Water Song: a Retelling of "The Frog Prince" by Suzanne Weyn

Water Song: a Retelling of "The Frog Prince" by Suzanne Weyn

I have really begun to like the "Once upon a Time" series with it's interesting retellings of standard fairy tales in unconventional settings that I wouldn't have dreamed of. This is the third book I've read in the series and I continue to be impressed with the level of storytelling they provide.

This book felt much less like a fairytale than some of the others I have read so far. One would expect a story like the frog prince to be rife with magic and fairies and princes but the story of the frog prince is almost a gloss over the true story of the book.

Emma is a British aristocrat that got trapped in her mother's ancestral home in Belgium on the Western Front in World War I. Her mother died in a bombing and Emma is literally caught between the Germans and Allies as they battle it out to control the North Sea ports. An American soldier fighting for the British troops named Jack got badly injured in a chlorine gas attack and was able to make his way to Emma's home and down her well to save himself from the gas. As is, his skin is torn and broken and his eyes are burned and swollen into slits. He is weak from the effects of the gas and is saved by Emma who happened by the well and saw him in search of a locket (the gold ball) that she threw in anger.

Jack and Emma are not alike at all but common cause and experience bind them together to survive the insanity of war. Both go to extreme lengths to save each other (after Jack gets his strength back) and to pass information to the Allies and end up falling in love. The extra layer of story as the Frog Prince really didn't enhance the story too much but definitely gave things an extra flavor at times. The story worked well with Jack's background growing up in Louisiana and swimming in the Mississippi etc. I also enjoyed the subtle reference to Louis Armstrong and how the books that Jack and Emma read in captivity are ones that were popular then and we still enjoy reading today like Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. It gave the tale such a realistic background... as if fairy tales are everyday occurences and we just aren't looking at them correctly.

Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones

Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones

This is the second part of the Raintree family series. Gideon, younger brother to Dante is a cop with the ability to see and hear ghosts as well as control electrical fields.

Gideon is called upon to investigate the murder of his cousin's roommate and is saddled with a new partner, Hope Mallory. Hope is determined to learn something from Gideon's stellar record and prove to the big boys that a woman can do just as well or better.

Gideon tries to scare her away from him and off the case but both parties are too stubborn to give in. When it turns out that the intended target of the murder investigation was actually Gideon's cousin herself and that he was next in line to be murdered the partners step up to the plate to get it solved. Hope herself becomes a target as well since the murderess sees both what a distraction she is to Gideon and also how her death would harm him. The murderer is running out of time though since she must complete her family's dark plan before the Solstice.

Some other stuff happens and Gideon and Hope "find each other" and keep each other safe but the story is not quite completed. Hopefully the third book will tie it all in together. So far this has not been a great series despite my feelings about the individual authors. I guess I'll see how the third pans out.

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, 1) by Ilona Andrews

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, 1 by Ilona Andrews

This was a CONFUSING book. I've really started to get into the urban noir/paranormal drama scene but every so often it throws me for a loop. This was definitely one of those books.

Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary with affiliations at the local Order in Atlanta. When the Knight Diviner of the Order (a father figure named Greg) is found dead Kate promises herself that she'll find the killer and avenge Greg's death. Kate bumbles about a bit seeking information and pissing off a couple of suspects / allies before determining that the real enemy is a creature called a upir.

The upir is basically a beast that will copulate with anything in the hope of creating a male child that the upir will nourish with the offspring's mother. (Eew!) Only someone very strong will be able to bear the upir's child and it has set it's sight on Kate because of her strong magical background, which we don't know about because Kate won't talk about it. We do know that it has to do with who her father is and how strong that makes her blood. No normal weapon can kill the upir and so Kate is stuck trying to figure out how to kill the beast before it gets her. Kate does have an ally or two -- in particular the Beast Lord aka Curran. Curran is immensely strong and controls all of the shapeshifters in the Atlanta / Southern region. He can shift into a huge lion-like creature and helps take on the upir and a vampiress named Olathe. I like him as a foil for Kate and they fight and tick each other off at every chance they get.

