Audio Review: Raven Cursed by Faith Hunter

Raven Cursed

by Faith Hunter

Jane Yellowrock #4

Narrated by Khristine Hvam Kies

Source: Purchased at Audible.com

The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina, want to establish their own clan, but since they owe loyalty to the Master Vampire of New Orleans they must work out the terms with him. To come up with an equitable solution, he sends an envoy with the best bodyguard blood money can buy: Jane Yellowrock.

But when a group of local campers are attacked by something fanged, Jane goes from escort to investigator. Unless she wants to face a very angry master vampire, she will have to work overtime to find the killer. It's a good thing she's worth every penny.

The Heroine(s): Jane's a kick ass rouge vampire hunter. She's a skinwalker which means she more than just a were. She can change into almost any animal but her beast prefers the form of a mountain lion. I find the inner monologue between Jane and Beast every interesting and well written. So instead of one heroine you get two.

The Plot: Jane is back at home in North Caroline but she can't get away from events that took place in New Orleans during Mercy Blade and she definitely can't get away from the people from New Orleans.  Leo the head vamp of the South has hired Jane as the head of security for the vampire meeting. Jane hires Derek Lee and his group of good ol' boys. Then there's Ricky Bo. Jane brought him near Ashland, NC to get help with his issue. So Jane may have left New Orleans but she brought the major players with her.

Before the vamps can have their important conference about making peace with the witches, Jane is faced with dead bodies all over town. Humans are blaming vampires but then it starts looking like werewolves might be the ones ripping the humans apart.

Since Jane is back in NC we get to see more of Molly and her family. I love Angie Baby, Molly's young daughter so I'm glad we get to see her again. We also get to see more of Big Evan, Molly's husband. In fact Molly's whole family (sisters included) into the action this time around.

The Big Bad(s): This time around we get two bad guys that Jane has to fight. Neither is easy. One is a friend that tries to harm loved ones of Jane. Another is a bad ass that happens to be a shapeshifting witch that happens to be a demon.

Jane's Love Life: Jane and Beast are still not seeing eye to eye on the mate front. If Beast has her way Jane would be sleeping with Ricky, Bruiser and Leo. After all big cats don't mate for life. Jane may have lusty thoughts about more than one man but she is a one man gal. I've never really been a fan of Ricky as the love interest. I just didn't feel the connection between him and Jane. Then he cheats on her while working a case in Mercy Blade. But I starting liking him a little in Raven Cursed.

Quotes: Evan stood at bottom of stairs with hands on hips, studying room. Saying things low under breath. More sex talk about mothers. Humans think of sex at strange times. Jane laughed. I did not understand. - Beast

"Your cat did this?"
"Yeah, she was hungry and Molly wouldn't let her eat Evangeline"
When Rick arched an eyebrow at me, I shook my head and said, "For dinner, Ricky Bo."
"Of course."

Will I Continue Series? Hell yes! Even though I'm a little frustrated with Jane's love life I'm still on board for more Beast and Jane action.

Narration: Khristine Hvam Kies continues to make this series a real enjoy to listen to. I love her voices for Beast, Angie Baby, and many others. She does an amazing job with the timing and I feel like she is acting the story out instead of just reading a book.

Audio Review: Nightshifted by Cassie Alexander

Nightshifted

by Cassie Alexander

Edie Spence #1
Narrated by Tai Sammons

Published May 22nd 2012 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  Source: Purchased at Audible.com

Nursing school prepared Edie Spence for a lot of things. Burn victims? No problem. Severed limbs? Piece of cake. Vampires? No way in hell. But as the newest nurse on Y4, the secret ward hidden in the bowels of County Hospital, Edie has her hands full with every paranormal patient you can imagine—from vamps and were-things to zombies and beyond...

Edie’s just trying to learn the ropes so she can get through her latest shift unscathed. But when a vampire servant turns to dust under her watch, all hell breaks loose. Now she’s haunted by the man’s dying words—Save Anna—and before she knows it, she’s on a mission to rescue some poor girl from the undead. Which involves crashing a vampire den, falling for a zombie, and fighting for her soul. Grey’s Anatomy was never like this ..

Nightshifted had a kind of slow start for me. It took me about half of the book to really get into the story. But I think the biggest part was due to the narration. Tai Sammons didn't change her pitch enough so I was confused sometimes as to which character was speaking. I felt like she was just reading the book to me instead of "acting" the story out like some great narrators can do. With that being said I will be listening to the next book, Moonshifted because it's free through my library and I'm on a time crunch to get it done so that I can read the 3rd book, Shapeshifted. And that will be the real telling point for me if the narration is what brought Nightshifted from a 4 Halo book to a 3 Halo book. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What drew me into Nightshifted is the fact that the story is set mostly in a hospital so I knew that it would be a different kind of book. (Cassie Alexander is a nurse by day (or night) so I was a little worried that the medical parts would be a little too technical but she did a great job of keeping it in dumby terms.)  I thought of the hospital scenes in Larissa Ione's Demoncia series when I started and was wondering if Edie's hospital would be similar. There was a few small similarities in the fact that Y4, the supernatural underground level of the county hospital is a secret from the humans and they only treat the supes. But that was about it.

