Scorched by Rachel Butler

Favorite Lines: “She’d wanted to just stand there and study him. Wanted to snap his spinal column. Wanted to hurt him. Badly.” (54)

Selena McCaffrey, famed artist and former heir to a drug czar, is back. This time she is running from a half million dollar contract that has been placed on her life. With her boyfriend, Tony Ceola,  she goes on the run traveling from Tulsa to Atlanta to Greenhill, Ala.  where she begins to learn just how deadly family relations can be.

Selena finally gets to meet her mother and father’s family. More secrets are revealed, more emotions are tested and if Selena survives the contract, a whole new life could be unveiled.

Selena is a biracial heroine who yearns to know about her family. Being with Tony, who has a large, close-knit family, only makes her more curious about her own roots. She finally gets a chance to see where she comes from in this book. She learns about her mother and becomes closer to her father. We learned about Selena in the the last two books (The Asssassin and Deep Cover) so this book just picked up where they ended. I honestly didn’t care too much about Selena in this book because I think another character stole the story.

That character is Charlize. Charlize is an assassin. She is also the woman who saved Selena’s life. Some of the most interesting events occur involving her. In Scorched, Charlize reveals her painful past which made want more for her. I want a story about her. I want her to find peace and contentment, possibly love.

Scorched was an interesting story. It works as a stand alone book, but because so much of the book revolves around the events of the previous stories, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Ms. Butler maintains a blog here and her website is here.

13 Pieces of Character Art

Sasha Lord

I was playing around online and stumbled upon Sasha Lord’s website. She is scheduled to release Wild Angel in Jan. of 2008. In the months leading up to its release every month she’ll add a little bit of a prequel to the story. So far she has a snippet of about the heroines mother and the early life of the heroine. You can read it here.

I love the way it shows up on old paper tacked to a tree. The visual is appealing to my eyes. Yes I also like the cover of her newest book. I love the green. So, what do you think? Have you read anything by Ms. Lord? What was it and did you like it?

I’ve read her books and so far have enjoyed all of them.

Sept. 25 Book Releases

• Lover Unbound by J.R. Ward
• Aint Myth-Behaving by Katie McAlister
• A Touch of Minx by Susan Enoch
• Forbidden by Suzanne Brockmann
• Moon Fever by Anthology
• Highlander Unchained by Monica Mccarty
• The Seance by Heather Graham
• The Scottish Companion by Karen Ranney
• Your Coffin or Mine? by Kimberly Raye
• One Last Breath by Lauren Griffen
• Free Fall by Fern Michaels
• Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by E.C. Sheedy
• Queen of the Orcs: Royal Destiny by Morgan Howell

As usual, if you know of another book releasing today that isn’t on my list, please put it in the comments.

Dancing with Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas

Favorite Lines: “ A couple dozen alien, icy metal snakes were writhing over my collarbones, nipping at my breasts with needle-sharp fangs!” (184)

When the new millennium arrived the supernatural world revealed itself to humans. Now there are shapeshifters, witches, vampires and other supernatural creatures openly roaming the world.

Delilah Street is a crime reporter who pisses off the wrong vampire. He begins to take over her Bogeyman news beat (reporting that covers the supernatural world) around the same time that she sees herself on tv’s hottest CSI show being dissected.

She decides to travel to Las Vegas to find out who her body double was and discovers intrigue around every cover. She meets Ric, a former federal agent, and adopts a wolfhound who she names Quicksilver. She also finds that she has groupies who would do anything to posses her.

Soon after arriving in Vegas, she stumbles upon a mystery that fuels the story.

Delilah is an enigmatic character. She was deserted as an infant and raised in an orphanage where she was forced to learn to protect herself at an early age. We are given many hints as to what life was like for her and I hope to learn more in the next book, but we aren’t given enough. I’d like to know more details about her past.

There are many different characters introduced in this book. The werewolves are shown to be vicious and the vampires deadly. Pop culture is present on almost every page with a slight twist. One of my favorite references to this is when the creator of CSI talks about dead and undead creature being revived and put to use in the hospitality business. “They are being leased to the Vegas hospitality, entertainment, and sex industries by a mysterious consortium that makes the fictional and demonic Wolfram & Hart look angelic.” (107) (Reference to Angel, spin off of Buffy.)

Craziness seems to follow Delilah wherever she goes. Much of this book is dedicated to introducing a new concept: a former reporter solving an old crime. This book is mystery meets paranormal with a touch of romance and intrigue added. It is an easy read that leaves many questions at the end, paving the road for a sequel. I look forward to seeing where the author takes Delilah and will be looking for the next installment.

You can purchase Dancing with Werewolves here or here.

Amazon has this book as being released Oct. 1 while Barnes and Noble lists it as releasing Nov. 28. (Paula or Carole: If you can clarify the release date I’d appreciate it and update accordingly.)

Thank You

I just wanted to post a small thank you to Paula Guran of Juno. She was my fairy godmother this week. (I wished for Dancing With Werewolves and received it.) I stayed up until 2 a.m. reading the book, which I loved. I’ll be posting a review of it in the coming weeks days. Obviously I enjoyed it. If you want to know what other people thought of it go to Darque Reviews. Dancing With Werewolves will be released Oct. 1, 2007 and you can buy it here.

  (The cover was created by an artist at deviantart.com.)

13 Cool Pictures

My TT is strictly deviantart.

Age

I watched a short segment on the Today show that questioned the age that models should be. A 13-year-old is modeling adult women’s clothing and it raised the question of how young is too young. I think that the same can be said of heroines in novels. How young is too young?

As I get older I want a slightly older heroine (no 18 year olds for me!) but I still don’t want to read about someone my age. Pretty weird, huh? How do you feel about this issue? While we’re at it, what about the hero being younger than the heroine?

No Books?

I went to B&N and Amazon to write a post on books releasing this week and came up empty. There are several books being released next week, but that doesn’t help me today. If you know of any books coming out tomorrow please note them in the comments section.

Books that I would love to have ARC’s of …

Ilona Andrews‘ Magic Burns

Lynn Viehl‘s Evermore

Jenna Black‘s The Devil Inside

Carrie Vaughn‘s Kitty and the Silver Bullet

Carole Nelson Douglas‘ Dancing with Werewolves

Christine Feehan‘s Predatory Game 

Katie MacAlister‘s Holy Smokes 

Patricia Briggs‘ Iron Kissed 

Lilith Saintcrow‘s To Hell and Back and Saint City Sinners 

Candace Havens‘ Charmed and Dangerous

J.R. Ward‘s Lover Unbound 

Lynda Hilburn‘s  The Vampire Shrink

Kresley Cole‘s Wicked Deeds on a Winter Night 

Morgan Howell’s Queen of the Orcs: Royal Destiny

Kat Richards’ Poltergeist and Greywalker

Michele Sagara‘s book four in the Cast series

Karen Chance’s Embrace the Night 

Keri Arthur‘s Destiny Kills 

The books are in no particular order, but all ones that I would love to read, soon! So what would you like, if you could have any ARC?