A Gaggle of Book Reviews

Have you ever read any books in the Urban Fantasy genre? Some mystery fans may be leery of reading paranormals or vampire books. However, there are some very intense mysteries published that are also paranormal/urban fantasy/vampire books as well. A Rush of Wings, by Adrian Phoenix is one of those hybrids, containing an intensely suspenseful mystery, vampires, as well as a touch of romance.

Unlike many urban fantasy novels, in A Rush of Wings, the world at large is not knowledgeable about vampires and other paranormal beings. With this one difference, the storyline’s very realistic feel becomes even more intense. FBI agent Heather Wallace is tracking the Cross Country Killer (CCK) when she arrives in New Orleans to see if a recent murder fits the CCK profile. Heather’s investigation brings her to the club next to where the body was dumped, Club Hell, owned by a mysterious young man named Dante. The elusive Dante is a member of the band Inferno, but doesn’t grant interviews or photographs, and mysteriously appears to have no last name, birth date, or social security number; the only links to his past are the 60 foster homes he lived in before reaching maturity. At first, Dante’s friends block Heather from meeting him, but soon she is conversing with the Cajun sweet-talker.

Heather quickly comes to the conclusion that Dante isn’t the CCK, but why are the most recent murders focused on his club, and why is the FBI trying to pull her away from New Orleans when that’s where she’s finding clues? Dante’s looks and personality pull people to him, his attachment to his friends and his compassion are just as close to the surface as his universal sex appeal. As A Rush of Wings continues we meet fallen angels, more of the Nightkind (aka vampires, who do not need to kill to feed, but can kill during feeding), and learn more about Dante and his headaches caused by his missing memories of the past. There are so many layers to each person, Heather is much more than an agent, Dante is much more than a vampire, and each layer is uncovered as the book takes flight.

While we are pulled into the lives of Heather and Dante, we also meet a mix of police officers, FBI agents, killers, and Nightkind. Adrian Phoenix has done a wonderful job with the characters. A Rush of Wings has a large cast, but it isn’t unwieldy, and the author’s talent for creating fleshed out characters makes it easier for the reader to remember everyone. There are also sub-plots mixed in with the murder mystery, everything is intertwined, and the suspense builds as we learn a tidbit here and a tidbit there.

At the beginning of A Rush of Wings, I was a little confused, as Adrian Phoenix drops us right into the lives of Heather and Dante, without much of an introduction to their worlds. However, I quickly started to piece things together, and I was learning about the characters, their worlds, and the mystery of the killings all at once. Many authors have used New Orleans as a setting for their vampire novels, so it has a familiar feel, but with a unique twist; the Cajun French interspersed with the English reinforces that connection. This is a book that keeps you anxious to turn the next page, and even when you know who the killer is, you are so fascinated learn why that you can’t put it down until the last words are read. Add in the growing relationship between Dante and Heather, and you really want to see what’s on the next page! A Rush of Wings is a book that is both plot and character driven, and with great characters and an incredibly intense plot, it’s a compelling read that deserves more attention!

If you enjoy murder mysteries, suspense, urban fantasy, and/or great vampire novels, you’ll really enjoy A Rush of Wings. Urban fantasy is rarely stocked on your library shelves, though, so if you want to try before you buy, you can read chapter one at the author’s website. Get ready to be carried away by the story, it will take you on quite an intense ride. After you’ve let A Rush of Wings fly you to another world, you’ll be eagerly anticipating the January ‘09 sequel, In the Blood!

This book was received from the publisher for review

The girls of the Gaggle of Girls love dogs. We have 2 dogs, both of whom are good with the kids, and one that loves playing fetch with tennis balls and frisbees. But yet they begged for a new dog and/or a puppy regularly. We check out breed books and research training techiques, but there’s nothing quite like a real puppy. Imagine the joy when I got a puppy for my birthday!

For those of you who also have dog and puppy-loving kids, weve found two great puppy/dog themed picture books that you’ll love. We love Amy E. Sklansky’s books, including The Duck who Played the kazoo, so we were thrilled to find From the Doghouse: Poems to Chew On. We’ve loved the Fancy Nancy books by Jane O’Connor (as well as her adult novel), so we were eager to read The Perfect Puppy for Me. Both books celebrate the joy of dogs and puppies in a unique way, and in a way that will enchant the adult reading the story as well as the listening kids.

From the Doghouse: Poems to Chew On is a collection of dog-themed poems by Amy E. Sklansky, and illustrated by a team of 4 beaders: Karla Firehammer, Karen Dismukes, Sandy Koeser, and Cathy McQuitty. Each page has a poem, often one that will make you grin. Each of the poems is beautifully illustrated by using small beads on fabric to create an image. The poems are in a variety of styles, which encourages the inner poet in children by making poetry so accessible. Each illustration took 40-120 hours, a lot of work, and with an end result that makes a huge impact!

