The Adventure of the Incognita Countess by Cynthia Ward

Lucy is an agent for the crown charged to ensure important plans being delivered to the American government actually arrive and don’t fall into the hands of a hostile foreign power: especially as tensions rise and Britain’s new Martian technology is in high demand.

As a dhampire, a half-vampire, she is uniquely qualified for this role – and for vampire slaying. Which is complicated when a vampire joins her on the HMS Titanic – and a vampire that conflicts so strongly with what she has been taught and tempts her away from both her duty and her mission.

This is one of those books that frustrates me immensely – because it’s only a book. Worse, it’s only a short story. Because, by all that is awesome, why is this not a book series? Why is it not a book series covering many many many books?

Bisexual female dhampire secret agent working for the government in a Steampunk setting that has the feel of both The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Penny Dreadful pulling in all those Victoriana stories from Martian invasions to vampires and men raised in the wilderness – and so much more. All of it mixed in with real world politics of the time adding some nice intrigue to the story of the supernatural secret agent. All of this world building is nicely hinted at, included briefly but not overwhelming the actual plot and development of this short story.

Of course the bitterness of that is there’s so much of this world building which we could so play with! I want to see it all, the martial technology, the supernaturals incorporated into the world and government agencies and Lucy’s own personal situation and development and growth as a dhampire.

With this world we have a nice plot that does an excellent balance between action and development and world building that really just left me wanting more because there’s so much potential. Lucy’s story and development, lots of intrigue and lots of action which is really well written along with lots of emotional; development and world building all perfectly balanced.

Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab #2) by Karen Chance

Dorina is doing more and more missions for her father, Mircea, senator for the North American vampire council. Of course, being a vampire, her father, and extremely ancient he keeps far too many secrets – including the true nature of her latest task and the powerful artefact at the heart of it

A task that also drags in Louis-Cesare, who has his own political machinations caught between two senates

And then there’s Dorina’s best friend Claire – bringing a whole lot of lethal fae politics and her fae child with her.

This world has so much happening in it and it all comes into play in this book. The mages, the fae and the vampires all play varying role (focusing on the vampires but there’s a huge fae involvement). We have lots of political machinations from the world that has been completely upset by a huge ongoing war. I really like that each of the supernatural beings presented has a sense of culture – and not just a sense of culture but a sense of multiple cultures and factions rather than them just being homogenous groups.

I also love the sense that there is a lot going on beyond what Dorina is aware of – that great feeling that the world continues without her and doesn’t focus on her just because she is the protagonist. A lot of worlds seem to disappear when the protagonist is not involved, but not here.

The war makes for an excellent backdrop for the series because it gives such a perfect motivation for Dorina to be involved. The consumption of resources and attention by the war – coupled with the disruption by it – gives us a perfect reason why Dorina needs to be involved in things she’d normally be kept from. It also makes for an excellent world building exposition without making Dorina ignorant – she’s clearly capable and skilled (and, excellently, has some tricks that even the ancient master vampires don’t have), but the new situation means things need to be explained to her (and us). Similarly, explaining how the war has changed things also elegantly explains to us how the status quo normally operates. It works, it works really well considering just how much there is to grasp.

My complaint with all of this is that there is just so much going on. This rune is so valuable that half of the supernatural world want it which means there are a lot of players, a lot of possibles, a lot of factions that is all kind of overwhelming. Some I can see as important foreshadowing for the future and world building like Ming-de and the Chinese delegation, but Ganimus felt like a step too far and I’m not sure if the mage involvement and their event was particularly necessary either. I’m not saying any one of these elements was badly done or boring – certainly not – but there’s just so much going on not just in this book, but in this huge, varied and multi-layered world there needs to be triage, especially for readers who haven’t read other series set in the same world. Sometimes I felt like I should have been taking notes or keeping a flowchart or something.

Midnight's Daughter (Dorina Basarab #1) by Karen Chance

Dorina Basarab is worried about her room-mate, Claire. She’s missing and that’s not like her – worse, she is hearing some very disturbing rumours about what has happened to her. Not only is Claire a friend, but her powers are able to calm Dorina’s Dhampire rage.

Mircea, Dorina’s vampire father, has the resources to find Claire – but to use them he wants something in return; he wants Dorina to hunt down her escaped fugitive uncle. Vlad. Dracula. Who is every bit as terrifying as his legend would suggest.

Working with the reluctant and equally outcast Louis-Cesare, Dorina has to find and defeat a vampire who is legendary for his cunning and evil – but there’s a war raging between the supernaturals of North America and even the fae are involves with their own shady machinations.

We have a very rich world here – with so much going on and being involved in the plot. There’s Dorina and her family, the Basarabs. Yes, Dracula, but more than just a redrawing of Stoker, this is far more about the family from Wallachia. In fact, Dracula’s brothers, Mircea and Radu, play far more of a role in this book than Vlad himself. There’s a lot of complex and involved family dynamics there that are really interesting to explore.

