Review: Killing Time by Elisa Paige

Killing Time by Elisa Paige
Carina Paige (August 2011)
ebook: $5.99 (125,000)
ISBN: 9781426892080
Excerpt

Favorite Lines: “I saw their sharp, lethal interest long before I saw the hunting vampires.” (p. 150, egalley)

It wasn’t that she feared death. She just despised losing.

Genetically engineered warrior Sephti would go to any lengths to destroy the fae that made her their killing machine. Finally escaping servitude, she has meticulously planned revenge against her former masters, and time is running out. The last thing she needs is to be taken captive by a man who hates the fae as much as she does—and thinks she’s one of them.

Sephti learns her captor is Koda, an ancient Native American guardian determined to save his people from annihilation by the fae. Though he seems to loathe everything about Sephti, she can’t help but notice his incredible strength and powerful sensual allure.

As their distrust turns to desire, Sephti and Koda become allies. Their love will have to withstand their enemies’ supernatural onslaught—and Sephti’s planned suicide mission against the fae…

Stealing Time is book one in Elisa Paige’s The Time series. In Paige’s world, the dark fae have sided with evil vampires in an attempt to rule the world. I read book one and wasn’t thrilled with the cliff-hanger ending. Months later, I clearly remember Stealing Time. The story was told from a woman named Evie’s point of view. After the way it ended I expected book two to pick right up where it ended, and in a way it did, just not the way I expected it to. To say I was slightly disturbed is putting it mildly.  The introduction of Killing Time is told by an unknown narrator who is watching the events that followed the cliff-hanger.

Book two, Killing Time, picks up where book one ended from an unknown narrator’s point of view. The narrator is watching events unfold. Events that I expected to be described in book two. First, I felt jipped. Why? Well, I’d assumed the story would pick up from the same POV (no I didn’t read the book’s blurb) so I was shocked. However, I got over it once I got to know the heroine, Sephti, a genetically engineered creature called a bittern.

I really liked Sephti. She is a strong, deadly woman determined to live on her own terms. The origins of her name, the brutal life she was forced to live and her intelligence worked together to create a great heroine. Sephti is different from others of her kind, but is determined to save her people from their lives of subservience to the dark fae. Bitterns are considered abominations and are used as living weapons. Their job is to destroy whoever their master tells them and to die.

In general, I’m a character reader. But I ran into a few problems while reading Killing Time that bothered me enough to affect my enjoyment of the story.

First let me say, I liked how Sephti spoke in broken English when she became nervous around her hero. I wish she’d have spoken like that more often because Sephti had only been on the human plane for three months. She spoke perfect English unless something (in regards to her hero) bothered her. It pulled me out of the story.

Another problem was the way story lines seemed to end. For example, Philippe had a huge role in book one and half of book two.  A battle takes place, something happens and we don’t hear about him until the end when we are told he’s “out of the picture.” Another story line involving Sephti just seemed to disappear.

Throughout the story Sephti wants to save her people. That drive and ambition seemed to twiddle away by the end of the book and it just disappeared. I feel like there was no resolution. Like it was an out of sight, out of mind type deal. I hope it is cleared up in another story. Along with a definitive answer as to why Sephti is different from her people.  We were exposed to other bitterns and it was continually pointed out how different she was from them, but other than talk about her evolving, there was no flat-out answer.

Overall, I enjoyed the Killing Time. There were a few issues, but not enough to cause me to dislike the book. I loved watching the heroine learn how to interact and express her feelings, the sex is sizzling and the introduction to Native American folklore was entertaining.

I’m not sure if there will be another book published in the series. The author’s site doesn’t list any more information about the series.

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Enter the giveaway for a chance at winning Alexandra Adornetto’s Hades. Tara at Zeitghost Media will provide a copy of Hades, book two in Adornetto’s Halo series, for the giveaway. It was released for sale today. To be eligible, you must have a U.S. or Canadian mailing address. I will select a winner with the help of a random number generator at noon on September 7, 2011; Zeitghost will mail the book to the winner. To enter, tell me if you believe in angels or tell me about your angelic experience.

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Review: Motor City Wolf by Cindy Spencer Pape

Motor City Wolf by Cindy Spencer Pape
Carina Press (Aug. 29, 2011)
e-book: $4.99 (64,000 words)
ISBN: 9781426892110

Favorite Line: “I love my wife with all my heart.” (p. 174, egalley)

Less than a year ago, Fianna Meadows was a pampered noble in the Faerie court. Then she was exiled, turned mortal and forced to work for a living—in a werewolf bar in Detroit, no less! Still, Fianna has to admit her new life isn’t so bad…particularly when it comes to Greg Novak, the bar’s sexy owner.

For Greg, keeping his hands off Fianna has been a challenge. But his sense of honor won’t let him get involved with a woman put in his care, even if Fianna is eager to explore her new feelings of lust. Resisting the temptation to claim her gets even harder when Greg’s grandfather, the region’s Alpha, orders him to marry and Fianna agrees to pretend to be his chosen mate.

