Kitty Steals The Show – Carrie Vaughn

Kitty Steals The Show

Carrie Vaughn

Tor

Kitty has been invited to be the keynote speaker at the world’s first paranatural  convention, and she, Ben, and Cormac (with Amelia) travel to London.  Amelia discovers her remaining relatives, while Kitty’s keynote speech was explosive and exposed some unpleasant truths, setting things up for the next book.

There is some exciting action and we meet many new faces, as well as catch up with established characters.  More about the long game is revealed, while enemies are established and alliances are formed.  The plot was tightly woven and there was a lot of action, though not as much as previous books.  I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

This book can be read as a stand-alone but I would recommend you start at the beginning of the Kitty series, so you can see how much her character grows and changes as well as getting background information.

 

Songs Of The Earth: The Wild Hunt Book 1 – Elspeth Cooper

Songs Of The Earth: The Wild Hunt Book 1

Elspeth Cooper

Orion

Caught practising using magic, Gair is condemned as a heretic by the church and tortured to make him repent.  Unexpectedly released, he is guided out of the city by Alderan, a stranger who understands The Song, the source of Gair’s magic.  They make their way south, to an island Alderan knows of that has a school for others who can hear The Song.  There is a bit of danger along the way as they are pursued by a witch finder.

The church turns out to have a number of factions, and the political manoeuvring among them is intense.  One of them has employed the witch finder, who is curiously determined to find and kill Gair.  Along the way, Alderan and Gair meet a character who will play a major role later.  Gair learns more about The Song, and they narrowly escape death several times.

Told from the POV of several key characters, this book starts out slow, describing things and careful world building.  A lot of information is given and it seems a bit boring.  Please persevere though, things heat up in the last third of the book, nuggets of information make sense and you realise – aha!  That’s why that happened – as things fall into place.  Well worth reading and you get a good idea of the various players.  Off to read the next in The Wild Hunt series!

Fair Game: Alpha & Omega Book 3 – Patricia Briggs

Fair Game: Alpha & Omega Book 3

Patricia Briggs

Orbit

Anna and Charles are asked to be consultants to the FBI task force set up to catch a serial killer.  They discover that while some victims were werewolves, most others were fae.   While they are helping, a new victim goes missing, sparking a desperate race against time to find her and the killer before it’s to late.

This is a must read for any Patricia Briggs fans.  It gives important information in the outing of werewolves and this sets things up for the next in the Mercedes Thompson series.  I did not see that ending coming!  This book is set directly after River Marked and can be read alone though, as enough information is given to grasp the world its set in.

Dark Side Of The Moon: Dark-Hunters Book 10 – Sherrilyn Kenyon

Dark Side Of The Moon: Dark-Hunters Book 10

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Piatkus

Ravyn is a Dark-Hunter who’s also a were-hunter.  He was killed by his family after inadvertently getting his village massacred.  He sold his soul to Artemis for retribution against those responsible for the massacre but his surviving family still hate him.   The were-hunters are cousins to the daimons, who the Dark-Hunters were created to destroy, so they’re sworn enemies of each other.  So Ravyn has a hard time being both were- and Dark-Hunter.

Susan is a reporter with no credibility, who has been reduced to working for a tabloid for the paranormal in order to pay the bills.  Stopping by an animal shelter to talk to her best friend, Angie, about a conspiracy her police officer husband has uncovered, Susan takes a cat home as a cover story for her visit.  Once home the cat turns out to be a gorgeous, well built shape shifter – Ravyn.  He and Susan work together to uncover the conspiracy and figure out what the daimons are planning, which is to take over Seattle completely by killing the Dark-Hunters off one by one.

A perfect mixture of action, mystery, and romance, this is a must-read for Dark-Hunter fans.  Ravyn and Susan are an unlikely pair (she’s allergic to him), but grow on you.  There’s also a bunch of squires as interesting secondary characters and we catch up with previous characters, such as Archeron, Savitar, and Nick.  I really don’t like Nick in this book; he’s starting to sound like a whiny brat.  Like all Dark-Hunter books it is a bit steamy at times.  There’s a great amount of information important to the series in this book.

Arise – Tara Hudson

Arise

Tara Hudson

HarperCollins
Amelia is dead.  Only not.  She’s stuck between two worlds, the afterlife and her former life, where she can see goings on but no one can see her.  Seers have the ability to see ghosts and luckily for Amelia, her boyfriend, Josh, is one.  After months of worrying people because he talks to imaginary people, Josh is being sent to stay with relatives in New Orleans for a break.  He’s happy because the relative he’s being sent to is a Seer, so Josh can talk to her about Amelia.

Meanwhile Amelia is being warned by another Ghost, Eli, who’s stuck in Purgatory, that the demons of the ghost world are after her.  He tells her to control her and her powers, they’ll use anyone close to her and to avoid hurting anyone, she has to leave them.  So Amelia decides to leave town and joins Josh on his trip.  In a haunted city like New Orleans though, ghosts are everywhere and Amelia is soon being hunted again.  She meets Gabrielle, a ghost who has found a way to live a half life, and is determined to find the secret.

This was the second in the series and I haven’t read the first.  I’m also not into ghost stories so that may colour my view.  I just didn’t like this book.  I thought the heroine was dippy and the hero was boring.  The first chapter also raised questions I didn’t want to know, namely how does a live person get romantic with a ghost.  Secondary characters, like Gabrielle, were interesting though, and hopefully she plays a bigger part in the next book.  Teens might enjoy this book.