On top of the vampires and dhampires we have fae of several stripes, light and dark, different courts, different factions, different creatures, royal politics and all kinds of shenanigans.

Then there’s a war on between several of the factions that affects Dory, including the Vampire Senate. Even though Dorina doesn’t directly involve herself with the war, the fact it takes resources and creates new factions to be wary of is a constant background to the story – it’s pervasive and even when it’s not overwhelming it’s always there. We never have to really see the war to feel the scale of it and its effect on their society. It all comes together to be a really well written, rich world I enjoy.

Dorina and her side-kick/fairly obvious love interest Louis-Cesare are moderately decent characters. I find them both extremely typical of the genre. Dorina is the kick-ass Urban Fantasy female protagonist, she has woo-woo that is rare, she’s a dangerous fighter but there are definitely darker and more dangerous things out there. She has anger issues, a whole lot of anger issues. Louis-Cesare is a super sexy French vampire who has arrogance issues and a tragic, tortured past. They’re not bad characters, but they’re genre templates, we’ve seen them before and we will certainly see them again. There’s a lot of them raging at each other that gets in the way of the plot, but the inevitable sexual tension doesn’t – both are pretty focused on the mission and most of their conflict comes from them struggling over who is in charge. They do stay on mission –but have drastically different ideas over how to do that

Glacial Eyes (Salt Lake After Dark #1) by J. K. Walker

Jazz wakes up in the hospital, woozy, confused, possibly victim of a terrible attack – and extremely hungry. She’s quickly dragged away from the hospital to face a trial for the death of a human

A human killed by a big cat.

On probation and ordered to learn, Jazz has to adapt quickly to being a wereleopard and learning about the larger world she is part of and extricating herself from the various political machinations she gets herself enmeshed in – or enmeshing herself further when it comes to a sexy Cajun dhampire.

Let’s hit on a lot of the good in this book – and there was a lot of good.

Firstly, the protagonist – Jazz. She’s definitely a confident, intelligent, fast thinking and generally fun woman. She’s not perfect, she’s not flawless but she’s not silly or foolish – her mistakes are human. She has a personality, she has good friends (female friends, actual female friends she doesn’t hate or look down on) who accept her and care for her. And she has a cat who is awesome. She also has hobbies and opinions beyond the supernatural. She has her own sense of style, her own tastes and she’s pretty secure about all of them - she was a rounded character. And a fun character. Of course, she’s also an orphan, but there are some tropes we just can’t escape and despite being an orphan she isn’t a character defined by tragedy and angst.

I also liked the world, what we’ve seen is quite broad but also with a good foundation. Even at this stage where there isn’t enough time to go into great depth, there’s a lot of detail that reassures me that the different creatures are more than just names. The magic has an actual concrete system and process to it, the Kitsune are more than just “werefoxes from Japan” and even the Snow Leopard has a distinctive history that sets it apart from just being various were animals that were bitten. There’s politics and rules and co-operation and a general sense that there’s a lot to explore here and it’s all pretty solid.

The book also had some pretty excellent pacing. The action kept happening, but it wasn’t so break neck that I couldn’t keep up or felt lost – which can easily be done in the first book of a new series – and nor did it derail into too many long info dumps (as also often happens – a number of first books that read like lecture notes). There were, perhaps, some side quests that didn’t belong and just confused and overwhelmed things a little much (I think the vampire politics angle could have been saved for later in exchange for more of Jazz just adapting to this new world).

I am definitely on board with following this series.

That all being said, some criticisms. This is a full world and it was a bit front loaded – we had a variety of weres and magic and vampires and dhampires and kitsune and magic lessons all there front and centre in the first book. It was all really well done, it was all realistically well done  and none of it was boring but that’s a lot for a first book and takes some of the focus off maybe developing a few more side characters a little more.

Shadowmaster (Nightsiders #3) by Susan Krinard

Phoenix is an Aegis agent with something to prove – the daughter of  hero, she’s only a quarter vampire, unlike her half-vampire, dhampire colleagues – and constantly questioned whether she’s good enough. When the opportunity arises for her to enter the Fringe on a dangerous mission to help identify a vampire assassin – an assassin on a mission to kill the Enclave’s mayor and destabilise the human government – she welcomes the chance to prove herself

But her eagerness also means she exceeds the mission brief and stays longer than she should have – and in doing so learns more about the assassin. Deeply conflict Drakon, only recently a vampire, he’s well aware of the injustices that pervade human society. The longer she spends with him, the more she sees the darkness in the city she protects but, equally, the less Drakon is driven by his need for revenge. As they become closer, both of them have a radical shift in their priorities – but the plots of their superiors are hardly reliant on them alone

How did humans even survive this war against the vampires? Future humanity seems to have one battle strategy – throw attractive women at the enemy with the warning that they may have to use their bodies to win! Do they even have guns? I can picture their regiments now – the 1^st Regiment, Bunnie’s Burlesque, 2^nd Regiment, Davina’s Dominatrices… Hold your ground ladies, don’t fight until you see the hardness of their cocks! On my maaaaark…. OPEN HUMP!