I particularly liked the scene near the end where Kate was being offered a job over the phone and Curran was fixing her roof (that he broke earlier in the book) and Kate was told that she had been recommended by the Beast Lord. Kate breaks away from her phone conversation to yell at him about what he'd said to them and he replied that he had told them she was disciplined, a team player and was able to follow order - all things Kate doesn't do well at all. So she had to tell the person on the phone that the Beast Lord is a liar, that she doesn't exactly play well with others and that the Beast Lord can't hammer worth sh*t (because he's there on her roof trying to hammer down shingles).

Kate's audacity in the face of danger was really kind of impressive. I also enjoyed the part where she was with the Order's Crusader (Nick) and Curran about to bust into the upir's lair and she had to will herself to go in. She was scared and she knew it but wasn't willing to back down. Curran kissed her to piss her off and it brought back her anger and her courage. I'm sure there's more to come on that front in the next book.

Where it got really confusing was some of the wording about the upir -- at one point Kate figures out who it is and I thought she was able to contain him with a ward of bone and wood but then later she sees the guy she named on the street watching something (or so I thought)... and then later she captures something that must have been one of his minions but I thought she had said it WAS the upir. That whole section after she first figures out who the upir is really had me confused but most of it was clear by the end. I'll probably want to go back and do some careful rereading now that I know how it's supposed to go.

I think the next one should be worth reading since Kate has more "friends" now and a job all lined up. I can't wait to see how that goes...

Kiss of Crimson (The Midnight Breed, 2) by Lara Adrian

Kiss of Crimson (The Midnight Breed, 2) by Lara Adrian

Only in movies is the second installment worse than the first. In most of the novels I've read recently that have been serialized the best works have been second or third novels.

This held true for Kiss of Crimson. Book 1 got us started on all the backstory about the Breed and the war with the Rogues and set a very definite rough plot of where the series would be headed.

Kiss of Crimson started right up on the action even though it takes place a few months after Lucan and Gabrielle in Book 1. Dante is out patrolling when he stumbles into a Rogue that doesn't react to titanium the way they normally do. The Rogue fights like an animal and Dante has a hard time taking him out when several other Rogues show up at the scene and blow up the dock. Dante barely escapes into the river and crawls upshore badly injured. He pulls himself into a vetrinary clinic needing to feed and finds Tess Culver alone. He tries to convince her that she's safe and she doesn't put up much of a fight through the feeding but stabs him with a syringe once he's closed the wound on her neck and he's realized that she has the mark of a Breedmate. The syringe knocks him out for a few minutes -- long enough for Tess to call a friend who gets worried and calls the police. Dante isn't out for long and has to scrub her memories so that he'll have time to properly explain things to her later. Obviously a beautiful start to a wonderful relationship

Dante heads back to the compound thinking that there's no way his night could possibly get worse when an agent from the Darkhaven comes by with unexpected news about vanishing teenage vampires and a new drug on the club scene that causes Bloodlust in the teens that take it. Those teens eventually become Rogue which would allow for Lucan's brother Marek to practically manufacture Rogue soldiers for his cause. Agent Chase Sterling wants to help the Order stop whoever is dealing in this drug and bring back the missing teenagers and Lucan has assigned Dante to babysit him.

The plot continues to complicate when Dante can't stop thinking about Tess and shows up at an art show just to see her. Tess has the gift of healing (even among the Breed) although before she met Dante she had sworn never to use her "curse" again. She uses her gift to heal a dog that Dante brought to her (to get closer to her, sneaky guy) and sort of helps Dante to fight off the death visions he's been having all his life. Also through a little digging Dante finds out that one of Tess' best friends is not only the dealer of the drug Crimson but also the man who created and pharms the drug. Agent Chase Sterling also has his own agenda and is looking for his nephew among the missing drug users to impress his widowed sister-in-law.

