2012 Horror and Urban Fantasy Reading Challenge COMPLETED!

Yup.  I'm done with another one.  It's nice to clean the clutter off of your plate just before a major move, let me tell you.  Here's my list that went ahead and completed the challenge for me.  It's rather liberating, really.  Now I just have three more slots to fill on the Off the Shelf Reading Challenge and one more to go for the Titanic Reading Challenge.  And 14 more books to read to complete my goal of 100 for the year.  I'm feeling rather confident right now.  It's pretty awesome when things have a tendency of falling into place.

The Infects by Sean Beaudoin

Pub date: September 25, 2012.

Author website.

Seventeen-year-old Nero is stuck in the wilderness with a bunch of other juvenile delinquents on an "Inward Trek." As if that weren't bad enough, his counselors have turned into flesh-eating maniacs overnight and are now chowing down on his fellow miscreants. As in any classic monster flick worth its salted popcorn, plentiful carnage sends survivors rabbiting into the woods while the mindless horde of "infects" shambles, moans, and drools behind. Of course, these kids have seen zombie movies. They generate "Zombie Rules" almost as quickly as cheeky remarks, but attitude alone can't keep the biters back. Serving up a cast of irreverent, slightly twisted characters, an unexpected villain, and an ending you won't see coming, here is a savvy tale that that's a delight to read -whether you're a rabid zombie fan or freshly bitten-and an incisive commentary on the evil that lurks within each of us.  (netgalley.com)

There really isn't much that Sean Beaudoin can do wrong.  His novels have a definitive signature that screams THIS IS SEAN BEAUDOIN.  It usually involves some level of noir, exceptional find-fuckage and a snarky cynicism that is like the brand of Sean on all of his books.  THE INFECTS fit nice and snugly into this mould although I have to say it's the least mind-fucked of the SB books I've read.  In fact it was downright tame in comparison to the likes of FADE TO BLUE.  But that doesn't mean it was bad.

Yes, THE INFECTS is a zombie novel but it's not your standard zombie novel.  It's not really a world-wide pandemic of zombie proportions and the zombies have a habit of evolving, thinking, picking the more favorable pieces of your body to eat as opposed to just chomping at random.  There are different levels of infected, from the full-on zombie to something a little more human to a lot more human to total meat sack meal.  This isn't a simple zombie novel despite the humor that Sean involves.  Yes, it's funny, but he's taken zombie lore and expanded it to something a bit more terrifying than just having to deal with your regular ol' shambling zombies.

Of course THE INFECTS has all the seriousness of a Simon Pegg movie, background events being carried out in a rather hilarious background humor fashion while the SERIOUS things happen in the foreground.  Never mind the guy running around with a severed arm in his mouth.  WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?  It is truly a Sean Beaudoin novel for that reason, along with the demented reality that takes it that many more steps away from being grounded.  It's not just a chicken restaurant but it's what everyone thinks of when they think of a chicken restaurant, the menu showcasing full servings for fried random chicken parts and a chicken surprise pack with some kind of unhealthy gravy mess.  It is as much of a satire as a satire can be even moving beyond the restaurant.  LIFE has elements of the familiar with added doses of ridiculous to elevate the story into the absurd but still managing to keep it relatable.  Everyone wants to survive the Zomb-A-Pocalypse, right?

Nick/Nero is the spearhead of the group, much to his chagrin.  His only objective is getting to Petal.  People just happen to want to follow him around while he completes it.  He's not comfortable with it but he makes due.  With Sean's books you don't necessarily have likable or unlikable characters; they either are characters or aren't.  It's all in the way they're written, that satirical pulp style that makes caricatures of everything, to one extent or another.  So you'll either think the characters are too far out there (like the twins) or they're readable (pretty much everyone else).  Unless they get killed.  And Sean has no qualms about putting the kibosh on the pulses of any of his characters.  So be warned: if you favor one more than the others, it'll probably end up with some teeth in its neck.

Reading this, though, I couldn't help but think there was some kind of message here, about over-processed and genetically engineered food, unhealthy eating habits, complacency in what we're being forced fed.  Messages aren't something I picked up on in other Sean books so it took me aback a bit.  Couple that with the relatively toned down (for him) style and I think it was a bit different from what Sean usually writes.  Not as wild and with more of a purpose, however slight.  Still incredibly enjoyable but veering off the path a little.

THE INFECTS is not your typical zombie novel, filled with atypical zombies and anti-heros and an ending that will make your head spin.  Sean's snark is not for the faint of heart and the satire is for those only able to take big blasts of the absurd at a time.  The level of mind fuck is lower than in previous books with the story being far more straight forward and the characters being more contoured and easy to grasp.  The subtleties of it are what will make you laugh, hidden in a well-timed background element in a greater scene.  It forces you to pay attention because you'll miss snippets of gloriousness if you're just reading it for what the surface provides.  If you like trippy, off the wall tales riddled with snark that will make you laugh and gag in the same sentence, you'll most likely love THE INFECTS.  It brings with it the familiarity of the zombie trope but Sean just comes right on in and fucks it all up.  But in a good way, like always.  And that's why I keep reading him.  Not only is he a fantastic storyteller but his voice is so epically unique that you can't help but latch onto it and drool love all over it.

Ban Factor: High - Zombies, lesbians, zombie sex, rabid fried chicken . . . what's in this book that the banners WON'T throw a shit fit about?

Sleepless by Thomas Fahy

Published August 11, 2009.

Author website.

SOMEONE ELSE WILL DIE SOON she tells herself. 

SOMEONE ELSE WILL DIE AND I WILL BE RESPONSIBLE. 

A few days after the first time you walk in your sleep, you kill someone. That's how the end begins. 

Emma Montgomery has been having gruesome nightmares. Even worse, when she wakes up, she isn't where she was when she fell asleep. And she's not the only one. One by one the students of Saint Opportuna High start having nightmares, and sleepwalking. And the next morning one of their classmates turns up dead. 

Something is making them kill in their sleep. Emma and her friends need to band together, to keep themselves awake until they can figure out what's behind the murders--before anyone else dies.  (goodreads.com)

There's a reason that NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, despite all of it's cheesiness, is, at its very core, frightening: because Freddie attacks people in their dreams, in their sleep, when they're at their most vulnerable.  SLEEPLESS also tapped into that inherent attack method and it's why I think, even despite my ultimate disconnect with the story, it's still scary.  Sleeping is something a person just can't not do.  You have to sleep but that's also where you're being attacked and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.  Anyone that doesn't think that's scary to at least some degree is lying.  Liars!

Don't get me wrong; I liked SLEEPLESS.  But there was something there keeping me from really connecting with the story, most likely the way it was told.  It was third person limited and flipped between Emma and Jake throughout the book but it wasn't necessarily the POV that did it.  I think it had more to do with the mechanical, almost dry execution of the story that kept me at bay.  It kept me interested but I've been interested in newspaper articles too.  It was more of a recounting of events with little effort at trying to make me scared.  For a horror novel that's a pretty big deal.  I WANT to be scared when I read horror.  That's why I read it.  Yeah, it's masochistic but quite frankly I liked being scared.  If horror doesn't scare me then it's failed it's most integral part.  I couldn't even feign frightened.  Yes, the things happening to the kids was scary but I didn't feel it.  I just read the story and carried on.