Y’know I could handle enemies meeting in battle and coincidentally falling in love – but it’s the regularity with which the generals send out their soldiers with the refrain “don’t be afraid to use your vaginas, ladies!”

When they say “make love not war” I don’t think this is what they meant.

So we have Phoenix who is sent to the fringes of the city to try and find a gang boss in the underworld in the hopes of finding vampire spies supporting a vampire assassin. She is expected to use all of her sexual wiles (in fact, there’s no other wiles or skills mentioned so it’s less “last resort” and more “only resort”) and of course she meets with Drakon, the assassin and lots of attraction follows.

And from the first meeting there’s lots of lust and endless attraction and what she thinks will be an unpleasant duty instead turns into something totally hot she totally wants within seconds of meeting him and after about a week, (probably less) both of them are quite willing to betray their people, their species and their personal agendas that cut to the bone with angst 5 seconds ago because they love each other so much.

Much the same as the last book and the book before that.

What’s frustrating is, like those previous 2 books, there’s something there. There’s this excellent post-apocalyptic world with 2 societies constantly on the edge of war. The vampires and the humans are struggling to maintain the peace even as factions in their society are pushing for another conflict. Just as the last book looked at Erebus and the world the vampires had built, this book focuses more on the human Enclave.

Nightmaster (Nightsiders #2) by Susan Krinard

Trinity is a dhampire and an Aegis agent and she has a mission – to infiltrate the vampire city of Erebus and contact the Underground there. They’ve had communication that the vampires are building up to another war against the human Enclave and she has to find out more – and stop it if she can.

But the only way humans get into Erebus is as serfs – blood slaves owned by the vampire Bloodlords and Bloodmasters. But that could work in her favour – considering the addictive blood of the dhampire.

Ares is one of the oldest and most powerful Bloodmaster’s in the city, but also one of the least active. What he wants most out of life is to be left alone; but when he finds himself in a dual over Trinity, a new serf, he finds himself dragged into vampire politics far more than he would wish to – but it is past time for the city to change.

When this book started I cringed. Trinity is undercover and being literally sold as a slave to Ares, they see each other and… we get pages and pages and pages of overwhelming description of how hot they each find the other – before they know each other’s names, barely recognising their difference in status or their mission – it was hawt hawt hawt, breaking the habit of millennia because ZOMG SO HAWT.

I admit I checked how long the book was and seriously considered putting it down right there.

But I hung in there, waded through some more HAWT HAWT HAWT, and more dubious romance elements like him manhandling her – then expressing his regret for manhandling her but, of course, keeping on the table that she lives or dies at his whim so his regret means not a thing. And we have his current Favourite sex slave who

This book also tries really hard to make it all consensual but it doesn’t – cannot – really work. Ares is determined that he won’t have sex with Trinity until she wants him to (and even then he keeps saying no for Reasons, but largely because the plot wants to draw out this conflict extra extra long), even ignoring her when she begs him to have sex with her and drink her blood. But she’s a slave – she is property and at any moment he can either abuse her or pass her on to someone who will. We know she consents because we can read her mind – but he cannot. He cannot ever know if her enthusiastic consent is real or just feigned in an attempt to secure her own safety. You cannot have informed consent in these circumstances.

So, I wasn’t enthused. But as I read on things got rapidly better. Trinity didn’t instantly jump on Ares’s team and abandon her old loyalties because of her lust – because it was lust. She continued to push her plan to gain control over Ares by any means necessary, to work with the resistance and, ultimately, to continue to serve her people. Yes she lusts after Ares, yes she even comes to care for Ares (and, yes, it is fast but at least it does develop and there is a sense of time about it unlike in the previous book) but that doesn’t radically alter her priorities

Same with Ares, he doesn’t radically change his viewpoint because of Trinity. He slowly evolves – and he evolves from a position that wasn’t too far from it. He wants Trinity, he grows to love Trinity, but love for Trinity alone isn’t enough for him to turn his house upside down, burn all the things and utterly change his life.

Both of them do. Both of them radically change their lives, their opinions and their positions. They both betray the people they once were, Ares being forced well out of his preferred isolation and Trinity rethinking her mission and taking very drastic steps that will irrevocably change her life. They just don’t do it just for the love of a person they haven’t known that long. Sure love is a part, but Ares is faced with enemies who are actively plotting to bring him down, has things happening in his household, in his own family he never even imagined and one of his oldest friends is actively involved and up to their neck. He can’t not act – he has to do something and I even get the distinct impression that if the only thing pulling him into acting were Trinity’s love then he’d turn around and wave goodbye.

Daysider (Nightsider #1) by Susan Krinard

Alexia is a dhampire – half human and half vampire, born in the savage times when the vampires first rose from their long hiding places and made war on the world

It’s now a very different world. The treaty has established human Enclaves and vampire Citadels – with clear Zones between them in a desperate attempt to prevent another war breaking out between them. But there are factions in both governments waiting for a chance to march again and desperate to do what they can to bring about the complex.

