Review: Fever Moon by Karen Marie Moning

Fever Moon: The Fear Dorcha by Karen Marie Moning
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Al Rio's art really is great, it captures the darkness of what's happening in Dublin during the story without being too literally dark to enjoy, it sill has a lot of energy, movement and emotion. And when appropriate the frames are beautifully completed into real pieces of art capturing the city, the scene in a club, a church, even just the background while they're driving, but it's a completely detailed piece of art, not just sketched in background place holders. I'm not a big graphic novel fan, but obviously Al Rio was tremendously talented. He really captured the characters with a lot of emotional depth, every panel was just great. I'm sure his work will be really missed. Cliff Richards did a good job stepping in to finish the book.

The only disappointing character for me was Rowena. I can't remember clearly how she was described in the books, but as a former fighter and as the leader of the sidhe seers I always pictured her as the whip-thin tough-as-nails bitter granny type, not the fluffy granny type. Double chins didn't fit my image of her. The highly disapproving sneer worked though. I also didn't imagine Jayne as such a hunk, was that a comic book addition? I know he's been working out and all, trying to catch the bad guys and save the city, but the super chiseled eye candy look seemed a little much.

Barron's big B belt buckle just cracked me up. I can't decide if it suited his arrogance or was silly, but it was funny.

Luckily I owned the ebook for Shadowfever so I could re-read the whole end, I didn't remember any of the key points at all, I guess it didn't make such a big impression on me after all. This actually seems to take place before book five, but I was a little thrown to realize that the whole book had pretty much disappeared from my memory.

As for this book, the ending was super weak. There was no reason given for why Mac's strategy worked or why the words were an issue, a lot of things just didn't hold together with what was up to that point a cool/creepy bad guy. But in general, if you're a fan of the series you should enjoy the book. She and Barrons fight about cars, you get to see him looming over her all big and sexy (if you happen to like that kind of thing), there's a tiny bit of Dreamy-Eyed Guy, overall it's a good portrayal of the world. It's just a petty shallow story. The art deserves four stars, but I just can't give the story that many.

FYI: I've seen a couple of people complaining about Mac's big bosom hanging out in a lot of the book, but frankly that's a comic book thing, it's something that happens in almost every graphic novel adaptation. And it's actually pretty consistent with her character too, she likes tight, girly clothes that show off her figure, so I didn't have any problems with it in this book. And the guy eye candy was just as prominent, with lots of naked Velvet.

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Review: Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues (White Trash Zombie, #2) by Diana Rowland

Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues by Diana Rowland

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm not a big fan of zombie books in general, it's not generally my thing. But I am a big fan of Diana Rowland. She's consistently written books with terrific characters and very real situations, despite the fantasy set-ups of the zombies or demons or whatever she's chosen to use to create drama and excitement in their lives. And she sure didn't fail me with this one!

Angel really got put through the emotional and physical wringer in this book. She was finally setting into a job that she enjoyed and feeling that she was getting her life back on track. And BAM, it all fell apart. Suddenly the trust she thought she'd earned from so many people was gone, even her boyfriend didn't believe anything she was saying, and she was in deadly danger and all on her own again. But our tough girl just moved forward, did what she had to do to protect herself, and saved the day. But what worked so well was that it was all in believable ways, it wasn't in some crazy superhero way. She used her wit, her intelligence and her experience to prevail. And her zombie strength, speed and healing occasional, I'll give her that. But she didn't give up and she didn't give in, she fought back.

I could see so much emotional growth in this book, that was really the best part of the story. She trusted herself. There were some doubts, but mostly she was starting to understand her own worth. She refused to let Marcus or anyone else brush her off, make decisions for her, or belittle her ideas. She was upset when people kept asking her about where she went to school, it did make her feel bad, but it got her thinking about her future too. Seeing her dad and what he was going through with trying to quit drinking really emphasized for Angel what an opportunity she'd been given by being forced to start over by being turned in to a zombie. She knows that so much of her progress is because her "rehab" was forced on her, alcohol and drugs just don't work on her anymore and they make her rot faster and need brains more often, so she just doesn't use them. (Luckily she gets to eat whatever she wants when she'd depressed at least, a girl has to have some outlet!) But she's really trying to make the most of this second chance she's been given, even when it's hard. It's a very believable struggle and I just can't help but root for this chick.

