, “Haven of Dante” too! You can tweet with Lenny at http://twitter.com/leonardoverse, or network with him via http://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardoverse.com. Any promotional requests can also be sent to Leonardoverse’s Community Relations and Development Assistant, Stacey Aragon at Stacey@Leonardoverse.com, as well.

Leonardo's Link(s):
leonardoverse
Lenny at LinkedIn
Lenny at Twitter
Lenny at Facebook
Haven at Facebook
The Jupiter Chronicles at Facebook

Review: GUNMETAL MAGIC

Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews
Book 5.5 of the Kate Daniels series
Genre: urban fantasy

About Gunmetal Magic:

Some people have everything figured out — Andrea Nash is not one of those people. After being kicked out of the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, Andrea's whole existence is in shambles. All she can do is try to put herself back together, something made easier by working for Cutting Edge, a small investigative firm owned by her best friend, Kate Daniels.

When several shapeshifters working for Raphael Medrano — the male alpha of Clan Bouda and Andrea's former lover — die unexpectedly at a dig site, Andrea is assigned to investigate ... and must work with Raphael. As her search for the killer leads her into the secret underbelly of supernatural Atlanta, Andrea knows that dealing with her feelings for Raphael might have to take a backseat to saving the world ...

Source: Info in the About Gunmetal Magic was taken from at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12288282-gunmetal-magic on 09/03/2012.


Review:

Gunmetal Magic is just a novella in the Kate Daniels series. This is the story of Andrea, Kate's bestfriend. Included in this book, is a bonus story which is another novella in the Kate Daniels series, titled Magic Gifts. I've read Magic Gifts as an ebook about last year, I think, and is one of my favourites of the Kate Daniels novellas. Together, these two short stories make a good reading, specially for old time fans of the series like me. But really, I was looking for another installment of this series as a full book. A continuation of the story, not side trips. In fact, I thought I was buying one. And that was a bit of a disappointment! However, having said that, I was still happy to re-read about Ivar, my favourite dwarf, in Magic Gifts.

Gunmetal Magic managed to present a full story with a solid story structure and a good plot despite it being a short story only. The build-up to the climax was gradual and nicely orchestrated. But for some reason the story telling quality in this short story is not as compelling as previous works were that I found it rather odd. However I did like the author's excursion attempt into the realm of investigative crime fiction genre. It melded well. I think with a little bit more work, Ilona Andrews can shift genres with this series rather smoothly, into crime fiction.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = 3
Plot = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Kate Daniels Series: