TEMPEST’S FURY (Jane True #5)
RELEASE DATE: July 2012
PUBLISHER: Orbit
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
ARTIST: Unknown

Supernatural halfling Jane True’s not happy. She’s been packed off to England to fight a war when she’d much rather be getting busy with her boyfriend Anyan. Unfortunately, Jane’s enemies have been stirring up some major trouble and attracting a lot of attention – making it rather tricky for Jane and Anyan to get any alone time.

Catapulted into the role of Most Unlikely Hero Ever, Jane must lead supernatural races in a desperate battle to combat an ancient evil. But she’ll also have to fight her own insecurities, as well as the doubts of those who don’t think she can live up to her new role as Champion – the most powerful supernatural leader of all…

CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS

This is a striking cover. I really like the red and purple and the warped title. It’s also a continuation of the series which is so good as I HATE it when they change design half way through a series, don’t you? I’m not sure about the model’s pose though, what’s she doing? Overall I like it, but would have been much better with a different pose.

LAURA’S THOUGHTS

Interesting cover, I really like the fact it matches the rest in the series. The red and purple make a striking colour combination, the girl’s pose looks a little odd though, not sure what’s going on there! I like the affect of how the book and fonts look like they’re under water too.

NICOLE PEELER ONLINE
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THE SWEET SCENT OF BLOOD (Spellcrackers.com #1)
by Suzanne McLeod

PUBLISHER: Gollancz (UK) | Ace (US)
RELEASE DATE: Nov 2011 (UK) | April 2010 (US)
FORMAT: Paperback, 400 pages
GENRE: Urban Fantasy

Genevieve Taylor is a sidhe – one of the noble fae – and she’s unusual even in a London where celebrity vampires, eccentric goblins and scheming lesser fae mix freely with humanity… Genny is a rising star at Spellcrackers.com, where she finds the “M” in magic – which can mean anything from mischief to malice to murder. The spellcrackers are run by the Witch Council, whose ancient tenets prohibit any contact with vampires. And that’s just fine with Genny, who wants as little to do with the bloodsuckers as possible.

But when a sinfully sexy vamp is accused of killing his lover, an old debt forces Genny to help prove his innocence, risking her job, her safety – and the exposure of her own dark secrets. Genny soon realizes that she and her client are both unwitting pawns in a centuries-old power struggle. And it’s not just her own neck at stake but the lives of all of London’s supernatural beings. (Goodreads)

REVIEWER: Rebecca

THE SWEET SCENT OF BLOOD is a unique novel, contradicting typical vampire fiction to mix together a wealth of different supernatural elements whilst keeping true to a murder mystery. The novel is exciting and fresh, with McLeod creating a heroine strong enough to take on whatever the vampires, witches and other beings can throw at her.

Genevieve Taylor is a sidhe fae, a kind of faerie, and the only one in London. She works for Spellcrackers.com, a witch company that removes unwanted spells for its clients – as long as they aren’t vamps. The ongoing witch vs. vampire feud is never fully explained in the novel, but there is an animosity between the species with Genny stuck in the middle, not fully belonging to either side.

The vampires are like celebrities in the human world, so when one of them is accused of murdering his girlfriend it hits the front page, with the vampires trying to sweep it under the carpet. However, when the vamps start coming to Genny asking her to discover the truth behind the murder, her life becomes more and more complex as she struggles to hide her own secrets whilst trying to uncover everyone else’s. It doesn’t help that her sidhe blood is more attractive to the vamps than a humans, not enabling her to properly interrogate any of her key suspects without becoming a vamp snack. Will Genny make it out of this investigation alive?

Our heroine, Genny, is an incredibly strong protagonist, trying to hold her own against all of the strong males she comes up against. It is clear that she has a lot of murky secrets in her past that she tries her best to cover up, with the reader only given inclinations to some of these secrets throughout the book. Hopefully the author will reveal more about her past in future novels in the series, because it certainly sounds like her past could fill a whole novel by itself, and I’d love to hear more about it.