The New Orleans event laced throughout the book dragged on a bit too long without coming to its useful point.  I get the technique but I don't think it worked to the story's advantage here.  Of course it kept me reading but I was more annoyed with it toying with me than anything else.  I wanted to know HOW it was relevant and it kept teasing me for chapters.  I was irked.  It ultimately wove itself in but it didn't end up being what I thought it could be.  It slid down a more more cliched route that ended up being a bit contrived.  No vengeance or cover-ups or anything like that.  The ending was really ho-hum and a bit of a disappointment.

I liked Emma and Jake as characters.  They were both probably the best parts of the book.  They were just really well-fleshed out characters that I felt came alive on the page.  I believed their actions, their words and how they made everything unfold around them.  It worked.  I think SLEEPLESS could have been an amazing horror story if the rest of the elements around Jake and Emma were as finely tuned as they were, not to mention the story would have been better if it ended up being something BIGGER than what it was.  Again, disappointment, but Jake and Emma were good, with Emma taking the lead despite everything going against her.  She was the glue of the group, making things happen instead of waiting for them to happen.  If I knew I was about to kill someone in my sleep I'd like to think I'd take the same initiative and do something about it instead of just cowering in the corner.  No cowering for Emma.  Always a plus.

I think someone not as attuned to horror would find SLEEPLESS far scarier than I did but seeing how desensitized to it I am it fell kind of flat in the scare department.  I wish it were scarier for me because it would have been amazing!  I liked almost everything I was reading.  All that was missing was me being scared.  But it had just enough elements (like the execution of the voice) going against that amazingness to bring it down to something that was decent to read but didn't instill the horror like it should have.  It will make you think twice about sleeping, and watching slides, I'm sure but the ending didn't lend itself to anything greater than another teen horror cliche.  I liked it but that's about it.

Ban Factor: High - Kids are dropping dead all over this novel, not to mention there's some boob grabbing of the unmarried variety as well.  The banners would squeal.

Beyond by Graham McNamee

Pub date: September 11, 2012.

Author website.

Jane is not your typical teen. She and her best friend Lexi call themselves the Creep Sisters. Only Lexi knows why Jane is different from anyone else: Her own shadow seems to pull her into near-fatal accidents. Jane is determined to find out why these terrifying things happen, and to overcome her shadow enemy. Her sleuthing with Lexi connects her own horrors to the secret history of a serial killer.  (netgalley.com)

Hooray for YA horror!  Love it.

BEYOND taps into an aspect of horror that involves genuine creep factor.  It's not about how much gore the scary thing can create but just how scary it can be in and of itself.  Personally a shadow, YOUR shadow, that tries to kill you is pretty high up there.

Jane has been subject to a slew of horrific "accidents" all of her life, the most recent of which involve her shooting a nail out of a nail gun and into her head.  All because of her shadow.  Death has surrounded her her entire life.  Literally her entire life.  She was a still born that was resuscitated.  And for as long as she's known her shadow has been there trying to get her to kill herself.  I don't want to give too much away because I think the reasons behind all of these incidents are truly creepy and give new meaning to a near-death experience.  It's not all bright white light and happiness for some people.

Jane's a solid character that you can immediately get on board with as a reader.  Despite all of her insane accidents, and despite the rumors attached to her as a result, she leads a relatively normal life in terms of her own views of it.  She's not paranoid or overtly macabre.  She's grown so used to being so close to death that she's developed a nonchalance about it.  Almost a boredom.  She wants it gone already.   She wants to lead a REAL normal life, not just one where she tries to toe around a piece of her that's actually trying to kill her.

Lexi is the objective third party in the equation.  She fills in the gaps with Jane's lack of vision thanks to her sleep deprivation.  She serves a purpose, really.  I didn't like her nor dislike her.  I really didn't feel much either way.

But kudos to no love triangle and really no relationship at all!  Much to Jane's chagrin but that plays too much into the plot so I won't divulge.

BEYOND is another good addition to the YA horror market, adding in a decent ghost story where there's definitely a hell of a lot of room for it.  It'll make you look twice at your shadow and wonder what it's doing behind your back.  The notion of it thinking at all is pretty horrifying if I'm honest.

Ban Factor: High - Horror gets filed automatically high.  In this instance it's thanks to a killer shadow, a nail in a brain and a creep that buggers boys.

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Pub date: August 7, 2012.

Author website.

It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.

His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.  (netgalley.com)

Now my main issue with GIRL OF NIGHTMARES is not turning into a blithering fangirl idiot in this review.  But that's going to be really hard because it's horror and YA and unforgiving and AWESOME.  I'll try, though.  I'll try.

This time around Cas, for the first time ever, is trying to be a normal teenager.  He has stayed in the same place for nearly a year and will even renew his tenure at his current high school.  A never for him.  As a result he's attempting to date (thanks to Carmel) and move on from the whole Anna issue.  Except she's not letting him move on.  Cas starts seeing her everywhere and it gets to a point where he starts questioning his sanity.  Lucky for him his marbles are all where they should be and something far deeper, and grander, is going on around him.

Blake doesn't spare punches in GIRL OF NIGHTMARES.  While it doesn't have the feel of "truer" horror (as in the genuine scare factor involved) to me there's still an unyielding, unforgiving horror to her storytelling that'll slot it in with the rest nicely enough.  Blake is unforgiving with her gore, the trials she puts her characters through and the means they need to meet in order to achieve their ends.  And she does it with such well-timed snark that I'm in awe of it.  It's not forced, it never feels like a contrivance and it fits in genuinely with it's surroundings.  Said snark is used sparingly but in just the right moments that it hits perfectly and it left me giggling more than once.

I had an issue with Cas referring to Anna as his girlfriend.  That's just a level of morbid that surpasses even my rather effed up capacities.  And it's also rather sad that the only girl Cas felt he could have a connection with was a murderous dead one.  I felt sorry for him on a few different levels but at least the entire story was realistic about it.  Yes, he referred to Anna as his girlfriend.  Creepy.  But it didn't delude anything.  There was no talk about bringing her back to fleshy life so her and Cas could live happily ever after.  Cas knew she was dead; Anna knew she was dead.  Different planes of existence.  Full stop.  Patrick Swayze got off back in Albuquerque.

I also had problems with Cas's mom and whether I was supposed to think of her as a good mom for letting Cas do his thing or a bad mom for letting him do his thing.  Probably one of the main reasons for them having to move so often was if they stayed in one place Cas's mom would have the Department of Children and Families wedged so far up her ass she wouldn't be able to walk.  At the rate he keeps ending up in the hospital (he tripped and fell into a campfire?  might as well just make him walk into doors too) all signs would start to point to child abuse.  But he's Cas and following in his dad footsteps and this is the family business blah blah blah.  But I really wanted his mom to be a real mom and be like, "EFF THAT.  You're grounded."  She wasn't though.  She made her candles and enabled his behavior and cleaned his wounds.  I don't know how I feel about that.  She fit the story and if there were a contrivance here she'd be it.  Luckily for the story as a whole I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to tuck it back.  She's not very prominent and I was so caught up in the action that I wasn't able to dwell on it long enough anyway.

There were tears at the end so beware.  It was shocking.  I kept trying to guess where it was going to go but, as you know, I kind of suck at that so I was nice and surprised by the ending.  It was unexpected and refreshing in that it didn't pander to the "norm" in YA.  All the more reason to love Blake.  She writes her story and everyone else be damned.  This is it and nothing else.

