Pending Reads:
New:
Bed of Roses - Nora Roberts
Playing with Fire - Gena Showalter
Twice as Hot - Gena Showalter
Street Game - Christine Feehan


Re-read:
(none atm)


January's Reads:
Beauty - Robin McKinley [review:none]
The Maverick - Diane Palmer (Silhoutte Desire #1982)[review:none]
Divine Misdemeanors - Laurell K Hamilton [review:pending]
The Treasure - Iris Johansen [review:pending]
Summer of the Storm - Catherine George [review:none]
Lover Avenged - J.R. Ward [review:pending]
Explorer X-Alpha - LM Preston [review:pending]
Arthas: Rise of the Lich King - Christie Golden [review:pending]
Sweet Starfire - Jayne Ann Krentz [review:pending]
Twilight Before Christmas - Christine Feehan [review:none]

The Good: As I am not fond of her vampire series, I am liking this new sci-fi adventure for Kenyon. The characters have been engaging and mostly likable. The setting is great and leaves a lot of room for more people and places easily. Action, angst and sex all combine in this book to give you a pretty good read.

The heroine was a tough cookie and I liked her spunk, if not her honesty. She was a survivor and I think this book showed much of the adage "best of two bad options." She grew a lot in this book, and while I liked her in the beginning, I liked her much more in the end.
The hero is a guy you could take home to Mom and Dad, he is really that good of a guy. He showed love and compassion and knew how to kick serious butt. (Rock on, Devyn)

The Bad: So far in this series everyone has been lying their heads off. Maybe it is a personal quirk but it really annoys me. Forgiveness has played a major role in her romances so far in this bunch of books, and whether that is because they are older ones where she had to re-write them for the romance audience or this was the original theme I am not sure, but if you aren't looking for flawed heroes/heroines don't pick up the book.
And please, for the love of all that is holy, spell the names normally! It starts off cute but it wears thin really quick to have all of the characters names spelled phonetically.

Overall: I enjoyed the book and will probably invest in the next in the series to see how it continues. I am hoping with the re-writes being completed that we will see more of the universe and more unique planets or races being introduced into the mix.

The Good: I loved the glimpse inside sluagh court, I wish there could have been more. I thought it to be one of the better parts of the book.

And without giving some hefty spoilers the rest of the good stuff will have to wait until you read it yourself. It is there though!

The Bad: There were a few things I personally found irksome in this novel. One is the total lack of response to the rape - from Merry and everyone else. It's starts out "I will kill him for you" but then is completely dropped for... forever. No trauma, no aversion to banging everything that walks, nothing. She can't remember it so obviously it didn't happen. Pathetic.
Secondly, do we have to be talked to like we have NEVER read a single Merry book in every damn book? Please, I know what color their hair is, I know her skin is white and "gosh that looks good on me." For the love of all that is holy I get it, Doyle is BLACK as in crayola crayon black, not Afro-American black. We get it already, shut up and tell a freaking story. [oh I feel better now for having ranted that out]

Overall: If you like the series and you like LKH books then this is a pretty good one. I would recommend it, especially if you have read previous ones in the series. It isn't as good as the start of the series but was one of the better action books, a lot happens in a short time so we don't spend quite so much time hearing about everyone's hair.

Pending Reads:
New:
Bed of Roses - Nora Roberts
Arthas: Rise of the Lich King - Christie Golden
Re-read:
(none atm)


January's Reads:
Beauty - Robin McKinley
The Maverick - Diane Palmer (Silhoutte Desire #1982)
Divine Misdemeanors - Laurell K Hamilton
The Treasure - Iris Johansen
Summer of the Storm - Catherine George

The Good: New characters were brought to the fore, men who were just nameless "out there" guys were introduced. Old characters were prevalent in this story as well and it is always nice to see favorites again. :)
I liked was how it differed greatly from all of the other Darks in the relationship area. Razvan did not run around chest thumping and seemed less "all-powerful" than other Dark series heroes. It was refreshing change from the normal and while I don't expect that to be the new style for these men it was a nice new twist for at least this one book.

The Bad: Everything was "too easy." I felt that quite a bit lately with the series not just this book. Which is a shame as I truly like this author and the story worlds she has created. Trust, love, magical answers... all of it was just handed to the reader on a silver platter, no one worked for much when it came to the back storyline issues that had developed over many books.
I also felt the end of the major antagonist was anti-climatic. It fell flat for me and had a feel of it going "oh well, this is over now" and I was left disappointed by it all.

Overall: I enjoyed the book and would recommend the read, especially to anyone who follows the series. If you have never read the "Dark" series, I would not recommend starting here, but you could restart the series here as this book felt like the end of one of the main plot drivers.