[Review by Annie Dean]
Grade: C

When I first saw this book, sent to me for review, I thought, Oh Christ, not another one. The world needs another vampire series the way I need to stop at Dunkin Donuts. The cover art is hot, though. The chick on it is sexy. I’d totally do her if I had two or three Margaritas under my belt and I wasn’t married.

I’m deeply conflicted about this book. I liked Dawn, the heroine and the writing showed occasional sparks of life that made me smile. It had awesome potential. I mean, one of the main characters is a midget. A psychic midget! How cool is that? And then there’s the hypnotic Voice that does crazy Vulcan mindsex with Dawn, so she comes in her panties every fourth page. Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little.

Dawn isn’t your typical heroine. She’s an adrenaline junkie who works as a stuntwoman and she uses sex in the same way. She doesn’t date, she just likes to fuck. It’s a recreational sport for her, which is quite different from the Madonna / Whore thing that most romance novels have going. I should be clear, though, this is not a romance. The book is weirdly erotic via the crazy Vulcan mindsex, but there’s no hero in the truest sense of the word (although I was rooting for Kiko. Why aren’t there more midget heroes in romance? That’s discrimation, I tell you! I’m writing somebody a letter.)

[Ed. Note: Well, you keep calling ‘em midgets. They prefer the term “little people,” you insensitive bitch.]

So Dawn returns to LA from a movie shoot to find her dad, Frank, missing. They had a weird relationship and are none too close, but apparently he started working as muscle for this enigmatic group of private investigators. Yep, that’s how she meets the midget and the Voice. It was all very Charlie and Bosley from Charlie’s Angels except Charlie never rogered Sabrina with his mental phallus (well, maybe in fan-fiction he did, I’ll Google it later). She’s drawn into this underworld that includes vampires and undead child actors (which explains Macaulay Culkin. Tell me he doesn’t look creepy in that pic, I dare you.) Dawn never seems to question what’s going on, though, and she’s just along for the ride, no matter how far from shore shet gets.

However, despite an interesting heroine, this book bored the shit out of me. We don’t need another vampire series and Ms. Green doesn’t do much to develop her vampires. Nothing on social status, nothing about the way their world works. The worldbuilding in this sucks ass. Now I realize it’s a series, but she could’ve laid the groundwork. As it stands, I do not care enough about this series to read another book, not even if somebody gives it to me. I can’t rate it an F because the writing is fine. The story is just comatose, which is fitting, I guess, since it’s about the undead.

The writing isn’t bad; like I said, she shows sparks now and then. I think the problem is, she wrote to the market. Ms. Green probably figured, “Vampires sell, so I’ll write about vampires.” Well, she’s right. The book sold, but I’ve had more fun watching my cats play tag than trying to wade through this story. I’m sorry, honey, this thing is DOA, not even the angry midget could save it.

Y’all, you can buy this book here.

[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: B+

Well, before I started reading Ms. Bryce, I would have said m/m stories weren’t my thing at all. The few contemporaries I’ve looked at always seem to feature an alpha top and a mega-femme bottom, who is a worse pussy than any TSTL heroine. But Ms. Bryce whisks her characters away to lush worlds where our gender roles don’t hold water. Each of her stories takes place in a richly realized fantasy setting that evokes comparison to Arabian Nights, Scheherazade and her 1001 tales.

In From this Night, we meet Suryo and Alasson, a couple who has been betrothed from birth. You see, their fathers hit the bottle heavy one night, and in the way of all “I love you, man” and “No, I love you more” drunks, they pledged before gods and men that their next born children would marry to unite their families and end an old feud. The gods clearly have a sense of humor because their next born children were both boys.
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[Reviews by Annie Dean]

Dear John

Grade: C-

Dane Harley was poor white trash wrapped in Goth girl giftwrap. John Stratton lived in a big Victorian house on the hill. In their misspent youth, they ran wild together. Ten years ago, she left him in the lurch because of some crazy shit John’s daddy said about her ruining John’s future. Okay, so maybe I can buy she would be that simpleminded as a teenager. At 17, I bought into some pretty dramatic shit. So she takes off and cuts ties to her hometown of Chatham Village.

Now she’s back for the high school reunion and she hasn’t seen her best friend Roxy in all those years. They haven’t spoken either. Instead of calling her a thoughtless bitch and slamming the door on her, Roxy invites Dane in for some heavy drinking and girl bonding. They relive old times and go through the yearbook together. Read an old love letter John sent Dane. Of course they decide Dane should look John up and make amends for…yep, you guessed it. Writing him a ‘dear John’ letter.

Ms. Kent’s writing style in this story doesn’t rock my world, but it doesn’t annoy me either, although it occasionally veers toward the purple. On page 23, the heroine “practically screamed at him” and then at the bottom “she screamed at him, trembling with self-hatred”. That’s a little florid for my tastes.

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[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?

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[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: D

I think Confessions of a Serial Bitch is supposed to be a chick lit series of connected novellas because despite the warning that this title contains graphic sexual material and isn’t meant to be read by anyone under 18, there was no hot boinking. Talk about false advertising. Shit, I got more action when Brian Wheatley felt up my booblet in the 8th grade.

Instead, we receive a short glimpse into Hadley’s life. She’s 28 and about to divorce a douchebag named Glen, who apparently married her for her money and then proceeded to cheat on her egregiously. Glen isn’t about to let her go easily, though, and Hadley is dumb enough to agree to one last date with him, where he takes out to a desolate location on a “picnic” and then when she won’t succumb to his manly charms, he proceeds to bruise her arms and shoulders, knock her into a tree and then abandon her to walk seven miles back to town.

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