Eventually Dante and Chase catch Tess' friend Ben (the drug dealer that Tess didn't really know about) but Chase lets him go and then Ben gets kidnapped by Marek's minions. Tess was walking by Ben's apartment and Rogues set upon her and nearly killed her with their feeding. Dante goes berserk and pretty much takes out all the Rogues present before deciding that only his blood can heal her. This would complete the Breedmate process something that Dante had been reluctant to do without explaining the ramifications to her or even asking her permission.

Tess did go a little crazy when she realized what had happened and left the compound in broad daylight. Dante is felled by the same death vision he's had all his life but he realizes that it is not HIS death he sees, but Tess' and Dante realizes he can't just let her go to face her possible death. So Dante goes out in broad daylight with Agent Chase and Niko to save her and gets badly burned in the process. It's after this that Tess realizes that no matter what Dante inherently is he still loves her.

The story is more complicated and dramatic than the first and even our heroine Tess seems to be a stronger character than Gabrielle ever was. Tess' whole history and her overcoming her demons automatically make her a more realistic and courageous woman.

I believe the next one has to do with Tegan and Elise, which makes me wonder what is going to happen with Agent Chase (who had fancied Elise). I guess I'll have to read and see...

Embrace the Night by Karen Chance

Embrace the Night (Cassandra Palmer, 3) by Karen Chance

I have to say, Cassie Palmer really DID embrace the night in this latest book by Karen Chance. She does a lot of interesting things in this book that she would not have been willing or capable of doing in the first two books.

The book starts off a couple weeks after the last book ends but the action starts immediately with no review of what has happened in previous books. This can make the series a little difficult to read if you are not reading them one after the other or if you pick up the wrong one first.

Cassie is still trying to fit into her role as the new Pythia, the seer for the entire magical community, but she seems to have much better luck finally adapting to the position in this novel. At several points near the end she uses her position to justify her actions to some characters that would have been on her do-not-cross list in the previous books and they step aside for her. It's gratifying to see her make some progress in that arena.

Since the storyline does deal so heavily with finding the Codex Merlini in both time and space the action can get a little garbled but the plot is not so complex that you get lost, just complex enough for you to really think about aspects of it. Cassie is seeking out the Codex in order to reverse the geis that was placed on her (once) and Mircea (twice) to bind them together. Since this threatens Cassie's independence she's willing to go through quite a few hoops to get it removed. An emergency 'out' was built into the geis (sex with the originator - in this case Mircea - or with one of his chosen stand-ins) but Cassie tried that in the last book with Tomas and it didn't exactly work.

Along for the ride is Pritkin who, as a war mage, is sworn to protect the Pythia. Pritkin is the source of most of the confusing aspects of this book as several interesting factoids about his past come to light. First off, Pritkin is half incubus and his father, King of the Demons, would really like to kill the Pythia and nearly seduces Cassie twice to get the job done. The thing is that he looks almost exactly like Pritkin but more stylish so Cassie confuses them at first.

The other major thing is Pritkin IS Merlin and wrote the Codex way back in the day. This leads to a long series of time-jumping, confusion about a map to the Codex which interestingly enough somehow involves stripping, a lot of distrust and some almost paradoxical episodes. Pritkin has tried to remove the geis from Cassie and Mircea but since it got doubled on one end the spell warped and the standard removal spell just won't cut it.

Cassie finally figures out how to remove the geis but it involves having sex with a Mircea from two time periods. Some parts of that were quite confusing (is it a threesome if there are three bodies and only two lives?) and the rest was interesting and dramatic enough to make up for the confusing bits. Cassie still has several problems on the horizon but there's quite a bit more light at the end of this book than at the others. At least the geis is gone and Cassie is finally starting to assert some sway over others so she's not constantly running but standing up to protect as well.

This was my favorite of the books so far and I can't wait until the fourth book comes out.

Raintree: Inferno by Linda Howard

Raintree: Inferno (Silhouette Nocture) by Linda Howard

The book starts out so promising. Dante Raintree is owner of the casino in Reno the Inferno which is ironic on more than just the name level since Dante is a Level 1 Fire Master AND his casino burns down as the first action of the book.

