Paging Paranormal Romance

According to Wiki

Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of the romance novel.  Paranormal romance focuses on romance blending fantasy, science fiction, or horror. Paranormal romance may range from traditional category romances with a paranormal setting to stories where the main emphasis is on a science fiction or fantasy based plot with a romantic subplot included. Common hallmarks are romantic relationships between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of a fantastic or otherworldly nature.
Paranormal romance has its roots in Gothic fiction.

So, when I found a book series about psychics, mediums, clairvoyants, precognitive and telepaths, I thought that I would give it a try.

The author is Kay Hooper and the series, Blood Trilogy, is about a group of psychics that work outside of the law.  

I take it back. The series sucked cabbage. 

Blood Dreams Trailer

Blood Sins Trailer

I do not want to even bother reading the third book... 

The series has the following tags:

๑ suspense

๑ paranormal romance

๑ romantic suspense

๑ psychic mysteries

๑ thriller

All if it LIES

This series is horrible.

I could barely get through the second book.

Wait, I take it back.  The book works as an auidobook because you really do not care what you miss. 

There was not a kiss in either book.  How can you call it a romance if there is no real romance between any two characters?  I could have forgiven the lack of romance had not the thriller portion of the book been equally missing.

No kissing, no thrills.

That is my everyday life......

What about the suspense?  

By the novel's end, I just didn't care.

In Blood Dreams, you have a serial killer torturing women of a certain type.  He murders the daughter of a prominent congressman and appears to stop killing.  The Haven group, psychic civilian crime stoppers who operate outside of any government oversight, are on the case.  A case that leads to a small town in Georgia. 

From Kay Hooper's website

He's the kind of killer we instinctively fear the most. A killer without boundaries, without conscience, without any fear of being caught. And his latest victim is terrifying proof that no one is safe: the daughter of a powerful U.S. senator.

 Has promise doesn't it.  Here let me tell you, the killer was molested by a relative who all of his victims resemble.  Not original but it works.  The killer has some kind of psychic powers that enables him to stalk, claim and hide his victims from our psychics.  That was interesting....

The psychics don't exactly get the clues right. I mean they don't realize that the killer is a psychic that is also stalking the Haven team until the last few chapters of the book.  I knew it well before then.

No one gets kissed or even a just-long-enough hug. The living characters are not really developed.  Certainly not enough for me to care that no one had a real romance in this romantic thriller. They are more like scenery that move the story along.  The ghosts were the most interesting characters.

I assumed that the second book would flesh out some of the characters from the initial book.

Again, I was wrong. 

From the author's site

Young, vulnerable, attractive, Tessa Gray made the perfect victim. Which was why Noah Bishop of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit recruited her to play the role of grieving widow. As the supposed new owner of land coveted by the Church of the Everlasting Sin, she’d be irresistible bait for the reclusive and charismatic Reverend Samuel. His fortified compound in the mountains near Grace, North Carolina had been the last known residence of two women murdered in ways that defied scientific explanation.

The Haven group first met Reverend Samuel during the investigation in Blood Dreams.  In this book, he is suspected of being a psychic vampire.  Now, when I heard that on the audio my ears perked up.

Vampire

Now, this could get interesting. 

We know that vampires are sexy creatures.  Being bitten is likened to being kissed.  In most of the sexy vampire genre, being bitten is orgasmic. 

In this psychic vampire story, the Reverend "bite" also causes orgasms but his victims think they are just getting closer to God.  I laughed out loud.

My favorite line,

" Tessa was shaking her head in response to Hollis's theory about physical pleasure.  Okay, explain the women. Tell me how a woman — a grown, sexually active woman could not know she's having an orgasm. And how any woman could explain that away as a spiritual experience."  —

I am with you Tessa.....

Anyhoo. 

I seriously can't take any more text to describe this stupid series except to write that Hooper would have done better to combine the two books into one novel.  Or taken more time to develop the characters, the romance, and the suspense. 

I recommend the series if you are taking a long car ride by yourself or if you are undergoing physical therapy or some other medical procedure where you are left alone for long periods of time.  You don't want to read this quickly.  It will make you feel like you just ate a lot of angel food cake. With red food coloring. 

    

Crooked Little Heart: More than you bargained for...

'Ello O & G Readers!

Welcome to another review by yours truly.  Unlike my fellow posters, I do dabble in other forms of literature besides vampire/angel erotica.  This time around, I picked up a best seller from 1997 called Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott.  Anne is better known for her churchy memoirs, e.g. Traveling Mercies, Plan B, etc.  This book, however, is edgy and pushes the limits of "I should feel good after I read this" popular literature.

One of the main characters, Elizabeth, is a woman with no perceptible career.  She is the mother of one daughter, Rosie, whose father has died.  Elizabeth has remarried and his name is James.  And he's an author.  So the dead father must have had a serious life insurance policy, because I don't really know how this family has the money they seem to have.  But anyway, Rosie is a 14 year-old, she is a star tennis player. Her doubles partner, Simone, is a 14 year old sooooooper slut. About a third of the way through the book, she was pregnant. 14 and pregnant.  God damn.