Genny has a number of interactions with men in the novel from a variety of different species. However, there is not a single man whom she appears connected to the most, as her attention is very much divided between two. First we have her co-worker, Finn, who is a different species of fae and as such there is a magical bond between their fae blood that draws them together. Finn is gorgeous (aside from having horns!), and takes a special interest in Genny, looking out for her during the investigation. It is clear that his affection is not purely the result of their fae connection, but can Genny really take the risk in spilling her secrets to him?

Her next lot of male attention comes from vampire Malik Al-Khan, an incredibly attractive vampire elder who takes a particular interest in both Genny and the investigation. He has the power to manipulate Genny into doing whatever he wants, as well as using his vampire powers to put mind locks on humans and even become invisible. He wants control over her, and like all the other vamps he lusts for her blood. However, is he just flirting with her for information, or is there something else behind his manipulation?

As much as I loved the characters of this novel, there were still some things about main character Genny that irked me. For one, despite her blood and magic being to blame for attracting male attention, it feels like every male in the novel is interested in her, regardless of their species. This wouldn’t be so frustrating if we hadn’t already been told that her appearance is far from human, with her eyes being ‘amber-coloured, with oval pupils, rather like a cat’s’, and her hair a matching shade of amber. Another thing is that she seems to find herself losing her clothes at every opportunity, with there being a number of naked scenes when it doesn’t seem to fit with the plotline for any specific reason. There were times when I just wanted to scream at Genny to put some clothes on!

Overall, I did thoroughly enjoy this book, as I love any good twist on the vampire legend that keeps vampires as being scary and seductive. The heroine was smart and powerful, and there were some truly surprising twists when the truth of the murder is revealed. I look forward to finding out more about her past in subsequent novels, and really hope that the series continues to be as exciting as this first novel!

VERDICT:

I really enjoyed this book, the series kicking off to a great start with some fantastic characters to draw you in. I loved how the sidhe fae element contrasted with typical vampire fiction, with McLeod putting her own spin on vampires that works brilliantly. Her vampires are sexy, scary and shocking, and combined with the murder mystery the book is truly brilliant.

RATING: 

SUZANNE MCLEOD ONLINE
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BOOKS IN SERIES ORDER
1. The Sweet Scent of Blood
2. The Cold Kiss of Death
3. The Bitter Seed of Magic
4. The Shifting Price of Prey
5. The Hidden Rune of Iron
6. The Sharp Bite of Ritual

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15 MILES
by Rob Scott

PUBLISHER: Gollancz
RELEASE DATE: August 2010
FORMAT: Paperback, 368 pages
GENRE: Horror

Samuel “Sailor” Doyle has transferred from Vice to Homicide in the Virginia State Police. He has a mistress, an alcohol problem, a prescription drug dependency, and a burgeoning self-loathing that alienates his wife and family. The rookie investigator is assigned to a double homicide on a rural farm some 15 miles outside Richmond. One of the victims has been interred in a makeshift tomb, while the other is stuck half-in, half-out of a hope chest overflowing with cat litter. And the farm is covered with dead bodies: dozens of cats, sheep, goats, cows, and one dead horse. The mentally handicapped daughter of the victims, Carl and Claire Bruckner, is missing. Doyle soon discovers that Bruckner was a Marine captain who lost his leg in Vietnam thanks to the incompetence of his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lake—now retired General Robert Lake, and Republican Party presidential hopeful, who will be speaking in Richmond on July fourth—the following evening. What Doyle fails to realize as he follows the various clues is that wherever he goes, he is spreading disease—and not just any disease, but Yersinia pestis. The plague. Is the dead Marine planning revenge, even from beyond the grave? (Goodreads)

REVIEWER: Rebecca

15 MILES by Rob Scott is a crime novel that incorporates elements of horrific murder, corrupt cops and a missing persons case for a severely disabled woman. There are some truly shocking moments, and the description of the corpses and murder scene is highly gruesome.