GIRL OF NIGHTMARES was an excellent continuation of the ANNA series.  Well worth the wait and not at all disappointing.  Just the right amounts horror, gore, fear, tears, snark and sass, GIRL OF NIGHTMARES hits all the right places at all the right times.  YA needs more horror and I'm so incredibly happy that Blake is a contributing factor to even that imbalance out.  It's nominally free of romance (except for Cas's, um, issue, I guess) but it has some hidden angst found in the likes of Thomas and Carmel, the comic reliefs in what is otherwise a pretty dark story.  I have no doubt GIRL OF NIGHTMARES will be a hit and will have people salivating for more ANNA.

Ban Factor: High - We see things getting tortured.  Shit comes back from the dead.  There are swears.  It's all over, folks.

Blade Song by JC Daniels

Pub date: August 1, 2012.

Author website.

Kit Colbana—half breed, assassin, thief, jack of all trades—has a new job: track down the missing ward of one of the local alpha shapeshifters. It should be a piece of cake.

So why is she so nervous? It probably has something to do with the insanity that happens when you deal with shifters—especially sexy ones who come bearing promises of easy jobs and easier money.

Or maybe it’s all the other missing kids that Kit discovers while working the case, or the way her gut keeps screaming she’s gotten in over her head. Or maybe it’s because if she fails—she’s dead.
If she can stay just one step ahead, she should be okay. Maybe she’ll even live long to collect her fee…  (netgalley.com)

BLADE SONG is a bit out of my normal reading repertoire but at the moment I'm all about branching out and I've been following Shiloh  since she unabashedly spoke her mind about the Sirengate debacle.  So throw all of that together and I wanted to read something by her and see what she was all about author-wise because I already thought she was pretty cool as a person.

JC Daniels is the pseudonym for Shiloh Walker who writes romances, among a bunch of other books.  It looks like she writes PNR under her Walker name as well as her Daniels name and I just don't know enough about her to know why she pseudonymously writes.  But needless to say my first Walker book was a Daniels book simply because the blurb appealed to me and it's right up my alley for some adult PNR (because the YA stuff makes me a touch homicidal).

Kit is your kick ass heroine that smarts off right from the get-go and at least has the know-how to realize she should really keep her mouth shut most of the time she allows it to open.  She's part Amazon that allows her to call her sword at a moment's notice even if it's not in the area and it also gives her some other heightened senses that help her out in tough times.  Her childhood was total crap and I really liked the way Daniels interspersed Kit's PTSD with her current job, sending her reeling into her past.  Not that PTSD is a good thing but it's authentic to the character.  For instance Kit spent a lot of time starving and injured in a pit at the hands of her grandmother.  When her and Damon come upon similar pits in the Everglades Kit starts flashing back.  I just felt those flashbacks were authentic.  I bought them and it added a new vulnerable depth to Kit that gave reason to her kick ass attitude.

I was a little less than thrilled with her speech.  I felt that her dialogue and slang was, at times, reaching and it grated on me a little bit but not enough to stop reading.  The story was fast-paced and entertaining enough that it carried me through what I didn't care for and let me just enjoy the story for it's entertainment value.  I'm finding I can do this more with adult books than YA, probably because I'm starting to burn out on YA, I think.

The writing itself was on the simple side in terms of words on the page and at times redundant but I still felt Kit was a fully fleshed out character.  I found her as real as could be, right along with all of the secondary characters that Daniels introduced, from the witches to the cats and even to the humans that she ended up interacting with.  They were barely there and when they were they were serving a purpose but they were fully realized.  I didn't feel like they were puppets in a show, merely there to serve Kit.  They helped her, as much as she needed it, but they all were ultimately their own entity.

I was less than thrilled with the romance.  There was a bit by the way of sexy times but it was an antagonistic relationship that you could see coming from the beginning.  And the way Damon kept referring to Kit as baby girl made me want to strangle something.  From what I got Kit wasn't all on board with that pet name either.  The progression of the romance was exceedingly fast for what ended up coming to fruition but ultimately I think the two actually work together.  They both antagonize and compliment each other in equal measure; neither are dependent on the other, both are a bit possessive (Damon a bit more so which I found off-putting) and both could hold their own.  So I was less than thrilled with it but I didn't wholly not like it either.

You know it's a good foray into adult PNR.  It satisfied a craving that I had for something different yet similar (how . . . vague of me) and not nearly as angsty as I've been getting with the YA crowd.  It was a good deviation from my otherwise norm.  It's definitely gritty and doesn't shy away from the themes it presents so if you're a bit weaker in the will area BLADE SONG might not be for you.  But if you're keen on some violence, a kick ass chick with some issues, a nominal amount of sexy times and a good set-up for the next book, BLADE SONG is your bag.  I didn't love it but I'll keep my eye our for more, that's for sure.

Ban Factor: High - Is that a joke?  Did you read the last paragraph?

YAckers Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Published June 7, 2011.

Author website.

A mysterious island.


An abandoned orphanage.


A strange collection of very curious photographs.


It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.  (goodreads.com)

'Twas I that was Keeper of the Book this month for the dear YAckers and out of the choices I provided MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN was the ticket.  This book was always a draw for me because, really, anything with creepy ass children on the cover has GOT to be good.  I mean it takes some serious balls to use such a horrifyingly repelling yet car crash-level intriguing book cover.  Truly these are the photos of nightmares.  Especially the children in white wrestler masks with the string.  Goo.  Nightmares.

But it didn't end up going where I thought it was going to go.  That didn't mean it was bad but it was far more fantastical than it was horror.  Here, just take a look at the discussion.

Donna: Almost finished with Miss Peregrine's and it's not what I thought. I was thinking more creepy children-ish but it's far more whimsical than what I was anticipating. Not a bad thing. It's really well-written and I'm enjoying the story but when you show me fucked up photos of old timey-children I'm expecting a fucked up story. Or have I seen one too many horror movies?

Sya: It's a strange book - I loved it and thought it was quite refreshing that he didn't overload the creep/horror factor - the pictures were enough for me.

Donna: See I'm a masochist. I LOVE creep factor. But those clown children are truly horrifying.

Donna: And I'm a little creeper out that the MC is messing around with his grandpa's ex-girlfriend. Keeping it in the family, huh, Emma?

Donna: NOW it's time to Bueller this topic. Since I realized that, for once, I read the book head of my normal four seconds before it's due schedule.

Donna: Bueller? Don't make me talk to myself, guys . . .

Sya: Sorry, I'm only just back from holiday and started a new job and have a big wedding to attend and so HAVE NO BRAIN LEFT! Anyhoo... I really enjoyed this book. The hardback copy (which was stolen from me on a book tour... sob) was gorgeous to hold and look at and the pictures absolutely fascinated me. The story itself was compelling and I particularly liked how the author juxtaposed the more fantastical aspects with very real historical events. Jacob was a good protagonist but I felt that the character I consistently wanted to know more about was Abe, who seemed to haunt the book throughout (which, I suppose, was exactly the point). I read it a while ago and still haven't found anything quite like it since. I also interviewed the (HOT!) author - you can read that (if you wish) here.

Sya: As you will see, I seem to be quite fond of using the word juxtaposition, which is hilarious as I have only the vaguest idea what it actually means.

