Melanie's Week in Review - April 6, 2014

Welcome to April. I can't believe that we are already a quarter of the way through 2014 with spring here and summer in the not to distant future. I decided to say goodbye to March and hello to April by having a HEA week. I sort of achieved it. So what did I read?

I discovered that Karen Chance had released Masks (Cassie Palmer 4.3) which tells the story of Mircea's early years being a vampire. For those who aren't familiar with either the Cassie Palmer or Dorina Basarab stories, Mircea is a very powerful vampire in both series (Dorina's father & Cassie's honey bunny), but in Masks he is just starting out as a fledgling vampire. I thought this was going to be novella or a short story but it was a full length novel (I think) and took me much longer to read than I thought it would. Masks is based in Venice just two years after Mircea was cursed and turned into a vampire (sound like Angel from Buffy?). Mircea has been bought by a wealthy courtesan and finds much more than a warm bed as the favourite of one of the vampire senators. Much like the series from which this story is born there is murder, mystery and political intrigue on every corner and all set in 15th century Venice. Like her other novels Chance keeps a healthy pace and you need to pay attention in order to figure out 'who dunnit'. I had figured it out but only a few pages before the big reveal. I also thought the ending was a bit bittersweet but I don't want to ruin it and also, you need to have read the Dorina series to understand why. Mircea isn't my favourite character but overall there was a solid plot and a good backing to the Dorina series which I enjoy.

This was also the week for books downloading onto my Kindle. The first was Death's Daughter which is the second in the Realm Walker series by Kathleen Collins. I have to say I had no recollection of book 1 when I saw this one pop into my Kindle library. I had to go back and read the ending of book 1, the Realm Walker to figure out why I had pre-ordered book 2 but it all came flooding back quite clearly. In this instalment children are being kidnapped and ending up brutally murdered. Juliana is determined to make the killer pay. This instalment is a bit unusual as it written from both Juliana and Thomas's POV in alternate chapters. Juliana is all about solving the case but Thomas is only concerned with protecting Juliana and exacting revenge on Raoul who had viciously raped his mate over 10 years ago. Normally, I prefer the romance to take a back seat to the action but in the case of Death's Daughter the romance was almost non-existent and when it did surface it was a bit 'snoresville'. There is just no chemistry between these two. I can't put my finger on it but there just isn't. I thought the plot was OK but guessed who the baddie was way before the ending.

The next book to help fill up my TBR was Six Months by Danika Dark which is the second in the Seven Years series. If you read my WIR when I discussed book 1  - Seven Years - I was a bit nervous about starting a series by this author as she tends to write erotica which I don't enjoy. While book 1 was practically labelled '' this is not erotica " book 2 veered away from its urban fantasy beginning and focussed much more on 'tingling cores' and 'throbbing manhoods'. This instalment shares the same characters as book one but we get the inside story on Lexi's colleague April and the hunky, tough shifter Reno. April is pretty much your femme fatale who is in serious debt to loan sharks while Reno is a PI with an over protective streak. There was a lot happening in this story but there were almost too many bit characters who fought with April and Reno for centre stage. It was also full of a lot of testosterone and studly shifterness. Where Lexi stood up for herself April allowed herself to be trampled by almost everyone and there were so many bad things that happened to her it got a bit formulaic by the mid-way point. I am still interested though where Dark takes this series next. There are many more characters that are ripe for their own story but I am not sure who will get centre stage next.

I was a bit disappointed by my HEA week as I thought a number of the romances were a bit flat. I think I will stick to reading a mix of genres so that I have some variety and not comparing one book to another so readily. I hope you have had some success reducing your TBR and until next time Happy Reading.