One sweet poem is called “Into Your Loving Arms I Leap:

Into your loving arms I leap –
Please scratch between my ears.
I love the way you cuddle me
And ease my dogy fears.

The mix of sweet and funny poems plus bead-iful illustrations makes From the Doghouse a great read. Even if you’re leery of poetry, give this a try! Sklansky writes poems that are really enjoyable and accessible, this is a fun read for the adult as well as for the kids!

Jane O’Connor and Jessie Hartland teamed up to write The Perfect Puppy for Me, with Jessie Hartland also providing the illustrations. This book is about a boy who loves dogs as he looks at the dogs around him, trying to find the perfect dog/puppy for himself. (A warning to parents – the boy is getting a puppy for his birthday – be prepared with an answer about puppies and your own child’s birthday!) Each two-page spread is about one of the dogs the boy knows, each one highlighting a different breed. When looking at the dogs and breeds, you learn the pros and cons of each type of dog, and why a certain breed may or may not be the perfect dog for your family. (They don’t include the type of dog in our family, though – Australian Cattle Dogs.

My daughters were excited to learn the little tidbits of information and trivia on the pages, and found some of the listings very funny. For example, when talking about his friend’s basset hound, the boy says, “Here is what Poker likes to do: sleep, nap, snooze, rest”. The assessments of each dog breed seem very accurate, and my girls quickly realized that some breeds would be a better fit for our family than others. Now that we have a puppy, they are especially curious to know the answer to a question posed by the book, is there a dog tooth fairy? The combination of cute illustrations, real breed information, and a story where the boy gets a puppy at the end made this book a winner in our family!

If your kids love dogs and puppies, and you’re looking for picture books youll enjoy reading, pick up The Perfect Puppy for Me and From the Doghouse. If you get a new puppy, good luck! You might also want to pick up How to Talk to Your Dog, by Jean Craighead George and illustrated by Sue Truesdell, a good read that also has some really useful information, and is one of the best non-fiction puppy picture books I’ve seen. Go enjoy some puppy books with your favorite puppy lover!

Some authors use the same main character for all the books in a series. Other authors use one book’s minor character as the next book’s main character. It’s rare, though, to find a series where the first two books focus on the same character, yet the third book makes main characters out of people who were on the sidelines. Michelle Rowen manages that feat in her newly released book in the Immortality Bites series, Lady & the Vamp, which follows her hits Bitten & Smitten and Fanged & Fabulous.

Rowen’s vampires are brooding, romantic kind who do not need to kill to feed, and most of them live off donated blood, without much need for biting. Their feeding style makes these handsome vampires all the more appealing, especially as we start to enter tick season (ticks, the repulsive blood suckers). In Bitten & Smitten and Fanged & Fabulous, Rowen’s novels focused on new vampire Sarah Dearly, who was torn romantically between former vampire hunter turned vamp Michael Quinn and the mysterious 600+ year old vampire Thierry. When that situation was resolved in the end of Fanged & Fabulous, I wondered what would happen in the series – books that follow happy endings are often dull or create unnecessary strife between the couple for plot development. How many times do we really need to see the same two characters breaking up and getting back together? Now that Quinn is out of that romantic triangle, he is open pickings for being a main character, and for a woman who is ok with dating vampires who carry excess baggage.

In Lady & the Vamp, readers who are not already familiar with the emotionally tormented Quinn are brought up to date efficiently. Rowen fills them in on his history being raised as a vampire hunter, and now a new, reluctant vampire, as well as his relationship availability status. Quinn takes the “reluctant vamp” label to new levels – he’s out of town, so he doesn’t know where the closest vampire bar is located. Since he’s never bitten anyone and wants to keep it that way, he starts to become the first vampire anorexic I’ve ever seen! Fans will also remember Janie Parker as the bodyguard/assassin from Fanged & Fabulous, and the woman who grew up with a crush on Quinn. Rowen switches perspectives between Janie and Quinn, so we are quickly up-to-date on their lives without fans feeling overwhelmed by too many details.

When Janie and Quinn are brought together in Lady & the Vamp, they both search for a mysterious hidden object called the “Eye”, though for different purposes. Legend says that the Eye can be used once every thousand years to fulfill a wish, but there are mysteries in how to find it and how to properly use it. Quinn is wish for return to humanity, desperate to stop being a vampire. Janie, however, is tracking the Eye as a job for her boss, who requires contracts be signed in blood. Real blood, with very few out-clauses. As they search for the Eye, the stories of other characters from the Immortality Bites series are brought up to date, and we meet new characters and new life-and-death challenges. Quinn and Janie are vibrant characters who could’ve easily stolen the spotlight in the earlier books, so it isn’t hard for the reader to quickly become enamored of them, and eager to know what happens next. Even during suspenseful, mysterious segments of the book, Rowen’s humor shines through and some of the tension is eased.