As Dranir ("king" of the Raintree clan) Dante is the most powerful of his family as so has some rather interesting gifts aside from being able to control fire.

When he first meets Lorna Clay, it's because he thinks she's been cheating in his casino, counting cards or something because she continues to win without appearing to try. But she's not cheating... she just knows what cards are coming, which slot will pay off. Before he is done questioning her the fire alarms in his casino go off and Dante uses a mind compulsion to get all of the guests (and Lorna) down the stairs and into safety. He then uses that compulsion to keep Lorna with him despite the fact that she is extremely afraid of fire. When Dante is unable to calm the fire that is raging through his casino he turns to Lorna and takes her raw power to help save them from the heat and the smoke that is overwhelming them. Several hours later he takes her to his home under the pretense that he's not done questioning her and keeping her under the compulsion. By that time she's figured the compulsion thing out and is spiting mad. To make matters worse he orders her to "strip" so that he can see if she has the mark of someone of the Ansara clan (a rival and enemy) but doesn't bother to explain himself. Since she doesn't have the mark, Lorna is a "stray" as Dante calls her - not affiliated with either the Raintree or the Ansara clans which makes her inherent power and precognitive ability so much more unusual. She's untrained which is the next pretense for keeping her with him.

The Ansara were the ones that set the casino on fire and it took four of them to maintain that fire and still Dante and Lorna survived. Their next attempt to kill the Dranir is with a car accident on the highway but again Dante and Lorna both walk away pretty much unscathed due to some tricky driving and a protection charm.

By this time they are on better terms with each other and really learning the extent of Lorna's power. She feels sick before each attempt on their lives and is able to save him from the last attempt - a marksman with a rifle outside his home. The book pretty much ends with Dante calling his two siblings, Gideon and Mercy, and warning them about the upcoming attack on the family home.

The book ends starkly even though the action is obviously nowhere near finished. I have heard the following two books are better, so I'll have to see how that goes...

Claimed by Shadow by Karen Chance

Claimed by Shadow by Karen Chance

The second book in the Cassandra Palmer Series by Karen Chance is full of crazy drama and great paranormal characters.

Cassie is on a major tear to find and punish Tony, the vampire that ruined her family years ago. With her new powers as Pythia, although not fully realized, Cassie is even more a target for the shady elements of paranormal society than usual and trouble is never far from poor Cassie. Within the first few pages Cassie (and her new friends the Three Fates) practically destroy a casino and almost get captured/killed by the Silver Circle.

Her one ally in this book is Pritkin, the slightly trigger-happy war mage of the Silver Circle. Pritkin helps Cassie as she travels through time in an attempt to save Mircea, the vampire who protected her throughout her youth, from Myra, the sybil who had been heir to the Pythia before falling in with Rasputin. Without Mircea protecting Cassie from Tony, Cassie's not sure she'd have made it to adulthood -- not to mention a flood of other possible changes in their timeline. To protect the timeline as well as herself Cassie has to save Mircea at least twice in the past.

This wouldn't be a major problem except for the geas that was placed on Cassie by Mircea that draws them together - and keeps other men away. Since Cassie has the geas in the present but Mircea doesn't have it in the past seeing Cassie there unintentionally casts the geas back onto Mircea. By the time Cassie sees Mircea again in the present the geas has practically crippled Mircea with the need to be near her - it's physically painful to both of them to stay away.

To add to the drama, the power of the Pythia wants to fully exert it's office over Cassie and to do that it has been making every man seem like a delicious dish. She first realizes this when she is absolutely attracted to Pritkin (lol). Cassie does assume the full office of Pythia with Tomas, which I wanted to happen in the first book early on but not so much by the second book.

I liked this second book much better than the first because the characters were already established and the plot could just move forward. Cassie's life is hectic and dangerous and Cassie does not want the power of the Pythia which means she's perfect for the job. I can't wait for the next book.