Fighting his attraction to Fianna isn’t Greg’s only problem. Someone is killing werewolves and attacking other paranormal beings in Detroit. He vows to do whatever it takes protect both his pack and Fianna—even if that means giving her up…

Motor City Wolf is the third book in Cindy Spencer Pape’s Urban Arcana miniseries. I did not read the first two books and by page 10 was feeling extremely disoriented. I was missing a huge chunk of information. Eventually I caught up enough to understand, but the damage was done and I never completely relaxed enough to love the story. I think I’d feel different had I read the previous book.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Motor City Wolf  was watching the heroine redeem herself. I knew she had to become a worthy heroine to make up for past mistakes, but I wasn’t expecting to like her as much as I did. She really got her hero. She understood who he was better than his family. Fee was just an exceptional heroine.

Now to be brutally honest. Not much stands out about the story. Sure, there are a few nice action scenes, but the story didn’t mark me in any way. I didn’t cry at the loss of characters. I didn’t feel anything for any of the characters other than admiration at how far Fee had come since she was first introduced in another book. There’s one squicky discovery that I still grimace over, but otherwise I don’t see the story sticking to me as a “Go back and revisit that book” thought.

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Review: Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter

Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter
Harlequin (August 2011)
Mass Market: $5.50; ebook: $4.99
ISBN:  9780373618668

Favorite Lines: “Unless I came here before, but returned home to a time before we’d met, and my dreams were echoes of what was to be. That would mean history is now looping, but of course, that creates a paradox, and–” (p. 36, egalley)

Once upon a time…the Blood Sorcerer vanquished the kingdom of Elden.

To save their children, the queen scattered them to safety and the king filled them with vengeance.

Only a magical timepiece connects the four royal heirs…and time is running out.…

Nicolai the Vampire was renowned for his virility, but in a twist of fate “The Dark Seducer” had become a sex slave in the kingdom of Delfina—stripped of his precious timepiece and his memory. All that remained was a primal need for freedom, revenge—and the only woman who could help him.

In her dreams, a wanton vampire called to Jane Parker, drawing her to his dark sexuality and his magical realm.

But for a human, all was not a fairy tale in Delfina. Jane was the key to Nicolai’s memory…but exploiting her meant dooming the only mortal he craved.

Lord of the Vampires was not the book I expected. I thought I was going to get another great Showalter story, but I was not impressed. I actually disliked the book.

It started off good enough. The heroine, Jane is an unemployed, former fringe scientist who had worked in the quantum physics field. She is still recovering from an accident in which a drunk driver crashed into her and killed her parents and sister. Jane knows about the existence of vampires and shapeshifters.

I was slightly surprised and intrigued by the large book Jane received and began to read. She falls asleep and has an erotic dream before awakening in another world where she is called Princess Odette.  Odette was an ugly, sadistic bitch. She is now a very dead bitch. Cloaked in a magical glamour, Jane finds the male vampire she had sex dreams about.

He is Nicolai. Vampire and sex slave. His need for Jane is animalistic. He wants her in a bad way and she is his only hope for salvation. He doesn’t really care about her at first, but her scent and his need to have sex grows until she becomes just the woman he was never looking for. Jane and Nicolai work together to escape the land of Delfina and find love along the way.

Despite liking the idea of the story, I didn’t enjoy the actual story for several reasons.

First of all, I hated the heroine. She is TSTL. Her reactions to the different situations were unrealistic and silly. For an intelligent woman, she was awfully argumentative and blind to world surrounding her. She ran her mouth and put herself in awkward situations which usually ended not so good for her or the strange creatures tormenting her.

Secondly, I kept waiting for the revenge storyline to crop up. I was told Nicolai was infused with a need to revenge his parents. However, in the story he doesn’t remember his past until chapter 20. There are only 20 chapters in the book.

Three days. Within three days, Nicolai’s full memory was returned.

The book covers everything, but what the blurb tells me is going to happen. There is no revenge for the hero’s parents.

Finally, I hated how animalistic Nicolai seemed. From his introduction to the end of the book, staccato like sentences are used to display his mental state.

Nicolai stiffened and stilled, his ears twitching, his mouth-watering. Absolute hunger bathed him, his stomach twisting. Must…taste…female.–p. 31

Just before he thrust inside, the bushes to their left rattled, the leaves dancing together. His attention whipped there, a growl of pure menace leaving him.
Jane was still too lost in the throes of passion to care.”Nicolai! Please. What are you waiting for?” Make me your woman in truth.
“Protect.” He jerked upright, severing all contact. She reached for him, but he placed himself in front of her, acting as her shield. The time for pleasure had ended. the time for fighting had arrived.–p. 122

My woman. Mine.–p. 243

In the end, Lord of the Vampires is the only Gena Showalter book I can think of that I didn’t like. I normally love her work. I didn’t love Lord of the Vampires. It felt awkward and took much determination on my part to read the entire book. I had such a bad experience with the book that I’m hesitant to read book two even though it’s written by a different author.

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Review: Where Demons Fear to Tread by Stephanie Chong

Where Demons Fear to Tread by Stephanie Chong (Love the wings and skyline, not liking her face.)
Harlequin/MIRA (August 2011)
Mass Market: $7.99
ISBN: 9780778312475

Favorite Lines: “In the periphery of his vision, she shimmered like gold in a muddy riverbank. He blinked, unsure if what he’d seen was  a trick of the light. When he turned his head to look again, there she stood. She was dressed for a day at the beach, not for a night at the temple of sin.” (p.16 e-ARC)