Both sides hear of an illegal vampire colony in the zone – both sides have to investigate to see who is responsible and how badly the treaty has been breached.

Alexia works for Aegis, the human defence agency as a spy and agent, her job is to enter the Zone and combat covert actions from Erebus, the Vampire Citadel. Damon is a Daysider, a rare daywalking vampire hybrid who works as an agent for the vampires. Forced to work together, they investigate just who is behind this colony and try to find a way to stop a seeming inevitable war.

The main thing I liked about this book was the world setting – a post war dystopian vampire setting? Two hostile powers, humanity and the vampires, both controlling their own nations and glaring at each other? A delicate balance of politics and agents to try and prevent another mutually destructive war while extremist factions on both sides are just dying to bring on round 2? Different varieties and mutations of vampire and dhampire acting as agents for both sides, trying to prove their worth and loyalty in societies that barely trust them and will never fully accept them? Both factions have also had to make major compromises that, on some level, makes their societies thoroughly unsatisfactory as well – creating even more pressure for change, even if change could bring everything down in ruins.

Yes, sign me up. This is designed to intrigue me

The plot isn’t entirely original per se – though it’s not overdone either.  It combines with the world and a series of twists and plots to really really work. The plotting of both sides is complicated and nuanced, there are some excellently placed red herrings, lots of confusions and distractions and a constant pressure on who to trust and why. This couples with the really unique and fascinating world setting, drastically different view points and societies that have, at best, made some very severe concessions which neither are happy about and certainly are questionably moral or suitable for their people to make for a very compelling story.  Except for the romance (which I will get to) the pacing is good – well run with a nice

I think I would have been happier with Alexia being conscious a little longer at the beginning of the book – she was rendered helpless and defenceless, in need of aid and protection far too quickly for her to develop as competent in her own right.

The Fiery Heart (Bloodlines #4) by Richelle Mead

Sydney has an endless list of tasks to juggle; her friends, the Moroi, her relationship with Adrian, her continued mastery of magic as well as helping Marcus and his friends escape from Alchemist control. All of this while trying to keep it all secret from the Alchemists and trying to pretend she still tows their narrow, bigoted party line – made all the more difficult by her sister turning up. And her parent’s divorce – and the custody battle over Zoe where everyone expects Sydney to support her father.

Adrian has his own battles – he’s trying to get his life together and trying to help the Moroi with their spirit investigations – but the toll spirit is taking on him grows and can no longer be ignored. The pressure is risking his relationship with Sydney and he has hard choices to make on what to give up.

Sydney is an excellent fully rounded character. She is fiercely intelligent, incredible, legendarily capable, skilled, dedicated and hard working. She also has her magic making her more than a little dangerous. More than all that she is that rarest of things – sensible. She doesn’t make foolish decisions, she doesn’t drop out of character, she doesn’t let her emotions lead her into foolish choices or silly situations. Her realness as a character also reflects in the realness of her relationships – you can see why Adrian cares for her; not just because she is beautiful but because she is kind and caring and efficient with both and truly trying to do her best in every situation. It’s why she has such strong, loyal friends.

She’s grown so much over the passage of the books, opening her mind, discarding her prejudices and her fears – it has been a very natural, organic growth as her assumptions have been carefully demolished one by one. This continues in this book with an almost complete break from the Alchemists in her mind: she’s not on their side, she’s on her own side, doing what is right. This conflict is wonderfully displayed by it being played out through her sister Zoe and Sidney’s desperate attempt

And part of the basis of all these conflicts is her greatest flaw – she’s a control freak who fixes things. Yes, she genuinely cares – and in her caring she steps in, takes command and fixes things. It’s what she does. She sees a problem and she solves it – even if, perhaps, she could step aside (such as trying to free people from the Alchemists, or Trey and Angeline’s issues) or even if there isn’t anything she can fix.

Which in turn leads to the biggest problem she cannot fix: Adrian. We have a wonderful exploration of Adrian this book, his thought processes and what drives him. In particular we see the impact spirit has had on him – repeatedly we have been told in this book and in the Vampire Academy series that spirit causes mental instability. Adrian’s illness is presented extremely well and with great accuracy –it doesn’t require him performing over the top, stereotypically “crazy” actions to get the point across; we have a simple, stark depiction of the emotional highs and lows, the extremes of feeling that drive Adrian’s life – and work to destroy it. There’s a wonderful depiction of his conflict and fears about seeking treatment and a lot of really well presented agonising of the cost of it – and the threat that he may lose his magic to keep his sanity.

The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines #3) by Richelle Mead

Sidney is facing new challenges with the tasks the Alchemists have given her, to watch and protect the moroi with whom she has become friendly. But increasingly she is finding their attitudes wrong and even ridiculous, more and more she is having to assume an act to pretend the suitable levels of revulsion the alchemists continually show to the Moroi.