Edie is not your usual urban fantasy heroine. First she is just a plain human, no special abilities. She's just a nurse working the nightshift that switched over to Y4 to help get her drug user brother some help. She made a deal and now he can't get high or drunk no matter how much he tries. We'll have to see if he change the type of person he is in the following books. (I'm assuming we will see more of him.)

While Edie is working a shift at Y4 she makes a rookie mistake with a vampire patient causing his death. But before he dies, he asks Edie to help Anna. So now our everyday human nurse has a mission to save a girl that she has no clue where or who/what she is. Not only is Edie is trying to keep afloat in her life by working to pay her rent, trying to keep her brother from ending up dead by a drug overdose but now she has to keep her promise to a patient that she feels she killed.

Alexander kept me entertained with the developing mystery within the plot about Anna and I grew to like Edie as the main character. Some of the secondary characters have potential. But one thing I didn't care too much for was the romantic relationship that Edie has with the zombie patient (I don't even remember his name). He was a good guy but the part where he has to replace his body parts with other people's was just a little off putting for him to be the romantic lead IMO.

Another thing I had a hard time with was the grandfather speaking German through a radio. I was very confused by who's grandfather it was. I'm not sure if the grandfather was Edie's or one of her patients. I don't know if that was just not written well to be clear or if I had tuned out during the part it was explained. (A bad side effect of having a not so great narrator.)

There was some funny moments. One that sticks out for me is the scene where a dragon shifter with syphillis get loose in the hospital and Edie wonders at one point if she had slept with the dragon shifter while he was in his human form.

In any case I enjoyed Nightshifted enough to check out the next book to see if Edie and her world will grow on me more.

Review: The Baby Bargain by Jennifer Apodaca

The Baby Bargain

By Jennifer Apodaca

Once a Marine #1

  

I downloaded this book a few weeks ago when I was in the mood for a sweet contemporary romance after all the murder mystery and serial killer stories I’d been reading at the time. Well, I shifted out of that mode but still had this book to read and was really pleased to discover that this wasn’t the “cute” story I thought it would be. It has a really strong mystery/suspense element underpinning the romance and there’s quite a bit of conflict.

The Set Up

Megan Young dated Adam Waters in college but they went their separate ways when he wasn’t able to sustain a committed relationship because of some serious emotional trauma from his childhood. She’s now a veterinarian with her own practice in their home town of Raven’s Cove, California. About three years ago, he came home for his parents’ funeral and looked to Megan for comfort but left the next day to join the Marines, telling her he couldn’t do this and didn’t leave any contact information, and she hasn’t heard from him since. He suddenly appears at her office doorstep with an injured stray dog asking for help. Megan’s panicked because he doesn’t know that he left her pregnant and they now have a son. Adam is out of the Marines, now owns his own security firm and has returned to sell his parents’ home.

The Conflicts

I really hate when a woman doesn’t tell a man that he’s a father and can rarely accept an excuse for her doing so. It was a major conflict for me (and Adam!), though Meg had some pretty compelling reasons to explain her actions. They made me more sympathetic to her situation and while I still believed she was wrong in not attempting to find him, I at least understood her perspective. Meanwhile, someone is trying to set her up, putting her practice in jeopardy and the potential of her facing jail time. Having this issue in the background while the two of them struggled to come to terms with their feelings for each other, their baggage and Meg’s secret made for a really interesting and compelling story. It wasn’t tough to figure out the mystery but it still added so much tension to the mix that the book was tough to put down.

The Bottom Line

This was a layered story with the two main characters showing up as courageous, tragic and misguided at the same time. Their physical relationship was the one thing that always worked for them but also worked against them in working through the hard issues. It’s not the sweet story I anticipated (the title really doesn’t do this book justice) and believe me, I was really happy about that. What I got was so much more (4 1/2 stars) and made even sweeter when I discovered this is the first book in a new series. Bring it on.

Review: Tell No One by Harlan Coben

 

Tell No One

By Harlan Coben

 

I’m a fan of Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series and decided that I’d start this book without reading the synopsis. It was selected as the book for group discussion in one of my groups and was highly touted. The book was that much more exciting because I didn’t know what it was about and read the prologue with no clue as to where it was going. Here’s what I’ll say about it so you can have a similar experience if you choose. 
 

I had a really tough time putting this book down for interruptions (sleep, errands, meals, etc.) because it was pretty unpredictable, a staple of Coben’s stories. You think you know who the good guys are, only to be disappointed at a later juncture. Even the good guys are presented with moral dilemmas where they make dicey choices and you question your own self as to whether you would have done things differently. Here you have a man whose done nothing but the right things expected of him and in the space of 24 hours is consorting with people and doing things he would never have considered as an option the day before.


The story kept me off balance the entire time and the twist at the end really caught me off guard, just when I believed I had everything sorted out. If you like tension, action, mystery and strange suspense and a little bit of romance, you’ll like this book. I certainly did.


(This book was also developed into a French film by the same name and was a smash hit in France.  An American/Hollywood remake is reportedly in the works.)