Archangel's Blade

Archangel's Blade by Nalini Singh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is my favourite book in the series.  While I enjoyed Raphael and Elena's mating dance, Dmitri's chasing after Honor did it for me.  This book is appropriately named.  Dmitri is Raphael's blade, as his second command.  This story almost feels like a spin off.  There was less Angel politics which was nice.  The Angel's ennui and their evolution has been a bit of a drag.  I'm guessing the next book will deal with that conflict again.  I'm glad for the break.

In this book, Honor is pulling herself together after her two month torture at the hands of vampires.  Due to my reading selections, it is a guilty pleasure for me to read about the torture.  I admire Honor and I think she's the perfect "damaged" person.  She's strong and intelligent, but not flawless.  This is appealing to me in a heroine.  The twist in her was not unanticipated yet it was unfolded in a poignant manner which made my heart bleed a bit for her. 

What it really did was generate sorrow for Dmitri.  I've not really liked Dmitri, thinking him as a hard, calloused asshole.  This story is really all about him, not Honor.  We get to see what made him the way he is today.  And let me tell you, it isn't pretty.  It's brutal and heartbreaking.  The actual plot of what happened to him has been done before in other books by other authors.  What is different is Ms. Singh adds nuances which made it more personal for me.  I felt pulled in, really seeing from Dmitri's perspective.  Her way of describing scenes are in a way that makes it crystal clear for me to picture.  My favourite scene she painted was Ash, Elena and Honor sitting together on the edge.  I could see it so clearly in my mind.  I hope someone with artist ability decides to draw this scene and give to Ms. Singh to share.

This was more than just a paranormal romance with hot sex.  There were two other threads going on with Sorrow and hunting down Honor's torturers.  It was woven together to make a complete picture.  There were no tangents that fizzed anticlimactic or stopped in a dead end.  Instead, every piece of information pulled together in the end for a very satisfying ending.  I recommend this story to my paranormal friends who are hopeless romantics and love the bad boys.  Because Dmitri is definitely naughty.

Butterfly

Butterfly by Kathryn Harvey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I read this book after my first boyfriend and I ended our relationship.  While I've seen others write that this book is not really erotica or that it's about a poor making it rich story, I'm not really interested in classifying it as either.  I flagged this as erotica only because of the women being satisfied by a club catering to their sexual tastes.

Warning! ~ this is where it gets personal
The reason why I rated this book with 5 stars is because even after close to 20 years, I still remember this book and it had a profound impact in my life.  At just past 16 I experience my first bad break up in a relationships.  As a teen, everything feels more intense.  I was pretty messed up over it and my self esteem had taken a terrible trampling.  While I wasn't exactly suicidal, I was homicidal at times.  I was so angry and I couldn't get out of the cycle.

By chance, I found this book at a used bookstore.  The women being pleased was what caught my eye.  It opened up a new world for me.  It let me know that there were other females out there who have felt as I did.  Even better, they did something about it.  They never let it set them back.  They didn't use it as an excuse to become a shadow of what they could become or settle for something less.  Butterfly relayed to me, that a woman could make stupid mistakes but still overcome them.  With enough hard work and applying herself and forgiving herself, she can ultimate earn what she wants.  While I understand this is a work of fiction, I internalized it.  It helped me pull myself out of a funk and roughly 2 decades later, I assess where I am compared to my bruised 16 year old self.  I'm successful and happy.  Who knows where that asshole ex-bf is?  And now, who cares?  HAH.

For me, this book was a life changing event and a defining moment in my life.  For me, it was personal and touched me.  I recommend this book to other women who have experienced unfortunate circumstances and think it will never get better.  I'm here to tell you, yes it will.  Don't let those bastards win!  Your success and overcoming them makes them lose.

Hour of the Lion

Hour of the Lion by Cherise Sinclair

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I enjoy a good paranormal book.  I'm a bit jaded by the plethora of shifter books lately.  Some of the authors throw in a couple of wolves and recycle the common "understood" of how werewolves and shifters came to be.  I've read Ms. Sinclair's books before and generally found them to be well written with great characters that I like and a story line I can follow.  In addition, she creates conflicts which I can believe and follows each developed thread to a conclusion.  It may not be a happy conclusion, but it's a conclusion.



When I heard she moved to the paranormal genre with shifters, I was nervous.  Would it turn out okay?  Is she just jumping on the band wagon?  With great reluctance, I finally forced myself to read the book.  The first thing I can say after reading the first few pages is, "WHY ON EARTH DID I WAIT SO LONG?"



The first chapter BLEW me away.  We went from zero to sixty in less than a second.  I LOVE IT.  I was captivated from the very first moment when Vic was tied up and under threat of rape and torture.  This world Ms. Sinclair created for the shifters is fabulous.  She's used some of the existing accepted mythology and added her unique twist.  Her book leaves a wide open world for more than just shifters.  She has so many interesting characters I hope she writes several books and this becomes a series.



The erotic categorization of this book for me was the sensual and sexy heat between the three main characters, Vic, Calum and Alec.  The menage was a nice treat.  There was nothing out of this world about the sex, but it was nice each time.  Each sex scene had purpose to enhance the story.  It wasn't a gratuitous sex just for the sake of checking off a list of required sex scenes.