The book begins with an introduction to Detective Samuel Doyle of the Virginia State Police, better known as ‘Sailor’. In this introductory section we learn about his background in the Narcotics division and his marital life, also seeing the beginning of his affair with post-graduate pathology student, Sarah. This section gives a good basis of Doyle’s character, as well as introducing us to his addiction to prescription drug, OxyContin, which he takes whenever a situation gets too much for him.

Six months later, Doyle is working in the homicide division and is given his first solo murder case. What Doyle expects to be an open-and-shut case is anything but, with two bodies found at a remote farmhouse 15 miles from the city of Richmond, both in varying states of decay. There is no evidence to suggest murder, but what other cause could be responsible? And what about the whereabouts of the victims’ disabled daughter, was she to blame?

Our protagonist, ‘Sailor’ Doyle is where I believe this book is let down the most. The murder plot is intriguing and gripping, but the behaviour and attitudes of the main character almost made me abandon this book at the beginning. He starts up an affair with Sarah at the work Christmas party, despite claiming to love his wife, who is pregnant with their second child, and evaluates the beauty of every other female character in the novel. Maybe reading this as a female affects my view of Doyle, and male readers may think differently of him, but I find him to be extremely offensive and sexist. I also hated the way they refer to the missing disabled woman, using highly derogatory terms. I’m not one of those people who insist on being PC, but when it’s this offensive I don’t see any need for it.

In terms of the plot, there are some truly surprising and shocking elements to the investigation, particularly the incredible number of dead and feral cats prowling the farmhouse, attacking anything that looks like it might provide food. One of the victims also has a colourful military past in the marines that could link him to the campaign of an up-and-coming politician, due to host an important dinner in the next few days. However, the eventual resolution of the plot is a little weak, as I was expecting something much bigger or more shocking than what occurs.

Overall, this novel is an intriguing mystery, but the main character really deterred me from the plot. He does experience a change of character towards the end, which raised my opinion slightly, but the ending of the novel doesn’t reveal how his life outside work is affected after the investigation is over. He also has a past that haunts him throughout the novel, causing hallucinations that may also be related to his continuing drug, alcohol and cigarette abuse.

VERDICT:

The murder investigation in this novel is truly gripping, with some very unexpected twists and turns (albeit some less dramatic than expected), and if you can get past the dreadful main character then it is an enjoyable read.

RATING: 

ROB SCOTT ONLINE
Website | Goodreads

BOOKS IN SERIES ORDER
1. 15 Miles
2. Asbury Park

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MESSENGER’S ANGEL (Lost Angels #2)
RELEASE DATE: June 2012
PUBLISHER: Headline
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
ARTIST: Unknown

In the second in Heather Killough-Walden’s fantastic paranormal series, THE LOST ANGELS, it is the turn of Gabriel, the Messenger Archangel, to seek his soul mate… Gabriel has always called Scotland his true home. Nevertheless, he is stunned when his archess suddenly appears in the land closest to his heart.

Juliette Andersen’s encounter with the gorgeous silver-eyed stranger changes their worlds for ever. But even as they find each other, enemies surround them. With danger closing in, they will have one chance to fulfil a destiny written for them in the stars…

LAURA’S THOUGHTS

Ooh aren’t the wings pretty? This is beautiful cover, I love it! The wings, the aura of light around the couple, even the heroine’s super pretty cascading hair. as good as the first in the series without a doubt. There’s nothing I don’t like.

CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS

I must admit, I feel differently about this cover to Laura. I’m a little disappointed with it to be honest. After the Avenger’s Angel cover, I was expecting to be blown away, but sadly I’m not. I love the colour and the wings are gorgeous (I do love men with wings) but the guy’s posture is just awkward. His arm and hand look at odds with the rest of his body. And what’s with the wings through the t-shirt? Did they rip through or does it have pre-designed slits! I really love the chicks long curly hair and she’s very beautiful, so why does it look as though she’s trying to kiss him, but he’s having none of it? This isn’t as gorgeous as the cover for Avenger’s Angel, which is a shame

HEATHER KILLOUGH-WALDEN ONLINE
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Throughout May we will be celebrating UK publishers and their books. There will be posts from editors and publicists revealing some of their upcoming titles for 2012 as well as giving us a glimpse into their working lives. Of course there will also be lots of fabulous giveaways! 

