Review: Darkest Powers Bonus Pack

Darkest Powers Bonus Pack by Kelley Armstrong

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is definitely only for fans of the 'Darkest Powers'-series and even with those tight premises it's not that good.
You get a bit more insight into Derek and Tori as characters, but not much more than what you get out of the books.
Don't expect any new stories as this is only snippets and different perspectives of already published events, so not much new.
I can understand the desire to want to publish what was previously web-stories, complementary to the novels, but I question the value to the readers paying for this books. I'd say you can save your money and buy one of the full novels instead.



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Review: Waking the Witch

Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is one of my favorite paranormal fantasy series and [a:Kelley Armstrong|7581|Kelley Armstrong|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1199068298p2/7581.jpg] just keep on deliver one great read after another.
Part of what makes this series so compelling are the strong and vivid characters and the way they interweave within the different books. Why I bring this up, because this is the first book where Savannah is the main character, but she has played important roles in previous book (starting with [b:Stolen|11922|Stolen (Women of the Otherworld, #2)|Kelley Armstrong|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1300923278s/11922.jpg|14289] #2 in the series).
Having followed the series we've seen her going from a child to a teenager and now a young adult, with the responsibility of running her adoptive parents paranormal investigation business for a week, while they are on vacation and of course she gets a new case.
This creates the ember for a book that is both plot and character driven story, where she grows with the responsibility and from the mistakes she makes.



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Review: Shakespeare's Landlord

Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A murder/mystery novel that takes place in a small fairly tight knit community where everyone thinks they know everything about everyone else, but one of them is a murderer.
The MC (Lily Bard) has issues (from a past she keeps secret), which prevent her from sleeping at night and so she has taken to slinking through the shadows of the small town in the dead of night. This is why she stumbles upon the murderer as he/she disposes of the body in the park next to her house.
I won't say that this is a book that can live up to the might of Agatha Christie, but there is an important similarity in that the clues to the identity is sprinkled throughout the story, challenging the reader to beat the MC to the punch.
Not great literature, but an enjoyable read.



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Review: A Touch of Dead

A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This a collection of short stories set in the Sookie Stackhouse universe. If you haven’t read any books about Sookie before I’d say that you shouldn’t start with this book. The reason is both that you won’t get a chance to enjoy the experience of Harris’s the plot and character development, but this books also contains plenty of spoilers so it won’t be very fun to after this book go on to read the whole series.

The short stories themselves are of mixed quality. A few are quite enjoyable, showing the strengths of Harris as a story teller, while other clearly show signs of either having been rushed or been limited due to word length restrictions.



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Review: Dead in the Family

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was a fairly weak story, but a good continuation of the series.

In my view Harris fails to lift out a plot, from the many she has ongoing in the Sookieverse, and make it strong enough to carry the book or alternatively she allow the sub-/side plots to take over the book to the extent that the main story fades too much into the background. I kind off get the impression that she has let the work with the TV-series affect her ability to write a good book, as this feels very much like an episode in a series and doesn’t have the strength to really stand on its own.



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Review: Dead and Gone

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My way into the Sookie universe was through Sookie Stackhouse 8 Volume Set, a collection of the first eight books in the series, as I was looking for a new urban fantasy series. I was fairly new to urban fantasy and this was just before the HBO TV series aired (at least where I live) so I didn’t really have a clue what I got myself into. I did however fairly quickly get sucked into Harris writing style and went through the first eight books in less than three weeks. Afterwards I couldn’t really figure out the appeal of Ms Harris writing, that revelation didn’t come until I read this book. She manages to create an appealing mix of trivial details and character elements, such as how Sookie can’t wait until the first spring heat allow her to put on her bikini and soak in the sun - even if it’s no warmer than any breeze will bring out the goose bumps. Pet peeves of her house mates behaviour is mixed with paranormal death threats, ditzy mistakes are mixed with southern/christian indignation over minor slights to create a colourful setting for the story. It create a sensation of reading the diary of a fairly ordinary young woman that’s living a very unusual life.



The story of this book takes a somewhat unexpected turn, which i really liked. The following contains series spoilers, but not book spoilers, so if you haven’t read the series up until this book then avoid the following.

<spoilers>

I didn’t really appreciated when the fae were introduced to the Sookieverse. It was complicated enough before that and they felt like a cheep out to explain the origin of Sookies abilities, rather than trying to create something new and original.

Much of this book centres around the fae and their internal politics where a war is brewing, making Sookie a prime target as her great grandfather is one of the leaders among the fae.

</spoilers>



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Review: Night Shift

Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have sort of mixed feelings about this book. I’ve been looking for UF-books centering around demons, but I’m not sure that this book carried it out that well. I like the dark gritty feel of the world, where things lurk in the shadows preying on more or less innocent humans. What I could have done without were the romantic aspects of the story, but I guess that this falls within PNR rather then UF, which is a shame. It’s starting to get really hard to find good solid UF books, without smoldering vamps or weres with puppy dog eyes.



I had a hard time trying to get half a star marked so I had to raise my mark from 3.5 to 4. Choosing between a 3 and a 4, the higher mark just won out, but it was a tough call and it came down to the amount of originality Saintcrow has put into the world building.



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