I liked Vic - she's the type of woman I admire.  Smart, loyal and strong cognitive skills and the ability to make a decision and stick to it.  She isn't w/o her flaws.  It's rather sad her flaws and I admit to shedding a tear at her heartache.  Alec and Calum, what can be said about them?  H.A.W.T, sexy, alpha and okay a bit paranoid.  But seriously, is it really paranoid if people are really out to get you?  I wouldn't mind being the meat in that man sandwich. 



The axillary characters were just as charming.  There was a reason for each person's madness.  There was no "just because" explanations.  Did people do bad things?  Yes.  Were they completely bad people?  No.  Each person's motivation was true to that character and help generate believable conflict.  This is what I admire about Ms. Sinclair's storytelling technique. 



I recommend this to all my friends, even those who don't really like paranormal, this is still a well written story.  I'd read it over and over and over and over again.  At this point, Ms. Sinclair should just be an auto-buy for me.

Damaged

Damage by Josephine Hart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I found this book when I was still in high school.  It was a bad time for me.  At the time I was upset and confused.  Mostly, I was angry at males and the patriarchal society.  I didn't know how to relate as a trained under duress strong female who had suppressed submissive tendencies.



I also thought there was something wrong with me.  The title of this book caught my attention.  Damage.  How true.  I read this book and I was horrified at how a seemingly perfect life could go terribly wrong.  I could understand the desires and wants of the father.  Yet I couldn't understand how he could do this to his family.  His perfect family with the perfect son and daughter. 



Then the wife, what was wrong with her that she couldn't supply what her husband wanted?  It was so baffling for me and once again validated to my young self that relationships and specifically marriage was a bad bad thing.  There was a line in the book which meant a lot to me.  "Damaged people are dangerous.  They know they can survive."  I felt that to my soul.  I guess I've always felt I was damaged some how due to my perversions. 



When a movie based on this story came out, I saw it.  It was just as devastating for me as the book.  Then again, I'm a fan of Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche.  This is a book with no happily ever afters or happily for now.  Even 20 years later, I still remember this book vividly.

Caged

Caged by Tam Ames

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I expected the worst from this book.  Seriously, a hamster shifter?  WTF?  A GAY HAMSTER SHIFTER?  Double WTF!?!  To my delight, this short story which easily takes less than 10 minutes to read is good.  The writing was tight.  Sticking to one POV was pleasurable.



Marek, er Marcin was so darn funny.  He's a snarky vengeful little bugger.  Hamilton is a sweet sweet guy.  This story felt like tongue in cheek for me the entire time.  I like it!  Maybe Ms. Ames will read this review and write about this storyline the Kindle Smut group has been kicking around...One member came up with a WTF storyline about gay squirrel shifters just looking for a few good nuts.  O_O  Ms. Ames, I hope you're out there giggling over her idea.  Maybe it will ignite a spark in that deliciously wicked sense of humour mind you have.

Thorn Queen

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Killing Time

Killing Time by Elisa Paige

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I LOVED THIS BOOK!  I wasn't sure what to expect.  I did like her previous books I purchased.  I never expected to receive a ARC of this one. I had been eagerly anticipating the release so I could buy it.  Back to my review. 



Killing time pulled me in from the very first chapter.  Ms. Paige did another outstanding job with her heroine, Sephti, also known as Nomad.  Sephti has all the qualities I like in a strong woman, just like Mia in Shadowplay.  There are many parallels in the way Sephti and Mia were raised.  For me, I enjoyed this.  The brutality of Sephti's childhood has my heart bleeding for her.  The strength and independence Sephti demonstrates is admirable.  I felt engaged and vested in Sephti's journey.  The one caution I would advise Ms. Paige is to designing all her heroine in the same manner of traumatic brutal upbringing.  Each of her heroines in the different books do have slightly different personalities.  Still, their pattern is eerily close.



The dynamic between Koda and Sephti was amusingly frustrating.  I really loved how clueless Sephti was in the human world.  Her depth of character made me fall for her very quickly.  Koda and his haughty manner made me want to kick his ass.  I'm glad he finally comes around.



What I like about this story is that bad things happen.  The good guys do not always win and live the next day to save us again.  This pain causes me to enjoy the book more since I feel more.  Killing Time takes place concurrent to the other books which is kind for me because it's like watching events from 4 different perspectives.  I like this because the world Ms. Paige built is more elaborate and complete.  What I like most is her characters are never perfect.  Even when you think something is going to go right, it doesn't always go exactly as planned.



I enjoyed Ms. Paige's interpretation of the fae world.  Her view of the vampire world has been lovely.  In this book, we learn of the Native American mythology.  I do not know much about Native American mythology but what Ms. Paige woven into her story gave me a huge respect for the culture.  I loved this aspect of the story.



There is only one item that confused me.  The last confrontation, how does that fit in the time line with Shadowplay?  I almost have to map out a diagram to figure it out correctly.  Still, I loved this book and I recommend it to everyone.  All of my friends and strangers alike.  There is romance, intrigue, love lost, battles won and lost.