Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Blood Rights by Kristen Painter


Synopsis from Goodreads.com
The lacy gold mapped her entire body. A finely-wrought filigree of stars, vines, flowers, butterflies, ancient symbols and words ran from her feet, up her legs, over her narrow waist, spanned her chest and finished down her arms to the tips of her fingers.
Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world…and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.


My review:
Chrysabelle gets this book off to a great start - she's on the run after finding her vampire patron dead, killed in a way only a comarré could, with a lethal blade that would behead him, but not turn his body to ash; a blade that only a comarré can wield. Chrysabelle is one such comarré, a human hybrid covered in gold shimmering tattoos, bred for the pure existence of providing untainted blood to vampires in return for youthful looks and long life. Although she only looks about 20, Chrysabelle is over 100 years old.

However she wasn't the one who killed him, so now she's on the run to save herself from being killed by the vampire Tatiana who is next to rule the vampire House, to which Chrysabelle's patron was affiliated.

Chrysabelle runs off to her aunt's house, an ex-comarré herself, who in turn sends her to find another vampire Mal for help. This vampire is anathema, a vampire who was once a noble but is now an outcast. Their initial meeting does not go at all well as Chrysabelle stakes him and when they meet again, they both have issues and prejudices that they need to overcome if they are to work together and help Chrysabelle to prove her innocence.

I really liked the build up between Chrysabelle and Mal - there was no romance at all between them, almost a pure hatred for one another, but at the same time a dependency on each other in order to survive. I do think and hope that something will blossom between them in time especially as they are now bound to each other, despite neither of them wanting to be and unless they find a way to break that bond, they are stuck together indefinitely.

When Chrysabelle's aunt is kidnapped and used as bait to entice Chrysabelle to Tatiana's mansion, Chrysabelle enrols the help of Mal, Dominic, another anathema vampire friend of her aunt, Doc, Mal's half were companion and Fi, a ghost, turned human again who was formerly bound to Mal in her ghost state. This strange army go up against the very strong Tatiana, her sidekick Mikkel and a demon of sorts. Not everything went according to plan, but Chrysabelle and Mal made it out alive so hopefully they'll be able to continue the story and carry on the good fight!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait to read the next one in the series. I would like to thank the author and publishers for letting me review this book honestly through NetGalley.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Blood Rock by Anthony Francis



Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Dakota Frost is back, and the ink is about to hit the fan-again.

Graffiti comes to life in the dark heart of Atlanta’s oldest cemetery, slaying one of the city’s best loved vampires before the eyes of his friend Dakota Frost. Deadly magick is at work on the city’s walls, challenging even the amazing power of Dakota’s tattoos to contain it. The hungry, graffiti magick loves to kill, and the Edgeworld is no longer safe from its own kind.

Dakota begins a harrowing journey to save those she loves and to discover the truth behind the spreading graffiti-even if that truth offends the vampires, alienates the werekin and creates police suspicion of her every action.

Saving Atlanta may cost her everything, including custody of her “adopted” weretiger daughter, Cinnamon. But failure is not an option. If the graffiti isn’t stopped, Cinnamon could be the next victim.



My review:

Well Anthony Francis has done it again! I totally loved Frost Moon, the first book in the Skindancer series and wasn't sure if his next one would live up to the same expectations, but boy did it ever!

Dakota Frost is a magic tattoo artist who uses her skin dancing magic to make her tattoos come to life to aid in any way she needs them to. She is called to a very bizarre crime scene where her vampire friend Revenance is being held captive and tortured by...wait for it...a graffiti tag on a cemetery wall. Try as she might with all of her powers, but she cannot set him free before the sun catches hold of him. This is a rather new, strange and very dangerous form of graffiti and no-one knows what to do to stop it. Of course it is up to Dakota to find out! Revenance wasn't the first vampire to die in this way either and soon it becomes apparent that this graffiti magic is becoming a very large problem in Atlanta, where non-one, not vamps, weres or humans are immune to it.

On the side Dakota also has problems with the police - they want to charge her with the murder of the serial killer in the last book so she's on the run. She breaks up with her Special Agent boyfriend, sleeps with a vamp, falls out with Saffron her vampire ex-girlfriend, her daughter is diagnosed as a genius and with Tourette's simultaneously, loses said daughter and gets kidnapped by 2 different sets of vamps. This book sure didn't slow down on the action at all. I really felt for the poor woman as she never seemed to get a break until near the end.

I totally love Dakota - she feisty, strong, willing to defend those closest to her and also has a sensitive side. I love the image I have of her in my head as well - completely tattooed, huge multi-coloured mohawk and a fab leather vest coat! I wanna be Dakota Frost LOL

I can't wait for the next book in this series to come out!

I would like to thank the author and publisher for allowing me to review this book free of charge through NetGalley.

Friday, May 4, 2012

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kawaga


Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.




My review
Although this is classed as a young adult book, I didn't think it was really. OK so the main character was a teenager, but I felt it veered more towards adult urban fantasy than just YA. I'm not a great fan of YA books in general, but I am a fan of Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series, so I was hoping this would be as enjoyable, but I was wrong. It was better than the Iron ?Fey series, much better.


Set in a future world where vampires run the world and humans are either bloodslaves, registered to a vampire master, or Unregistered scavengers living on the brink of the vampire cities, doing whatever they can to survive, begging, stealing, even killing for food.

Allie is one such Unregistered, who hates the vampires with a passion - her mother had been a registered and died through a combination of an illness and donating her monthly supply of blood to the vampire king of their city. Ever since then Allie has lived in the abandoned buildings of the city and has a little gang of her own. One of her jobs is to hunt out food and when she can find none in her usual scavenging places, she decides to go past the city walls to the Ruins, where the Rabids live - vampires turned into rabid, flesh eating, crazy zombies.

Allie's luck was in to start with - she found a hidden basement full of tinned food and bottled water. She managed to get back to the refuge she's living in after a close encounter with a vampire, who for some reason doesn't bite or kill her. She convinces her gang to go back for the food, but that's where her luck almost runs out. A very close encounter with some Rabids, leaves her with 2 very simple choices - either die or turn into a vampire, the thing she despises the most. She chooses the latter of the two evils and becomes that which she never wanted to be.

Her life takes a turn of strange events and she meets up with a roaming group of humans, none of whom suspects what she is. This group are on the way to find some human only place called Eden, which may or may not exist and Allie travels with them as far as she can, but the Hunger in her keeps rising. She knows she must drink human blood soon before she turns into a raving monster, so she does, only to get caught and cast out.

Things go from bad to worse for this group and Allie helps them as much as she can, even if they really don't deserve her help. Along the way she soon discovers that she may be a vampire, but she sure doesn't have to be a monster.

I really enjoyed this book and can't wait for the next one in this series. I doubt it would happen but I would like to see if Allie and Zeke ever meet up again. I know Allie has to go and help Kanin, her sire, but will she do that alone or with the help of another vampire?

  I would like to thank the publishers and author for allowing me to receive it for free through NetGalley.