Steph: I'm with you Donna. I did enjoy it and thought it was brilliantly written but feel slightly misled re. distinct lack of creepy fucked-up old timey kid horror. Beautiful looking book aswell, thought the inclusion of the photos to illustrate specific points in the plot was very clever

Donna: Sya, I only caught a single use of juxtaposition. I think you kept it in check nicely. I too like how he wove his made up elements in with actual aspects of history, his grandfather running from monsters, that kind of thing. It saddened the story a little bit, the historical part but it firmed it up in reality a little more. Not to mention the photographs ground it down yet again. Damn, those kids are creepy. I like how we're on the same page, Steph. If you're going to give me creepy-looking kids there better be some heinously creepy elements to the book as well. I wouldn't say it was whimsical but it definitely wasn't Children of the Cornish either. Yeah they were shut-ins but they weren't feeding people to their corn god. Is it weird that I'm a little disappointed by that?

Sandy: I'm still reading it but I'm enjoying it so far....Jacob's a smart narrator. I was sad when I read what happened to the grandfather :(

Donna: War-wise or beginning of the book-wise? Either way but you're bound to have someone go rogue. I think he was the only person that had to run to that effect though. I liked that he broke away. I can understand how he wouldn't want to be a prisoner yet again even if it was a safehouse.

Sandy: beginning of the book wise. I'm only on chapter five? six? Nowhere near the end. v.v

Donna: Oh, okay. Yeah, it was pretty sad to see him die the way he did and to have everyone think he was totally batty.

Sandy: Yeah...but Jacob figures it out eventually and I'm glad he does. I like that his dad was present too; parents being around are rare nowadays. And I agree with you Donna: I find Jacob making out with Emma kind of gross. Even if she's still "young". It actually reminded me of Rose's relationship with what's-his-face and HIS grandson from A Long Long Sleep.

Sya: Yep. On the sliding scale of Ick, it certainly tickled my gag reflex. Yet key it really didn't detract from the overall storytelling which I thought was accomplished. And not just because the author was hot.

Donna: I'm wondering where authors are getting relationship ideas from. I think they may be reading/watching too much Game of Thrones.

Donna: Any other words of wisdom for MISS PEREGRINE'S?

Laura: This book kept popping up as YA...you know...one of those titles that they randomly throw into the YA category because the book 1) has young people in it and 2) YA is so hawt right now and I've found this amusing from the start because honestly, throwing this book on a table covered in black covered vampire books and books with slutty girls in ball gowns IS FUNNY. It's too good for the association. Don't get me wrong...I love YA and there ARE some good YA writers, but on the whole...well, you know. I'm drawn to YA for lots of reasons, but I can admit that excellent writing isn't one of my expectations. This was a nice break for me. It reminded me that every now and then, it's nice to sit down and read a book with a good story, told by an excellent writer who knows what the hell he's doing. GOD, sometimes it's just nice to READ REAL WORDS.

Donna: Your contribution is appreciated.

Laura: "Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize that we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was."

Laura: I MEAN HELL. WORDS.

Laura: My physical treatment of this book was nearly criminal. I dog-ear a page whenever there is a passage I like. This book looks like some sort of origami chicken.

Donna: Truly, MISS PEREGRINE'S should be a standard for YA. I wouldn't be so disappointed all the time if that were so.

Sya: It is beautifully written - here's hoping it heralds more in the way of, well, awesome words in YA.

So generally speaking we loved it.  It stands out from the rest of the YA crowd not only in premise but in sheer awesomesauce writing.  There is a standard here that isn't too far-reaching but blows so much else out of the water that once you finish reading you can't help but declare "YOU'VE SUNK MY BATTLESHIP!"

So it didn't turn out like I thought.  I'm okay with that.  The creepy photos of small children are still epically horrifying and the story was pretty damn good too.  I'm glad MISS PEREGRINE'S lived up to its hype.  In a reading world where where I'm exceedingly hesitant to latch onto anything hype-like I'm glad I did it with this one.  Funky, chilling and at times something resembling whimsical, MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN is a definite must-read for anyone dying for something GOOD.  Just damn good.

Participating YAckers -

Yours truly
Sya at The Mountains of Instead
Steph at The Mountains of Instead (contributing reviewer)
Sandy at Pirate Penguin's Reads
Laura at A Jane of All Reads

Ban Factor: High - A somewhat fairy world where children get to live as children forever because they have special powers except monsters lurking in the shadows are trying to murder them.  Yeah, I think some banner just shat him/herself somewhere.

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen

Published October 2010.

Author website.

A seance held in an aristocratic London home goes horribly awry when one of the undead nosferatu appear. The resulting chaos leaves one of the fraudulent spiritualists dead, Sherlock Holmes missing, and Dr. Watson alone and mystified. With time running out, Watson has no choice but to summon the only one who might be able to help--Holmes' vampire cousin, Prince Dracula.  (goodreads.com)

I've never read any SHERLOCK HOLMES stories before so when SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE came across my inbox for review I opened up a little bit and took it in.  The topic alone (vampires!) drew me in and it was a style I was willing to try out since I wasn't all that familiar with it.  Why not, right?  It could be something I ended up liking.

While I liked the quirkiness of the plot (kind of hard not to picture Downey Jr. and Law in the Holmes/Watson roles, respectively, since I've seen both movies, weird, I know) and it's particular kitsch and drier sense of humor the voice ultimately was not something I could get involved with.  There wasn't anything inherently bad about it.  I thought everything I read was really well-written, the humor was great, the scenes were painted wonderfully.  But the style of writing, the tone of voice, just isn't for me.

I ended up not finishing SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE because of that.  Again, it wasn't bad, what I read.  I just couldn't connect with the story's tone.  If you're into stories from that era (I'm looking at you, Austen fans, just without the romance, really, but there are vampires) I can pretty much bet you'll like something like this.  I at least liked the characters and have I mentioned the humor?  All great.

But stories in this mindset I'll be avoiding from now on.  Take this plot and set it in a more modern tongue (but you can keep the humor as is, I like the quirk) and I'd be all over it.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires and Spiritualists.  That's pretty much all you need to know.

Samantha Moon by JR Rain

Pub date: June 5, 2012.

Author website.

Mother, wife, private investigator ... and vampire. Six years ago, federal agent Samantha Moon was the perfect wife and soccer mom with the minivan and suburban home. Then the unthinkable happened, an attack that changed her life forever. And forever is a very long time for a vampire.


Samantha's adventures as a night-roaming vampire and private investigator in Samantha Moon include ...


Vampire for Hire #1) Moon Dance: Samantha is hired by Kingsley Fulcrum to investigate the attempt on his life, a horrific scene watched on TV around the country. But Kingsley isn't exactly what he appears to be; after all, there is a reason why he survived five shots to the head.


Vampire for Hire #2) Vampire Moon: Samantha Moon hunts down a powerful crime lord and protects an innocent woman from her ruthless ex-husband-all while two very different men vie for her heart. As the stakes grow higher and her cases turn personal, Samantha Moon will do whatever it takes to protect the innocent and bring two cold-blooded killers to justice-her own brand of justice.


Vampire for Hire #3) American Vampire: Samantha receives a heartbreaking call from a very unlikely source: a five-year-old girl who's been missing for three months. Using her considerable resources-including her growing supernatural abilities-to locate the missing girl before it's too late, Samantha also receives devastating news on the home front, forcing her to make the ultimate choice of life and death.


Vampire for Hire #4) Moon Child: Samantha Moon is faced with an impossible decision that will change her life and those of the ones she loves forever-a decision that no mother should ever have to make. And through it all, Samantha finds herself in a lethal game of vampire versus vampire as a powerful and desperate enemy will stop at nothing to claim what he most desires.


