[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: B+

First, let me say, the cover is hot. [Ed. Note: I second that. This cover is fierce!] After reading this story (and one by Diana Bold that I reviewed for RRT) I moseyed over to Cobblestone and did some shopping. Across the board, they have gorgeous cover art. (Diana Bold is now on my auto-buy list by the way. So is Sara Dennis.) Let’s talk about why.

Stacking the Deck offers a champagne and shrimp cocktail take on paranormal urban fantasy / romance. Though we’re all sick of the Cheez Whiz and Yoohoo version, her supernatural creatures manage to be fresh and entertaining. I hate werewolves with a passion and I even sort of liked the villain of the story, Samantha’s ex-boyfriend. Too often villains are one-dimensional and just ridiculous caricatures (You hear me, Anne Stuart? I’m talking about your crazy Scooby Doo millionaire from Cold as Ice.) Ms. Dennis avoids this trap neatly with Duff. Will you hate me if I say I kinda liked him more than Alec?

So let me set the story up a bit for ya’ll. Sam is a witch who takes no shit from anybody. She’s not a pretty little thing looking for a man to save her; she will kick someone’s ass herself, thank you very much. She and two of her best buds, Ari and Scarlet, have gone to the Crypt for Hell’s Ball. They’re all set to raise some hell on Halloween night when Sam spies Alec, a two-bit stage magician who doesn’t know he could actually do real magic if he put his mind to it.

The setting is vivid and well-realized, the pace is lively, and the story is just fun as hell. There were some fabulous bits that I bounced in my chair over. For instance, when Sam tries to tell Alec that his magic is real, he reacts as follows:

“No.” He hadn’t meant to say anything at all. “No,” he repeated. “I’m not an anything but a guy who stands on a stage and does magic tricks. Please don’t go crazy.” He caught her carefully by the arms. “I like you, Sam. I really like you. If you turn into a nutjob, I really think I might cry.”

The scene just gets better from there, but I won’t spoil it by quoting more. Anyway, back to pacing — earlier I said it was lively, and this is actually an understatement. When Sam and Alec get down to business, I actually found myself resenting the boinking. Now, this doesn’t happen a lot, ya’ll. I like the hot boinking (and Ms. Dennis writes it well so that’s not the problem). But she had me so sold on the threat of invasion by Sam’s ex that I found myself pointing at the book and saying aloud, “Hey, you two, this no time for the bow-chicka-wow, you need to be out there in case of trouble! You know some shit’s gonna go down tonight!”

Sure enough it does. I wanted more ass-kicking from Sam because she knows her way around magic, right? Alec is just her apprentice, but he can’t let her do all the ass-kicking I guess or he’ll get laughed out of warlock school. Anyway, the day is saved (not thanks to Underdog) and it’s great fun from start to finish.

Two things kept me from ranking this an A. Sam and Alec do the up-n-down without a condom the first night they meet. Does Sam have a cure for STDs or maybe witches and warlocks can’t get the genital warts. But I let it go ’cause I still love Linda Howard even though she does this too. The other thing was she mentioned the dreaded word “soulmate” and had these two in love in one night. Typically I want to slam someone’s head repeatedly on my desk when I encounter the words “soulmate” or “destined mate” in romantic fiction because it means the author is gonna slack-ass on the development of the relationship. So I didn’t quite buy it could happen that fast, but the story is just so wicked good that I didn’t mind as much as I usually do.

Get your asses to Cobblestone and buy this book. It’s fresh, engaging, well-written and more fun than a barrel full of monkeys (though according to Gaiman, a barrel full of monkeys isn’t so much fun. They just make noise for a while and then eventually, stop making noise and start to smell.) But Sara Dennis’s story won’t, which is another great reason to buy it!

~Annie

Kids, you can buy this fabulous-sounding book here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Paranormal, Shuzluva's Reviews, Reviews by Annie, Romance: Erotic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.