If you loved Bitten & Smitten and Fanged & Fabulous, you will not be disappointed with Lady & the Vamp. Rowen has a great touch with her characters, both the major and minor characters are well-developed, with plenty of personality and quirks. Additionally, the storyline has plenty of twists and turns that squiggle into an unexpected direction. While we know in advance about the romantic ending, the how, why, and when is a surprise, as is uncovering the other relationships along the way. Lady & the Vamp far exceeded my expectations, and I had a very hard time putting it down in order to make dinner!

You’ll definitely want to pick up Lady & the Vamp, it’s a great read for “spring” that is masquerading as winter, and also for the beach when the snow melts! If you like romance, chick lit, paranormals, or a bit of suspense, you should definitely give the Immortality Bites series by Michelle Rowen a try! Grab the great vampire novels Bitten & Smitten and Fanged & Fabulous in addition to the new Lady & the Vamp!

Notorious is Michele Martinez’s newest suspense mystery novel. An intense mix of thriller, suspense, legal mystery, and some sexy bits, Notorious is a novel you should only pick up if you don’t have any pressing engagements. I recommend a nice cup of tea, a cozy chair, a fleece blanket, and a dog to warm your toes while you read about federal prosecutor Melanie Vargus’s latest case.

Whether you’re a long-time fan or a newcomer to Martinez’s writing, Notorious pull you into the plot within moments. I haven’t (yet) read the earlier books, and yet I felt completely caught up on the life of prosecutor Melanie Vargus and the threads that intertwine her with the other characters. Personally and professionally, Melanie has a lot going on in this novel. She’s working a very high profile case, the opposing counsel is a man she’s long admired and considered dating, there are links to drug lords and terrorism in her case, she’s still trying to get over her last relationship, and she’s trying to find more time in her schedule for her 2 year old daughter.

While the plot is what engages everyone in a mystery, sometimes with a large cast you can get lost, confused which character did what. In Notorious, Martinez has created a large cast, but she has written each character with depth and skill, so their personalities shine through quickly. Martinez uses the third person to help us get a feeling for each character, and get a peek into their minds. While that perspective can be used to keep the reader at a distance, in this case it makes us care for each character, and see why some of them have taken wrong turns. Martinez has an incredible skill for character, I felt as if I had known all of her charactes for years as soon as I “met” them. I’m now impatient to read their extended backstories in the other novels.

Have you started to feel that some of your former favorite mystery authors aren’t writing as well as they used to? Or perhaps you just need a fresh take on female characters and crime? If you’ve been disappointed recently by another mystery, don’t worry about this one. The pace of Notorious is fast, filled with drama in the courtroom, out-of-court investigations, and you’re on the edge of your seat, wracking your brain to try to figure out who dunnit and how they did it. Martinez weaves suspicion between several characters, with red herrings and coincidences conspiring to keep the reader guessing. She plays fair, though, there are dots you can check back on, no deus ex machina plot resolutions here! I will be reading Michele Martinez’s earlier novels as soon as I can, she has created plots and characters in Notorious that blew me away.

I’ve been chatting up Notorious to everyone I see since I read it, but I’m totally serious that if you haven’t read any of Michele Martinez’s novels, you’re missing out. If you’re familiar with her work, why haven’t you picked up her newest release? Go grab it now! While I strongly recommend checking out Notorious, you don’t have to take my word for it that Notorious is going to pull you in quickly; read the first two chapters of Notorious and see for yourself!

This book was received from the publisher for review

Right now at Amazon, Sci-Fi Network shows are 50% off! (I don’t see when the special ends, so act quickly!)

Go stock up on the Buffy collector’s set, or the Angel complete set! Half price. Wow. Think of it, in the long run, you’re saving money to buy more fantasy and paranormal books books!

You’ll Be Sorry by author/illustrator Josh Schneider is a cute tale about why you’ll be sorry if you do something naughty to your little brother or sister. Let’s be honest, parents, how often have you said “You’ll be sorry if you …”? But why exactly will the child be sorry? My parents always said that I’d be sorry because my brother would grow up to be bigger than me. I was four years older, so that wasn’t an immediate incentive.

Josh Schneider has taken the frequent parent quote and turned it into a cute children’s story that has a moral without overdoing it. On the first page, Schneider writes:

“Don’t hit your brother, or you’ll be sorry,” said samantha’s parents. But Samantha liked to hit her brother, and did not think she’d be sorry. She thought she would be very sorry not to hit him

With this as the introduction to the story, all three of my girls (4, 7, 9) were hooked. Who hasn’t thought that? Maybe only children, or people who never get angry. Schneider hooks us with honest feelings…

And then he takes it to a whole other level of silliness and fun! Samantha, predictibly, doesn’t listen to her parents. Thankfully, the hitting happens off-screen, Schneider illustrates it only with an empty room and her brother’s “Waaaaaaah”. I was waiting for the parental response in You’ll Be Sorry, but what actually happened surprised me – Samantha’s brother begins to cry and won’t stop. He cries and cries, water pouring from his eyes as the family first needs galoshes, and then a rowboat, and as the house floods, her brother is still crying buckets of water. This is when the crying really starts to affect Samantha – she has to leave her room and her soccer game is canceled.