Christmas Moon: With Christmas just around the corner, Samantha takes on a very strange case: A priceless family treasure has been stolen, something passed down through the generations and buried in secrets. And Samantha gets half of whatever it is ... if she can find it first.


... and an all-new Samantha Moon short story by J.R. Rain.  (netgalley.com)

I was SUPER excited to get to reading this omnibus.  Mainly because I'm a little desperate for something different.  As if vampires are something different, right?  But this just sounded so neat.  A vampire PI?  Hell yeah I'll try that out.

Eleven pages into book one and I wanted to light it on fire.  I mean we're talking so bad I actually stopped reading.  I know I've had a small string of DNFs lately but you all know me; I usually give them far more of a chance than a mere eleven pages.  Hell, HALO got more than that from me.  I just couldn't do it with SAMANTHA MOON.  It was too terrible.

First the writing, much like WILDE'S FIRE, was too unpolished.  The sentences were just strung along together, getting me from point A to point B with no flourish and would alternate between zipping through seemingly more important moments, like backstory, and hanging out at mundane crap I didn't care about, like picking up her kids from school.  I don't care.  It was an underdeveloped work.

Next the MC wanted to hump every male leg that she crossed paths with.  I'm okay with vamporn of the pornpire.  Not a problem with it.  But I HATE it when every male that crossed the MC's path is described by their varying levels of fuckability.  Especially when the MC is already married.  Yeah, no.    Bitch, you're a trashhole.  The opening scene was Samantha getting a delivery from a UPS guy and I honest to god thought it was either a porn dream or I was reading erotica with the way the dude was described.  And of course he was some super awesome, super sexy guy that the MC just wanted to bang right against the door jamb.  Yeah, because all of my delivery men look like that.  And she constantly had to throw mental ice water on herself.  I was just not cool with it.  Especially since she was already married.  It's okay to look but this woman might as well have just ingested a keg of Spanish Fly.  Gross.

And then there was the name-dropping.  Burger King, Coppertone and a few others.  In eleven pages there were five that I counted, four of those within three consecutive paragraphs.  Annoying.  Why can't you just say you stopped for burgers?  Why can't you just say you slathered on sunscreen?  Do you get paid for every name you drop?  Blech.

But the kicker?  Samantha was viewing video footage of some dude getting gunned down.  And the assassin was using a .22.  NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.  Did the guy sit down to pee too?  But I kept reading.  And then that same gun totally shredded a tree big enough to hide a guy the size of a Coke machine.  And we're done.  Fucking seriously?  Dear authors: if you're going to write about guns, DO YOUR GODDAMN RESEARCH.  I hate it when authors want to use guns but instead of actually looking into them they just watch some movies with guns in them.  I'm sure this author would have people flying back after getting hit with a .22 too.  Boo.  Sorry, author.  You've totally blown my trust.  We can't be friends.

So yeah.  Eleven pages into book one and done.  Could I recommend this to someone?  If you like mediocre writing, name-dropping and know nothing about guns and can thus swallow such fallacies, by all means take a stab at it.  I won't be making it.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires, assassins and a way-too-horny married woman.  Yeah, cooked.

V Wars by Jonathan Maberry

Pub date: May 29, 2012.

Author website.

A sweeping, threaded narrative of the global phenomenon known as the Vampire Wars! Mankind is silently infected by a millennia-old bacteria unknowingly exhumed by a scientific expedition in Antarctica. Now, in some rare cases, a person’s so-called “junk DNA” becomes activated, and depending on their racial and ethnic heritage they begin to manifest one of the many diverse forms of the “others” that are the true basis for the legends of supernatural creatures. These aren’t your usual vampires and werewolves — it goes much deeper than that.  (netgalley.com)

V WARS is actually more of an anthology centered around a single spine of a plot.  Maberry is in the middle of it all, weaving the basis of the world with JUNK, ESCALATION, SPECIES, GENOCIDE, EMBEDDED and LAST BITES.  JUNK takes up the biggest chunk of the story, centering on Michael Fayne, aka Patient Zero (not Joe Ledger).  The guy that started it all.  I only know Jonathan for his zombies but let me tell you he can do vampires too.  I just LOVED the science behind it, how it was basically a virus that activated dormant, or junk, DNA in our genetic code giving humans vampire tendencies.  Unlike zombies most of these guys blended into society so you would have no idea if the person standing next to you on the subway is leering at you because you're hot or because they're hungry.  To pun terribly, it's a more evolved pandemic than something like a zombie virus, as that's what people with the mutations come to think of themselves as.  Evolved.  They've moved on to the next phase of humanity.

Each subsequent story of Maberry's moves on to how the reaction to this virus would escalate in the world, the breakdown of the species (which I loved because all of these authors delved into some seriously off the beaten path vampires, the variety was awesome), deeming the mutants enemies of the state by the government and thus sanctioning their slaughter, the vampires teaming up to fight back and then vampires hiding in plain sight.  These stories were sprinkled along the book, mixed in with other authors and they created an excellent complement to everything else going around.  Everyone really wrote so well within Maberry's imagined world that while the voices differed the stories seemed authentic.  Seriously loved it.

Nancy Holder authored ROADKILL about bikers defending the border and then ultimately losing their grip on reality and who is really the enemy.  I liked this one for the ambiance.  The story didn't hold me so much as its setting.  I could feel the grit and the grime of the desert and it ground out the unreality of the situations into something tangible.  Probably because I've been to Arizona and could actually picture it.  Made it all the more real.

John Everson wrote LOVE LESS about a talk show host that's pretty much a closet sociopath.  I liked this character for her ingenuity but that's where it pretty much ended.  She wasn't sympathetic although she presented a really interesting variety in the vampire species going around.

Yvonne Navarro wrote EPIPHANY which was quite possibly my second favorite story in this compendium.  Also set in Arizona, it focuses on a seventeen-year-old Native American girl still living on the reservation and ostracized from her society in part because her parents were nonconformists to their world but also because she was raped.  She begins to morph into a kind of snake-like vampire that was just super crazy from the beginning.  She even adopted slightly snake-like features (if you're thinking Voldemort you've gone too far) and made a pretty good job for herself because of her, um, talents.  Between the setting and the fantastic character in Mooney, I didn't want this particular narrative to end.

Scott Nicholson wrote HEARTSICK, a short I wasn't all that impressed with.  Loved the lore of the Raven Mockers that would eat people's hearts but the characters were a bit too stereotypical heehaws for my liking.

James A. Moore added STALKING ANNA LEI which had a not-so-appealing vampire (something kind of cat-like) but a great plot.  A brother is on a mission to find his sister who he thinks was kidnapped by an ogre-looking vampire.  Except this nasty vampire is leaving a blood trail that points right back to the MC.  Definitely suspenseful and an author that's rather unforgiving with his characters.  I liked it.

Keith RA Decandido wrote THE BALLAD OF BIG CHARLIE which deviated from the truer vampire line just a bit to add in shapeshifters.  Charlie is a Bronx DA who also happens to be a werewolf.  This is the story that, for me, really zeros in on something more political in terms of equality.  Is Charlie even human anymore?  Should he be allowed out of the house?  Is he safe?  Obvious parallels to society's current issues with gay people and their rights, or minorities, or any people in adversity really.  It takes place an extended amount of time after the zero event so society has had a chance to thoroughly react to the issue and polarize itself.  I normally don't like moralizing but I was okay with it here.  It didn't seem contrived and fit really well with the story as a whole.  This one probably came in a solid number three from the top for me.