Increasingly, she doesn’t fit among the Alchemists, and this only becomes more extreme when it becomes apparent that the Alchemists are dealing with hunters who don’t seem to differentiate between the moroi and the strigoi. But when given the chance to leave, does she really want to break away from the only people she’s ever known?

Then her magical learning is also putting her at risk – but from a predatory witch this time. And not just her, other untrained, reluctant magic users are risking death and worse and it’s a dangerous race to see if Sidney and her teacher can protect them even while they themselves become targets

And then there’s Adrian – Adrian who won’t give up loving Sidney, Adrian who continues to intrigue Sidney and Adrian who may have permanently burrowed into Sidney’s affections despite all her attempts to stop it.

The story of this book is good, fun and pretty decent. It’s not amazing but we have several inter-twining plot lines all of which are decently placed and explored. All of them are developed and add to the ongoing meta plot which always keeps me happy and all of them kept me amused and ensured that I will be looking to the next book with curious interest.

I can’t say they enthralled me, Sidney learning magic and tracking down the witch, Sidney’s relationship with Adrian and Sidney deciding which path to take with the Alchemists, to stay or to go and leave it all behind – but they were all good, strong stories.

What did really stand out was Sidney herself

I do like the relationship between Adrian and Sidney – despite his pushiness. And he is pushy, he does constantly use innuendo to encroach on her comfort zone, even if he uses humour to do it.

Review: Power in the Blood by Angelia Sparrow

Oren is a Breather, so are his kids. If they die of natural causes then that will be it, they will die peacefully after leading a human life. This is what he hopes for – both for himself and his loved ones.

If they die violently, then they become the Undying. Immortal, doomed to live and regenerate for all time. It’s not a fate he wants for himself or wishes on his children.

But vampires are making that hope awfully difficult. A new church is in town and they’re recruiting  - and turning – members at an extreme rate, much to the worry not just of the Undying, but of the legitimate vampire community as well. They hope to bring the second coming by turning everyone into a vampire – and they already have enough numbers to quickly turn all of Memphis.

But to stop them means tolerating – and working with – other Undying, each with their own agenda. To say nothing of the Council that would love to turn his Breather family into Undying if they can – and that’s without the threat of combat

This world is an extremely interesting one. Ordered, semi-revealed vampire society which is partially policed by the Undying – humans who have vampire ancestry (or are half angels, depending who you believe) who literally cannot die. Decapitate them? They regrow from the head. Burn them? They regrow from the ashes. Even a nuclear explosion cannot kill these beings.

But this isn’t generally seen as a good thing. It’s fascinating how the extent of this is analysed – not just the fact that an immortal is going to see all the people they love around them, I’ve seen that covered before. But things like culture shock – how even people in their late middle age today can have trouble keeping up with the latest innovations, how much do you have to struggle to keep up with the curve of hundreds of years of advancement?

And it covers the trauma of dying. An Undying can regenerate from anything, but the vampires know that and don’t just kill them (and inter them in cement) but kill them in horrific, agonising ways. Regrowing from a head (and having to have cement scraped out of your sinuses) is pretty traumatising – but to be tortured slowly to death before hand? Repeatedly? The cost to their sanity of being traumatised over and over again is so extreme that most of the older field agents are extremely divorced from reality and houses in a torpor-like state. Yet these Sleepers are roused in need to become near-mindless shock troops – it seems very devaluing of people with severe mental illness – especially exposing them to the very triggers and conditions that caused the illness in the first place. I would have liked to see more emphasis on treatment and therapy or even retirement for them – especially Undying like Gilgamesh and Leilit who were apparently very reasonable and functional – but with levels of eccentricity peeking in.

It’s an interesting concept and side to explore and a pretty unique one – and shows some level of respect to what trauma can do to a person - that it can’t just be shrugged off. But, at the same time, I would have preferred some nod towards how the treatment of the Sleepers is poor.

The characters are interesting and fit the concept of this world. We see the hard lives they lead and the toll that takes on them – and how vampire hunting precludes any real income generation – which in turn causes hardship and difficulty. It’s interesting following Oren and his concerns as well as Brett and the uncomfortable expectations that are falling on him and Brigette, tired of so much of the family relying on her. They’re very strong characters with powerful concerns and motivations.

Review: God Save the Queen by Kate Locke, Book 1 of the Immortal Empire Series

 Xandra is a half-vampire, her father a vampire and her mother one of the courtesan carriers of the plagued genes. Like many halvies, she serves the vampiric and were aristos that rule the county, in her case as a Royal Guard – and one of the Royal Guard’s best. And they need to be good – after the Insurrection, there are considerable human forces constantly seeking to overrule the immortal Queen Victoria and her vampiric court.

But, despite this, Xandra finds herself caught up in one of these treasonous movements herself, despite her position as Guard. When her sister is taken in to the notorious mental hospital of Bedlam, where Xandra’s mother was said to have died, Xandra confronts her own fears to find the truth. Unwilling to be dismissed, her investigations uncover surprise after surprise – and a deep conspiracy that rocks the place of all halvies in society. She ends up torn between family and duty – and betrayed by people she trusted beyond all others.