The is me - the one in the armour; it’s from a book cover we recently put out. It’s really me, though!

So… I’m the Desk Editor at Solaris and Abaddon Books, which are the genre fiction imprints of Rebellion Publishing (we also publish 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, which means I sit, like, three desks over from the Thrill Centre; this is awesome, although you do have to duck your head when Tharg is in a full Betelgeusean rage…).

Solaris and Abaddon Books publish around thirty books a year, including fantasy, science-fiction, horror and all the twisty, hard-to-pin-down genres in between, like steampunk, dark fantasy and the likes. Who exactly is Solaris and Abaddon Books is also pretty hard to define, as we share two designers, a PR Coordinator and a manager with the 2000 AD guys, but editorially, there are two of us: the Editor-in-Chief, Jon Oliver, and me.

So, “Desk Editor” is a bit of a misnomer. The term comes from the big publishing houses, where you tend to have a small in-house team managing a host of freelancers and contractors; under the Editor-in-Chief, and maybe some Line Editors, you have a number of Desk Editors, who run “Editing Desks”: stables of freelance and contract staff. Each desk may have several books on the go, and be coordinating the efforts of several workers, making a Desk Editor as much a project manager as an editor (although I don’t know a single editor who doesn’t like to wield the red pen from time to time!).

Not so for me. We do have freelance proofreaders, but in terms of editing, if it’s landed on my desk, I’m doing it. I’m somewhere between a traditional Desk Editor and a Copy-Editor. I’ll sometimes conduct structural edits, where I read the manuscript after delivery and feed back to the author about general improvements (this character doesn’t say enough, this one says too much, Chapter Three is a meandering waste of paper, and why does she rescue his life in Chapter Two if we discover in Chapter Five that she’s been trying to kill him all along?). Sometimes I’ll carry out copy-edits (proper red-pen time: take out these words, change this sentence, this is grammatically wrong, this reads better if you turn this sentence around, cut all these explanations of what the reader already knows, and cut this whole paragraph). Sometimes I also get involved in commissioning; soliciting and evaluating manuscripts. Abaddon Books produces “shared world” fiction, in which we create a world and ask writers to contribute to it. I created one of these worlds – Malory’s Knights of Albion, in which we tell the darkly chivalrous “new stories” of Le Morte D’Arthur – and commissioned the first three books; and I’m working on a top-secret, hush-hush new project for the future.

I guess Jon just liked the title. Looks good on the business card, anyway.

So what’s my day? Pretty much, that. After tea and grumbling, and maybe a cheeky cigarette, I’m editing most of most days. But we’re a small team, and there’s a chance to get involved in almost anything that takes my fancy. Mike Molcher, the PR Coordinator, runs the blogs, Facebook pages and Twitters, but I do jump on them from time to time and put some of my brainwords up. Our brilliant designers, Pye Parr and Luke Preece, create all our gorgeous covers, but I sometimes lay out the internals pages to ease the load on them. I also make all our ebooks, and chip in when we come up with blurbs, adverts and promotional material. And I get to represent us at conventions, which is always a blast. A big, slightly drunk, exhausted, loud, fascinating blast, every time.

So this year, we have a fantastic range of books, that we’re really proud of. For Solaris, I recently finished working on Guy Haley’s Champion of Mars and Keith Brooke’s alt.human (Harmony, in the US), two really strong hard-SF books. Champion’s a really ambitious, intelligent book that also has a massive heart; the story spans seven hundred centuries(!) and covers AIs, posthumanity, multidimensional physics and the mysterious fictional disciple on “eleutheremics,” but is also a majestic, searing SF epic, of the kind that Edgar Rice Burroughs or E.E. “Doc” Smith would have heartily approved. alt.human’s a great treatment of alien/human relations (and, incidentally, resolves Fermi’s paradox, if you know what that is), but is also a genuinely warm story of survival and the passage to adulthood (as a person and as a species). On the paranormal front, I’ve previously finished work on Steve Rasnic Tem’s beautiful, and incredibly eerie, Deadfall Hotel, the strange and quite possibly terrible place where nightmares come on holiday.

