Anyway, what did I read in the last month? Paranormal romance -series style, that's what.
First, Moira Rogers' Southern Arcana books...
I found the first two books in this series, Crux and Crossroads, to be a bit underwhelming. I really liked the setting of the series and it's various supernatural beings but found the central romances in both to be a bit lackluster and somewhat detached from the rest of the plot lines going on. Also, I found that I had very little patience for a lot of the wolf politics stuff that seemed to overwhelm the proceedings.
Luckily, the series struck gold for me with the free short story, Zola's Pride [Southern Arcana #2.5]. Zola's Pride is a short 32-page freebie story that involves two completely badass African lion shifters reuniting. Gosh, I love a badass/badass pairing.
As for the rest of the series:
Deadlock [Southern Arcana #3]: My favorite of the series. There are lots of other things going on, but Alec and Carmen are the epicenter of everything. I bought their romance completely and really liked how integrated it was with the rest of the surrounding plots.
Cipher [Southern Arcana #4]: Andrew and Kat finally get their own book! They had a lot of baggage to work through and I loved that it wasn't easy going for them. This one really cemented the goodwill I had from Deadlock.
Impulse [Southern Arcana #5]: Even if I hadn't read the rest of the series, I probably would have read this one for the following warning contained in the official synopse (because sometimes I'm a total perv):
Warning: Contains endless summer road trips, family drama, redneck werewolves, sexual power games and a taboo love affair between a submissive coyote who’s among the last of her kind and a dominant wolf who loves his heroine’s ass. Literally.
Then, it was on to Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress books...
As a rule, I don't read vampire romances. I tend to have a hard time seeing vampires as viable romantic protagonists with all of the undeadness and feeding on humans stuff. That being said, after a rocky first book, I was spectacularly surprised to find myself completely crazy about Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress Series.
How rocky was the first book? Well, I wouldn't feel bad describing it as poor Buffy/Spike fan fiction. Cat's a young and inexperienced vampire/human hybrid who hunts vampires by picking them up in bars, luring them away, and then staking them. Bones is a bleach-blonde vampire with a British accent (no, I'm not kidding) who falls for Cat instantly and goes about teaching her how to be an actual viable hunter. I did not give two craps about their romance and Cat's niavete and lack of experience was grating.
Why'd I keep reading? I don't know but I'm hella-glad I did. After four years have passed in the Night Huntress Universe, Cat bursts onto the first page of One Foot In The Grave as a legitimate badass vampire hunter and, easy as that, I was hooked. Have I mentioned my love of badasses before? Well, in addition to completely selling Cat as a badass, the book also managed to sell me on a legitimate emotional attachment between Cat and Bones. I genuinely believed in their attachment to eachother and loved how maturely they both behaved. This second book? So many leaps and bounds beyond the first one that it made the first book seem almost like a prequel.
All I have to say about Book 3, At Grave's End, is that I totally cried at one point even though I knew something tragic couldn't be what it appears to be as there were three more books in the series sitting on my e-reader. Yup. Genuine tears. Vampire romance book. Never saw that one coming.
Next Up: Wrapping up my year in reading smutty romance novels with a round-up of quickie reviews.
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