And through that she has to learn the truth not just about her friends, her family and her society and leaders – but also about herself. Her true nature, her true being and what that really means.

This book had a very shaky start for me. I start reading and am instantly treated to one of the longest, most convoluted info-dumps I’ve ever read as Xandra mentally resumes the entire world for me, the creatures, the politics, the history, her family and her personal history. It’s huge, it’s long, it’s interspaced with lots of area description and emotional exposition and it’s pretty hard to follow – I actually had to re-read several parts to double check the huge amount of information being imparted.

It put me off and, if I’d been skimming in a book shop deciding whether to buy or not, I’d have put it back on the shelves, disappointed. But it is worth holding on, getting through that shaky beginning and keep on reading. The world is revealed again in more sensible terms, the characters are more developed and then the real plot kicks in.

Once you get into the book, the world is fascinating. The supernatural here is a plague – the plague – kills people but leaves some survivors with offspring that carry the plague, that eventually over the generations changes them into vampires, werewolves and – when the werewolf and vampire plagues combine or through throwbacks, the lethal and terrifying goblins. The book is set in the 21^st century, but it’s a very different world from ours. It’s a world where the immortal vampiric Queen Victoria still reigns, ruling a vampiric and werewolf aristocracy that precariously rules over a majority human and disgruntled populace. In between are the half-weres and half-vampires, serving the aristos with their much greater numbers.

Because it’s 21^st century, we have much of the same technology displayed as you’d expect. But because there’s also powerful elements demanding the world stand still – the Queen’s conservative sensibilities, the aristos discomfort with the modern, there’s also a very strong steampunk aesthetic. It has a really interesting mix of modern and Victorian values – with things like a deadly fear of gossip and reputation, but a casual, liberated view of sex and sexuality.

The story is also interesting with a lot of twists, depths and shades to it. We have a multi-level conspiracy, but against a backdrop of a deeply divided society, which adds a lot of complexity to the mix. Even as she finds the conspiracy and the truth to it, Xandra can’t commit all the way because of human prejudice against halvies and her own dislike of humans. The plot follows through discovering exactly what the conspiracy is and how far it goes, how half-vamps/weres are treated by all sides of the spectrum as well as huge revelations about Xandra’s own self, blood and history. Many assumptions are challenged but it’s never quite black and white because of this very complicated world as she tries to learn exactly who is responsible for the crimes she sees, who the good guys and bad guys actually are and how that mixes with her role as a Royal Guard.

Review: The Golden Lilly, by Richelle Mead, Book 2 of the Bloodlines Series

Sydney has been commended by the Alchemists for being so very loyal to their cause, exposing the wrong-doers and dedicating herself to keeping the threat of Moroi and Dhampires from the poor humans. The problem is, while she follows her duties to the letter, she has made very strong friendships with several Moroi and Dhampires – she is uncomfortably aware that, from the Alchemist standpoint, she is a traitor.

And it’s something that becomes ever more complex as her friendships grow and deepen and she becomes involved in the Moroi experiments to permanently immunise people against becoming Strigoi. While the Alchemists approve of them, the idea that they may involve her goes against her own beliefs and everything the Alchemists have taught

Things are not simplified by the appearance of the Vampire Hunters – humans who hunt and kill Strigoi but have nothing but contempt for the Moroi. While their methods are extreme, their philosophy is not that far from that espoused by her own Alchemists

And then she has a teacher who is pushing her to learn magic, against all of her beliefs – and against the principles of the Alchemists – though she can’t deny the utility of it. Then there’s the complications of her love life as well.

The story is much better paced than the previous book. With that as an introduction we’re thrown into the major conflicts from the first page. The actual major part of the plot picks up around 40% with considerable groundwork being laid beforehand. 40% is a little late still, but this is in part because the daily school life and foundation for the characters that was laid in the first half wasn’t overly interesting to me. The relationship dramas of Jil, Eddie, and even Sydney didn’t fascinate me, nor did the problems Angeline had with the school authorities. This did make the first 40% somewhat slow for me – but not nearly so much as the first book and I recognise this is as much an issue of taste as anything else.

Once we do hit the 40% mark it really does pick up, we have action and intrigue and mystery – we have some twists, we have real development and we have some well laid seeds of meta-plot as well. It’s an interesting read with some very well done actions scenes and some excellently written conflict

There are some great conflicts in this book. Sydney is confronted with her deep held Alchemist beliefs against her friendships with the Moroi and the Dhampires. And it’s not just that the Alchemists reserve severe and terrifying penalties for those who dare to break their rules and fraternise with the Moroi – she has her own actual terror of them. She is unnerved getting too close or touching them and utterly afraid of expressions of their magic or actual blood drinking. Even giving a blood sample for medical purposes to them frightens her. Yet at the same time she has built bonds of affection and trust with them – they are her friends and she can’t imagine being without them even as her superiors seek to reward her by moving her away from them. This conflict is thrown into even harsher relief when we compare with the Vampire Hunters – their beliefs are not alien, they are just Alchemist beliefs taken to a more extreme (or not even that extreme) level. Her vehement rejection of their brutality is not just showing her humanity but also shows just how far she has deviated from the Alchemists own morals – and leads to uncomfortable questions about blinkered loyalty and who the monsters actually are.

