Some overall reactions to my re-read of this book: The Gruffs are still great. Just the perfect amount of gravitas combined with ridiculousness. There are still too many fight scenes that go on for too long. (My mind wanders during fight scenes unless something else is going on.) And there are some things in here that read differently when you know what’s coming! Spoilers ahoy. For instance, there are about three references to Harry semi-jokingly noting that Kincaid could shoot him from very far away, […]
Girl vampire meets dangerous demon-fairy sex assassin
I had planned on reading all the Immortals After Dark books by Kresley Cole in order. But when I noticed Sweet Ruin was a standalone book, I skipped ahead to Book 16. This romantic tale didn’t start with a battle or instant attraction. Instead, we meet our heroine, Josephine (Jo for short), a homeless teen taking care of her baby brother, Thaddeus, in Texas. They hide out in the local public library during the day living off the kindness of the librarian. The foster system failed them. […]
The one where Rachel goes on an ill-advised banshee hunt
It has taken me three years to circle back to the first book from The Hollows series I found at the library. I unwittingly checked out and read a page from White Witch, Black Curse before realizing it was the seventh in the series! The completist that I am returned it. I finally started with book one in 2014. I’m probably the only one spacing out this series over so many years. 😉 ****Major spoilers for previous books in the series to follow**** Rachel Morgan has been through the […]
The more I read these books, the more I like to think it’s an adult Harry Potter.
I hope it goes without saying that, if you haven’t read these books, beware the spoilers that follow. I’ve tried to not give away major plot points for each book, but if you’re on book three, you may not want to read the following reviews. Harry Potter was one of those foundational stories, for me. It laid the groundwork for what I deem good in this world. To some degree, everything I’ve read since has been weighed against the mark left on my soul by […]
Call me sexist…..Okay. You are, Dresden. You’re a sexist.
The Dresden books are really good airport reads. I’m partial to genre fiction, so I read a lot more science fiction and fantasy than, say, James Patterson or John Grisham. But I think these books fall quite nicely into that quick, fun read section of the bookstore which is also inhabited by Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, and other, similar, authors. There’s nothing revolutionary, or particularly meaningful here. Butcher isn’t exploring the existential quandary his characters, or delving some broader exploration of life in the early […]
I Guess I Just Wanted the Forest to be Darker
Hazel and her brother Ben live a small town that edges up against the land of the fairies. As children they were the best of friends, often going off on dangerous adventures in the woods together taking down monsters in a badass brother/sister duo where the brother is the musician who stuns the wild creatures and Hazel, who is the knight who slays the beasts. But even as children, Ben realizes the danger the two of them are in and wants to quit before they […]