And last but not least Gregory Frost wrote VULPES about a Romanian scientist getting exposed to the virus in Antarctica but it doesn't go where you think it might go considering her home (as people's mutations depend on their heritage).  She is actually the antithesis to the vampires, a protector of mankind.  A great way to end the book, really.  Her line of mutation is the medicine for the vampire virus.  It's not pretty but with the "bad" mutations come the "good" ones that'll help protect society.

With the ridiculous mix of vampire lore going on in V WARS, there is definitely something for every vampire lover in here.  From the scientific aspect (which I found believable) to the emergence of little known vampire species (and the authors' willingness to deviate from the beaten and cliched path) and the various effects it has on the world, V WARS kept me entertained from beginning to end.  This is a serious Christmas gift for at least a couple of my die hard vampire-loving friends.  And I'm not talking about Twihards either.  They can stuff it.  These vamps would devour Edward whole, pound his granite glitter skin into eyeshadow and hand it out at strip clubs.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires, gore and sex.  This one's not for the kiddies.

HP Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror

Published May 1, 2012.

Publisher website.

H.P. Lovecraft is known as one of the key founders of modern horror, cited as a major influence by many prominent authors, such as Stephen King. In collaboration with renowned Lovecraft historian and literary caretaker Robert Weinberg, IDW is bringing you the definitive Lovecraft comics updated for a 21st century audience. Adapting "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Hound," a new vision of Lovecraft emerges, courtesy of Joe Lansdale and company!  (netgalley.com)

I am truly a terrible horror fan because I've never read any of HP Lovecraft's works.  Not a one.  I know OF them.  Just haven't indulged.  So a visual of THE DUNWICH HORROR?  Yes, please.

There wasn't anything about this comic that I didn't like, really.  It's a first in a series and it sets up the story really nicely.  The Dunwich Horror itself is a killer inter-dimensional being (another thing I know about Lovecraft, he was all about other dimensions) that's invisible in our world.  And it definitely got some creep factor on with the art.

Of the story itself there's just enough dialogue there to set the story up.  There isn't too much dumping and you get enough to know just enough of what's going on and what's left in the dark is pretty horrifying.  You don't know too much about the characters at this point but I would hope they'd get on with it quick since they're dying already!

The art had some squick factor going along with it.  Lovecraft is pretty gruesome stuff and this comic was not shy about putting that onto the page.  But don't confuse it with gore.  That's not what I would call it.  What you do see is horrifying and I can still see it when I close my eyes but it's not overwhelming to the point where it cancels itself out.  For me too much gore and it ruins it.  Too much gore means that's where the emphasis is because the story itself kind of sucks.  Not with THE DUNWICH HORROR.  The gross that you see compliments the story that you're getting.  It's symbiotic.  And cramps the heart a little.

A definite read for any horror fan, this first book of THE DUNWICH HORROR will certainly get those spiders crawling up your arms and will probably make you spiral into a state of paranoid psychosis.  I mean, an invisible, inter-dimensional being tearing people apart?  Not even air is safe!

Ban Factor: High - With people getting ripped apart and big bad nasties that you can't even see?  Far too much for impressionable young minds.

30 Days of Night, Volume 1 by Sam Kieth

Published April 17, 2012.

Author website.

Fright-master Steve Niles returns to the creation that launched his career for an all-new 30 Days of Night series, with warped genius Sam Kieth handling the art duties. Features an all-new cast of characters being introduced to the world of 30 Days of Night for the first time!  (netgalley.com)

I always love a good comic and it's 30 DAYS OF NIGHT so how could this go wrong?  It didn't but that doesn't mean I'm a super fan now either.

This is actually the first 30 DAYS story that I've read so I know I'm coming into it pretty late.  I've seen the movie but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do the comic justice.  So my ignorance aside I did like the story about the website host trying to find vampires and biting off more than she could chew, pun intended.  And the vampires turning on vampires conspiracy going on.  It was all very intriguing and it definitely got me interested in wanting to read more.

But I was kind of turned off by the art.  I just felt it was substandard and didn't provide the story the additional oomph that I think far better artwork would have garnered.  I didn't think there was much depth to the drawings and they ended up being mediocre compared to others that I've seen.  Frankly I'd expect better in such a popular series.  It could have been my on-screen reader.  I did have some issues setting it to a decent-enough size to read the text well enough but it didn't appear to be affecting the images too much.  I'm pretty sure the images were kind of off all on their own.

As a noob to the whole 30 DAYS OF NIGHT series I liked what I read in this volume.  I was interested in the whole works before but I'm even more so now.  Not thrilled with the art, like I said, but it wasn't enough to turn me off the work entirely.  Just kind of blah in comparison to the rest of it.  It's got it's gore, it's horror and for this uber-vampire fan (of the non-sparkly variety) it had the fangs.  I absolutely appreciated that.  A must-read for any true vampire fan that appreciates that vampires are rather ruthless and should probably be feared more than lusted after.

Ban Factor: High - Gore and vampires.  Lots of gore and lots of vampires.  And backbiting, of the literal and figurative sense.  Not nice at all.

The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Volume 1: American Nightmares by Michael Panush

Published March 9, 2012.

Author website.

Morton Candle is a tough guy. He grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, dodging from mobster-ruled neighborhoods to reform school before the army snapped him up and sent him to Europe to fight Hitler.

That’s where he met Weatherby Stein, the scion to one of the greatest occult families of Europe. Weatherby and his parents were being held prisoner by the Nazis, forced to use their supernatural knowledge to aid the Third Reich’s war effort.
Morton Candle got Weatherby to safety, but the kid’s parents didn’t make it.

Now it’s the 1950s. Weatherby’s a teenager, with his father’s knowledge and a chip on his shoulder from the indignities of the modern world. Morton bumps into him again and they decide to go into the only business they can – paranormal private detectives.

This time, Weatherby and Mort have cases that will take them from a vampire’s decaying mansion to the mob-controlled streets of Havana. They’ll take on roadside attractions gone wrong, hordes of the living dead, and ride against the devil in a high speed car race to the death.

Between them, Weatherby and Mort have a small arsenal and a deep knowledge of matters arcane and bizarre. They’ll need brains and brawn to survive in a world where horror, action and hardboiled noir come together in a cataclysmic mix. (netgalley.com)

OMG I loved STEIN & CANDLE so much I can't even tell you. It had the perfect amounts of cheese, campiness and noir all mixed in together. I can't tell you what it was specifically that I loved about this book but I can say it hit me just right in the cockle area that it made me a little giddy. Seriously, it was wonderful.

I will say the one thing that did irk me a bit was Candle's constant PTSD flashbacks/mentions to his war days. Those became a little much. I understand it was a part of Candle but for the most part I don't believe that's how most veterans go around thinking. For Candle everything reminded him of bullets or explosions or tanks or something. I'd imagine that kind of thinking would drive someone insane because they wouldn't be able to leave the battlefield. And Candle wasn't all that crazy compared so some of his former military buddies he came across in the stories. So I'd have to say that'd be my one complaint.