Review of Flesh and Blood by Kristen Painter: Book 2 of the House of Comarré Series

Tatina of the house of Tepes, and Chyrsabelle the comarré, still have unfinished business.  When we last left the house of comarré series, Tatina had murdered Maris, Chyrsabelle's mother, and in return, Chrysabelle had severed her hand.  Back in their own separate spheres, Tatina is even more determined to capture Chrysabelle, and force her to hand over the ring of sorrows.  Chyrsabelle of course wants vengeance for the death of her mother, and to keep a promise to Mal about finding away to end the curse that plagues him.  Doc, a leopard Varcolai, (shifter)  is desperate to find a way to save Fi, the ghost woman he loves, and he is even willing to take on the powerful anathema Dominic to do so.  There is also Creek, a member of an secret society named the Kubai Mata, whose purpose is to protect mankind, and his mission is to secure the ring. 


As you can see, there are several story lines being intertwined in this one book.  The one that is the most typical, and quite frankly the most annoying, is the love triangle that develops between Creek, a Native American man and Mal the cursed vampire.  Creek was sentenced to seven years in prison after he murdered his father to protect his sister and jumped at the chance to be become a Kubai Mata, to secure his freedom and gain a better life for his family.  He makes it clear repeatedly that though he is a member of the group, that they don't trust him enough to give him a lot of information.  With everything that he has at stake, he still finds Chrysabelle quite irresistible.  At first he cracks it up to not being with a woman for many years, but in the end, he simply decides that there is just something special about her. In part, Mal is heavily attracted to Chrysabelle because she is a member of the comarré and has been bred specifically because of the specialness of her blood.  He is impressed by her determination and physical strength.  What I don't understand is why Mal continues to love her, after she takes away his only chance to be human in what is clearly a selfish act.  Unlike many vampires who are self-loathing in urban fantasy because that just seems to be the in thing, being twice cursed adds validity to Mal's desire to remain human once given the chance.


I am particularly upset with Creek's fascination with Chrysabelle, because it seemed in many ways to be based on her Whiteness.  There were constant mentions to her skin virtually glowing and her long blonde hair might was well have been a crown.  Not for one moment are we allowed to forget that Chrysabelle is White and many ways, this Whiteness is given a moral value of pure goodness.  This is especially true when juxtaposed to Tatiana, the Roma antagonist. At times it reads as though getting Chrysabelle to agree to a relationship with Creek, would equal an elevation of his person.  

Review: This Side of the Grave by Jeaniene Frost, Book 5 of the Night Huntress Series

Cat is adapting to her new life as a vampire – and not just a vampire, but a vampire that feeds on other vampires and absorbs their powers – powers that she isn’t always old enough or strong enough to control. More, a newly raised vampire whose powers just killed one of the most powerful living master vampires

And this is a problem for Apollyon, the Ghoul. Or at least a convenient excuse for him. Using the image of the powers Cat has displayed, he is inciting the ghouls to raise up against the vampires, claiming they will use her powers to dominate, enslave and butcher ghouls.

Apollyon is now travelling from city to city, inciting ghouls to hatred – and it’s not the first time he’s used a half-vampire to try to start a war against vampires – last time the half-vampire was killed to placate him. Cat isn’t best pleased with this proposal.

So the hunt is on – to find Apollyon, to discredit him, to stop him by any means necessary – and before more masterless vampires are hunted down or too many ghouls are recruited to the cause.

We had plot, plot and more plot! Indeed many of the sex scenes were taken as a given rather than something that had to be excessively described, and relationship angst came in the form of long needed revelations rather than the eternal moping and misunderstanding. In fact, Cat made little breakthroughs with Mancheres so perhaps we can finally leave her constant suspicion and sniping behind. After the emotional maundering of the last book, this was a wonderful change of pace.

Another wonderful change was Cat’s actions and involvement. After the last book where she spent the vast majority of it being dragged around in other people’s plans, here she was involved. She didn’t always take charge and sometimes she had to follow as much as lead – which was appropriate all things considered (why should the millennia old Mancheres defer to Cat after all?) but she had constant input, intelligent input and was a meaningful part of their plans as well as adding her own plans and ideas that they followed. She was integral, not just for her special shiny powers, but also for her own choice of what to do and how to do it. In this book she was not just a strong, intelligent woman with her own ideas and unwilling to be dictated to, but she was also a team player – and I think that’s important. Often in Urban Fantasy “strong, independent woman” and “works well with others” are considered mutually exclusive – either she’s domineering, violent or drives people off, or she’s a passive follower. Or she refuses to work with others and insists on doing her own thing. This was one of the few times we see a character who is happy to work with others, as an equal, without having to be a complete arsehole or a complete puppet or a loose cannon. 