Then there's Luther, the creepy homeless guy who watches all of Rosie's matches.  Elizabeth is sure that he's gonna get Rosie.  But he doesn't do anything but watch.  Creepy.

Elizabeth is depressed.  James has writer's anxiety.  Rosie cheats at tennis. Rosie's old best friend's father exposed himself to her.  The dead dad is sort of haunting about.  But they live in San Francisco Bay Area, so I REALLY don't know what they think they have to complain about. All the supplementary characters are still pretty messed up. Can't beat 14 and preggers.

Anyways... all this stuff happens, and really nothing happens.  Life happens. Rosie gets caught.  Elizabeth refuses counseling.  Simone decides to keep the baby.  James finishes his second book.  In the end, things aren't all that different than when they started.  I mean, they find out that Luther isn't that creepy after all.  Which is nice, because I was not in the mood for a molestation.

I think that if you want to read a realistic-ish novel about teenagers, lots of frickin tennis, mental illness, and so forth, this might be a good choice for you.  You cannot begrudge Lamott's writing style.  It's fantastic.  Clear, crisp, easy to relate to the characters, believable characters with depth, all this good stuff.  The deep dark confusion of Rosie's need to win at tennis is nicely matched by the outer darkness portrayed by Luther.  Mostly this novel is about redemption, letting go, and acceptance.  Nice pretty human things.

What this novel is not about is church, God, religion.  Completely unlike her memoirs, her novel (at least this one) had only tangential mentions of "Jesus-stuff."  It was good to not be preached to.  But I could see the spiritual themes in the work.

Overall, this is a carefully constructed work of popular literature.  It's not sensational, but it's good. Unlike like the author's hair:











Til next time, suckers.

Savor Me Sexy Killer

“Savor me Slowly” is the fifth installment in the Alien Huntress series by Gena Showalter

The series highlights a female who is hunting bad aliens on post-alien war Earth.  The female can be human, alien, hybrid or cyborg.  That is all I am giving you.  JFGI if you want more information about the series.

In this novel , the hunter is human, alien and animal with a clever chip implanted in her head.  Mishka Le’Ace.  She can communicate with the chip to enhance her assassin skills; in turn the chip keeps her a slave to whoever controls its self-destruct or pain inducing function.  

I want to mention that she has always been controlled by a man. All this leaves her a little whiny and needy in private and a kick ass huntress in public. 

Mishka is a dangerous woman not permitted to explore her emotions.  Expressing any leads to severe punishment.  Yet, the emotions have not been completely removed from personality.  She longs to be treated like a person, to be loved, to be trusted.  Being a spy and an assassin makes relationships impossible to cultivate when she may have to kill or betray her friends and lovers. 

Her current assignment is to gather information about a new alien race attacking women.  Each attack leaves them infected with a zombie virus.

There I wrote it.  When you read the book, you will know that the author is describing a zombie making virus despite never naming it.  The concept of zobmies and zombie making viruses have been in our science-fiction culture long enough so that  authors do not have to explain the phenomena to the reader or create a new name for it.  Geez....

Note to the author:  Just write, "the Schön were infecting beautiful, sexy human women with a zombie virus."  The readers will know EXACTLY what you mean.

The Zombie-strain STD having aliens are called the Schön, and both Alien Investigation and Removal (AIR) and Mishka Le'Ace's boss want them investigated, captured and killed. 

Checkout this excerpt http://genashowalter.com/excerpts/21/savor-me-slowly/

Then there is the assassing,Jaxon. The cool AIR agent who has also been tracking the new aliens.  He has been captured and tortured for information about their habits.  He does not talk.  He will not talk.  The people who capture him admit their failure and hire Marie.  

Jaxon is introduced to our protagonist as Marie, the sexy, new torturer who always gets the information.

Faced with the prospect of enduring more torture from this breathtaking femme fatale he proves his loyalty to AIR and determination to remain silent by telling her

“Come sit on my lap and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

At this point, I did not give a rat’s arse about Mishka.  I wanted more Jaxon.   I did not care if she got him at the end of the book or died trying, I just wanted to know more about the character.

She flirts with her captive, her intended victim

“You won’t even give me a tiny little hint?” she beseeched, her long lashes fluttering, beckoning him deeper into the black sea of her gaze.  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I was hooked. 

Finally, a silver lining to his ravaged face.  He couldn’t see clearly enough to discern her clothing, which meant, in his mind, she was wearing lingerie.  Black, like her eyes.  With sheer lace.  She had small breasts, but they were soft and pink-tipped. 

Despite his condition, his dick lengthened, thickened, hardened.

I loved it.  This guy is B R O K E N before she arrives, he knows that she is replacing his previous 6 tormentors who liked to work together, and his peen still has enough energy to respond to her.

I wanted to date this guy. 

We soon learn that Marie is Mishka undercover. 