    

I’m currently working on Besieged, the first book of Rowena Cory Daniells’ Outcast Chronicles, all three books of which we’re bringing out in three months this summer. It promises to be a huge fantasy saga, with nations torn apart and whole peoples driven into exile. I’m loving it so far; there’s a grand cast of heroes both noble and spiteful, and a vast, magical world with occasionally shockingly dark undertones.

For Abaddon Books, I’ve recently completed work on Eric Brown’s The Devil’s Nebula, the first book in the new Weird Space series. Eric’s done some brilliant work for us with space operas like Helix, Engineman and the Bengal Station trilogy, so we’ve challenged him to deliver a real old-school space-pulp world, with horrible aliens and bold space captains. I’m a massive fan of Eric’s; it reads like rediscovering Asimov, or Bradbury. The third No Man’s World book, The Alleyman, comes out this summer, covering the ongoing story of a battalion of WWI Tommies trapped on an alien world, and I’m really looking forward to that one. And, since Carolyn specifically asked about zombies, you should know that Chuck Wendig’s riotous road movie of a zombies-vs-vampires yarn, Double Dead, is due to be followed up with an ebook novella, Bad Blood, and should be just as bloody, irreverent and absurd as the first.

    

Which is about all I have space for. Thanks for giving me a soapbox!

GIVEAWAY!

Courtesy of Solaris/Abaddon I have FIVE copies of Al Ewing’s recent, and amazing, Pax Omega from Abaddon Books, and FIVE copies of James Maxey’s “fantasy super-heroes vs apocalyptically-powerful dragons” epic, Greatshadow to give away to FIVE lucky winners!

This giveaway is International and ends 31st May 2012

To enter please follow the Rafflecopter instructions below

GOOD LUCK!

SOLARIS/ABADDON ONLINE
Solaris Website | @SolarisBooks | Solaris Facebook
Abaddon Website | @AbaddonBooks | Abaddon Facebook

MONSTER IN MY CLOSET (Monster Haven #1)
RELEASE DATE: July 2012
PUBLISHER: Carina Press
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
ARTIST: Frauke Spanuth

I stopped believing in monsters long ago. But I knew I wasn’t imagining things when I found one in my kitchen baking muffins. I’d seen him before: lurking in my closet, scaring the crap out of my five-year-old self. Turns out that was a misunderstanding, and now Maurice needs a place to stay. How could I say no?

After all, I’ve always been a magnet for the emotionally needy, and not just in my work as a wedding planner. Being able to sense the feelings of others can be a major pain. Don’t get me wrong, I like helping people—and non-people. But this ability has turned me into a gourmet feast for an incubus, a demon that feeds off emotional energy. Now, brides are dropping dead all over town, and my home has become a safe house for the supernatural. I must learn to focus my powers and defeat the demon before he snacks on another innocent woman and comes looking for the main course…

CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS

This is a fun cover and the title is very cute. I love how the heroine is crouching and looking over her shoulder, and the ‘Monster’ font works well. I think the design could have been a bit better, maybe the eyes of the monster peeking out from a closet door with the heroine looking back over her shoulder at it. What I think is really good about this cover though is what it portrays, and that’s a fun book, and reading the summary makes me want to read it more.

LAURA’S THOUGHTS

It definitely is a fun cover. I love the fact that the artist has been a bit brave with the heroine’s outfit choice. What a quirky, cool print her dress is made out of! I like her stance and her cute red bob. I agree with Carolyn, the eye of the monster peeking out from a closet door would have been better, and the monster font is very cool.

R. L. NAQUIN ONLINE
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The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway – a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love – a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern (published in paperback by Vintage)

Exclusive extra scene from The Night Circus

Shadowplay

Entering this tent, you face a glowing paper screen, illuminated by flickering light.

It takes you a moment to realize that the screen can be slid aside, granting you access into the chamber beyond. The screen slides back into place behind you.

This chamber is lined with similar screens. The light is broken by shadows creating two figures on opposite walls.

