Current mood:	sleepy
Entry tags:	books, reviews

Shannon's September Reads
I meant to post this days ago, but kept getting distracted, and figured since I'm not blogging on my actual website anymore I might as well put up my reading list for the month over here. I'll link to the reviews I've written where possible, but in case you don't want to go clicking, I'll insert random thoughts about each of these in the list.

• 1. Accidentally Dead - Dakota Cassidy - paranormal romance - B-
  I liked this a lot. The characters talk like real people, and the humor generally works. Still, the heroine spent way too much time in the land of denial, and the transformation to woman in love was too abrupt.
  
  
• 2. Moon Called - Patricia Briggs - urban fantasy - B+
  
  I really enjoyed this book. I thought Mercy Thompson was a great character, and I adored the warmth I got from this book.
  
• 3. Dark Hunger - Sara Reinke - paranormal romance/urban fantasy - C
  
  I am so sad that she didn't get her contract renewed. This second book was problematic. A lot. But it's easily one of the darkest paranormal series I've ever read.
  
• 4. Wanderlust - Ann Aguirre - science fiction - B+
  I love this series, not least because Ms. Aguirre isn't afraid to take chances on giving her protagonist serious character flaws. Jax is kind of a wreck, actually, but I love reading about her. This is one of the books I pimped this month to random unsuspecting people. It was that good.
  
  
• 5. The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch - Fantasy - A-
  
  Loved this. It's no A Song of Ice and Fire, but Locke Lamora is an awesome antihero character, and the book is by turns hillarious and quite dark.
  
• 6. Taken Unaware - Summer Devon - futuristic Romance - C+
  
  This started out really well, then the author threw in a deus ex machina and some woo-woo bonded mates crap and totally lost me. But the first half was good.
  
• 7. In the Arms of the Wind - Charlotte Boyett-Compo - romantic suspense - DNF
  
  Ugh. I didn't even get to the cracky part of the summary that made me really want to read the book in order to answer the question, "How bad can it be?" What I read was godawful, with the world's worst hero, and a woman who embodied the words "too stupid to live" to a tee. (The summary line that got me, for those of you who are clickyphobic was, "Reader Advisory: Story includes a non-consensual male/male scene. However, while the scene is non-detailed, the post-emotional aspects are shared with the reader." Yeah, no way that could possibly be offensive *at all*, right? Well, thankfully, I never got to that part. The rest was offensive all by itself.
  
  
• 8. Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - fantasy - B+
  
  I really don't know what to say about this book, other than it was hillarious. Do you even need more?
  
  
• 9. Crossing Swords - Kirsten Saell - fantasy romance ebook - A
  
  OMG lurved this one. Great characters, especially the heroine, a good fantasy setting that seemed to be more thought up than a place where sex0rz can occur, plus F/F action,.
  
  
• 10. Never Too Old - Carol Lynne - contemporary romance ebook - F
  
  The review is forthcoming, but essentially, it sucked. As I knew it would. Also, in case you were wondering, the hero is 56. He tells us this every five minutes. And the romantic suspense angle was so slapdash it should have been left out.
  
• 11. Mercer's Bayou - Patricia Snodgrass - horror fiction - A
  
  Review forthcoming. Also loved this book. It's straight-up horror, and probably something that would offend people who aren't pleased with the notion of Christian characters as random bad guys, but I liked it.
  
• 12. Twice the Night - Dawn Halliday - paranormal erotic romance - C-
  Review forthcoming. It was cute. And short. Other than that, it was just... meh.