Everything else? LOVED IT! Weatherby Stein was, of course, my favorite. He is the Brain to Candle's Pinky. Well, no, not really. Candle's actually a pretty smart guy but it's obvious he's the muscle and Weatherby's the smarts. He's just 14 I believe but he has the air or someone that could be his father. You get a look at him in his own story's section when he was little, maybe 8, and he was like that even then. Just far smarter and more mature than his age dictated. But he wasn't annoying about it. He was constantly endearing, especially when it came to one boy he rescued a couple of times. He felt an affinity for him and had a need to constantly protect him (a by-product of not being able to product those around him whom he loved, I would imagine) when he's near. The kid, for the most part, always has his head about him and Candle really relies on him as much as he wants to protect him as his own. He's a great character; possibly one of the best I've come across in my reading ventures.

Candle is another great guy. Like genuinely just a good guy that happens to break some kneecaps if the situation calls for it. He's a bit of a hardass on the outside but since all of the stories are in his POV you get to see just how he feels about things, the soft spot he has for Weatherby and even for some of the people in the cases he works. He's far more intelligent than his outward demeanor would otherwise say and I just loved being in his head. I was never bored and he told a damn good story.

STEIN & CANDLE is a series of individual stories set apart as chapters but loosely linked together through minute mentions of previous stories. For instance mentioning Havana when they come across a couple of the same characters in Las Vegas or Candle's new car when he previous lost it in Vegas. Outside of those small mentions there isn't much stringing the chapters together. They can rightly stand on their own as their own individual stories and, for the most part, they do. The best part about them, though, is their feel. Panush has done a great job of capturing that cusp feel of a society switching from a war-geared gangster-fueled era into one greater led by the Mary Tyler Moores of the world. There's a crime-fighting noir about it reminiscent of Dick Tracy just with vampires and zombies and hoodoo. Loved the hoodoo, by the way. It's not an element seen very often and I just squeal a little every time I do see it.

Anyway, each story had it's particular feel led, of course, by Candle's voice. Aside from the flashback thingy I mentioned earlier, it has a little bit of wise guy attitude fresh off the battle field but without being overly obnoxious. Everywhere they go I can feel the time in which they're in. Havana in the early 50s, pre-revolution. If you know anything about it you'll be able to picture it in your mind. Or a drag race with the devil in a hot ass muscle car in California when cars still had real muscles. Or even the smartly-dressed aristocratic vamps wanting to get their money back. My favorite was Weatherby's story, about what happened to him and his parents in Castle Stein with the Nazis. It was a great departure from the tone of the rest of the stories but one that needed to be told just to give Weatherby some more depth, although he already had plenty.

Seriously, I can't say enough good things about THE STEIN & CANDLE DETECTIVE AGENCY. I'd love to see it as a comic because, well, that would just be epic. It has the feel for it and I really hope that's a possibility in the future. But between the most excellent characters, the settings to vivid you'll see them in your dreams and all of the crazy paranormal shenanigannery Stein and Candle get into, there's not much left to NOT love. It's campy, it's crazy and most of all it's fun. You really can't beat that. It's not to often I find a genuinely fun read; one that riles me up and makes me want to get up and do something. STEIN & CANDLE is a different incarnation of Sam and Dean, when Dean can go all Untouchable to his heart's content. Yeah, I can see it. And I love it.

Ban Factor: High - There's a prostitute in one of these stories. It doesn't matter what else is in there (zombies, vampires, hillbillies). The pro will make them go con.

Werewolves: The Occult Truth by Konstantinos

Published September 8, 2010.

Author website.

How does one become—or kill—a werewolf? Where do our modern shapeshifting stories come from? Are werewolves real? The truth is much stranger than fiction.

Werewolves investigates the centuries-old myths and compelling evidence surrounding these enigmatic beasts of literary fame. Explore four types of werewolves—involuntary, voluntary, other-dimensional beings, and astral—plus Native American beliefs, ancient legends from cultures worldwide, true stories of sightings, and scientific theories. From shamanistic practices and curses to drug-induced hallucinations and serial-killer werewolves, this book will tantalize readers. Also includes authentic rituals for werewolf transformation! (goodreads.com)

I reviewed another of Konstaninos's books, VAMPIRES: THE OCCULT TRUTH, a couple years ago and I just re-read it to see what I felt of that title against what I feel about WEREWOLVES.

The tone is the same, which I really liked. Konstantinos approaches the subject as a skeptic and isn't ashamed about it. He brushes aside the more frivolous, Hollywood aspects of werewolf lore and delves pretty deeply the hardcore legends from a bunch of different cultures, including European, Native American and some Asian cultures. It was interesting reading about werewolf aspects that I didn't know much, if anything at all, about before. He has a definite sway as to which werewolf mythos he believes in which is fine. In reality it's the one that makes the most sense but it's a point that he brings home, however subtly, from the beginning.

Konstantinos's voice didn't have any of that dryness I mentioned in the VAMPIRES book, another good thing. I think WEREWOLVES was more succinct and to the point than its predecessor and didn't spend as much time dwelling on the technical. That might also be because there wasn't too much technical to delve into since werewolves are even more mythical than vampires.

As with VAMPIRES, WEREWOLVES does contain letters from his readers detailing their "experiences" either with or as werewolves but they're pretty much as clear as footage of Bigfoot or an acid trip. They really only lent further credit to Konstantinos's theory that werewolf experiences are more psychological than anything.

What really bothered me about WEREWOLVES, though, and it doesn't appear that I had this issue with VAMPIRES, was Konstantinos's constant name-dropping of his own books. That got really grating. It felt like it was at least once a chapter he was mentioning another of his titles, VAMPIRES especially. It just seemed . . . tacky. And a cheap way to advertise and try to hook people into his other books. I've only read the one and I did like it but I was put off by WEREWOLVES by his advertising.

Overall another good reference book for people on the more serious track of werewolf myths and legends. There's nothing TWILIGHT-ish about this one; it's just a journey into myth history. But it's enlightening all the same. As someone that really isn't into werewolves all that much, it was interesting reading about all the different types and their histories. It all goes so far beyond what Hollywood has taken upon itself to show us that it's barely recognizable. But just beware of his name-dropping. It happened enough that it really started to grate on me.

Human.4 by Mike Lancaster + Giveaway!

Published March 8, 2011.

Author website.

Kyle Straker volunteered to be hypnotized at the annual community talent show, expecting the same old lame amateur acts. But when he wakes up, his world will never be the same. Televisions and computers no longer work, but a strange language streams across their screens. Everyone’s behaving oddly. It’s as if Kyle doesn’t exit.

Is this nightmare a result of the hypnosis? Will Kyle wake up with a snap of fingers to roars of laughter? Or is this something much more sinister? (goodreads.com)

That cover kind of squicks me out a bit. Those tentacle-like things coming out of the hand? And then when it happens in the book . . . *shudder* Topics like what HUMAN.4 is about usually succeed in creeping me right the hell out, especially when written well. And this one is. Lancaster did a great job of posing the what-if question and making the execution believable. And again it's why we're back to the creepy part.

Another one of my favorite aspects of HUMAN.4 was giving an alternate explanation to something that could be supernatural. That something that you see out of the corner of your eye? What if it's not a ghost but something that came before? Something now rendered irrelevant and no longer worth our time? I don't want to give spoilers because the book is awesome and I don't want to ruin it but that irrelevance notion is totally horrifying to me. That something, someone, can still exist perfectly fine and as normally as we are, but we've rendered them so irrelevant that our eyes no longer recognize them. Now imagine you are that irrelevant thing . . .