They appear to be puppets, manipulated from the other side of the screens. You move another screen to reach the next chamber.

When you reach the other side, there are different images. No lights. No puppeteers.

You continue through chambers and passageways. Some panels, once moved, cannot be returned to their previous positions. Others glide back and forth with ease.

The shadows change with each panel, but the two figures remain constant in every space. They move apart and come together as you create your path. Distance becomes intimacy.

In one corridor, there is a woman with dark hair watching the two graceful figures as they dance across the paper. She is the only other patron you have encountered, though there are clearly others, shifting screens with unseen hands.

She smiles at you as you walk by.

Further into the tent, the screens become darker. Now the light forms the images, the shadows filling into the corners, becoming negative space. Floating cherry blossoms. Sparkling fireworks.

The distance between the two figures, now glowing and bright, continues to fluctuate as the screens are moved.

A screen slides in front of you, blocking your way. The paper is scorched. A void stretches the length of it, darker than a shadow. A column with ragged edges like flames.

You walk around it to reach the other side, where a solitary figure remains.

Erin Morgenstern is a writer and a multimedia artist, who describes all her work as “fairy tales in one way or another.” She grew up in Marshfield, Massachusetts. She currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her two very fluffy cats.

THE NIGHT CIRCUS was released in hardback September 2011, the paperback is released in June. This is Erin’s first novel.

GIVEAWAY!

Vintage are offering you The ‘Night Circus Party Pack’ to host your own Night Circus themed reading group party and will feature a reading guide, author interview, balloons, sweets and Night Circus themed recipe along with a copy of the book! I have TWO of these fantastic prize packs to give away!

This giveaway is UK and Commonwealth only and ends 1st June 2012

To enter please follow Rafflecopter instructions below

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JACOB (The Nightwalkers #1)
by Jacquelyn Frank

PUBLISHER: Piatkus  (UK) | Zebra (US)
RELEASE DATE: 2012 (UK) | 2006 (US)
FORMAT: Paperback
GENRE: Paranormal Romance

Since time began, there have been Nightwalkers – the races of the night who live in the shadows of the moonlight. Love with humans is absolutely forbidden, and one man makes certain to uphold this ancient law: Jacob, the Enforcer… For 700 Years, He has resisted temptation. But not tonight… Jacob knows the excuses his people give when the madness overtakes them and they fall prey to their lust for humans. He’s heard every one and still brought the trespassers to justice. Immune to forbidden desires, uncontrollable hungers, or the curse of the moon, his control is total…until the moment he sees Isabella on a shadowy New York City street. Saving her life wasn’t in his plans. Nor were the overwhelming feelings she arouses in him. But the moment he holds her in his arms and feels the soft explosion of her body against his, everything changes. Their attraction is undeniable, volatile, and completely against the law. Suddenly everything Jacob has ever believed is inflamed by the heat of desire… Bring on the night.

REVIEWER: Vickie

Jacqueline Frank is a new author for me, and I have heard some wonderful things about her, so I was really looking forward to reading JACOB. For me it seemed very similar to another paranormal romance book that I have read, but I will go into that in a bit.

Jacob is an Enforcer for his people. This means that when someone steps out of line, and breaks their laws, he is the guy that comes to whisk you off and dole out justice. Pretty much Judge, Jury and executioner all in one. He has been doing his job successfully for the past few centuries punishing those that step out of line, including his family. Things always get worse around the Hallowed moons of Beltane in spring and Samhain in autumn, when his race are more inclined to break their most stringent of laws “Do not harm humans” as their baser cravings come to the fore. They are inexorably drawn to their “prey”, their desire to touch, taste and to do other naughty things! Unfortunately, as a demon race, they are much stronger than humans, and as such, may unintentionally hurt them during sex. So it falls to Jacob to ensure that the demons that are his race, do not interact sexually and most certainly do not fall in love, with humans.

