Chamber Pot Fantasy - Hatching a Witchling

Today's book has women of interspecies heritage who carve a role for themselves within a earth based police system with their paranormal powers.


From the book jacket
We’re the D’Artigo sisters: Half-human, half-Faerie, we’re savvy – and sexy – operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency.  But our mixed-blood heritage short-circuits our talents at all the wrong times.; My sister Delilah shapeshifts into a tabby cat whenever she’d stressed. Menolly’s a vampire who still trying to get the hang of being undead. And me? I’m Camille – a wicked-good witch. Except my magic’s as unpredictable as the weather, which my enemies are about to find out the hard way…
At the Wayfarer Inn, a portal to Otherworld and the local hangout for humans and beasties alike, a fellow operative, Jocko, has been murdered. Every clue points to Shadow Wing, the soul-munching, bad-ass leader of the Subterranean Realms. He's made it clear that he aims to raze humankind to the ground, turning both Earth and Otherworld into his private playground.
Our assignment: keep Shadow Wing and his minions from creeping into Earth via the Wayfarer. The demons figure they're in like Flynn.; After all, with only my bumbling sisters and me standing in the way, how can they miss? But we've got a secret for them: Faulty wiring or not, nobody kicks ass like the D'Artigo girls…


Consider this, a covert operative with a less than perfect family life must save the world and prove her value to her family and her self at the same time.

I know that many an urban fantasy author create female characters with awful homelives. In fact, I found an author's blog dedicated to this phenomenon. In this book we have it and more. I got the feeling that the sisters have guilt for fitting in so well in the human world in spite of their halfling heritage. Because of this guilt they romanticize Otherworld and speak of their longing to return. In reality, Otherworld is corrupt and run by opiate abusers. Their father would rather they remain Earthside.
I am interested to see how this conflict will develop throughout the series.


I didn't mind that she and her sisters have less than perfect powers. Camille our witch narrator, can never be sure that a spell she performs will work as planned.  Even though they have been given huge responsibilities on Earthside they don't seem to be well connected within the Otherworld system and its Queen. Or know much about the third realm, the Subterreanean Realm of  "not very good creatures." I assume that the subsequent books explain why these three have been chosen.



 The book is listed as a paranormal romance. I detest misleading descriptions. So, I will spare you the irritation, if you think that shopping for sexy underwear while you are in the middle of a mystery that could prevent the deaths of many is sexy then this is your kind of romance. That was about it for romance in this story.
I should mention the book starts very slow. I had trouble getting to the second half but once the dragon appeared I was sucked into the story. No. I will not elaborate on that. Overall, I thought there were too many characters introduced throughout the book. Every few pages another fairy creature or demon had to be introduced and his/her heritage described. 

I did take note of the dragon.

A friend asked me if I read fantasy. I explained that I do but I detest chamber pot fantasy.
Expectantly, his hairy eyebrows showed confusion. He may have stuttered when he asked, "chamberpots?"
Right, chamberpots.
I am talking about Technology. I don't read fantasy if there is no technology. I think Camille said it best after she rolled out of bed one night.

Thirsty, I slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom, where I poured myself a glass of water. Technology and its wonders. Gotta love it, I thought.

Technology.
I am not reading a story without some kind of technology. And I don't mean where magic is the technology. And dammit, a story where living with running water on demand is preferential to living in a land made entirely of magic. Call me a technophiliac. I don't care.

Now that I have read the fantasy story, I give it a B-.

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. 

Not Today or Even on Doomsday

Okra and Glue
Lori Handeland's Any Given Doomsday
I found wrote this review for a knitting forum back in January.
Not sure where to start.......
We meet a Elizabeth Phoenix, a psychic ex-cop who was raised in a foster home and has a huge chip on her shoulder.
Original… You were thinking that, right?
Now, I like urban fantasy and this was a great read. But the woman in me was left feeling abused by this story.  The not-quite feminist, quasi-liberal, closet conservative woman in me.

First, Phoenix’s foster mother is murdered and through her death she passes on these super special powers.
That was okay, I guess..
Dramatic event leads to serious life changes.  I watch Criminal Minds, I get it.

She cannot access this power and requires the aid of a MAN to help her become the ass kicking uberpsychic she was foretold to become. I don’t mean in some mystical Native American ritualistic manner. Because being left in the wilderness with just a knife is lame....

Oh wait, did I mention that she must seek out the incredibly handsome and underclothed Sawyer, a mysterious Native American skinwalker for psychic accession? Ever hear the story about the magical minority? Cliche’
So she leaves her job as a part-time waitress in a cop bar to go cross country.
If you are thinking sweat huts or smoking pipes, get your mind in teh gutter. That is right, he screws her so that she can become the One.

Besides, she really needed to get laid anyway and she mentions several times how long she has been without sex.
Guess what? As STD’s goes she has a problem. She is an empath and when she sexes up someone she gains their powers. See where this is going?