I'm just enamored with the different road HUMAN.4 took on its quest to tell the story. Kyle turned out to be an excellent MC and someone that you can connect with almost immediately. He does have that natural young boy syndrome that makes him somewhat unlikable but when the fecal matter starts flying at the rotating device he, and his slightly jerky love interest, start taking on different tones and you get to see them in new light. Maybe their personalities adjust a little too quickly to the changing situation but I'm okay with it. The greater story was just so fantastic that I was able to overlook whatever might have been wrong with the rest.

The world that Lancaster built, while solidly anchored in our reality, is something otherworldly without being unrecognizable. He didn't have to alter it much but what had been changed was something shaped into a digital unreality. It leaves you wondering what if? Of course it's a comment on the digital revolution we're currently living in but it's so adeptly touched upon some of our current unknowns that the 'what if' couldn't be kept from your mind if you tried.

A little bit of horror, a little bit of digital, a lot of awesome, HUMAN.4 puts an excellent spin on our current dystopia craze, makes it something more relatable and a hell of a lot more horrifying. The 'what if' factor is so much more immediate and you won't be able to help but wonder . . .

Ban Factor: Medium - It's short on any kind of touchy subject but it does have a couple of kids bucking the trend and going against the "greater good." That might anger them. Assuming they can actually read.

Giveaway time!!!

Want my ARC? Then just fill out the form below for your chance to win!

• Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only.
• One entry per person per email address.
• Duplicate entries will be deleted.
• Entrants must be a follower of Bites via one of the following mediums: GFC, RSS, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook.
• Giveaway ends April 15th at midnight, EST.

Kiss Me Deadly edited by Trisha Telep + Giveaway!

Published August 3rd, 2010.

Author website.

For those who thirst for accounts of paranormal romance, Trisha Telep has compiled some of the most thrilling takes of forbidden love in this collection. First crushes and last rites; dark spells and bright magic; forbidden lovers and enchanted beings -- and always, always the hungry games of desire. Pucker up for a darkly sweet collection of ghosts, shape shifters, fairies, unicorns, vampires, and demons in tales from today's biggest writers of the paranormal persuasion. (goodreads.com)

I came at this one with two minds. KISS ME DEADLY has been sitting on my review shelf for far too long and I remember when I initially took it on it sounded really interesting and just dark enough that I thought I would enjoy it. When I picked it up to read a few weeks ago, I asked myself, "what the hell was I thinking?" PNR? ME? Do I know me right now? I try to stay as far away from PNR as I can right now. I don't do romance as a default, PNR especially because not only does it not interest me but the stuff I've come across . . . not good. But I said I'd review it so I read it. And loved it.

SHUT UP!

Small doses, people. Small doses. I think that's what really does it. Each story is at most 50 to 60 pages long so there isn't time enough to dwell on the romance. It's shit or get off the pot territory and there were really only a couple that I was less than thrilled with. The rest I was like "Yeah!" Now don't expect me to run out and start gobbling PNR. Not going to happen. But KISS ME DEADLY was a good foray into the genre for someone like me that would rather run away screaming. Telep did an excellent job of compiling a variety of stories that focused on all aspects of paranormal love, from the sweet to the sinister, the light to the dark. There is literally something for everyone and more than one of the stories got this book blogger's black heart beating again.

Here are my thoughts on each individual story -

THE ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE by Michelle Zink - I think this might have been the precursor to A TEMPTATION OF ANGELS that just released this month. The time period for the story was maybe a day so it's more of an insta-love that I really try to veer away from. It was okay but like AToA it didn't really blow me away.

ERRANT by Diana Peterfeund - aka I need to read more Diana Peterfreund. Nasty unicorns and the warrior virgins that hunt them. Yes. Dementing more classical creatures. Yes. There wasn't anything not good about this one.

THE SPIRIT JAR by Karen Mahoney - An excellent premise but had me questioning why the MC was a vampire because it wasn't really relevant to the story. It was all about the boy's love to his dead girlfriend which was actually really sweet. It was refreshing.

LOST by Justine Musk - A great retelling of Persephone and Hades just with a choice. Brings in reincarnation and opening doorways to other worlds. The love aspect was kind of weird but not off-putting. Just an odd set-up.

THE SPY WHO NEVER GREW UP by Sarah Rees Brennan - This one was more about demented love and, of course, this demented chick really liked it. Granted I found Peter wholly annoying but the twist Brennan gave on Peter Pan darkened it enough for me to get invested.

DUNGEONS OF LANGEAIS by Becca Fitzpatrick - I didn't really get the context because it's a HUSH, HUSH story but removed from that, it's another demented love tale that brought me in. I couldn't help but think of whore complex, though, when it came to the MC's lover so that kind of tampered it. Neat premise despite some awkward elements but it was dark enough for me to like.

BEHIND THE RED DOOR by Caitlin Kittredge - This one was my absolutely favorite. Screw PNR. It was totally YA horror and showed succubus love for what it really was (not literally, no succubus in this one). It was dark and scary with the right amount of light at the end. I need to read more Caitlin Kittredge.

HARE MOON by Carrie Ryan - A FoHaT story, it's context was much easier to grab as the world was more familiar to me. The best part was the religious brainwashing and what can happen when one strays off the path. Yeah it can be read as love being a downfall and that is partly it. But I think it goes beyond that, maybe even a little bit of a satire, a comment on it all. I liked the ending especially.

FAMILIAR by Michelle Rowan - This one was sweet but a little too sickly sweet for me. It was cutesy in the sense that this is the type of PNR I stay away from. They're super hooked on each other at the end and kind of just had me going, "yup, moving on."

FEARLESS by Rachel Vincent - Another awesome one. Again super dark, a girl who needs to feed on people's fears to survive gets to know what it feels like on the other side of the wall. Boyfriend rescuing going on but I was okay with it. It rounded out the strength of the story nicely.

VERMILLION by Daniel Marks - A story from the other side, Purgatory, it was kind of odd but not necessarily in a bad way. There were confusing elements about it that all ended up being part of the greater plot. And I liked the Hulk-Smash ending. The crazy things people do for love!

THE HOUNDS OF ULSTER by Maggie Stiefvater - The first piece I've read by her where the character actually sounds like what I'd think the character sounds like instead of her writing the character in her own author voice. I have to say, I enjoyed it. Of course it's faeire-centric but I was just so floored that the MC sounded genuine that I didn't want to stop reading. I may have the courage to tap into her later books. Maybe.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS by Daniel Waters - I wasn't a GENERATION DEAD fan (far too preachy) but this was a good snippet into the world. Told from the POV of a girl's father so it was a nice departure from the rest. It really hit me because it's about the love of a father for his daughter and I'm totally a daddy's girl. So yeah, I liked it.

Overall an excellent selection. Even if you're not a PNR fan (Hi! Have you met me???) I still think you'd find something you liked in KISS ME DEADLY. The stories are just so varied and come at the topic from so many angles that if you don't find at least one you like you might just be dead on the inside.

Ban Factor: High - Teen love, sex and the paranormal? Need I explain that one?

Giveaway time!!!

Want my copy? You know you do! Then just fill out the form below for your chance to win it!

• Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only.
• One entry per person per email address.
• Duplicate entries will be deleted.
• Entrants must be a follower of Bites via one of the following mediums: GFC, RSS, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook.
• Giveaway ends April 14th at midnight, EST.