Isabella is a quiet librarian who is going about her rather uninteresting life, when she falls out of her apartment window, and into the arms of Jacob, who then falls instantly in lust with her! Points for an original way to throw a couple together I say! Bella starts off pretty much as you would expect of a stereotypical librarian, but soon shows she has some grit and fire when she manages to kill a demon hell bent on ravaging her. I rather like Bella, and she manages to give Jacob and his companions a pretty good run for their money.

The plot revolves around finding a bunch of necromancers who are able to cast magic, summoning Jacobs people and turning them into a far more universally recognisable form of demon. They are taken over by their baser instincts and want nothing more than to find the nearest human and get jiggy with them, and to hell with the consequences. We aren’t given an exact idea of what would happen, just the unarguable notion that its definitely not something that you want to be a part of. Stories of Jacob are used to scare demon children into obedience! A Bogeyman of sorts!

It turns out that Isabella is a little more than human herself, and unfortunately she is not the most popular of species where Jacob’s race are concerned, so protecting her then becomes necessary as well as tracking down the necromancers and making sure no naughtiness with humans is going on. Gees the man has a lot on his plate considering he is the only enforcer his race has!

The demons we meet in JACOB seem to be a rather friendly bunch (for the most part). They all have specific powers, based around the elements Fire, Earth, Air, and also some other groups. They have a King, Noah, and a really fun commander of the guard, Elijah (I am looking forward to reading his book because he has an awesome sense of humour!) and Gideon, their healer, amongst others.

I was quite enjoying this book, until I came across Gideon. Don’t get me wrong, I do like his character, but after meeting him, all I could think was Gregori, and then the further I went into the book, I just couldn’t help but make connections with the Dark series by Christine Feehan. Gideon is one of the oldest and most powerful demons, their healer and the “man with the knowledge”. He is in love with a younger woman, whom he watches from afar, giving her time to grow into herself. And so the similarities go on.

I was suprised at how long it took me to get through JACOB. Despite enjoying the book, I most certainly wouldn’t call it a page turner and in some parts I really had to make myself pick it up to make headway, and then at other times it flowed really nicely. This hasn’t put me off reading the next book in the series, but I have to say I am not really looking forward to Gideon’s book (which is next) because of the similarities to Gregori. I think it’s going to make it hard to get through

VERDICT:

Overall I enjoyed JACOB. There is a lot of background work, filling in the history of the race so you get a really good idea of who they are and why they are like they are. The idea of people being yanked out of their lives and twisted into something else, not knowing when it could happen really appealed to me. I loved the Elijah character, he made me smile lots, so I cant wait to see what happens with him…I am tempted to skip Gideon and go straight to book 3, Elijah!

RATING: 

JACQUELYN FRANK ONLINE
Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

BOOKS IN SERIES ORDER
1. Jacob
2. Gideon
3. Elijah
4. Damien
5. Noah
6. Adam (Guest Review)

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DEATH’S ANGEL (Lost Angels #3)
RELEASE DATE: Jan 2013
PUBLISHER: Signet
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
ARTIST: Unknown

No synopsis available yet.

CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS

I’m not sure I like this one too much – I think the font’s pretty good with the cloudy sky and lightning in the background, and the eye is a striking colour, but the one thing that makes this face unappealing to me is the lips. Also if you do half faces then for me (being the finicky cow that I am) it has to be down the centre of the face, and this isn’t. I’m much preferring the UK covers of this series, and hopefully we will all get to see what Headline comes up with for the second book in the series.

LAURA’S THOUGHTS

This cover has enough on it to intrigue me, but it doesn’t totally blow me away. The red clouds and electric background are probably my favourite elements, along with the classic bold typeface for the book’s title. I have to confess the gender of the person on the front could either be a male or female, I’m not competely sure. Is it just me?! But the yellow eye would make me want to pick it up and read the back cover at least.

HEATHER KILLOUGH-WALDEN ONLINE
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OTHER COVERS IN SERIES

BUY IT

Lots of great deals on Amazon this week, both UK and US. All prices were correct when writing this post.

UK KINDLE DEALS
£0.89 – £2.99

US KINDLE DEALS
$1.22 – $4.82

Hope you find something you like!
Happy Reading!