Schneider illustrates You’ll Be Sorry with a long-nosed white mouse family that has very human facial expressions, including the sly look on Samantha’s face right before she hits her brother. Schneider also has many pages that don’t include Samantha’s family, but propel the story: fish swimming in the tears, a waterfall on the stairs, seahorses near the soccer goal, and the flooded homes. The pages are all filled with the green-colored water, with red boots, clothes, or fish as accents. The end result is illustrations that focus on the story rather than detract attention from the storyline.

Of course, by the end of You’ll Be Sorry, Samantha is sorry she hit her brother, and she might just be sorry enough not to repeat her behavior. Will it make an impact on your young miscreants sweethearts? Perhaps. One can hope. Even if it doesn’t make any impact on squabbling siblings, it’s a fun story with sweet illustrations that kids will enjoy and a moral that will help the parents read it for the 426th time!

All of us here at A Gaggle of Book Reviews recommend picking up a copy of You’ll Be Sorry!

This book was received from the publisher for review

Staked is the debut novel from author J. F. Lewis, and it’s a very different vampire novel than what I have been reading. The story centers around Eric, a relatively young yet incredibly powerful vampire, who has some major problems with memory loss and anger management; blackouts are never a good thing! Eric isn’t a dark, brooding, sexy, romantic hero, this is a guy’s guy vampire; a vampire who owns a strip club. While I love the romantic hero vampires, it’s refreshing to see a vampire with an attitude problem.

Eric has what most guys would consider a dream job – running a strip club, with human girlfriends whenever he needs them. As a bonus, he has plenty of money, so he doesn’t need to worry about the success of his business. In Staked’s vampire world, vampires don’t need to kill when they feed, but sometimes it happens; since Void City is run by vamps, you’re just charged a fee for body removal. By running a strip club, Eric also has a large number of potential “donors” available every day. Even though he’s a “guy’s guy vampire”, Eric still reigned in the interest of this female reader, plus, part of Staked is told through the voice of Tabitha, Eric’s current girlfriend, so there’s more than one side to the story.

While Eric wants to just drink some blood and enjoy himself, he ends up with one problem after another. In Void City, there’s a grudge between vampires and werewolves, and when Eric gets into a fit of rage and kills a werewolf in self-defense, he ends up the target of every werewolf in the area. When Eric has to fight, it’s quickly made clear that he’s an uber-vamp, one who can keep bouncing back from anything and everything, killing any enemy in his path. Meanwhile, Eric’s got more problems than just his anger-management, he just “changed” Tabitha, and he’s not all that happy about it. His pre-vampire fiancée is still refusing to become a vampire or return to fiancée status, choosing to age alone, and there are all kinds of love triangles happening, some of which are pretty volatile. What will happen when Tabitha finds out Eric’s been sleeping with Rachel, her younger sister?

The characters in Staked are unique enough to grab my attention, even after innumerable hours reading vampire novels. Eric definitely fits into the “anti-hero” category, with major issues including rage-blackouts, relationship problems, and massive memory gaps. Tabitha is Eric’s current girlfriend/new vampire, and she is having a bit of buyer’s remorse; while she is in love with Eric, his assistant Talbot sure is hot… Eric’s friend Roger has known him as long as he’s been undead, but something feels a bit “off” about him. And, why on earth has Marilyn, who was Eric’s fiancée at the time of his death, stayed with him for 40 years, now managing the strip club? There are a lot of nooks and crannies in every character, stones that need to be overturned, though we might not always like what’s lurking underneath. Staked’s unique characters will pull you in, and since there’s an equally unique plot, you won’t be able to put it down.

Once you get caught up in the world of Staked, you’re stuck in its thrall. There’s enough violence and death to keep the novel going, but not so much that you can’t read it before bed. Staked walks a great balance with the suspense and gore, keeping the reader wanting to know the answer to the mysteries, but not completely grossed out; it’s a balance that one rarely sees in first novels. At the end of Staked, I couldn’t quite accept it was over, I needed just a few more pages! I’m hoping that the sequel, Revamped will be published relatively soon, I’m looking forward to more from Jeremy Lewis!
We definitely recommend Staked to men and women – it’s a great take on the vampire anti-hero! If you need a break from romantic vampire tales, pick this one up now.

This book was received from the publisher for review