I read some more text.  These two are completely and immediately attracted to each other. So much so, that they each constantly think of each other when apart.  To the point of daydreaming.  

What self-respecting alien assassin daydreams on the job? I really found it difficult to ignore this plot device to explain their attraction to the reader. 

Oddly both of these guy do but manage to survive until the major conflicts of the story.

The two try to collaborate in their efforts to repel the Schön from Earth.  

Unfortunately all of his friends at the AIR  hate her by reputation and experience.  It is no Hatfield and McCoys since she has no friends but the hate is real.  

I was a little put off when Jaxon's best friend decides to take a break during a major battle to kill Mishka.  Like who takes a time out during a gunfight with hard to track aliens to kill the new girlfriend? But at least it kept her from daydreaming about her man's sexy body during the scene. 

In conclusion, I have to admit that a man who is willing to shoot his best buds with a flame thrower if they don't accept his woman is sexy as hell.  

If the author can maintain a good balance between alien violence and true-love romance, I will continue to read the series. 

Archangels can kiss me anytime

I must admit it. Paranormal romance is amazing. 
I really love Vampire books.  Blood and sex ~ sounds like a hell of a party.  I am getting into werewolf books. I like pack thinking.   Biting definitely belongs in romance.  Alien saga novels are quaint but not exciting.  But angel books have potentials. 

Archangel's Kiss continues the story of the Guild Hunters saga as its the third story. 
The heroine of Angel's Blood, Elena Devereaux has transmorphed physically.  Her relationship with the archangel, Raphael, will define her continued existence. These major life changes thrust our pale headed hunter into a tricky world of angel politics and culture. 
It is a hell of a tale.

This review will spoil the reader for the Angel's Blood.  the events take place one year after the conclusion of that novel.  I will try to lessen the effect of the spoilers. 

In Angel's Blood, we meet Elena Deveraux who  is hunter born. She can scent vampires. A necessary skill as a guild hunter, a bounty hunter for vampires. In this world, vampires are enslaved to the angels that crossed them over for one hundred years. Many do not like the arrangement. The guild hunters retrieve runaway vamps for their angel masters.
This video should explain everything (if you know German)...

There you go.  A recap of the first book. 

In this book, Elena wakes from a year long coma and must learn to walk, fight, and fly.  Yes, she wakes up as an angel.  And she has to attend angel school with angel children.

I like Elena.  She doesn't make a series of stupid or bad decisions. She isn't so head strong that she ignores the advice of those smarter than herself. Kudos to Nalina Singh, the author for not turning her into a bitch full of "why the fuck did she do that"  moments.  

The author must have a degree in fashion design.  She explains angel couture in ways that made me imagine her wearing the garments as she wrote the book.  As a girl, I paid close attention to footwear descriptions, even when they contained references to knives and blades. 


There are a set number of archangels in this world.  There are always the Cadre of Ten.  At the end of Angel's Blood, the ten has been reduced to nine.  The lesser angels are expecting to position themselves to be raised to archangel status while the Nine consider the sanity of its oldest member, Lijuan.  Lijuan has organized a ball in Elena's honor.  The mystery behind Lijuan's graciousness and her necromantic hobbies means that Elena will need to be strong by the time of the party.  In addition, to the looming party, there is the inevitable power plays by the lesser angels who see Elena as Raphael's Achilles heel.  They strike out against her as she prepares her body and mind to live amongst angels. 

Singh doesn't lay out good and evil for the reader. Good and evil are related to history and nostalgia.  Ignore it.  Think morality and ethics.  Imagine the morality of a 2000 year old angel and a 50 year old angel.  Power gains with age while the angels ability to empathize with humans lessens.
In the relationship between Elana and Raphael, her archangel lover, the age differences is more than 2500 years.  He is a powerful archangel, she is a fledgling angel who can barely fly.  I loved where this went.  Singh wrote her as a warrior not some pretty pale haired angel.  She didn't not take anything away form Elena in this book.

This is how the story begins.
In angel culture, the two angels would relate as fledgling to headmaster. The other angels refer to Elena as Raphael's pet.  In human culture, they would be man and woman.  Perhaps, soulmates.  Can Elena wrap her head around these Alpha and submissive roles? Can Raphael accommodate her need to be loved as an equal? And where is she going to keep her weapons hidden in her wing modified clothing? 

Singh loves her readers because she spends time with the couple as they develop their relationship.

In addition to the Cadre of Ten, to which Raphael belongs, he has his own group of Seven warriors whom he trusts with his life.   We met the blue winged angel, Illium in the previous book.  Singh, has a weakness for a man's eyelashes.  She projected that weakness onto Illium. He must have the sexiest eyelashes in literary history.  The other six members of his Seven make an appearance in this book.  The Seven include both sexy vampires and sexier angels.  Yummy.   I am hoping there will be more exploration of the Seven in succeeding books. 

I can't end this review without admitting the following.  I was anxious to read some high flying angel sex scenes.  You can look for them yourself.  I am not telling anything.


You can find an excerpt here but be careful, this is the second book of the series.