Review: Destined for an Early Grave by Jeaniene Frost, Book 4 of the Night Huntress Series

Cat is all settling down for a relatively quiet life. Having defeated the attack on their line and Bones now firmly ensconced as the co-ruler of the line with Mancheres, it’s time for a holiday. But, naturally, nothing is that simple.

There is a powerful vampire out there who has his eyes on Cat. Gregor is ancient, more powerful than Bones and is known as the Dreamsnatcher – and for good reason. With the power to invade people’s minds while they sleep and even kidnap them over vast distances, he’s a terrifying enemy.

Cat has to go on the run – a flight that literally takes her around the world, but always in secrecy. Scarcely being able to sleep safely, she has to travel in ignorance of where she is – not even knowing the continent she’s on, for fear of Gregor plucking the information from her brain. In endless frustration, she has to leave her rescue in Bone’s hands, ignorant of his plans.

Worse, as they flee they learn that Cat has a history with Gregor – a long and intimate history that has been erased from her mind. Both Bones and she have to worry about what happened in that time – and what Cat really felt for Gregor. All the while with Cat’s frustration over Bones’ plans and her acting in the dark to try and help him drive a wedge between them.

And if that weren’t enough, the ghouls are worried. If she is this powerful as a half-vampire, what would happen if she were raised as ghoul rather than a vampire? Would she have the powers of both? The answers are worrying people and making them easy recruits for Gregor

 

Last book I felt the series had really picked up. We had tension, action, a lot of lovely world building, an epic enemy and a focus on some powerful, character driven plot.

Which made this book rather disappointing.

Review of Blood Rights by Kristen Painter Book One of the House of Comarré

 

I have to say that I was quite impressed by this book despite the absolute absence of  GLBT people and problematic  references to people of colour. Blood rights is essentially the story of what are commonly called dhamphirs.  In this series they are known as comarré.  They have been breed for the potency of their blood and have developed their own form society alongside that of the various forms of vampires.  All vampires must drink human blood to survive, but only the noble vampires who are descended from fallen angels are able to afford to purchase the blood rights to a comarré.

Painter's world was vast and the following list includes the list of supernatural bodied mentioned in the series: Nothos, which are hellhouds, Varcolai, a race of shifters descended from fallen angels and animals, Fae, who are actually another race descended from the fallen angels, fringe vampires, who are descended from Judas Iscariot, Anthema who are vampires who have been cast out of noble society and finally, Castus Sanguis are the fallen angles themselves.

Chyrsabelle is a very special comarré and no other has had a price in the millions paid for the rights to their blood.  On the night of the ceremony which would grant her, her freedom after a hundred years of servitude, her patron is killed.  Chrysabelle must flee into the kine (read: human world)  world in the hope of disappearing and finding safety.  Unfortunately for her, Tatiana is fast on her heels, because she wants the ring of Chrysabelle's former patron in the belief that this will make her ruler of the vampires.

Chrysabelle meets up with Mal  in a human vampire bar where he tries to help her escape because immediately recognizes her for what she is - a comarré.  Chrysabelle, quickly stabs him just inches below his heart and makes her escape.  When next they meet, Mal is less trusting but in the end, determines to help her free her aunt, who has been kidnapped by Tatiana and clear her name.  What is interesting about the relationship between Mal and Chrysabelle, is that he continually attempts to act as her hero and she consistently reminds him that she is capable of taking care of herself.  He has a habit of reminding Chrysabelle that she is a comarré, and therefore no match for a vampire, let alone a vampire of royal blood.  This is of course is a sexist patriarchal streak, but Chrysabelle has little patience for this.  She spends much of the book proving to him that she is more than capable of defending her self.  The comarré are not the helpless supplicants that the vampires have come to believe that they have a right to, instead they are a fierce group of warrior humans awaiting the day when it may become necessary for them to stand against the very monsters they now call master.  

At Graves End, by Jeaniene Frost, Book 3 in the Night Huntress series

Cat's world is heating up as she gets further and further away from her job as a vampire hunter. More and more vampires are recognising her as the Red Reaper and her reputation as a warrior and killer is beginning to precede her. And she'll need every bit of her skills as war comes to her door.

It's a war that attacks her mother and her mortal friends. She's forced into hiding, constantly seeking both safety for her loved ones as well as the identity of the vampire that is attacking her and Bones – and setting off a full scale war between their bloodlines.

And in this war we have Mancheres, Bone's grandsire, who has entered an alliance with Bones so their vampire lines can fight together against the massive threat against them – but Mancheres is hesitating and he is not telling everything.

Meanwhile, Cat's old team is going through changes as Bones meets his promise to turn one of them into a vampire. She laos has to deal with the large number of vampires and ghouls Bones and Mancheres have summoned to help them fight the war – and hope dearly that it will be enough.

This is an epic fight for survival, with two vast forces clashing with no mercy or quarter given.