The other thing that's so great about this book, and about Rowland's work in general, is the depth of the world that she creates. Every piece of the puzzle is in place, so the reader never feels for a second like she isn't reading about a completely real place. Because Rowland has been a beat cop, detective, morgue assistant and held many other jobs as well, she makes every detail of her stories come to life. Every supporting character is perfectly in place, every scene is set, but none of it is heavy-handed or wordy, it's just a perfectly painted background so you don't even realize you're absorbing it most of the time. When Angel tore up that floor and crawled into those tunnels, I felt like I was there with her. When she was sitting on the curb holding Marcus at the terribly sad crime scene, I felt like I was there. The details are just so well done. It's like Dan Dos Santos' gorgeous cover, everything pops and comes to life.

And then there's the mystery. There was a lot going on here in the zombie world, a lot that unfolded and added depth to the story beyond what was happening to our beloved heroine. I'm excited to see what happens next. And how Angel gets sucked into it and kicks butt dealing with it.



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Review: Black Blade Blues (Sarah Beauhall #1) by J.A. Pitts

Black Blade Blues by J.A. Pitts

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a really neat urban fantasy book with a strong dose of Norse mythology, but what really made it shine for me was the human story. The main character is a young woman blacksmith who has no idea that any of the stories from the ancient lore could possible be true, despite spending her weekends with her friends The Black Briar clan swinging a sword in mock battles at renaissance fairs and Society for Creative Anacronism events. But when she meets a guy who says he's a dwarf who needs her to slay a dragon, all hell breaks loose for poor Sarah on fantastic side of the story.

At the same time, she's wrestling with her personal life, which is going through some turmoil as well. Sarah was raised by some emotionally suppressive and damaging people on several levels, and she has the self esteem to prove it. And she's gay and in the first relationship of her life with the outgoing and lovely Katie, a bard she met at the renaissance fairs. And boy is Sarah wrestling with the situation. Katie just told Sarah that she loves her, but there's still a part of Sarah that feels shame about what her family and community indoctrinated into her as being an inappropriate way to live. And as much as I do not believe that to be true, when I was reading the book I couldn't help but feel deeply for her and the internal battles that she was going through, for her self-esteem issues, her confusion over her identity, her hopeless love for Katie, her jealousy of Katie's friendship with her ex-girlfriend, the consequences all of this caused, Sarah's sorrow over screwing up her relationship with her boss, Julie, and on and on; there was just so much great real life depth and emotion in this book. It's funny actually, I saw a review where the guy didn't like it because he thought it was more of a romance than urban fantasy (despite the dragons, dwarves, giants, goblins, Valkyries, sword fights, explosions, helicopter crashes, etc.). Usually that's my complaint, romance usually just isn't my style. But this didn't feel like romance to me. It's certainly a more sophisticated love story than the love-at-first-sight, based on nothing, they barely know each other but somehow they both just know that this is meant to be, love stories that I really don't enjoy. This is a real adult romance with all of the bumps and bruises that go along with that. And even though it was a theme that is often explored in traditional romances, a woman who has always felt awkward for whatever reason and is now in the middle of her first adult relationship, it felt fresh and real and true. And having the relationship take place between two women gave the author a lot of issues to explore in addition to the usual issues of insecurities and first mistakes, and made the newness make more sense than in some of the romance books I've read when the woman is supposedly awkward and the guy is the most desirable guy on the planet.

I also really like how much the author seems to respect women too. It's pretty rare, from female or male authors, to see women heroes portrayed as just so darn human, really brave but also fully vulnerable, smart and witty without being obnoxious, strong and capable, occasionally stupid, and with so many well-balanced characters throughout the book. I liked what I saw from the men in the book as well, but I would like to see more from the guys as the series develops.

As for the urban fantasy aspects of the story, that was the most inconsistent part of the book. There were a lot of things that I liked, but the storytelling was a bit up and down pacing-wise. And the depth of Sarah's personal story took up a bit of the time that might have been given to developing a deeper plot. It was good, but not stellar. I liked the way the mythology was woven into the story, it wasn't too heavy-handed. And there were some great moments. Like pissing herself in terror when she first saw the dragon, that was a good realistic moment. I liked the humor of the stuff with the Valkyries. And I really liked the way she actually kept telling everyone what was really going on once she figured it out instead of the secrecy that abounds in every other urban fantasy book. She may not have known what to say in her personal life, but she was good about trusting the right people when it came to the crazy stuff that was going on, it was a refreshing change. I also like that when the battles happened it was really a mess, people died, things burned, it was a disaster, it wasn't all magically neat and clean somehow. Big stuff happened, people's lives were changed and I'm eager to see what happens next and how they deal with it. There is actually quite a bit that I'm intrigued about the more I think about the things that were revealed in the book about the dragons' society, as well as the Black Briars, so I'm definitely glad that I have books 2 and 3 already lined up to start right away.



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