Every man in her life is an enigma. She can’t tell if they are good or bad so she screws them. Despite this clever tactic, somehow she manages to remain a sarcastic bitch to them even after she screws them.
Let’s talk about sex.
Sex kills. Sex enlightens. Sex enslaves. Sex empowers. Sex heals.
Seriously. She gets her sex on in this story and so do the male leads. Besides Sawyer there is Jimmy. A dampir, a human and vampire hybrid. Jimmy became her first love and her foster brother when they were kids. BTW, as it goes this dhampir has daddy issues.  Creepy…

When she encounters a Berserker, an angry bear-like warrior killer, in her bedroom….

…he rose. And rose. and rose. Yep, naked all the way down to his toes - a particularly long distance since I put him in the vicinity of six seven. And the adage of about big feet, big - well you know the one - this guy appeared to have invented it,

Overall the men help her, ignore her, use her and then disappear throughout the book.
After the big battle with the Jimmy’s blood-sucking relatives, does she regroup and meet with the other warriors for good? Hell no. She goes back to bartending. WTF!!!!

I really did not like Liz, sexually habits aside, she was a selfish, hard-headed bitch who walks into really obviously bad situations despite being a former cop and it worried me that she will whore herself to every supernatural creature in order to achieve the power needed to stop the apocalypse.

Did I forget to mention the fairy?

Dhampirs Need Love, Too.

Hey Okra lovers

As you may know, I tend to avoid violence. I am not entertained by it on the TV, the screen, my life or in a book. Science fiction violence on the other hand, completely entertains me.
I really like vampire violence. Their ability to fly and tone their killer skills for centuries usually makes them invincible. I am not one of those people who want to meet or be a vampire. I do not think that they exist. Zombies on the other hand scare the bejeebus out of me.

I had first heard about hybrid vampires creatures when I watched my first Blade movie. After that I read the Vampire Huntress series. The heroine’s womb is coveted by high ranking vampires. She is the only person on Earth that can bear a daywalker. I read the first four books before the mythology had my head spinning.

I went on to read the first three books of the Dark Series about the Carpathian vampires who are really not vampires. They are blood drinkers, yes, but not undead. Although their race is on the verge of extinction, they can have children and in the few books that I read the males were seeking out human mates. I stopped reading them when I realized that the author had an affinity for using the word “velvet.” I remember the days of the velvet paintings and I did not want to have those images pop in my head every time I read a chapter.

Anyway, I was intrigued by all the manifestations of half human and half vampire people.
Unfortunately, I watched Bloodrayne with high expectations of following a new day-walker. But she was called a dhampir. Despite the A-list and B-list actors the movie sucked cabbage, and I love Billy Zane in everything. There was so much cabbage sucking took place that I am confident to write “someone lost a bet.”

I wanted to scrub my eyes after watching the sex scene. Kristana Loken should be ashamed of the sounds she makes on screen.

The Night Huntress novels by Jeaniene Frost introduced me to a kick-ass dhampir with daddy issues. She lives to please her mother and earn her love but until she bleeds out her vampire blood, her mother will not truly accept her. I loved her and cannot get enough. What daughter doesn’t wonder if her mother is proud of her? How often has a mother told a daughter that she hates her boyfriend even those who are not demon-spawned vampires? I get her. I like her.

So, when I saw this book at the library last December, I had to read it.


The jacket read “Dorina Basarab is a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire. Subject to uncontrollable rages, most dhampirs live very short, very violent lives. So far, Dory has managed to maintain her sanity by unleashing her anger on those demons and vampires who deserve killing.”

I was hooked. I read the book in three days (I still had hooking and knitting to do). Dory is amazing. I liked the first person narrative but her descriptions of the fight scenes are incredibly confusing. The book is in the same world as the Cassie Palmer series which I have not read. I followed along just fine without the backstory. Even so, I will read the short story of Dory’s roommate in On the Prowl. The story introduces Dory and a reader can absorb some of the action in Midnight’s Daughter easier by reading the Cassie Palmer books. I had a few WTF moments that I could have avoided.

Dory is prone to blackouts. On one hand, as a literary technique it makes the author look lazy. On the other hand, I understood Dory’s coping mechanism a lot better. She has more than just Daddy issues. She has serious gaps in her memory that haunt her. Then she starts to have these flashback visions after drinking wine. I know. I was surprised, too. After living for 500 years, she still cannot hold her alcohol.

Her vampire kin wants to kill her on sight. Her roommate is missing. And she has just been summoned by her long lost father.
Leia had some Daddy issues....
In the first chapters she asserts to herself that she is independent of her father’s influence and is getting along just fine living in on her own working as a bad vampire killer. As the novel progresses, I understood that her relationship with her father has more layers than an onion. Dory wants us to believe that in order to find her missing roommate/best friend she will capitalize on her father’s need to have Dracula killed in exchange for his assistance. Nothing more….. Even though, the job is near impossible to complete, I wanted to believe her. In reality, she wants to rid herself the rages caused by her father’s cursed blood; she wants to define her role in the vampire world; and she wants to be recognized for it. I also thinks she wants to flirt with the sexy Master Vampire Louis-Cesare a little, too. She should just focus on killing Dracula.

At the end of the book, I giggled to myself thinking “this girl is an addict and doesn’t even know it.”