Well, I did it again. I managed to pile up a stack of library books (all read) that are due back to one of the wonderful legacies of Benjamin Franklin (the public library system) and I need to make a record of them. If I don’t do this, about six months from now I’ll visit the library and pick up the same book again. When this happens I usually don’t realize I’ve made this error until I’m invested in a chapter or more. What if I didn’t like the book? Argh!

So, to get these books back before they start garnering fines I’m going to do a quickie review for three of these books. (New Format!)

Timeless Moon

by C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp

Sazi shapeshifters are back. Josette, a fox by moonlight (no groans, please) psychic by day must work with her ex husband, Rick Johnson to prevent the bad Sazi (namely spiders and snakes) from taking over. Not as fast of a pace as other Sazi books and much different structure than the generic Sazi installments. Reminiscent of Moon’s Web (where the authors broke form and wrote in first person) this book doesn’t read like a typical romance novel. Cudos for ingenuity, bad for fans of the series.

Score: 7 (The uniqueness of writing format didn’t counterbalance poor characters and ho-hum ending.)

Moon Called

by Patricia Briggs

OMG! What a series. I finished Moon Call during this two weeks of mayhem and it stands out as one of the books I re-read. What’s it about? Easy, shapeshifters. Not enough of a description? OK, there’s werewolves (the old standby), Fae, Vampires, and Mercy Thompson who qualifies as “other” when filling out the paranormal census form. She is a “walker” not to be confused with “skin walker” (different tribe) and her alternate form is coyote. Other than that, she doesn’t have any odd talents unless you call being a VW mechanic an odd talent. (Since I like Mopars and British cars more than German machinery, it does seem a bit odd.) Her next door neighbor, Adam is pack alpha and gets into trouble. Mercy rushes to the rescue but will she survive or be chopped into tiny little coyote pieces? Not a romance, urban fantasy…ok?

Score: 9.5 Highly recommended. The simplest struggles sometimes are better than fantastic heroes.

Iron Kissed

by Patricia Briggs

Another winner for the Mercy Thompson series. This installments finds Mercy up to her eyeballs in trouble trying to help her former boss Zee who’s been framed for murder. Her path crosses with the land of the not so nice fairies (or Fae) who instead of spreading rainbows and butterflies, enjoy eating little children. Little coyotes might be on the menu too.

Score: 9.8 Nearly perfect with so much gritty reality that it keeps you on the edge of your couch. Not a romance, repeat…not a romance. This way you won’t be too shocked by the shocker of a climax.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 2:14 am and is filed under 6-7: read at the beach, 8+ recommended read, Adams (CT) & Clamp (Cathy), Briggs (Patricia), Character Tag, Fairies/Fae, Shape-changers, Vampires, Working Men, book author, book reviews, book type, paranormal, rating, romance, urban fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.